Defining Issues & Priorities

Ensure that the key issues facing business have been realistically defined in light of the current and rapidly changing business environment. There is nothing new about this requirement, but the fact is that very few management teams actually take the time and apply the discipline necessary to objectively define and prioritize the key issues that can make or break their business. The issues of inferior quality, higher cost products, lower productivity, and nonresponsive service plague manufacturers for the better part of the recent past. Many companies in industries such as steel, automotive, machine tool, textile, farm and construction equipment suffer badly as a result. Only few companies address these issues in effective ways. Most are unable to clearly identify the key issues, set priorities, and develop the necessary business plans to overcome the underlying problems.

While the specific issues vary for different companies and industries, the management mindset should not vary. To deal effectively with an increasingly turbulent environment, priorities must be set so the business can survive unexpected blows, adapt to sudden dropping changes, and then capitalize on smaller windows of opportunity that develop and close much more quickly than they have in the past.

Many progressive managers kick off their planning process with a session aimed specifically at getting agreement on key issues and priorities. Accepting these priorities require a shift in the way most managers think and act, such as:

• Liquidity becomes a more important objective, often more important than reported earnings. It provides the flexibility to deal more effectively with unexpected events than is possible when everything is tied up in fixed and slow moving assets.
• Productivity gains per dollar of capital and per employee must be achieved annually. These reductions must exceed inflation and achieve demonstrably lower costs.
• Innovation must never stop. Demonstrable product and process improvements must be achieved year after year.
• All cycle and response times must be continuously reduced.
• A “frightened” sense of urgency must be the way of life in all parts of the business.

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, and my Lectures.

Marketing Eras

• Production Era:  Prior to 1925, most firms operating in highly developed economies focused narrowly on production. Manufacturers stressed production of quality products and then looked for people to purchase them.  The production era did not reach its peak until the early part of 20^th century.
• Sales Era: Manufacturers began to increase their emphasis on effective sales forces to find customers for their output. Firms attempted to match their output to the potential number of customers who would want it. Companies with a sales orientation assume that customers will resist purchasing products and services not deemed essential and that the task of personal selling and advertising is to convince them to buy. Although marketing departments began to emerge from shadows of production, finance, and engineering during the sales era, marketing dominated sales and other areas. Selling is thus a component of marketing.
• Marketing: Personal incomes and consumer demand for products and services dropped rapidly thrusting marketing into a more important role. Organizational survival dictated that managers pay close attention to the markets for their goods and services. The trend ended with the outbreak of World War 11, when rationing and shortages of consumer goods became commonplace. The war years created only a pause in an emerging trend in business: a shift in the focus from products and sales to satisfying customer needs.
• Relationship: It emerged during the 90s. Organizations carried the marketing era’s customer orientation one step further by focusing on establishing and maintaining relationships. This effort represented a major shift from the traditional concept of marketing as a simple exchange between buyer and seller. Relationship marketing by contrast, involves long-term, value-added relationships developed over time, strategic alliances and partnerships retailers play major roles in relationship marketing.

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, and my Lectures.

Kinds of Advertising

Different kinds of advertising are used by various organizations to reach different market targets. Some major categories include:

• Retail Advertising: advertising to consumers by various retail stores such as supermarkets and shoe stores.
• Trade Advertising: advertising to wholesalers and retailers by manufacturers to encourage them to carry their products.
• Industrial Advertising: advertising from manufacturers to other manufacturers. A firm selling motors to automobile companies would use industrial advertising.
• Institutional Advertising: advertising designed to create an attractive image for an organization rather than for a product.
• Product Advertising: advertising for a good or service to create interest among consumer, commercial, and industrial buyers.
• Advocacy Advertising: advertising that supports a particular view of an issue
• Comparison Advertising: advertising that compares competitive products.

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, and my Lectures.

Retailing

Retailing implies activities involved in the sale of goods and services to the consumers for their personal, family and household use. That’s about marketing activities designed to provide satisfaction to the final consumer and profitability maintain these customers through a program of continuous quality improvement. The scope of retailing, therefore, is defined as activities aimed at satisfying the final consumer profitability. This win-win situation is achieved through different activities the retailers provide both to the consumers as well as the manufacturers.

While the basic objective of retailing would remain the same in all countries, the retail environment in developed countries would be vastly different, and hence not conducive to adopting similar marketing practices.

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, and my Lectures.

The Contract Theory

The contract theory holds that when a person buys a product or service, he or she is entering into a contract with the manufacturer. The manufacturer (and by implication the employee representing the manufacturer) has four main obligations:

1. To make sure the product or service complies with the contract in several respects: it should do what its advertisements say it can, it should operate a certain period of time before needing service or maintenance, and it should be at least as safe as the product information states and the advertising suggests.
2. To disclose all pertinent information about the product or service, so that the potential consumer can make  an informed decision on whether to purchase it.
3. To avoid misrepresenting the product or service.
4. To avoid coercion.

Critics of the contract theory argue that the typical consumer cannot understand the product as well as the manufacturer does, and that consumer ignorance invalidates the contract.

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, and my Lectures.

