Leading the Revolution By Gary Hamel

According to Gary Hamel, the professor-turned-strategy-guru author of Leading the Revolution, complacent establishment giants and one-strategy start-ups are on the same side of the fence--the wrong side.

Corporate complacency and single-strategy business plans leave no room for what Hamel describes as the key to thriving in today's world of business: a deeply embedded capability for continual, radical innovation.

Leading the Revolution is not a calm analysis of what will or won't work in a post-industrial world.

Instead, it's an impassioned call for revolutionary activists to shake the foundations of their companies' beliefs and move from a linear age of getting better, smarter, and faster, to a nonlinear age of becoming different.

While in the past incremental improvements in products and services were accepted as good enough, Hamel shows that true innovation is the demolition and re-creation of an entire business concept. He blows apart the popular myth that innovation lies solely in the hands of dot.com dynamos like AOL and Amazon by scrutinizing the examples of such "gray-haired revolutionaries" as Enron and Charles Schwab, companies that have managed to reinvent both themselves and their entire industries, time and again.

After an in-depth examination of what business-concept innovation involves (for starters, it's "based on avoidance, not attack"), Hamel goes on to motivate his readers to see their own revolutionary future, and train them in the art of being an activist. As he puts it in various headings, be a novelty addict, be a heretic, know what's not changing, surface the dogmas. And then get out there and transform your ideas into reality.

Not simply a round-up call, Hamel's book provides would-be activists with an intelligent, comprehensive plan of action. He illustrates each imperative with examples of real-life corporate rebels, such as John Patrick and David Grossman at IBM, Ken Kutaragi at Sony, and Georges Dupont-Roc at Shell. His message is the same to "old" and "new" companies alike:

"Industry revolutionaries are like a missile up the tail pipe. Boom! You're irrelevant!"

So join the revolution and avoid the explosion.

Herzberg Motivation Hygiene Theory

Herzberg proposed the Motivation-Hygiene Theory, also known as the Two factor theory (1959) of job satisfaction.

According to his theory, people are influenced by two factors:

Satisfaction, which is primarily the result of the motivator factors. These factors help increase satisfaction but have little effect on dissatisfaction.

Dissatisfaction is primarily the result of hygiene factors. These factors, if absent or inadequate, cause dissatisfaction, but their presence has little effect on long-term satisfaction.

Motivator Factors

Achievement
Recognition
Work Itself
Responsibility
Promotion
Growth

Hygiene Factors

Pay and Benefits
Company Policy and Administration
Relationships with co-workers
Physical Environment
Supervision
Status
Job Security

3 Elements of Marketplace Ideology In Information Age By Seth Godin

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is a best-selling author of business books and speaker of the late 1990s to the present. His first book to achieve mainstream popularity was on the topic of permission marketing.

Godin graduated from Tufts University in 1982 with a degree in computer science and philosophy, and he earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software.

In 1995, Godin founded one of the first online marketing companies, Yoyodyne. He sold the company to Yahoo! in 1998. As a part of the sale to Yahoo!, Godin became Vice-President of Permission Marketing at Yahoo!.

For a period of time, Godin served as a columnist for Fast Company.

In late 2005, Godin founded the "recommendation network" website Squidoo.


Godin’s ideology combines three elements:

First, the end of the "TV-Industrial complex" means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose.

Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises.

Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as "Sneezers", and to the ideas so spread as "IdeaViruses".

He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow.

Seth Godin is known for a very visual, personal, and dynamic speaking style that has earned him a large following.

He is the author of a popular blog and several books on how ideas spread. Business Week said of him "Seth Godin may be the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age".

Principles Of Most Influential Leadership

Marshall Goldsmith (March 20, 1949) is an author of management-related literature, professor, consultant and executive coach.

Born in Valley Station, Kentucky, he received his BS from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, his MBA from Indiana University and his Ph.D. from UCLA. From 1976-2000 he became an Assistant Professor and then Associate Dean at Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business. He currently is a University Professor at Alliant International University.

Goldsmith is generally regarded as a world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive lasting change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams

Goldsmith's Work

The same beliefs that lead to our success – can make it very difficult for us to change behavior – and, as difficult as it is to change our own behavior, it is even more difficult to change others’ perception of our behavior.

The behavior of leaders need to be reflective of the stated values of the corporation – and that key executives need to ‘go first’ in modeling positive behavioral change.

Managers who receive feedback and engage in ongoing follow-up with co-workers will almost always achieve positive, change in behavior and be seen as more effective leaders by their key stakeholders (this was shown in a Strategy+Business article that involved over 86,000 respondents).

The key to success in executive coaching is not the coach (who is a facilitator of change) – it is the people being coached and their key stakeholders.

Leadership development should provide tools that can be used in a positive, simple, focused and fast manner. Complex theories of change, while interesting, will not work in the ‘real world’ with over-extended executives.

Most executive education has historically been based upon an invalid assumption, “If they understand – they will do.” The basic challenge faced by managers is not understanding the practice of leadership – it is practicing their understanding of leadership.

In 2007, Marshall was voted as the Fourth Most Influential Leadership Professional by Gurus International in an independent internet study.

Cheaper by the Dozen Continuous Quality Improvement By Gilbreth

Cheaper by the Dozen is a 1946 novel by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey that tells the story of Time and motion study and efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth, and their twelve children.

According to Claude George (1968), Gilbreth reduced all motions of the hand into some combination of 17 basic motions. These included grasp, transport loaded, and hold. Gilbreth named the motions therbligs, "Gilbreth" spelled backwards with the th transposed. He used a motion picture camera that was calibrated in fractions of minutes to time the smallest of motions in workers.

George noted that the Gilbreths were, above all, scientists who sought to teach managers that all aspects of the workplace should be constantly questioned, and improvements constantly adopted. Their emphasis on the "one best way" and the therbligs predates the development of continuous quality improvement (CQI) (George 1968: 98), and the late 20th century understanding that repeated motions can lead to workers experiencing repetitive motion injuries.

Gilbreth was the first to propose that a surgical nurse serve as "caddy" (Gilbreth's term) to a surgeon, by handing surgical instruments to the surgeon as called for. Gilbreth also devised the standard techniques used by armies around the world to teach recruits how to rapidly disassemble and reassemble their weapons even when blindfolded or in total darkness. These innovations have arguably helped save millions of lives.


It has twice been adapted to film.

The title comes from one of Frank Sr.'s favorite jokes: it often happened that when he and his family were out driving and stopped at a red light, a pedestrian would ask "Hey, Mister! How come you got so many kids?" Gilbreth would pretend to ponder the question carefully, and then, just as the light turned green, would say "Well, they come cheaper by the dozen, you know," and drive off.

In real life, the Gilbreths' second eldest child, Mary, died of diphtheria at age six. The book does not explicitly explain the absence of Mary Gilbreth; it was not until the sequel, Belles on Their Toes, was published in 1952 that her death is mentioned.

Cheaper by the Dozen was made into a 1950 motion picture starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy as Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Mildred Natwick's character (a visitor to the household) is ridiculed (and portrayed as a child-hater) for belonging to a Planned Parenthood-like organization.

In the movie, as with the book, no mention is made of Mary Gilbreth's death. The role was cast as younger than the Gilbreth's daughter would have been, and the actress playing Mary appeared with the other children for group scenes, but had no lines and the role was uncredited. Additionally, the birth order of the last two children was reversed, presumably for scripting reasons.

A second book, Belles on Their Toes, published in 1952, outlines the family's adventures after Frank Sr.'s death in 1924. Belles on Their Toes was also made into a movie, starring Jeanne Crain and Myrna Loy, in 1952, and focused on the lives of Mrs. Gilbreth and her children.
A similar movie, Yours, Mine and Ours, is a 1968 film, starring Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball. In this film, Fonda's character is a Navy warrant officer, while Ball's character is a nurse. After some initial tension, the couple and their eighteen children bond to make one large blended family. Both Yours, Mine and Ours and Cheaper By The Dozen served as inspirations for the television show, The Brady Bunch.[citation needed]

Another movie called Cheaper by the Dozen was produced in 2003, starring comedians Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, but bearing no resemblance to the original book except that both feature a family with twelve children. A sequel to the film, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 was released in December 2005 across the globe.

Seven Techniques Of Managing for Stakeholders By Freeman

Survival, Reputation, and Success!!

