Culture that tolerates Failure
31 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Culture that tolerates Failure Tags: acquire, capital, chance, competence, culture, entrepreneur, expertise, fail, failure, improve, initial, innovation, learn, management, process, public offering, reason, reduce, risk, several, simply, startup, stop, tackle, tolerate, useful, venture
Many startups never make it to the payoff at the initial public offering. They simply fail. For several reasons such failures stop neither the entrepreneurs nor the venture capitalists who finance the innovations. First, those who fail learn in the process, and this can improve their chances of doing well the next time around. They acquire competences that can be used to tackle another innovation. Even if all they learn is what not to do next time, that can be useful too. Second, venture capital firms have seen many failures before and have found away to reduce their risks by, for example, offering management expertise to ventures. Moreover, some of the venture capital comes from entrepreneurs who had made it only after having failed before.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
Work Instructions
31 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Work Instructions Tags: actual, additionally, best, carried, carried out, comparison, computer, conformity, create, department, detailed, documentation, done, drawig, employee, encountered, ensure, function, future, hierarchy, improvement, instructions, job, machine, needed, orienmted, ownership, participation, PC, perform, person, photograph, pride, problem, process, Product, recipe, require, routing, sample, sheet, simply, specialist, specific, spell, suggested, task, video, work, writing
Work instructions are usuallydepartment, machine, task, or product oriented and spell out how a job will be done. These instructions are the most detailed of the documentation hierarchy. A work instruction may be in the form of a detailed drawing, recipe, routing sheet, specific job functions, photograph, video, or simply a sample for comparison of conformity. The writing of a work instruction is best carried out by the employee who performs the task. The person knows the process and the problems encountered in that process. However, a documentation specialist may be needed to do the actual writing. This method also creates a pride of ownership in the document, making it more likely to be carried out. Additionally, employee participation helps to ensure that future improvements will be suggested. Not every taskrequires a work instruction. For example, you don’t need to tell a computer specialist to turn on the PC.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
Relating Price to Value
30 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Relating Price to Value Tags: ability, around, assessment, attract, benefit, bundle, comparative, competitive, Consumer, control, decrease, deliver, desirability, determine, Employees, equate, essence, frustrated, healthcare, increase, initially, judgment, loss, low, manage, meaning, misunderstood, need, offer, pair, pay, perceive, price, Product, psychological, receive, relate, relative, revolve, satisfy, savings, service, shortsighted, skyrocketing, standpoint, substitute, tangible, tradeoff, Value, worth
Value today is often misunderstood to mean low price or bundled price. Yet, the real essence of value revolves around the tradeoff between the benefits consumers receive from a product or service and the price that they pay. From a consumer’s point of view, price only has meaning when paired with the benefits delivered, both tangible and psychologiocal. For a given price, value increases when product or service benefits increase.
Value decreases when perceived benefits go down relative to price. Many companies were initially attracted to managed healthcare because of their ability to control skyrocketing healthcare costs. Yet, despite the cost savings, employees of these companies were becoming frustrated by the loss of control over their destiny.
Consumer value assessments are often comparative. Value judgments by consumers as to the worth and desirability of the product or service are m,ade relative to competitive substitutes that satisfy the same need. Thus, consumers determine the value of product or service based on a company’s perceived benefits and price, as well as those of a competitor’s offer.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
BPR Combines Several Jobs
29 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in BPR Combines Several Jobs Tags: absence, additional, administration, assembly, assume, basic, benefit, BPR, case, combine, common, compose, continually, control, cost, creative, cycle, defect, defect-free, delay, distinct, easier, eliminate, Employees, empowered, encourage, engender, enormous, error, errors, faster, feature, fewer, find, fix, formerely, generate, handoff, improved, innovative, instead, integrate, involve, job, line, met, misunderstanding, monitor, need, operate, overhead, payoff, People, Performance, process, produce, Product, reduce, reduced, reengineer, replace, requirement, responsibility, rework, service, supervision, task, team, typical, version, worker
The most basic and common feature of reengineered processes is the absence of an assembly line; that is, many formerely distinct jobs or tasks are integrated and composed into one. The payoffs of integrated processes, case workers, and case teams can be enormous. Eliminating handoffs means doing away with the errors, delays, and rework that they engender. Typically, a case worker-based process operates ten times faster than the assembly line version that it replaces. Moreover, because the new process generates fewer errors and misunderstandings, the company doesn’t need additional people to find and fix them.
Integrated processes also have reduced process administration overheads. Because employees involved in the process assume responsibility for making sure that customer’s requirements are met on time and with no defects, they need less supervision. Instead, the company encourages these empowered employees to find innovative and creative ways to reduce cycle time and cost continually while producing a defect-free product or service. Improved control is another benefit of integrated processes; because they involve fewer people, assigning responsibility for them and monitoring performance is easier.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
Same-day Delivery
28 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Same-day Delivery Tags: actually, additional, area, attention, attitude, attuned, bills, bring, business, chances, commodity, competitive, cost, customers, day, delivery, despite, economy, edge, effective, effectively, electrician, excellent, extraordinary, firm, frustrated, fulfill, guarantee, impossible, increase, increasingly, inevitable, manufacturer, perform, plumber, practically, Product, promise, promotional, purchase, rapid, reciprocate, repairperson, retailer, Sales, Same, scheme, service, specified, tactic, tomorrow, valuable, waiting, week
Same-day delivery, or same-day service, is an excellent promotional scheme for increasing sales at very little additional cost. As the economy becomes increasingly attuned to a “buy it now, have it now” attitude, we become more and more frustrated with waiting days (or often weeks) for purchased products to arrive or for service to be performed. Companies willing to guarantee same-day delivery have found this to be an extraordinarily effective sales tactic that practically ensures a competing edge.
Despite the fact that most people regard time as a valuable commodity, few businesses pay any attention to rapid service. Manufacturing, retailers, and service forms want their bills paid on time, but all too often, they do not reciprocate.
Although sales tactics that promise and then fulfill same-day delivery within a specific area must always bring in new customers, for some businesses, same-day delivery is impossible.
Doing what you say you are going to do when you promise you will do it will inevitably increase service sales as effectively as rapid delivery does in product businesses. It is simply good public relations. Turning it around, when a plumber, electrician, or furnace repairperson promises to take care of your service problems tomorrow and actually does so, the chances are very good that you will call that person again when the service is needed.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
Customer Value Checklist
27 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Customer Value Checklist Tags: activities, Analysis, annually, average, budget, checklist, cost, CR, criteria, current, Cutomer, defection, develop, during, frequency, high-value, increase, invest, lifetime, lost, LTV, Marketing, monetary, past, percentage, pool, program, rate, recency, replenish, retention, rfm, segment, spend, spent, targetted, Value, valuew, year
- What are your current and targetted CR rates?
- Given your current defection rate, how often must you replenish your customer pool?
- Has your CR rate increased during the past 3 years?
- What is the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer?
- What is the cost of a lost customer?
- What percentage of your marketing budget is spent on customer-retention activities?
- On average, how much do you spend on current customers annually?
- What criteria does your company use for developing targetted retention programs by market segment?
- Do you invest more on high-value (A) customers?
- How does your firm use recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) analysis?
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
