August 23, 2006

"True faith is when you believe in a vision and are willing to follow an imperfect person and to tolerate imperfect execution and imperfect results."
Michael Saylor CEO, MicroStrategy Inc.
 
 
 

How to Guide: Seeing Your Business Through Your Customers' Eyes

The best thing about your business is your customers. You have a group of people who like what you sell, find your product or service valuable, and give you money in exchange for a bundle of benefits. Because you probably have some operating history, you can mine your company for information about why customers buy from you and what motivates them to do business with you instead of someone else. I call this seeing your business through your customers' eyes. Seeing your business through your customers' eyes is one of the best ways to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your organization.

 
By the Numbers: Strategic Planning is a Leading Management Tool
 
The past dozen years we've witnessed an explosion in the use of management tools and techniques - everything from Six Sigma to benchmarking. Keeping up with the latest and greatest, as well as deciding which tools to put to work is a key part of every leader's job. In 1993, Bain & Co., a leading management consulting company, launched a multi-year research project to get the facts about which management tools and trends are really improving bottom-line results. Over the past 12 years, Bain has assembled a database that now includes the tools and techniques of over 7,283 businesses.
 
So what is the most used tool? The Bain & Company's 2005 Management Tools survey found that out of all the tools used 79% of respondents use strategic planning. In fact, strategic planning is a longtime favorite tool, having been used by more than half of companies in every survey since Bain started this project. Not surprisingly, the most popular tools are the ones that create the highest satisfaction ratings. Respondents were most satisfied with strategic planning out of all 25 tools.
 
Want to learn more. Check out the full report here.


Quick Tips: The Wise Words of Peter Drucker
Strategy is often about seeing a clear path when there doesn't appear to be one. Peter Drucker, one of the foremost management gurus of all time, had a knack for doing just that by cutting right to heart of complicated concepts. Here is a summary of some of his best:
 
FACTS - DECISIONS
Once the facts are clear, the decisions jump out at you.
 
MARKETING QUESTIONS
Who are our CUSTOMERS? What do they NEED? Therefore, what BUSINESS are we in? 
 
EFFICIENCY - EFFECTIVENESS
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing right things.
 
OPPORTUNITY
Last year's unexpected success is next year's opportunity.
 
STRENGTH
The role of an organization is to maximize the strength of the individual and make the individual's weakness irrelevant.
 
TRENDS
Don't only watch the trends...watch the changes in the trends. Test Yourself: Thinking about planning? See if you are ready. Take our 12-question benchmark to see how you compare with others regarding your company's current state of planning and preparedness.
 
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