Managing for Stakeholders: Survival, Reputation, and Success, the culmination of twenty years of research, interviews, and observations in the workplace, makes a major new contribution to management thinking and practice.

Current ways of thinking about business and stakeholder management usually ask the Value Allocation Question: How should we distribute the burdens and benefits of corporate activities among stakeholders?

Managing for Stakeholders, however, helps leaders develop a mindset that instead asks the Value Creation Question: How can we create as much value as possible for all of our stakeholders?

Business is about how customers, suppliers, employees, financiers (stockholders, bondholders, banks, etc.), communities, the media, and managers interact and create value.

World-renowned management scholar R. Edward Freeman and his coauthors outline ten concrete principles and seven practical techniques for managing stakeholder relationships in order to ensure a firm’s survival, reputation, and success.

Managing for Stakeholders is a revolutionary book that will change not only how managers do business but also how they recognize and evaluate business opportunities that would otherwise be invisible.

R. Edward Freeman (born December 18, 1951) is an American philosopher and professor of business administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia. He has also taught at the University of Minnesota and the Wharton School.

Freeman is particularly known for his work on stakeholder theory and on business ethics. He has co-edited recent editions of such standard business textbooks as The Portable MBA and the Blackwell's Handbook of Strategic Management, and serves as the editor for the Ruffin Series in Business Ethics from Oxford University Press.

His latest book is "Managing for Stakeholders" with Jeffrey Harrison and Andrew Wicks to be published by Yale University Press in 2007.

Born in Columbus, Georgia, Freeman received a B.A. from Duke University in 1973 and a Ph.D. from Washington University in 1978.

Mary Parker Follett Principles Of Integration Power Sharing

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) was an American social worker, consultant, and author of books on democracy, human relations, and management.

She worked as a management and political theorist, introducing such phrases as "conflict resolution," "authority and power," and "the task of leadership."

Follett was born into an affluent Quaker family in Massachusetts and spent much of her early life there. In 1898 she graduated from Radcliffe College. Over the next three decades, she published several books, including:

1. The Speaker of the House of Representatives (1896)
2. The New State (1918)
3. Creative Experience (1924)
4. Dynamic Administration (1941) (this collection of speeches and short articles was published posthumously)

Follett suggested that organizations function on the principle of power "with" and not power "over."

She recognized the holistic nature of community and advanced the idea of "reciprocal relationships" in understanding the dynamic aspects of the individual in relationship to others.

Follett advocated the principle of integration, "power sharing." Her ideas on negotiation, power, and employee participation were influential in the development of organizational studies.

She was a pioneer of community centres.

Total Quality Control Hidden Plant By Feigenbaum

"Because quality is everybody's job, it may become nobody's job - the idea that quality must be actively managed and have visibility at the highest levels of management. " - Feigenbaum

Armand V. Feigenbaum is an American quality control expert who was born in 1922. He received a bachelor's degree from Union College, and his master's degree and Ph.D. from MIT. He was Director of Manufacturing Operations at General Electric (1958-1968), and is now President and CEO of General Systems Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an engineering firm that designs and installs operational systems.

He wrote several books and served as President of the American Society for Quality (1961-1963). Feigenbaum's contributions to the quality body of knowledge include:

1. Total Quality Control (TQC) - "Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow full customer satisfaction.
2. "the hidden" plant - the idea that so much extra work is performed in correcting mistakes that there is effectively a hidden plant within any factory.
3. Because quality is everybody's job, it may become nobody's job - the idea that quality must be actively managed and have visibility at the highest levels of management.

f-Laws 13 Common Sins of Management

Laws are subversive epigrams about common management practices.

Systems theorist Russell L. Ackoff and his co-author Herbert J. Addison invented the term in 2006 to describe their series of over 100 distilled observations of bad leadership and the misplaced wisdom that often surrounds management in organizations. Many of the f-Laws describe a relationship of inverse proportionality, in example: "The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things."

Ackoff and Addison's f-Laws often seem counter-intuitive They are designed to challenge organizations' unquestioning adherence to established management habits or beliefs.

The f-Laws advocate adopting a positive, forward-looking and interactive approach to structural or systematic change within organizations, following the principles of idealized design. This is a process that "involves redesigning the organization on the assumption that it was destroyed last night... The most effective way of creating the future is by closing or reducing the gap between the current state and the idealized design".

Two collections of f-Laws entitled A Little Book of f-Laws: 13 Common Sins of Management and Management f-Laws: How Organizations Really Work have been published.

While, if read in isolation, each f-Law is a witty and thought-provoking axiom, the books locate them within a wider discourse that draws upon systems thinking and the debate over the importance of developing soft skills in business environments.

13 Principles of Scientific Management Taylorism Fordism By Frederick Winslow Taylor

Scientific management, Taylorism or the Classical Perspective is a method in management theory which determines changes to improve labour productivity.

The idea first coined by Frederick Winslow Taylor in his The Principles of Scientific Management who believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work.

In management literature today, the greatest use of the concept of Taylorism is as a contrast to a new, improved way of doing business.

Fordism

Taylorism is often mentioned along with Fordism, because it was closely associated with mass production methods in manufacturing factories. Taylor's own name for his approach was scientific management. This sort of task-oriented optimization of work tasks is nearly ubiquitous today in menial industries, most notably in assembly lines and fast-food restaurants.

Critisim - Why Taylorism Failed?

Applications of scientific management sometimes fail to account for two inherent difficulties:

It ignores individual differences: the most efficient way of working for one person may be inefficient for another;
It ignores the fact that the economic interests of workers and management are rarely identical, so that both the measurement processes and the retraining required by Taylor's methods would frequently be resented and sometimes sabotaged by the workforce.
Both difficulties were recognized by Taylor, but are generally not fully addressed by managers who only see the potential improvements to efficiency. Taylor believed that scientific management cannot work unless the worker benefits.

In his view management should arrange the work in such a way that one is able to produce more and get paid more, by teaching and implementing more efficient procedures for producing a product.

Although Taylor did not compare workers with machines, some of his critics use this metaphor to explain how his approach to be made efficient by removing unnecessary or wasted effort.

13 Principles Of Scientific Management - Taylorism

1. To regularize operations in a manner which will conserve the investment, sustain the enterprise, and assure continuous operation and employment.

2. To assure the employee of continuous operation and employment by a planned and balanced continuous earning opportunity while on the payroll.

3. Thru waste-saving management and processing techniques, entitle the workers and management to increased wages and profits.

4. To make possible a higher standard of living to workers.

5. To assure a happier home and social life to workers.

6. To assure healthful and socially agreeable conditions of work.

7. To assure the highest opportunity for individual capacity thru scientific methods of work analysis and of selection, training, assignment, transfer, and promotion of workers.

8. To assure by training and functional foremanship the opportunity for workers to develop new and higher capacities, and eligibility for promotion to higher positions.

9. To develop self-confidence and self-respect among workers.

10. To develop self-expression and self-realization among workers thru an atmosphere of research and validation.

11. To build character thru the proper conduct of work.

12. To promote justice thru the elimination of discrimination in wage rates and elsewhere.

13. To eliminate factors in the environment which are irritating and cause frictions, and to promote common understanding, tolerances, and the spirit of team work.

14 Principles Of Business Transformation By Edwards Deming

Deming offered fourteen key principles for management for transforming business effectiveness. In summary:

Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of products and services, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and provide jobs.

Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins and put it into practice by teaching it to employees, customers and suppliers.

Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Instead, improve the process and build quality into the product in the first place.

End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone. Instead, minimize total cost in the long run. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, based on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

Improve constantly, and forever, the system of production, service, and planning of any activity. This will improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs.

Institute training for skills.

Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspirations. The aim of leadership should be to help people, machines, and gadgets do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul, as well as leadership of production workers.

Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work more effectively.

Break down barriers between departments. Abolish competition and build a win-win system of cooperation within the organization. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team to foresee problems of production and use that might be encountered with the product or service.

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity.

Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas, and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.

Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work. This will mean abolishing the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates competition and conflict.

Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

14 Principles of Management Henri Fayol Management Principles

Henri Fayol (born 1841 in Istanbul; died 1925 in Paris) was a French management theorist.

