Protecting your business
Business is inherently risky. And many of us thrive on risks associated with starting, running and growing a business; new staff, new customers and new products are all inherently risky...
Recruitment - getting the applicant to do the work
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The cycle of business
How to create a virtuous circle for growing a business; The owner takes care of their team, the team takes care of the customers and the customers take care of the business, rewarding it with repeat business, profits and success. Easy eh?
The Blog Ahead
The intention with our blogs, and the associated webinars, is to provide you with the thinking, the tools and the techniques that help you, and your people, deliver:
How to help your staff help you - Training Needs Analysis
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Creating Raving Fans - Using the Ladder of Loyalty
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Better segmentation, better customer identification, better margins
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Aligning your people to your goals
As someone pretty into personal development and the development of others, I don’t use this model nearly as often as I ought to …The Situational Leadership concept was created in...
Defining values that deliver
Having now already defined your organisations Purpose, Mission and Vision the next task is to set about defining the company values.
What's your vision and mission?
In the last blog, which will actually be one of four in a series, we outlined the purpose of an organisation, not to make money, that’s the result; the purpose...
To unleash potential, find your purpose
Many organisations publish their mission, vision and values statements but what is the purpose?The question above is actually two questions:1.
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The "5 Ways" to improve sales and profitability
There’s a great company called Action Coach set up by an Aussie, a great guy, called Brad Sugars.
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Taming Complexity - Introducing Ishikawa
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Using the Ansoff matrix to drive company growth
Diversification is the riskiest strategy as it involves the company competing in new markets with new products. Everything is new and therefore unknown, both product and market development is required.
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KPIs driving real and quantifiable improvement
Have you ever thought about the extensive amount of time and effort that companies put into changing things but despite this, nothing much seems to actually improve?
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Getting the best from people; understanding their motivation profile
In the last blog, we looked at some of the research that has been undertaken on learning and motivation.
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Engaging people to drive change
Have you ever thought about how many times you have heard leaders say that “People are our most precious resource”?
Driving quantifiable process improvement
Have you ever thought about the extensive amount of time and effort that companies put into changing things but despite this, nothing much seems to actually improve?
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Master your measures ...and predict the future!
I first came across this approach to looking at data when I was undertaking a Master’s degree with the World’s first Professor of Quality Management, a great guy called John Oakland.
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Master your measures
Have you ever thought about the measures that are most likely to keep leaders, directors and managers awake at night? Have you ever thought about how they know, or otherwise,...
Delivering value to your customer
Have you ever thought about who, when and why the traditional “picture” of an organisation, the family tree, was first invented?
The Business Excellence Model
Business Excellence Model © European Foundation for Quality ManagementThe business excellence modelMany years ago, I studied for an MBA with an excellent bloke called Prof.
Above or below the line
I think (but you may have a different opinion!) that “above and below” the line is a really cool concept for both managing yourself and managing others.
The Eisenhower Important / Urgent Framework
The Urgent-Important Matrix, is a great quick and dirty tool… my weekly (handwritten) “to do” sheet is organised using these ideas, as, apparently, there is something about handwriting something that...
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Porter Analysis
The Porter Model assesses competitive advantage
PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL analysis is probably one of the most well-known top-level battle-hardened business planning tools where PESTEL is an acronym for Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Environmental and Legislative.
The Change and Continuity Conundrum
The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) recently surveyed over 650 organisations worldwide and found that, whilst 75% had implemented major strategic change programmes, 84% of these projects had been implemented without considering business continuity.
Good Governance - Auditors, Your (Unlikely) Partners In Progress
If you can cast your mind back far enough, the list is as long as it is depressing – the list, that is, of organisations that have failed despite their efforts to maintain vigilance against the risks associated with running a business. The list includes the recent spectacular failures of the banks, AIG, Enron, Tyco, Polly Peck, and BCCI; there are many others besides.
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We Need A Change In Management Thinking
One of our Associates, Stuart Swalwell, recently spent some time in Los Angeles with Bill Bellows, Associate Fellow at Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne and Leader of Enterprise Thinking, and is now drafting a paper outlining the differences between the Statius product, Optimisation 3D™, and Six Sigma. In a sentence, Six Sigma is a set of tools and techniques that concentrate on meeting specifications whilst Optimisation 3D™ focuses on the continuous improvement of the organisation as a whole so that customers remain delighted by the products or services they receive. It is hoped the final paper will be published towards the end of the year.
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A Virtuous Health And Safety Circle?
We all want our staff and workforce to go home safety to their loved ones at night and it does appear there is evidence that we are getting better at it. In a recent article for Safety Management, Mark Tyler, a partner in the legal practice Shook, Hardy and Bacon, wrote “we often hear the complaint that health and safety fines are too low, but little is heard about HSE prosecutions dropping by half over the last decade, to around 1,000 a year”.
Value Customers - Value Customer Service
The Institute of Customer Service (ICS) has undertaken its first comprehensive research exercise examining the return on investment from customer service. When asked which activities were most likely to lead to the highest returns, eighty per cent of respondents said “gaining an understanding of the customer’s point of view”. Seventy-four per cent also said that gathering and acting on customer feedback would also prove effective.
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Corporate Manslaughter Conviction
The first conviction under corporate manslaughter legislation introduced in 2007 has now been made.
Hack Attack
The recent Sony hack attack has shown how vulnerable our increasing love affair with the online world had made us. The explosion of information technology means that organisations are now exposed to completely new areas of risk that didn’t exist a generation ago.
Corporate Social Responsibility
The new ISO 26000 standard, Guidance on Social Responsibility, was published late last year and gives guidance on the underlying principles of the, often confusing, area of social responsibility.
Environmental Targets Achievable
The UK can meet its environmental target to cut greenhouse emissions by 60% over the next 20 years, the Committee on Climate Change reports. However, this will mean completely overhauling the energy sector, with an annual investment of £16bn in the 2020s, and replacing 11 million petrol cars with electric or hybrid equivalents.
ISO 9001: One Million
Across the World, over one million ISO 9001 certificates have now been awarded according to the latest figures from the International Standards Organisation. The survey, published in October 2010, reveals that there were 1,064,785 certificates, an increase of about 80,000 on the previous year, and that certificates are now held in 178 different countries.
PQQ Efficiency Drive
Suppliers and sub contractors throughout the construction supply chain have, for a long time, had to complete a vast number of different PQQ forms from an ever increasing number of...
