All post from: February 2018

Battery metals: From aluminium to zinc

- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Commodities, Media, Mining, Publications

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Late last year we published a Strictly Boardroom article on battery metals, discussing the different battery systems - lead, lithium, nickel, zinc and emerging ones - and which metals are involved in them, with the aim of providing a little clarity on the current 'battery metal' boom. The article is entitled "Battery metals: From aluminium to zinc" and is available…
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How exploration really works

- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Exploration, Management, Media, PhD, Publications, Strategy

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Last December we published a piece in the Strictly Boardroom column on how minerals exploration actually works. The piece came from discussions over whether minerals exploration strategy is planned or emergent (i.e. kind of opportunistic, evolutionary, and naturally forming). Exploration strategy is often portrayed as highly planned, i.e. you target a region and commodity, acquire the mineral titles, identify targets,…
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How good is your strategy? Here’s a marking guide

- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Future, Management, Media, Mining, Publications, Strategy

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Myself and Allan Trench think a lot about assessing the quality of strategies in the mineral sector. In part, this is because it is comensurate with our role as lecturers on the MBA course at UWA, where we teach strategy courses for general business and specifically for the resources sector. However, MBAs are not an 'academic' qualification and as such,…
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The A to Z of management consulting

- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Future, Management, Media, Mineral Economics, Mining, Publications, Strategy

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Last November, to assist with the MBA course at UWA we were teaching on 'Strategic Analysis and Consulting' we prepared an A to Z of 'must-know' subjects in the area of strategy and management in the minerals sector. How many do you know? Analysis, Alliances and Adhocracy; Behavioural economics, Biases and heuristics, the Boston Box (or the growth-share matrix), Big…
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Miners have culture too: Which corporate culture is your firm?

- By: John P Sykes
Posted in: Blog, Management, Media, Mining, Publications

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Last November, we published a Strictly Boardroom article on 'corporate culture' as part of a wider self-lead study of a subject which keeps popping up in our business and academic lives. As a starting point, before jumping into the serious reading, we reflected on some of the organisational cultures we'd come across in the minerals industry and academia: Egocentric -…
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