Fayol was one of the most influential contributors to modern concepts of management, having proposed that there are five primary functions of management:

Planning,
Organizing,
Commanding,
Coordinating, and
Controlling

Controlling is described in the sense that a manager must receive feedback on a process in order to make necessary adjustments. Many of today’s management texts including Daft (2005) have reduced the five functions to four: (1) planning, (2) organizing, (3) leading, and (4) controlling. Daft's text is organized around Fayol's four functions.

Fayol suggested that it is important to have unity of command: a concept that suggests there should be only one supervisor for each person in an organization. Like Socrates, Fayol suggested that management is a universal human activity that applies equally well to the family as it does to the corporation.

Here are 14 Principles of Management Given by F Henri.

Specialization of labour. Specializing encourages continuous improvement in skills and the development of improvements in methods.

Authority. The right to give orders and the power to exact obedience.

Discipline. No slacking, bending of rules. The workers should be obedient and respectful of the organization.

Unity of command. Each employee has one and only one boss.

Unity of direction. A single mind generates a single plan and all play their part in that plan.

Subordination of Individual Interests. When at work, only work things should be pursued or thought about.

Remuneration. Employees receive fair payment for services, not what the company can get away with.

Centralization. Consolidation of management functions. Decisions are made from the top.

Chain of Superiors (line of authority). Formal chain of command running from top to bottom of the organization, like military

Order. All materials and personnel have a prescribed place, and they must remain there.

Equity. Equality of treatment (but not necessarily identical treatment)

Personnel Tenure. Limited turnover of personnel. Lifetime employment for good workers.

Initiative. Thinking out a plan and do what it takes to make it happen.

Esprit de corps. Harmony, cohesion among personnel. It's a great source of strength in the organisation. Fayol stated that for promoting esprit de corps, the principle of unity of command should be observed and the dangers of divide and rule and the abuse of written communication should be avoided.

3C Model FrameWork

The 3C’s model points out that a strategist should focus on three key factors for success.

The 3C's model (three C's framework) of Kenichi Ohmae, a famous Japanese strategy guru, stresses that a strategist should focus on three key factors for success. "In the construction of any business strategy, three main players must be taken into account:

The corporation itself,
The customer, and
The competition"

Only by integrating the three C's (Customer, Competitor, and Company) in a strategic triangle, sustained competitive advantage can exist. He refers to these key factors as the three C's or the strategic triangle.


The Corporation

The Corporation needs strategies aiming to maximize the corporation’s strengths relative to the competition in the functional areas that are critical to achieve success in the industry.

Selectivity and sequencing
The corporation does not have to lead in every function to win. If it can gain decisive edge in one key function, it will eventually be able to improve its other functions which are now average.

Make or buy
In case of rapidly rising wage costs, it becomes a critical decision for a company to subcontract a major share of its assembly operations. If its competitors are unable to shift production so rapidly to subcontractors and vendors, the resulting difference in cost structure and/ or in the companies ability to cope with demand fluctuations may have significant strategic implications.

Cost-effectiveness
Improving the cost-effectiveness can be done in three ways. First by reducing basic costs, second by exercising greater selectivity (orders accepted, products offered, functions performed) and third by sharing certain key functions with a corporation’s other businesses or even other companies.


The Customer

Clients are the base of any strategy according to Kenichi Ohmae. Therefore, the primary goal supposed to be the interest of the customer and not those of the shareholders for example. In the long run, a company that is genuinely interested in its customers will be interesting for its investors and take care of their interests automatically. Segmentation is helping to understand the customer.

Segmenting by objectives
The differentiation is done in terms of the different ways that various customers use a product.

Segmenting by customer coverage
This segmentation normally emerges from a trade-off study of marketing costs versus market coverage. There appears always to be a point of diminishing returns in the cost versus coverage relationship. The cooperation’s task is to optimize its range of market coverage, geographical and/ or channel wise.

Segmenting the market once more
In a fiercely competition, competitors are likely to be dissecting the market in similar ways. Over an extended period of time, the effectiveness of a given initial strategic segmentation will tend to decline. In such situations it is useful to pick a small group of customers and reexamine what it is that they are really looking for.

A market segment change occurs where the market forces are altering the distribution of the user-mix over time by influencing demography, distribution channels, customer size, etc. This kind of change means that the allocation of corporate resources must be shifted and/ or the absolute level of resources committed in the business must be changed.




The Competitors

The Competitors Competitor based strategies can be constructed by looking at possible sources of differentiation in functions such as: purchasing, design, engineering, sales and servicing. The following aspects show ways in order to achieve this differentiation:

Power of image
When product performance and mode of distribution are very difficult to distinguish, image may be the only source of positive differentiation.

Capitalizing on profit- and cost structure differences
Firstly, the difference in source of profit might be exploited, from new products sales etc. Secondly, a difference in the ratio of fixed costs and variable costs might also be exploited strategically. A company with lower fixed cost ratio can lower prices in a sluggish market and hence gain market share.

Hito-Kane-Mono
A favorite phrase of Japanese business planners is hito-kane-mono, standing for people, money and things. They believe that streamlined corporate management is achieved when these three critical resources are in balance without surplus or waste.

For example: Cash over and beyond what competent people can intelligently expend is wasted. Of the three critical resources, funds should be allocated last.

The corporation should firstly allocate management talent, based on the available mono (things): plant, machinery, technology, process know-how and functional strength. Once these hito (people) have developed creative and imaginative ideas to capture the business’s upward potential, the kane (money) should be given to the specific ideas and programs generated by the individual managers.

4 Dimensions of Relational Work

“Interpersonal savvy is critical in almost any area of business” said Timothy Butler and James Waldroop in their 4 Dimensions of Relational.


How managers can boost their productivity?

1. Hiring the right employees
2. Make the best work (project) assignments
3. Reward performance in the right way
4. Promote career development.

Waldroop and Butler say one should distinguish between 4 types of relational interests and skills:


1. Influence:

Professionals who like developing and extending their area of interpersonal influence! They take contentment in opinion, negotiation and the power of holding valuable information and ideas. This refers to Sales Managers, Marketing Managers, Negotiators and M&A dealmakers.


2. Interpersonal Facilitation:

People that are keenly adjusted to the interpersonal aspects of work situations.
They intuitively focus on others' experiences and usually quietly behind the scenes to keep their colleagues committed and engaged so that projects run smoothly.
This refers to HR managers.


3. Relational Creativity:

People who are good at forging connections with groups of people through visual and verbal imagery!

This refers to advertising people and brand managers.


4. Team Leadership:

Such people feel satisfied with a strong need to see and interact with other people.

They like managing and working through high-energy teams in hectic service environments. This is mainly applicable to Program Managers and Managers of Direct Service Delivery Units.

These four dimensions of relational work are not distinct types; a person can have great interest and skill in two or more areas or in none of them. All types of relational work contribute to the end results and thus should be rewarded.

4S Web Marketing Model

Virtual Marketing is becoming necessity day by day. With Virtual Marketing – strategic analysts have options on believing in applying marketing models like 4Ps, 4Cs, 5Ps, 7Ps or ICDT models. An another model - 4S model is put forward by Constantinides for web marketing also known as “Web-Marketing Model, WMM”

Web-Marketing Model
E. Constantinides points out important elements of e-marketing. Where 4Ps or 5Ps were successful for traditional and physical marketing, 4S by Constantinides is becoming successful model for web marketing.

It describes web marketing strategy with four elements begin with “4S" including
• Scope,
• Site,
• Synergy and
• System.

The goal of this model is to design and develop marketing mix for B2C online projects through controlling four “S" elements.

4S of Web Marketing In Detail

The 4S Web Marketing Mix method from Constantinides identifies the following four critical decision-making elements of E-Marketing:


SCOPE

Scope defines the main strategic issues at the bottom of the online presence; these are subject to continuous management review and appraisal. The scope word should be referred in terms of markets and competitors, customer profiles, impact of the online operation on existing internal processes and the firm's online presence.

In 4S model, the scope element is of primarily strategic character and outlines the decisions to be made on four areas:

• The strategic and operational objectives of the online venture;
• The market definition including measuring the market potential and the identification/classification of the potential competitors, visitors and customers of the site;
• The degree of readiness of the organization for E-Commerce;
• The strategic role of E-Commerce for the organization.


SITE


Site identifies the operational aspects of the online presence reflecting the character, positioning and market focus of online firms.

