Jennings, Jason (William) 1952-

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JENNINGS, Jason (William) 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born May 31, 1952, in Ishpeming, MI; son of William Allen and Beverly Mae (Johnson) Jennings. Education: Attended Northern Michigan University, 1970-72; University of Detroit, B.A., 1974. Politics: Republican. Religion: Lutheran.

ADDRESSES:

Office—106 Redhill Circle, Belvedere-Tiburon, CA 94920.

CAREER:

Business consultant and broadcast executive. WUPY-WMOT, Marquette, MI, station general manager, 1970-72; Patten Corp., Detroit, MI, executive assistant to chairman and vice president of radio, 1973-76; Jennings-McGlothin & Co. (media consultants), San Francisco, CA, president, 1977-81; World Pacific Radio, Inc., Tiburon, CA, president, beginning 1981; Jennings Partners (business consulting firm), currently president. Lecturer and consultant on business topics to businesses worldwide.

MEMBER:

National Association of Broadcasters, National Radio Broadcasters Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Named among Twenty-five Best Speakers in America, Nationwide Speakers Bureau.

WRITINGS:

(With Laurence Haughton) It's Not the Big That Eat the Small … It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 2001.

Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business, Portfolio (New York, NY), 2002.

ADAPTATIONS:

It's Not the Big That Eat the Small was adapted as an audiobook, read by the authors, New Millennium, 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jason Jennings is a business consultant and speaker who has devoted his career to improving the efficiency, productivity, and profitability to companies of all sizes. Beginning his career in radio broadcasting, Jennings went on to found the media consultancy firm Jennings-McGlothin & Co.; as a lecturer he presents over seventy keynote addresses to businesses every year. Despite his busy schedule Jennings has found time to write two books that have become bestsellers in the business world: 2001's It's Not the Big That Eat the Small … It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business and Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business, the latter published in 2002.

Jennings and business colleague and coauthor Laurence Haughton create a primer for businesses facing the new business climate of the twenty-first century in It's Not the Big That Eat the Small. Basing their suggestions on an analysis of such companies as Charles Schwab, AOL, Telepizza, and Hotmail, they advise honing the business's ability to respond to change, increasing the speed with which products are brought to market, and providing top-notch customer service. Including anecdotes, checklists, and other advice, the text is contained within four topics: fast brainstorming, fast decision-making, accessing the marketplace quickly, and identifying and eliminating "speed bumps" that slow the entire process down. A Human Resource Management contributor praised It's the Fast That Eat the Slow for the authors' "direct and no-nonsense" style, and the book was cited as a "compelling examination of business competition" in a Publishers Weekly review.

In Less Is More Jennings draws on the work of a research team composed primarily of top business-school graduates and dedicated to searching out the world's most productive and efficiently run companies. Judging the success of these companies based on return on equity and assets as well as the ratio of operating income and revenue to payroll, Jennings quantifies the success of these business and then gets down to the core question: Why? In his analysis of the reasons for business success he divides his book into five sections: "Focus," "Streamline," "Digitize," "Motivate," and "Embody." He closes with a list of twelve rules that he maintains will increase sales threefold, improve efficiency, and position businesses to take advantage of automation technology. Rather than supporting downsizing, which results in layoffs, Jennings attacks in particular the bloated salaries demanded by corporate executives.

In selecting the eight examples Jennings cites—including Ryanair, IKEA, Nucor, and Lantech—from among the thousands of companies studied by the author, Library Journal contributor Rona Ostrow explained that steps were taken to "weed out overexposed companies or potential Enrons." Praising the book as timely in a business climate where layoffs and accounting "errors" predominate in the quest for the bottom line, Less Is More is consequently "readable and entertaining, as well as informative." A Publishers Weekly contributor agreed, dubbing Less Is More "a lively and intelligent reminder of how businsses can cut out waste from the top to the bottom."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2000, David Rouse, review of It's Not the Big That Eat the Small … It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business, p. 768.

Fast Company, November, 2002, "The Truth about Great Companies: Recession Proof and Cynicism Proof," p. 52.

Human Resource Management, January, 2000, review of It's Not the Big That Eat the Small, p. 155.

Latin Trade, March, 2003, review of Less Is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business, p. 59.

Library Journal, December, 2002, Rona Ostrow, review of Less Is More, p. 143.

Publishers Weekly, December 11, 2000, review of It's Not the Big That Eat the Small, p. 71; September 16, 2002, review of Less Is More, p. 59.