A skeptic looks at Challenges & Choices....

Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Services has developed a process that examines the impact of business decisions on financial management. Called 'Challenges & Choices,' the two-step process translates the market and financial goals of a company into comprehensible, graphically presented materials which managers can use as basis in making wise decisions about the organization's future. When applied to a hypothetical company, the process was able to identify the effects of an increase in selling p...

Competitive edges.

Companies need to excel in all dimensions of business to be able to compete in the 1990s. This is because they have to compete with not only the best in their area, but must also contend with the best firms nationwide or even in the world market. Given such a situation, companies must effectively manage the three factors that affect cost, quality and speed, namely, inputs/resources, throughputs/activities and outputs/products and services. They must also apply judiciously the three key approa...

Interpersonal skills key to sales performance.

Successful sales continues to depend a lot on effective interpersonal skills. Results of a recent study revealed that salespeople who can adjust their selling style to the buying needs of their customers perform up to 30% better than less versatile ones. This is attributed to the fact that interpersonal versatility encourages the building of trusting relationships between salespersons and customers.

ISO 9000: is it for real?

ISO 9000, a series of standards pertaining to quality management and assurance, presents short- and long-term implications for all businesses. Within the Canadian economy, interest in ISO 9000 is growing owing to factors such as customer demand, competitive advantage, its mandatory nature and the fact that quality has become an organizational priority. Its numerous benefits include access to markets, improved efficiency, reduced costs, better management decision-making, total quality awarenes...

Making reengineering happen.

Reengineering must involve the empowerment of employees to bring in considerable gains in speed, productivity and profitability. Since the human factor is a crucial element of effective reengineering, choosing the right personnel for the team spells the difference between success and failure. Four styles of approaching tasks, producing new ideas and coming up with breakthrough solutions are presented to aid managers in identifying the right people for the reengineering team.

Multinationals favor local talent: trend opposite to past experience.

More and more executives and top-level managers are being hired by US-based multinational corporations in the countries where they operate, bucking previous trends wherein managers are imported from the US to their places of business. This can be attributed to the increase in qualified candidates in nearly every country where they do business who can compete with American managers on every aspect. This was revealed by a recent survey of human resource managers at US-based multinational enterp...

Picking a laser printer. (Computing)

Managers who are planning to purchase a laser printer must do so carefully. Some of the initial steps to be taken include finding one that matches the organization's needs and to assess the products offered in the information market, focusing on what they can contribute to the business. Several options are available for laser printers, including fonts, memory and graphics and PostScript.

Surveys reveal some executives ignore the human side of their organizations.

Managers are increasingly neglecting the human aspect of their organizations. This was gleaned from a survey on management and employee perspectives of change initiatives undertaken by international management consultants Kepner-Tregoe Inc. According to the study, managers and workers do not agree on the efficacy of change initiatives. Over 50% of the executives polled said the attitudes of their employees toward change initiatives are either 'resistant' or 'skeptical.' Less than one in four ...

Today's compensation systems: rewarding the wrong things.

Managers continue to design unproductive compensation systems as traditional methods of job evaluation remain in use. These systems take into account such factors as scoring of a job's difficulty, accountability, supervision, impact, contacts, knowledge requirements and work conditions. Few such compensation systems, however, directly consider the complexity of work. A method of looking directly at the complexity of a role, called Time Span of Discretion, is introduced and discussed.

Wiring and response for customer satisfaction.

Businesses can greatly improve customer satisfaction by using 'wiring' tools effectively. These instant communication and response devices refer to personal pagers, cellular telephones, tele facsimile terminals, electronic mail, computer network access and voicemail. Specifically, these 'wiring' tools can be used to enhance response time and quality for the customer, and not merely to offer convenience to employees.