International Codes of Environmental Conduct

A number of business organizations have developed codes of environmental conduct. Among the most important ones are the following:

• International Chamber of Commerce (ICC): The ICC developed the Business Center for Sustainable Development, 16 principles that identify key elements of environmental leadership and call on companies to recognize environmental management as among their highest corporate priorities.
• Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI): A group of over 20 companies dedicated to fostering environmental excellence, GEMI developed several environmental self assessment programs, including one that helps firms assess their progress in meeting the goals of the Business Center for Sustainable Development.
• Keidanren: This major Japanese industry association has published a  Global Environmental Charter that sets out a code of environmental behavior that calls on its members to be “good corporate citizens.”
• Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA): The U.S. based industry association developed Responsible Care: A Public Commitment, which commits its member-companies to a code of management practices, focusing on process safety, community awareness, pollution prevention, safe distribution, employee health and safety, and product stewardship. The group is working for the international adoption of these principles.
• CERES Principles: These are 10 voluntary standards developed by the Coalition of Environmentally Responsible economies that commit signatory firms to protection of the biosphere, sustainable use of natural resources, energy conservation, risk reduction, and other environmental goals.
• International Organization for Standards (ISO): ISO 14000 is a series of voluntary standards introduced in 1966 by the ISO, an international group based in Geneva, Switzerland, that permit companies to be certified as meeting global environmental performance standards.

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, and my Lectures.

Identifying Target Market

Once the market-product segments (potential customers) have been identified, the firm must plan a strategy to attract them to its product. Three different strategies can be followed: unidentified marketing, differentiated marketing, or concentrated marketing.

In undifferentiated marketing, the firm manufacturers a single product and tries to attract all buyers with one marketing program.

In differentiated marketing, separate products and marketing programs are designed for each market segment. Differentiated marketing is effective, but it is always a more expensive way to go.

A compromise strategy is concentrated marketing. This means that the firm concentrates on one or a few profitable market segments.

Marketing strategy decisions are made by people in marketing research and product management positions.

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, and my Lectures.

Flow of Communication Messages

• Despite computer manufacturers’ promises of the paperless office,  shipments of office paper have risen 51 percent.
• In less than 10 years, people in the US added almost 135 million information receivers—email addresses, cellular phones, fax machines, voice mailboxes, answering machines—up 265 percent.
• In one year, 11.9 billion messages were left on voice mailboxes.
• Even though people are clamoring  to get on the Internet, they are sending even more messages through the postal services, and they are talking on their telephones more than ever.

All companies can hold down costs and maximize the benefits of their communication activities if they just follow three simple guidelines:

1. Reduce the number of messages;
2. Speed up the preparation of messages;
3. Train the writers and speakers.

Even though you may ultimately receive training on the job, you can start mastering business communication skills right now. Begin with an honest assessment of where you stand. In the next few days, watch how you handle the communication situations that arise. Then in the months ahead, try to focus on building your competence in areas where you need the most work.

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, and my Lectures.

Online Retail Selling: Barriers to Success

i.            Increasing consumers’ comfort levels: Online retailers need to improve convenience and value for customers and assist them in overcoming their concerns about security and trust.

ii.            Resolving technological limitations: The ability for online retailers to deliver unique experiences is linked to technology improvements. The internet is still constrained by lack of bandwidth and problems with reliability.

iii.            Rapidly scaling internal operations: Online retailers face the challenges of managing significant growth, internal organizational change and developing and scaling their customer service and fulfillment infrastructure—all while the technology is still evolving.

iv.            Engineering comprehensive convenience: Customers identify many convenience problems with today’s online environment. Among them are the need for customers to reenter personal data on different sites, the vide variation in customer service across sites and the lack of coordination between online and offline retail environments on the part of retailers using both channels.

v.            Resolving channel conflict: many offline retailers believe that there is a risk of cannibalizing sales through existing channels by going online. Many manufacturers fear alienating their existing distribution partners by providing an alternative channel for customers to purchase. These perceived channel conflicts are keeping some traditional retailers and manufacturers from joining the Internet.

vi.            Developing low-cost distribution: Distribution system can be expensive. Online fulfillment systems are still developing and there is a disconnect between what is required and what is currently offered by existing offline systems.

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, and my Lectures.

 

Writing Useful Instructions

When you need to explain in writing how to do something, a set of step-by-step instructions is your best choice. By enumerating the steps, you make it easy for readers to perform the process in the correct sequence. Your goal is to provide a clear, self-sufficient explanation so that readers can perform the task independently.

Gather Equipment

1. Writing materials (pen and paper, typewriter, computer)
2. Background materials (previous memos, policy manuals, manufacturer’s booklets, etc.)
3. When necessary, the apparatus being explained (machine, software package, or other equipment)

Prepare

1. Perform the task yourself, or ask experts to demonstrate it or describe it to you in detail.
2. Analyze prospective readers’ familiarity with the process so that you can write instructions at their level of understanding.

Make your Instructions Clear

1. Include four elements: an introduction, a list of equipment and materials, a description of the steps involved in the process, and a conclusion.
2. Explain in the opening why the process is important and how it is related to a larger purpose.
3. Divide the process into short, simple steps presented in order of occurrence.
4. Present the steps in a numbered list, or if presenting them in paragraph format, use words indicating time or sequence, such as first and then.
5. If the process involves more than ten steps, divide them into groups or stages identified with headings.
6. Phrase each step as a command (“Do this” instead of “You should do this”); use active verbs; use precise, specific terms (“three weeks” instead of “several weeks”).
7. When appropriate, describe how to tell whether a step has been performed correctly and how one step may influence another. Warn readers of possible damage or injury from a mistake in a step, but limit the number of warnings so that readers do not underestimate their importance.
8. Include diagrams of complicated devices, and refer to them in appropriate steps.
9. Summarize the importance of the process and the expected results.

Test your Instructions

1. Review the instructions to be sure they are clear and complete. Also judge whether you have provided too much detail.
2. Ask someone else to read the instructions and tell you whether they make sense and are easy to follow.

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, and my Lectures.