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 Plan

A marketing plan embodies the strategic marketing management process. It is a formal written document that describes the context and scope of an organization’s marketing effort to achieve defined goals or objectives within a specific future time period. A formal written marketing plan represents a distillation of and the attention and interrelated analytical processes. It is the tangible result of an intellectual effort.

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.

Channel Management, & Physical Distribution Management

Channel management and physical distribution management together comprise the place variable of the marketing mix. Channel management and physical distribution management, though closely related, are quite distinct from each other. While physical distribution deals with logistics, warehousing, and inventory management channel management is much broader and is concerned with the entire process of setting up and operating the channel for meeting the company’s objectives. Channel management must be well underway before the physical distribution management can even be considered.

Under channel management, the company deals with external organizations. The company uses these external organizations. The company uses these external organizations also known as intermediaries, to achieve its objectives of profitability and customer satisfaction, and in turn ensure that the channel members’ objectives are also satisfied.

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 Audit

Marketing audit is a comprehensive, systematic, independent, and periodic examination of company’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities with a view of determining problem areas and opportunities and recommending a plan of action to improve the company’s marketing performance.

 The audit process directs the manager’s attention to both the strategic fit of the organization with its environment and the operational aspects of marketing program. Strategic aspects of the marketing audit address the synoptic question: “Are we doing the right things?” Operational aspects address an equality synoptic question: “Are we doing the things right?”

 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.

Focusing Organization

This focus begins when someone at top identifies a set of concerns that require correction. These concerns are of significant importance to the organization, rather than passing operational concerns. They are persistent, undesirable situations that have grown over time and have never been adequately addressed. It is clear that a major effort is required to solve them and that new skill and approaches have to be developed if the effort is to be successful.

 The entire project is planned as a taskforce attack on identified situations; objectives—analysis and correction of the target situations, objectives are defined. This planning cannot be delegated. It is done by top management, since responsibility for the project must reside with those who initiate it. By actively directing the project, top management makes its support of the ideas evident to everyone. By participating in the project throughout its life, top management returns control and ensures success.

 The management works out a comprehensive plan and schedule. The population of individuals who can contribute in solving the target situations is identified by name and position. Workshops are scheduled. It is in the workshops that the participants learn. They apply their skills to analysis of their assigned concerns.

 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 and Product Objectives

The marketing intent is to take full advantage of the brand potential while building a base from which other revenue sources can be combined—both in and out of the retail business. They are detailed in three areas below:

• Current markets. Grow current markets by expanding brand a flavor distribution at the retail level.
• New markets. Expand business by the end of Year 5.
• New products. Expand brand presence at the retail level through the addition of new 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.

HR Strategy

Human resource strategies define how a company will manage its people toward the achievement of business objectives—setting priorities for action. Like any strategy, a human resource strategy is a directional plan of action for managing change. It provides a business perspective of actions necessary to gain and sustain competitive advantage through the management of human resources—a focus on priorities in managing people in a changing environment.

Through human resource strategy, managers and human resource staff jointly define and resolve people-related business issues. The planning process adds value by helping managers identify the issues most critical to the organization’s competitiveness and ultimately to its success. It helps management set priorities and define a vision of how it intends to manage its people.

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.

Rational Management

Rational management means making full use of the thinking ability of the people in an organization. It is a continuing process. Use of the ideas and their benefits will eventually fade out if they are not continually used and reinforced.

Rational management aims at major change and therefore demands major commitment. But this system cannot be introduced by half-heartedly sprinkling a few ideas and suggestions among a random mix of the organization’s people in the hope that something good will happen. We must identify the significant people within the organization, for they should be the first to learn and use the new ideas. We must identify their subordinates and the people who provide them with information. We must identify those who will implement the conclusions that come out of the use of the ideas. In short, it is imperative to pinpoint all the people within an organization who make things happen. The objective is to move the organization closer to it full potential. This can be done only by introducing teamwork based on the continuing conscious use of common approaches expressed in a simple, common language and directed toward resolution of an organization’s important concerns.

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.

Two-way HR Planning Process

Like other business strategies, human resource strategies are shaped through both top-down and bottom-up processes in an organization. A top-down processes provides the strategic context necessary for team and unit planning.

Through a focused company environmental assessment, it provides information on possible future trends and issues affecting  the business and influencing the shaping of plans and objectives. People close to the operating business may not readily take such a broad future view. It requires looking outside the company to external competitive practices, economic and social trends, and possible future conditions that may some day have an impact on the business.

A plan is strategic in character if it is focused on important issues raised in an environmental assessment. In today’s competitive organization, it is important that employees at all levels be attuned to external  forces and changes and to the strategic direction being taken to address them.

In a bottom-up approach, planning of human resource actions is a cumulative process. Instead of broad strategies being broken down into progressively greater detail, detailed strategies are aggregated and synthesized into  meaningful umbrella strategies. Each business unit or department is asked to identify the human resource issues of concern, taking into consideration the guidance of the long-term planning inputs. They are also asked to specific analyses, forecasts, and assessments regarding these issues. Specific action plans are selected and adopted. Both human resource staff and managers should participate in this effort.

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.

Strategic Marketing & Budgeting

A phase in the strategic marketing management process is budgeting. A budget is a formal, quantitative  expression of an organization’s planning and strategy initiatives expressed in financial terms. A well-prepared budget meshes and balances an organization’s financial, production, and marketing resources so that overall organizational goals or objectives are attained.

An organization’s master budget consists of two parts: 1) an operating budget, and 2) a financial budget. The operating budget focuses on an organization’s income statement. Since the operating budget projects future revenue and expenses, it is sometimes referred to as a pro forma income statement or profit plan. The financial budget focuses on the effect that the operating budget and other initiatives (such as capital expenditures) will have on the organization’s cash position.

In addition to the operating and financial budget, many organizations prepare supplemental special budgets, such as an advertising and sales budget, and related reports tied to the master budget. Budgeting is more than an accounting function. It is an essential element of strategic marketing management.

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.