The prime mission of the web Site is to attract traffic, establish contact with the online target markets and brand the online organization.
Thus the corporate web site is functional platform of communication, interaction and transaction with the web customer.


SYNERGY

The synergy factor holds a wide range of issues divided into three categories:

(a) The front office,
(b) The back office and
(c) The third parties in one’s arm.

Online firms will make the most of their market impact by capitalizing on synergies with on hand commercial and organizational processes while they fully utilize their commercial networks.

Integration with the Front Office

This refers to integration of the firm's e-activities in the total corporate marketing plan. The front office refers to conventional corporate communication and distribution strategies. It is mandatory to provide the online presence of the firm the initial support, desired in order to develop as a noteworthy element of the total marketing program.

Integration with the Back Office
This refers to the fact that an extensive integration of e-activities in the current organizational processes that is nothing but a vital condition to meet the needs and expectations of online customers.

The back office synergy includes three issues:

• The integration of E-Commerce physical support into existing organizational processes;
• The legacy integration;
• Integration of the online operation into the company's value system.

Integration of the online presence with existing organizational processes might mean that some of the traditional operations or procedural routines have to be upgraded or re-designed in order to deliver the proper level of virtual customer service and value.

Integration with External Parties and Company Networks

Integration with external parties and company networks is crucial after promotional and logistical activities. They are vital while outsourcing processes which cannot be done internally cost effectively.


SYSTEM

The system factor identifies the technological issues as well as the site servicing issues to be addressed by the E-Commerce management. It provides an outline of technical factors supporting the secure, safe, cost-efficient and customer-friendly operation of the corporate web site.

Understanding 4S with Case study of Marketing Digital Products [1]

Scope

Market segmentation (demographic variables, geographic variables, psychographic variables and behavioral variables) Potential customers (profiles, motivation, behavior and needs)

Internal analysis (internal resources, value process, and the web sustaining technology)

Strategic role of the web activities (information platform, educational, promotional and transactional)

Site
Search Engine Optimization, Link exchange, Advertisements, Factors of web site (domain, content, design, layout, atmosphere etc)

Synergy
Online store, the back office (physical book store)

System
Technology requirement of web site (stabilization, security, software, hardware, protocol, system service etc), Preliminary payment system

[1] A Comparative Study on Marketing Mix Models for Digital Products? By KanLiang Wang1 Yuan Wang Jing Tao Yao

5 Forces Analysis

The

Porter 5 Forces Analysis

is a framework for business management developed by Michael Porter in 1979. It uses concepts developed in Industrial Organization (IO) economics to derive 5 forces that determine the attractiveness of a market. It is also known as FFF (Fullerton's Five Forces).

Porter referred to these forces as the microenvironment, to contrast it with the more general term macro environment. They consist of those forces close to a company that affect its ability to serve its customers and make a profit. A change in any of the forces normally requires a company to re-assess the marketplace.


Five forces

Bargaining power of customers,
Bargaining power of suppliers,
Threat of new entrants, and
Threat of substitute products
The level of competition
- combined with other variables to influence a fifth force, the level of competition in an industry. Each of these forces has several determinants:


The bargaining power of customers

buyer concentration to firm concentration ratio
bargaining leverage
buyer volume
buyer switching costs relative to firm switching costs
buyer information availability
ability to backward integrate
availability of existing substitute products
buyer price sensitivity
price of total purchase

The bargaining power of suppliers

supplier switching costs relative to firm switching costs
degree of differentiation of inputs
presence of substitute inputs
supplier concentration to firm concentration ratio
threat of forward integration by suppliers relative to the threat of backward integration by firms
cost of inputs relative to selling price of the product
importance of volume to supplier

The threat of new entrants

the existence of barriers to entry
economies of product differences
brand equity
switching costs
capital requirements
access to distribution
absolute cost advantages
learning curve advantages
expected retaliation
government policies

The threat of substitute products

buyer propensity to substitute
relative price performance of substitutes
buyer switching costs
perceived level of product differentiation

The intensity of competitive rivalry

number of competitors
rate of industry growth
intermittent industry overcapacity
exit barriers
diversity of competitors
informational complexity and asymmetry
brand equity
fixed cost allocation per value added
level of advertising expense

7 Ps Marketing Mix

The Marketing Mix is the combination of marketing activities that an organization engages in so as to best meet the needs of its targeted market. Booms and Bitner extended the traditional 4P (McCarthy) framework.

The 7 Ps – Price, Product, Place, Promotion, Physical presence, Provision of service, and Processes encompass the modern marketing mix which is not only essential for service industry but is also significant to any form of business where meeting the needs of customers is given priority.

Traditionally the Marketing Mix consisted of just 4 Ps. The Marketing Mix thus consists of four main elements:

Product
Price
Place
Promotion

Please read 4P Model of Marketing Mix for reference.

In addition to the traditional four Ps it is now normal to add some more Ps to the mix to give us Seven Ps.

The additional Ps have been included because today marketing is far more customer oriented than ever before, and because the service sector of the economy has come to dominate economic activity in this country. These 3 extra Ps are particularly relevant to this new extended service mix.

The three extra Ps are:


Physical Evidence (Physical Layout)

Today consumers approach retail units highly to buy products and they expect a high level of presentation in modern shops - e.g. music stores, garment shops etc. This refers to ambience, atmosphere, environment and hospitality which change consumer’s perceptions of service.

Preconditions are – they should find you easily and they should find good standards and excellent demo / presentation of products from you.

For example it covers -

1. The “environment” or atmosphere in which the service is delivered
2. Buildings
3. Furnishings/décor
4. Layout
5. Goods associated with the service e.g. carrier bags, tickets, brochures
6. All the above can help shape customers’ perceptions of the service

Irrespective of selling physical goods, service provides must pay attention to physical layout’s quality too.

Travelers and Passengers need more hostility and attention in terms of service and should be provided interesting departure lounges.

University students expect more quality in terms of accommodation, education, learning environment and foods.

In terms of virtual stores like Amazon.com – layout is important in terms of easiness to find relevant links and space management.


Provision of Customer Service ( People )

This refers to people of organization who is in direct relationship to customers. Customer service lies at the heart of modern service industries. Call centre staff and customer interfacing personnel are the front line troops of any organization and therefore need to be thoroughly familiar with good customer relation's practice.

Following are essential aspects to be focused on.

1. The attitudes of staff
2. Training of staff
3. Internal relations
4. The observable behavior of staff
5. The level of service-mindedness in the organization
6. The consistency of appearance of staff
7. The accessibility of people
8. Customer-customer contacts


Processes

This refers to procedure, mechanisms and flow of activities by which services are consumed (customer management processes) are an essential element of the marketing strategy.

1. The manner in which the service is delivered
2. Degree of customer contact
3. Quality control standards
4. Quality assurance
5. Payment methods
(degree of convenience)
6. Queuing systems for customers
7. Waiting times

7-S McKinsey VBM Model

The 7-S framework of McKinsey is a Value Based Management (VBM) model that describes how one can holistically and effectively organize a company.

The 3Ss across the top of the model are described as 'Hard Ss':

Strategy

The direction and scope of the company over the long term. Plans for the allocation of a firms scarce resources, over time, to reach identified goals.


Structure

The basic organization of the company, its departments, reporting lines, areas of expertise, and responsibility (and how they inter-relate). The way the organization's units relate to each other: centralized, functional divisions (top-down); decentralized (the trend in larger organizations); matrix, network, holding, etc.

Systems

Formal and informal procedures that govern everyday activity, covering everything from management information systems, through to the systems at the point of contact with the customer (retail systems, call centre systems, online systems, etc).

The procedures and routines that characterize how important work is to be done: financial systems; hiring, promotion and performance appraisal systems; information systems.

The 4Ss across the bottom of the model are less tangible, more cultural in nature, and were termed 'Soft Ss' by McKinsey:

Skills

The capabilities and competencies that exist within the company. What it does best. Distinctive capabilities of personnel or of the organization as a whole.


Shared Values

The values and beliefs of the company. Ultimately they guide employees towards 'valued' behavior. The interconnecting center of McKinsey's model is: Value. What does the organization stands for and what it believes in.

Staff

The company's people resources and how they are developed, trained, and motivated. Numbers and types of personnel within the organization.

Style

The leadership approach of top management and the company's overall operating approach. Cultural style of the organization and how key managers behave in achieving the organization’s goals.

