The role of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is crucial in any company for its success and ability to create wealth for its shareholders/owners or other measures of performance if the organization is not a publically traded corporation.
Offerings
Futuring: The Exploration of the Future – Part 2
Recall last month we defined futuring as a subset of strategic planning and it is the field of using a systematic process for thinking about and picturing possible futures and then setting the probability for each occurring. We also gave examples from 52 Trends Shaping Tomorrow’s World by Marvin Cetron and Owen Davies. If you were able to read Part 1, were you able to consider the implications of those thirteen trends for your organization?
Futuring: The Exploration of the Future – Part 1
Is it possible to know the future with certainty? The answer is no most of the time. But futurists think much more can be done than to just let “the future sneak up on you”.
Strategy, Firm Valuation, and Boards of Directors
Boards of directors should play a more direct role in helping to grow the value of their firms. This is a relatively new mandate as many boards historically have served only a high level review role during quarterly board meetings. But firms like Newell/Rubbermaid, SABMiller Beer and Whole Foods Markets are charting a new course for transparency of operations and board involvement.
Strategy and Key Manager Compensation – A Means to Grow Firm Value
I first started consulting in 1985 in the strategy subsidiary of the Hay Group, one of the leading compensation consulting firms in the world. When they performed their annual Employee Satisfaction Survey for clients, the best score any company could muster for positive satisfaction with base compensation was 50%. The global average score for positive satisfaction with base compensation was only 25%!!! What do these data suggest? Most people are not satisfied with their pay and want more money.
Globalization of Business and Northwest Louisiana
Global business initiatives can substantially help increase the value of a firm if they are done well. But evidently businesses in Northwest Louisiana are not embracing the revolution going on in global business yet.
The Strategic Planning Process: Does Your Organization Need One?
Can you predict your organization’s future with certainty? Can this prediction then enable your firm to move to that future with supremacy and advantage? When strategic planning was popularized right after World War II, it promised to do just this. We now know, though, that nothing can do this short of an organization enjoying a lasting monopoly.
Enterprise Wide Risk Management
Serious employee accidents, information technology melt down, white-collar crime (valued at billions of dollars globally), supply chain shortfalls, board governance issues, external/internal audit strife, competitive encroachment or leapfrog, patent/trade secrets leakage, changes in the White House….
The Process Revolution and Profitable Revenue Growth
What do you think is the root cause of why some firms can enjoy year after year profitable revenue growth and other cannot? My answer: blow up your functional organization structure to become a Process Driven Company. Wow – you might be saying, “what about marketing and selling? customer service? new product development? human resources? Firms like Hewlett Packard, Siemens Lighting, Danaher and others have been honing Process Driven Skills for a long time.
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The Strategy of Multiple Business Units
This article will discuss the evolving views behind why a single product business should diversify into more different kinds of businesses. As I look at our great businesses here in the Northwest Louisiana region, I notice that most are single product or a bundle of tightly related products. Perhaps this article can stimulate thought about whether or not they should consider diversifying. The payoff is high in terms of increasing firm valuation but so are the risks.
The Leadership of Strategy
One of the best CEOs I have been honored to work for was Clarke Johnson, then CEO of McGregor Sports. He told me while discussing strategy in 1990 that the hardest part of his job was to tell his people “no”. I was perplexed and asked for more insight. That insight and those of others are the topic of this article.
Market Research – a Key Component of Business Strategy
Market research is the field to better understand your current and possible new customers’ needs and wants for your current products, services and their levels of satisfaction with your current offerings. Understanding customers for innovative and radically new products and services comes from the new field of innovation, and market research does not have a good track record here. There are two major kinds of market research – primary and secondary. This article will discuss primary only.