3 Posts found for Author: Shannon Hennessy

Managers either love or hate benchmarks. Those in the former camp see benchmarks as valuable metrics for understanding the competitive landscape and for triggering important internal discussions; they believe companies should strive to meet or exceed benchmarks. Those in the latter camp argue that every company is unique and that it’s therefore unhelpful and illogical to compare one company’s decisions, structure, and head count to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Camilo Becdach, Lauren Ratner, Shannon Hennessy | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

When embarking on cost-cutting programs, many consumer companies adopt a hands-off posture toward what they consider strategic functions—those they see as core to the business—and focus instead on finding back-office efficiencies. Companies have repeatedly searched for savings in their cost centers and support functions by implementing lean techniques as well as through more transformative changes such as automation and outsourcing. The core functions, on the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Camilo Becdach, Lauren Ratner, Shannon Hennessy | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management

Everyone loves to hate on benchmarks, and I can understand where that comes from. There are people who have deep scars from watching benchmarks get misused and from trying to compare one company to another in a way that they aren’t similar.

That said, I have not seen anything be as effective as benchmarks in triggering some hard questions, such as “Why does it take 50 … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Shannon Hennessy | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Measurement