Related Links

Mckinsey

Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard method of Kaplan and Norton is a strategic approach and performance management system that enables organizations to translate a company's vision and strategy into implementation, working from 4 perspectives:

1. Financial perspective,
2. Customer perspective,
3. Business process perspective,
4. Learning and growth perspective.

The Financial Perspective

Kaplan and Norton do not disregard the traditional need for financial data. Timely and accurate funding data will always be a priority, and managers will do whatever necessary to provide it.

In fact, often there is more than enough handling and processing of financial data. With the implementation of a corporate database, it is hoped that more of the processing can be centralized and automated. But the point is that the current emphasis on financials leads to the "unbalanced" situation with regard to other perspectives.

There is perhaps a need to include additional financial-related data, such as risk assessment and cost-benefit data, in this category.


The Customer Perspective

Recent management philosophy has shown an increasing realization of the importance of customer focus and customer satisfaction in any business.

These are leading indicators: if customers are not satisfied, they will eventually find other suppliers that will meet their needs. Poor performance from this perspective is thus a leading indicator of future decline, even though the current financial picture may look good.

In developing metrics for satisfaction, customers should be analyzed in terms of kinds of customers and the kinds of processes for which we are providing a product or service to those customer groups.

The Business Process Perspective

It refers to internal business processes. Metrics based on this perspective allow the managers to know how well their business is running, and whether its products and services conform to customer requirements (the mission). These metrics have to be carefully designed by those who know these processes most intimately.

In addition to the strategic management process, two kinds of business processes may be identified: a) mission-oriented processes, and b) support processes.

Mission-oriented processes are the special functions of government offices, and many unique problems are encountered in these processes. The support processes are more repetitive in nature, and hence easier to measure and benchmark using generic metrics.

The Learning and Growth perspective

This includes employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self-improvement. In a knowledge-worker organization, people are the main resource. In the current climate of rapid technological change, it is becoming necessary for knowledge workers to be in a continuous learning mode.

Government agencies often find themselves unable to hire new technical workers and at the same time is showing a decline in training of existing employees.

Kaplan and Norton emphasize that 'learning' is more than 'training'; it also includes things like mentors and tutors within the organization, as well as that ease of communication among workers that allows them to readily get help on a problem when it is needed. It also includes technological tools such as an Intranet.

The integration of these four perspectives into a graphical appealing picture have made the Balanced Scorecard method very successful within the Value Based Management philosophy.


Related Links

Balanced Scorecard Institute

Boston Consulting Group BCG Matrix

To ensure long-term value creation, a company should have a portfolio of products that contains both high-growth products in need of cash inputs and low-growth products that generate a lot of cash.

The BCG matrix is a tool that can be used to determine what priorities should be given in the product portfolio of a business unit.

It has 2 dimensions:

Market share
Market growth
The basic idea behind it is that the bigger the market share a product has or the faster the product's market grows the better it is for the company.

Placing products in the BCG matrix results in 4 categories in a portfolio of a company:


Stars

High growth, High market share

Use large amounts of cash and are leaders in the business so they should also generate large amounts of cash frequently roughly in balance on net cash flow.
However if needed any attempt should be made to hold share, because the rewards will be a cash cow if market share is kept.

Cash Cows

Low growth, High market share

Profits and cash generation should be high , and because of the low growth, investments needed should be low. Keep profits high
Foundation of a company

Dogs

Low growth, Low market share

Avoid and minimize the number of dogs in a company.
Beware of expensive ‘turn around plans’.
Deliver cash, otherwise liquidate

Question Marks

High growth, Low market share

Have the worst cash characteristics of all, because high demands and low returns due to low market share
If nothing is done to change the market share, question marks will simply absorb great amounts of cash and later, as the growth stops, a dog.
Either invests heavily or sell off or invest nothing and generate whatever cash it can. Increase market share or deliver cash

Using the BCG Matrix can help understand a frequently made strategy mistake: having a one-size-fits-all-approach to strategy, such as a generic growth target (9 percent per year) or a generic return on capital of say 9,5% for an entire corporation.

In such a scenario:

A. Cash Cows Business Units will beat their profit target easily; their management have an easy job and are often praised anyhow. Even worse, they are often allowed to reinvest substantial cash amounts in their businesses that are mature and not growing anymore.

B. Dogs Business Units fight an impossible battle and, even worse, investments are made now and then in hopeless attempts to 'turn the business around'.

C. As a result (all) Question Marks and Stars Business Units get mediocre size investment funds. In this way they are unable to ever become cash cows. These inadequate invested sums of money are a waste of money.

Either these SBUs should receive enough investment funds to enable them to achieve a real market dominance and become a cash cow (or star), or otherwise companies are advised to disinvest and try to get whatever possible cash out of the question marks that were not selected.

The BCG Matrix chart was popular for two decades and "continues to be used as a primer in the principles of portfolio management," as BCG says.

About BCG

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a management consulting firm founded by Harvard Business School alum Bruce Henderson in 1963.

The Boston Consulting Group
Type - Partnership
Founded In 1963
Headquarters - 63 offices in 37 countries
Key people - Hans-Paul Bürkner, President & CEO
Industry - Management consulting
Products - Management consulting services
Revenue 2005 : US$1.5 billion
Employees about 4,100 consultants
Website - www.bcg.com

See also

The Sequence of Strategy Utilizing the BCG Growth / Market Share Portfolio Matrix





Source: Rob Millard

Business Management Theories

Management today is seen in multiple areas. Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of six separate branches, namely:

Human resource management
Operations management or production management
Strategic management
Marketing management
Financial management
Information technology management responsible for management information systems

Here is list of management arena where multiple theories were evolved based on need to grow & maintain quality of product / service.

List of Areas and Categories and Implementations of Management

Accounting management
Agile management
Association management
Capability Management
Change management
Communication management
Constraint management
Cost management
Crisis management
Critical management studies
Customer relationship management
Design management
Disaster management
Earned value management
Educational management
Enterprise management
Environmental management
Facility management
Financial management
Human resources management
Information technology management
Innovation management
Interim management
Inventory management
Knowledge management
Land management
Leadership management
Logistics management
Lifecycle management
Marketing management
Materials management
Operations management
Organization development
Perception management
Program management
Project management
Process management
Performance management
Product management
Public administration
Public management
Quality management
Records management
Research management
Resource management
Risk management
Skills management
Social entrepreneurship
Spend management
Strategic management
Stress management
Supply chain management
Systems management
Talent management
Time management
Visual management

Business Process Reengineering

"A fundamental corporate reorganization based upon the processes that deliver value to customers. It typically involves re-orienting a business from a product or location viewpoint to a customer focus."

The Business Process Reengineering method (BPR) is defined by Hammer and Champy as 'the fundamental reconsideration and radical redesign of organizational processes, in order to achieve drastic improvement of current performance in cost, service and speed'.

Value creation for the customer is the leading factor for BPR and information technology often plays an important enabling role.

Five-step approach to the Business Process Reengineering model:

1. Develop the business vision and process objectives: The BPR method is driven by a business vision which implies specific business objectives such as cost reduction, time reduction, output quality improvement.

2. Identify the business processes to be redesigned: most firms use the 'High- Impact' approach which focuses on the most important processes or those that conflict most with the business vision. Lesser number of firms use the 'Exhaustive approach' that attempts to identify all the processes within an organization and then prioritize them in order of redesign urgency.

3. Understand and measure the existing processes: for avoiding the repeating of old mistakes and for providing a baseline for future improvements.

4. Identify IT levers: awareness of IT capabilities can and should influence BPR.

5. Design and build a prototype of the new process: the actual design should not be viewed as the end of the BPR process. Rather, it should be viewed as a prototype, with successive iterations. The metaphor of prototype aligns the Business Process Reengineering approach with quick delivery of results, and the involvement and satisfaction of customers.

As a 6th step of the BPR method some mention to adapt the organizational structure and governance model towards the newly designed primary process.

When should BPR be used?

Although it is difficult to give generic advice on this, some factors that can be considered are:

Is the competition outperforming the company by factors?
Are there many conflicts in the organization?
Is there an extremely high frequency of meetings?
Excessive use of non-structured communication? (memos, emails, etc)
Is a more continuous approach of incremental improvements not possible? (see: Kaizen).

