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'''[The editor of this article was paid by Kanketa Global Systems™. All content was provided to the editor by Mike Wolf, founder of Kanketa Global Systems.]'''

Contents

Overview

History

1965 to 1970

1972 to 1981

1983 to 1987

1995 to 2005

2012 to 2014

Overview

Kanketa Global Systems, also called Kanketa™, is a professional small business management program for companies of 1 to 30 employees designed to maximize growth and profits through constant improvement. According to Kanketa’s philosophy, problems occur in a business when one part of a company is out of balance with another. The solution is to put the company back into balance with itself.

To accomplish this, Kanketa applies Japanese quality control circle techniques—also called Kaizen—to small businesses to produce specific, measurable financial improvements.

The term Kanketa is a combination of the Japanese terms for “journey” and “balance.” The Kanketa system was developed by Mike Wolf and the company was established in 2012, although its genesis began much earlier.

1965 to 1970

Ironically, Mike Wolf did not start his career as a businessperson, per se, but as a musician and owner of a small recording studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wolf worked with bands such as The Esquires and Pee Wee King and wrote radio and television jingles for large advertising agencies throughout the United States.

Wolf later moved his studio to Hales Corners and renamed it Bananas (“The Creative Bunch”). His music recording business filled up a recording room with a 16-person full orchestra at least three times every week. Eventually, and owing to the music union, high pay rates for musicians drove the profitability of a 30-second music track down to the point of inefficiency, according to Wolf.

1972 to 1981

On Oct. 1, 1972, Bananas again moved its offices to Indianapolis, Indiana to escape the tight unionized recording environment in Milwaukee at the time, although the company maintained a sales presence in the city. The move proved successful. The company changed its name once again to Wolf Tracks and flourished in the national music scene for nine years, expanding its staff to 26. By this time there were over 4,000 music tracks for national advertisers in the Wolf Tracks library. Among them were Coca-Cola, Toyota, the McDonalds Corporation and hundreds of music tracks heard in national ads.

In 1981, the changing American music styles in the Wolf Track library caught the attention and interest of Maritz Corporation, an incentive company for General Motors, Toyota, the Ford Motor Company and the auto manufacturing world in general. Wolf Tracks was engaged by Maritz to produce soundtracks for international Toyota dealer meetings in Japan. Wolf Tracks produced the music for the Toyota Corolla and Tercel car launches. These assignments demanded travel to and from the Maritz World Headquarters in St. Louis and Japan.

Genesis of Kanketa

As a result of his work, Wolf spent significant time with Toyota executives. Wolf’s curiosity about Japanese quality control circles prompted him to hire George S. May International of New York in a consulting contract for Wolf Tracks. The May company touted a unique Japanese approach to finance. It was simple and basic, but the structure of silos and philosophy of value streams launched a new thought process for managing the Wolf Tracks organization. This inspired the beginnings of Kanketa.

Wolf began to chart out studio design and management techniques using Toyota quality practices. The result of integrating the Eastern-based business management practices of the Toyota production system with the management practices of an American small business led to a unique, rather unexpected outcome. At first, there was significant trial and error testing of the principles. The results that Toyota, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Diesel Kiki and the other Japanese companies were consistently producing didn’t seem possible below a certain business size.

Pepper Business Meeting Productions

That same year, Wolf founded several other companies, among which was Pepper Business Meeting Productions. Pepper produced over 2,000 audio visual corporate meetings and product introductions since its inception. The company remains in place as a Pepper Research, based in Wyoming with its principal offices in Minneapolis as of this writing.

During that time, the Pepper team of 18 served as consultants and speechwriters for the CEOs and senior officers of over 300 global Fortune 1000 Companies. Wolf worked tirelessly side by side with 72 top executives of those companies, recruiting them to help develop and shape what is known today as Kanketa Global Systems (“the science of small business management”).

1983 to 1987

During the early 1980s, Wolf’s companies flirted with bankruptcy following the unforeseen and unannounced Chapter 11 and 13 bankruptcies of several of his largest customers.

In 1983, with the breakup and divestiture of the US. airline and travel industry, the Wolf Tracks music company of 26 employees merged with JLM Tayler of Irvine, California, a travel and incentive company for Apple Inc. and the automakers and renamed itself the Wolf-Tayler Company.

Wolf-Tayler Company

The Wolf-Tayler company quickly grew to 109 employees with offices in nine states. Wolf Tracks remained the music and meeting production group in Indianapolis. The headquarters for Wolf-Tayler was established in Irvine, California. The fundamental management services provided by the company were spread over four divisions. The Wolf-Tayler Company services included research, education, optimization and retention.

From 1987 forward Wolf began to aggressively shape and implement Eastern business management formulas and applied them to Wolf-Tayler. Wolf formally named the system “BRIX” (Business Reinvention Nine Ways). His system proved successful as each year brought significant leading-edge leaps in overall system performance improvement in areas of financial, operational and production efficiency.

At this time Wolf lived with his family in Cicero, Indiana, and his full concentration was on the BRIX system. The Wolf Tayler company continued cooperating under Ron Tayler in Irvine. In 1989, the employees took over travel side of the company.

By now, Wolf Tracks in Indianapolis was operating like a well-oiled machine. There were codified work standards for every process in the company. The outcomes were consistently reliable and predictable. It was clear that the BRIX system was a success.

1995 to 2005

In 1995 Wolf left the company and took a four-year sabbatical in northern Wisconsin but continued to write and reengineer the BRIX system.

In 2002, Wolf moved back to Milwaukee and introduced the BRIX system to local businesses. During these years, Wolf had produced over 8,000 BRIX system documents.

By 2005, Wolf was spending time in the construction field in one of his companies. During the Great Recession that began in 2007, Wolf’s companies suffered significant losses. The construction business closed. At the time, the BRIX system found its way into the universities, and was primarily taught in adult education curricula. But the lingering havoc caused by the Great Recession drove small business attendance down and college attendance of business owners slowed to a halt.

In  ____, Wolf founded the National Business Education Council (NBEC US), a consulting firm that brought BRIX principles directly to the owners of small businesses.

2012 to 2014

In 2012, Wolf renamed the BRIX system to Kanketa Global Systems. By this time, Wolf had filed the service mark in the Library of Congress and the Kanketa system was beginning to take a foothold in the marketplace.

2014 to 2020

In 2014 Wolf teamed up with Kristin Kopp, an international speaker, trainer and corporate consultant and coach. Four years later, the two formed the Kanketa Global Systems partnership, which operated primarily in the US, Canada, India, Asia, the Netherlands, and South Africa, with additional satellite locations in other countries. The NBEC moved its offshore headquarters to New Delhi, India.

Future of Kanketa

Currently, there are 10 Kanketa companies serving two levels of corporate organizations. Kanketa Global Systems is comprised of five companies, providing business management education and application services to small business owners in any type of business for companies of one to 30 employees. Another five service companies make up Kanketa Global Supply Hubs, providing support to the systems side. Kanketa Global Supply Hubs focuses on companies larger than 30 employees. Kanketa Publications is the latest addition to the Kanketa Power of Ten family..

For over 54 years, Wolf has put Kanketa to the test in 23 of his 28 companies. Wolf believes that Kanketa practices will pave the way for the success of small businesses because it is backed by proven methods.