When Kaizen is compared to the BPR method is it clear the Kaizen philosophy is more people-oriented, more easy to implement, requires long-term discipline.

The Business Process Reengineering approach on the other hand is harder, technology-oriented, enables radical change but requires major change management skills.

Capability Maturity Model

The Capability Maturity Model is an organizational model that describes 5 evolutionary stages (levels) in which an organization manages its processes.

Description of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM)

CMM describes 5 evolutionary stages in which an organization manages its processes. The thought behind the Capability Maturity Model, originally developed for software development, is that an organization should be able to absorb and carry its software applications. The model also provides specific steps and activities to get from one level to the next.


The 5 stages of the Capability Maturity Model are:

Initial (processes are ad-hoc, chaotic, or actually few processes are defined)
Repeatable (basic processes are established and there is a level of discipline to stick to these processes)

Defined (all processes are defined, documented, standardized and integrated into each other)
Managed (processes are measured by collecting detailed data on the processes and their quality)
Optimizing (continuous process improvement is adopted and in place by quantitative feedback and from piloting new ideas ands technologies)

The Capability Maturity Model is useful not only for software development, but also for describing evolutionary levels of organizations in general and in order to describe the level of Value Based Management that an organization has realized or wants to aim for.

Clarkson Principles

The Clarkson Principles of Stakeholder Management originate from four conferences that were hosted by the Centre for Corporate Social Performance and Ethics in the Faculty of Management [now called: the Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics & Board Effectiveness or CC(BE)] between 1993 and 1998.

In these conferences, management students gathered to share ideas on stakeholder theory, a then emerging field of study examining the relationships and responsibilities of a corporation to employees, customers, suppliers, society, and the environment.

The Clarkson Principles represent an early stage general awareness of corporate governance concerns that have been widely discussed in connection with the business scandals of 2001-2003.


Principle 1
Managers should acknowledge and actively monitor the concerns of all legitimate stakeholders, and should take their interests appropriately into account in decision-making and operations.

Principle 2
Managers should listen to and openly communicate with stakeholders about their respective concerns and contributions, and about the risks that they assume because of their involvement with the corporation.

Principle 3
Managers should adopt processes and modes of behavior that are sensitive to the concerns and capabilities of each stakeholder constituency.

Principle 4
Managers should recognize the interdependence of efforts and rewards among stakeholders, and should attempt to achieve a fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of corporate activity among them, taking into account their respective risks and vulnerabilities.

Principle 5
Managers should work cooperatively with other entities, both public and private, to insure that risks and harms arising from corporate activities are minimized and, where they cannot be avoided, appropriately compensated.

Principle 6
Managers should avoid altogether activities that might jeopardize inalienable human rights (e.g., the right to life) or give rise to risks which, if clearly understood, would be patently unacceptable to relevant stakeholders.

Principle 7
Managers should acknowledge the potential conflicts between (a) their own role as corporate stakeholders, and (b) their legal and moral responsibilities for the interests of stakeholders, and should address such conflicts through open communication, appropriate reporting and incentive systems and, where necessary, third party review.

The Clarkson Principles should be regarded as “meta-principles”, encouraging and requiring management to develop more specific stakeholder principles and then to implement those in accordance with the Principles.

Competitive Strategy Model

The Competitive Strategy Model of Porter learns that competitive strategy is about taking offensive or defensive action to create a defendable position in an industry, in order to cope successfully with competitive forces and generate a superior return on investment.

According to

Michael Porter
, the basis of above-average performance within an industry is sustainable competitive advantage.

There are 2 basics types of competitive advantage:

- Cost leadership (low cost), and
- Differentiation.

Both can be more broadly approached or narrow, which results in the third viable competitive strategy: focus.



Cost leadership

A firm sets out to become the low cost producer in its industry.
A cost leader must achieve parity or at least proximity in the bases of differentiation, even though it relies on cost leadership for it’s competitive advantage.
If more than one company aim for cost leadership, usually this is disastrous.
Often achieved by economies of scale

Differentiation

A firm seeks to be unique in it’s industry along some dimensions that are widely valued by buyers.
A differentiator cannot ignore it’s cost position. In all areas that do not affect it’s differentiation it should try to decrease cost; in the differentiation area the costs should at least be lower than the price premium it receives from the buyers.
Area’s of differentiation can be: product, distribution, sales, marketing, service, image, etc.

Focus

A firm sets out to be best in a segment or group of segments.

Focus refers to Cost focus and Differentiation focus.

Usually a recipe for below-average profitability compared to the industry
Still attractive profits are possible if and as long as the industry as a whole is very attractive
Manifestation of lack of choice
Especially risky for focusers that have been successful and then to loose their focus. They must seek for other niches rather then compromise their focus strategy.

From a Value Based Management point of view, the Competitive Strategy model helps to build a relative competitive advantage, together with Porter's Value Chain framework.

Taken together, they can be seen as one of two dimensions in maximizing corporate value creation.

The other value creation dimension is the Market/Industry Attractiveness for which another model from Porter is often used: the

Competitive Forces model

Conflict Management Resolution Transformation Strategy of Conflict By Schelling

Conflict management refers to the long-term management of intractable conflicts. It is the label for the variety of ways by which people handle grievances — standing up for what they consider to be right and against what they consider to be wrong.

Diverse Phenomena

Those ways include such diverse phenomena as gossip, ridicule, lynching, terrorism, warfare, feuding, genocide, law, mediation, and avoidance. Which forms of conflict management will be used in any given situation can be somewhat predicted and explained by the social structure — or social geometry — of the case.

Conflict Management, Conflict Resolution & Conflict Transformation

Conflict management is not the same as conflict resolution. The latter — conflict resolution — refers to resolving the dispute to the approval of one or both parties, whereas the former — conflict management — concerns an ongoing process that may never have a resolution. For example, gossip and feuds are very common methods of conflict management, but neither entails resolution. Neither is it the same as conflict transformation, which seeks to reframe the positions of the conflict parties.

Social Control

The scientific study of conflict management (also known as social control) owes its foundations to Donald Black, who typologized its elementary forms and used his strategy of pure sociology to explain several aspects of its variation. Research and theory on conflict management has been further developed by Allan Horwitz, Calvin Morill, James Tucker, Mark Cooney, M.P. Baumgartner, Roberta Senechal de la Roche, Marian Borg, Ellis Godard, Scott Phillips, and Bradley Campbell.

Father of Conflict Management

Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach and avoiding semantic discussions, we could also state that the father of conflict management is Thomas C. Schelling, an American economist and Nobel Prize winner, who authored the Strategy of Conflict in 1960. Schelling’s main goal was to lay the foundation for a theory of conflict that would include the fields of economics, psychology, sociology and the law.

Omnipresent Trait

Conflict is an omnipresent trait of human societies since it is almost impossible to find two parties with entirely overlapping interests, thus a general theory for bargaining and negotiation to address conflict is useful not only in the field of international politics or business management, but also at the personal and intimate level.

Continuous Improvement Kaizen

Kaizen (改善, Japanese for "change for the better" or "improvement"; the English translation is "continuous improvement" or "continual improvement").

In the context of this article, Kaizen refers to a workplace 'quality' strategy and is often associated with the Toyota Production System and related to various quality-control systems, including methods of W. Edwards Deming.

Kaizen Aim

Kaizen aims to eliminate waste (as defined by Joshua Isaac Walters "activities that add cost but do not add value"). It is often the case that this means "to take it apart and put back together in a better way." This is then followed by standardization of this 'better way' with others, through standardized work

Principles of Kaizen

Kaizen must operate with three principles in place: process and results (not results-only); systemic thinking (i.e. big picture, not solely the narrow view); and non-judgmental, non-blaming (because blaming is wasteful).

Kaizen Format

The format for kaizen can be individual, suggestion system, small group, or large group.
The "zen" in Kaizen emphasizes the learn-by-doing aspect of improving production. This philosophy differs from the "command-and-control" improvement programs of the mid-twentieth century.

Kaizen Methodology

Kaizen methodology includes making changes and monitoring results, then adjusting.Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.

Kaizen Cycle

The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as:

Measure the standardized operation (find cycle time and amount of in-process inventory)
Gauge measurements against requirements
Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity
Standardize the new, improved operations
Continue cycle ad infinitum.
This is also known as the Shewhart cycle, Deming cycle, or PDCA.

Core Competencies Model

The core competencies model of Hamel and Prahalad is an inside-out corporate strategy model that starts the strategy process by thinking about the core strengths of an organization.

Where the outside-in approach (such as Porter's five forces model) places the market, the competition, and the customer at the starting point of the strategy process, the core competence model does the opposite by stating that in the long run, competitiveness derives from an ability to build, at lower cost and more speedily than competitors, the core competencies that spawn unanticipated products.

The real sources of advantage are to be found in management's ability to consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

As core competence can be seen any combination of specific, inherent, integrated and applied knowledge, skills and attitudes.

In their article "The Core Competence of the Corporation" (1990) Prahalad and Gary Hamel dismiss the portfolio perspective as a viable approach to corporate strategy. In their view, the primacy of the Strategic Business Unit is now clearly an anachronism. Hamel and Prahalad carry on to argue that a corporation should be build around a core of shared competences.

Business units should use and help to further develop the core competence or core competencies. The corporate center should not be just another layer of accounting, but must add value by enunciating the strategic architecture that guides the competence acquisition process.

Three tests to identifying a core competence are:

provides potential access to a wide variety of markets,
should make a significant contribution to the perceived customer benefits of the end product(s), and
a core competence should be difficult for competitors to imitate.
Core competencies are built through a process of continuous improvement and enhancement (compare: Kaizen).

They should constitute the focus for corporate strategy.

At this level, the goal is to build world leadership in the design and development of a particular class of product functionality.

Top management can not be just another layer of accounting consolidation, but must add value by enunciating the strategic architecture that guides the competence acquisition process.
Once top management (with the help of divisional and Strategic Business Unit managers) has identified an overarching core competences or core competences, it must ask businesses to identify the projects and the people closely connected with them.

Corporate auditors should direct an audit of the location, number, and quality of the people who embody the core competence.

Core competence carriers should be brought together frequently to trade notes and ideas.

Cultural Dimensions Theory

According to Geert Hofstede, there is no such thing as a universal management method or management theory across the globe. Even the word 'management' has different origins and meanings in countries throughout the world.

Management is not a phenomenon that can be isolated from other processes taking place in society. It interacts with what happens in the family, at school, in politics, and government. It is obviously also related to religion and to beliefs about science.

The cultural dimensions model of Geert Hofstede is a framework that describes five sorts (dimensions) of differences / value perspectives between national cultures:

Power distance (the degree of inequality among people which the population of a country considers as normal)
Individualism versus collectivism (the extent to which people feel they are supposed to take care for or to be cared for by themselves, their families or organizations they belong to)
Masculinity versus femininity (the extent to which a culture is conducive to dominance, assertiveness and acquisition of things versus a culture which is more conducive to people, feelings and the quality of life)
Uncertainty avoidance (the degree to which people in a country prefer structured over unstructured situations)
Long-term versus short-term orientation (long-term: values oriented towards the future, like saving and persistence - short-term: values oriented towards the past and present, like respect for tradition and fulfilling social obligations)
To understand management in a country, one should have both knowledge and empathy with the entire local scene.

However, the scores of the unique statistical survey that Hofstede carried out should make everybody aware that people in other countries may think, feel, and act very differently from yourself, even when confronted with basic problems of society.

Any person dealing with Value Based Management or Corporate Strategy is well advised to bear the lessons from Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory constantly in mind (human beings have a tendency to think and feel and act from their own experiences), especially when working internationally.

Deming Cycle Plan Do Check Act Modern Quality Control

PDCA ("Plan-Do-Check-Act") is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in quality control. It is also known as the Deming Cycle, Shewhart cycle, Deming Wheel, or Plan-Do-Study-Act.

PDCA was made popular by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who is considered by many to be the father of modern quality control; however it was always referred to by him as the "Shewhart cycle."

Later in Deming's career, he modified PDCA to "Plan, Do, Study, Act" (PDSA) so as to better describe his recommendations.

PLAN
Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the specifications.

DO
Implement the processes.

CHECK
Monitor and evaluate the processes and results against objectives and Specifications and report the outcome.

ACT
Apply actions to the outcome for necessary improvement. This means reviewing all steps (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and modifying the process to improve it before its next implementation

Deming PDSA Cycle

The Deming Cycle, or PDSA cycle is a continuous quality improvement model consisting out of a logical sequence of four repetitive steps for continuous improvement and learning: Plan, Do, Study (Check) and Act.

Deming Cycle

PLAN: plan ahead for change. Analyze and predict the results.

DO: execute the plan, taking small steps in controlled circumstances.

STUDY: check, study the results.

ACT: take action to standardize or improve the process.

The PDCA cycle is also known as the Deming Cycle, the Deming wheel of continuous improvement spiral. Its origin can be traced back to the eminent statistics expert Mr. Walter A. Shewart, in the 1920’s.

He introduced the concept of PLAN, DO and SEE. The late Total Quality Management (TQM) guru and renowned statistician Edward W. Deming modified the SHEWART cycle as: PLAN, DO, STUDY, and ACT.

Along with the other well-known American quality guru-J.M. Juran, Deming went to Japan as part of the occupation forces of the allies after World War II. Deming taught a lot of Quality Improvement methods to the Japanese, including the usage of statistics and the PLAN, DO, STUDY, ACT cycle.

Benefits of PDCA

The concept can be used in a number of ways including for:

 daily routine management-for the individual and/or the team,
 problem-solving process,
 project management,
 continuous development,
 vendor development,
 human resources development,
 new product development, and
 process trials.

Belief in PDSA, coupled with diligent application will contribute to a successful implementation.

In her book "The Deming Management Method" Mary Watson tells about the life of the business guru the late W.Edward Deming.

The industrial miracle in Japan was a prime example of what can happen when a nation commits itself to quality and long-range vision instead of the latest illness: "Turning a Fast Buck-itis." In less then 50 years, Japan went from making rubber dog-shit, to turning out some of the highest quality precision work in the world.

When Dr. Deming first began speaking in America, America was still riding along on the post-war victory wave. No one would listen to him. The Japanese welcomed him, and even today, traces of his quality-control methods are still seen in the industrial workplace.

The Deming Cycle, or PDSA cycle is related to Kaizen thinking and Just-in-time manufacturing.

ERG Theory Clayton Alderfer Existence Relatedness Growth Needs Theory

ERG theory

Clayton Alderfer extended and simplified Maslow's Hierarchy into a shorter set of three needs: Existence, Relatedness and Growth (hence 'ERG'). Unlike Maslow, he did not see these as being a hierarchy, but being more of a continuum.
ERG theory approaches the question of "what motivates a person to act?" or "Why do we ever do anything?"

The needs are:

• Existence needs: Food, water, air, shelter, clothing, safety, physical love and affection. (physical well-being)
• Relatedness needs: To be recognized and feel secure as part of a group, a family, a culture (satisfactory relations with others)
• Growth needs: To progress toward one's ideal self. (development of competence and realization of potential)

ERG is an acronmy for "Existence, Relatedness and Growth" but it also is the root of the word enERGy. An erg is a unit of energy. Like Maslow's model, the ERG theory is hierarchical - existence needs have priority over relatedness needs, which have priority over growth. Alderfer believed that as you start satisfying higher needs, they become more intense (e.g., the power you get the more you want power), like an addiction.

Existence

At the lowest level is the need to stay alive and safe, now and in the foreseeable future. When we have satisfied existence needs, we feel safe and physically comfortable. This includes Maslow's Physiological and Safety needs. refers to our concern with basic material existence motivators. The people who express the greatest satisfaction with their work are those who demonstrate the strongest motivation. One might wonder if we are using two different words to describe the same phenomenon, that motivation and satisfaction are one and the same, but the point is hardly relevant. Either way, we can use theories of motivation to predict job satisfaction.

We hope, for instance, that our work will satisfy our Existence needs, that it will provide us a salary that buys food, clothing, transportation and other things we need to exist in our culture. It may also provide a safe environment, health insurance, retirement, and other "necessities" of modern life. If a job does not provide us those things it is not likely to be very satisfactory.

Relatedness

At the next level, once we are safe and secure, we consider our social needs. We are now interested in relationships with other people and what they think of us. When we are related, we feel a sense of identity and position within our immediate society. This encompasses Maslow's Love/belonging and Esteem needs. refers to the motivation we have for maintaining interpersonal relationships. the concept of "Scientific Management" where jobs were analyzed and broken down into their simplest components, research was done to find the most efficient way to perform each component, and workers were assigned to perform just one component task and required to do it exactly as prescribed. People became part of the machine. This led to enormous gains in productivity and thus to the age of consumer wealth that we enjoy now. When a machine part does not perform well, what do you do? Replace it. Does this make people feel Related? Hardly. I believe that the rise in unionism during the early part of this century is attributable to Scientific Management principles.

Growth

At the highest level, we seek to grow, be creative for ourselves and for our environment. When we are successfully growing, we feel a sense of wholeness, achievement and fulfilment. This covers Maslow's Self-actualization and Transcendence. Growth refers to an intrinsic desire for personal development.

We are always changing. Change for the better is growth. Every person and every institution that we encounter will have a role that it wants us to play. Since that role is probably not identical to the way we naturally are, then the difference becomes a pressure to be different. But pressure is not necessarily bad. If a person or institution tries to pressure us in a direction we WANT TO GO, then it can be an incentive for growth. On the other hand, if a person of institution tries to turn us into someone we don't like, that is not so good, perhaps worth avoiding. We has best seek employment that will continue to help us grow.

Differences from Maslow's Hierarchy:


• Unlike Maslow's hierarchy, the ERG theory allows for different levels of needs to be pursued simultaneously.

• The ERG theory allows the order of the needs be different for different people.

• The ERG theory acknowledges that if a higher level need remains unfulfilled, the person may regress to lower level needs that appear easier to satisfy. This is known as the frustration-regression principle.


Implications for Management:

If the ERG theory holds, then unlike with Maslow's theory, managers must recognize that an employee has multiple needs to satisfy simultaneously. Furthermore, if growth opportunities are not provided to employees, they may regress to relatedness needs. If the manager is able to recognize this situation, then steps can be taken to concentrate on relatedness needs until the subordinate is able to pursue growth again. Know how well your own needs in this model are met, and what would threaten or improve them. Be careful when other people do things that threaten or promise to improve them.

Extreme Programming

Extreme Programming (XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies.

Like other agile methodologies, Extreme Programming differs from traditional methodologies primarily in placing a higher value on adaptability than on predictability.

Proponents of XP regard ongoing changes to requirements as a natural, inescapable and desirable aspect of software development projects; they believe that being able to adapt to changing requirements at any point during the project life is a more realistic and better approach than attempting to define all requirements at the beginning of a project and then expending effort to control changes to the requirements.

XP prescribes a set of day-to-day practices for managers and developers; the practices are meant to embody and encourage particular values. Proponents believe that the exercise of these practices—which are traditional software engineering practices taken to so-called "extreme" levels—leads to a development process that is more responsive to customer needs ("agile") than traditional methods, while creating software of better quality

Extreme Programming Explained describes Extreme Programming as being:

An attempt to reconcile humanity and productivity
A mechanism for social change
A path to improvement
A style of development
A software development discipline

The main aim of XP is to reduce the cost of change. In traditional system development methods (like SSADM) the requirements for the system are determined at the beginning of the development project and often fixed from that point on. This means that the cost of changing the requirements at a later stage (a common feature of software engineering projects) will be high.

XP sets out to reduce the cost of change by introducing basic values, principles and practices. By applying XP, a system development project should be more flexible with respect to changes.

Extreme Programming initially recognized four values. A new value was added in the second edition of Extreme Programming Explained. The five values are:

Communication
Simplicity
Feedback
Courage
Respect (the latest value)
Building software systems requires communicating system requirements to the developers of the system. In formal software development methodologies, this task is accomplished through documentation.

Extreme Programming techniques can be viewed as methods for rapidly building and disseminating institutional knowledge among members of a development team. The goal is to give all developers a shared view of the system which matches the view held by the users of the system.

To this end, Extreme Programming favors simple designs, common metaphors, collaboration of users and programmers, frequent verbal communication, and feedback.

Functions Of The Executive Barnard Rules

Chester Irving Barnard (1886–1961) was a telecommunications executive and author of Functions of the Executive, an influential 20th century management book, in which Barnard presented a theory of organization and the functions of executives in organizations.

He looked at organizations as systems of cooperation of human activity, and was worried about the fact that they are typically rather short-lived. Firms that last more than a century are rather few, and the only organization that can claim a substantial age is the Catholic Church.

Criteria For Organization Survival

According to Barnard, this happens because organizations do not meet the two criteria necessary for survival: effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness, is defined the usual way: as being able to accomplish the explicit goals. In contrast, his notion of organizational efficiency is substantially different from the conventional use of the word. He defines efficiency of an organization as the degree to which that organization is able to satisfy the motives of the individuals. If an organization satisfies the motives of its participants, and attains its explicit goals, cooperation among them will last.

Theory of Authority & Theory of Incentives

Two of his theories are particularly interesting: the theory of authority and the theory of incentives. Both are seen in the context of a communication system that should be based in some essential rules:

Essentials Rules

Everyone should know of the channels of communication
Everyone should have access to the formal channels of communication
Lines of communication should be as short and as direct as possible
Thus, what makes a communication authoritative rests on the subordinate rather than in the boss. Thus, he takes a perspective that was very unusual at that time, close to that of Mary Parker Follett, and is not that usual even today. One might say that managers should treat workers respectfully and competently to obtain authority.

In the theory of incentives, he sees two ways of convincing subordinates to cooperate:

Tangible incentives and
Persuasion.
He gives great importance to persuasion, much more than to economic incentives.

The book is complex, not light reading. His main objective, as indicated by the title, is to discuss the functions of the executive, but not from a merely intuitive point of view, but deriving them from a conception of cooperative systems based on previous concepts.

Barnard ends by summarizing the functions of the executive (the title of the book) as being:

The establishment and maintenance of the system of communication
The securing of the essential services from individuals
The formulation of the organizational purpose and objectives

Game Theory

Game Theory , the idea to see business as a game, in the sense that a move by one player sparks of moves by others, runs through modern strategic thinking. Game theory historically dates back to the Talmud and Sun Tzu's writings.

However, its contemporary codification is credited to John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern who, in 1944, published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In the early 1950s, John Nash generalized these results and provided the basis of the modern field.

A rapid rise in theoretical developments led to the founding of the first academic journal devoted to the field by Oskar Morgenstern in 1972. Few corporations nowadays think about their strategy without adding some game theory models or game elements into their strategy process.

Game Theory can be defined as the study of how people interact and make decisions. This broad definition applies to most of the social sciences, but game theory applies mathematical models to this interaction under the assumption that each person's behavior impacts the well-being of all other participants in the game.

These models are often quite simplified abstractions of real-world interactions. While many game theorists certainly enjoy playing games, a "game" is an abstract representation of many serious situations and has a serious purpose.

A major issue with game theory is that is is necessary to make assumptions. Any model of the real world must make simplifying assumptions because the real world is too messy to analyze with any precision.

There is a constant tradeoff between realism and solvability. Even if one could write down a model that accurately describes how people make decisions in general, no amount of computers would be able to calculate it.

What assumptions are made normally?

The most common ones are:

rationality (people take whatever actions are likely to make them more happy - and they know what makes them happy), and
common knowledge (we know that everyone else is trying to make himself or herself as happy as possible, potentially at our expense).
These assumptions take many mathematical forms, from very strong (and likely unrealistic) to much weaker forms in the study of behavioral game theory.

Experimental economics examines the validity of these assumptions by seeing how real people act in controlled environments.

The most widely known example of Game Theory is probably the prisoner's dilemma: A zero-sum game cooperation game that got it's name from the following hypothetical situation: imagine two criminals arrested under the suspicion of having committed a crime together. However, the police does not have sufficient proof in order to have them convicted.

The two prisoners are isolated from each other, and the police visit each of them and offer a deal: the one who offers evidence against the other one will be freed. If none of them accepts the offer, they are in fact cooperating against the police, and both of them will get only a small punishment because of lack of proof. They both gain.

However, if one of them betrays the other one, by confessing to the police, the defector will gain more, since he is freed; the one who remained silent, on the other hand, will receive the full punishment, since he did not help the police, and there is sufficient proof.

If both betray, both will be punished, but less severely than if they had refused to talk.

The dilemma resides in the fact that each prisoner has a choice between only two options, but cannot make a good decision without knowing what the other one will do.