367 Posts Found

Benchmarking is very popular today — but companies benchmark the wrong thing. They benchmark what other companies do, when they should be benchmarking how those companies think.

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

There’s no longer any real argument about whether enterprise systems add value. The eye-opener now is just how far those systems can catapult companies ahead of their competitors by giving them the distinctive capabilities that drive high performance.

Content: Article | Authors: David L. Hill, Jeanne G. Harris | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, IT / Technology / E-Business

The competitive environment makes market and customer intelligence extremely critical for any company. Yet many small to medium sized companies cannot afford to regularly conduct primary market research, and while secondary research can be helpful it isn’t always on the topics the C-Suite are grappling with. What can a CEO or a company’s leadership team do to affordably keep a pulse on the market and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Laura Patterson | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Solid receivables management can result in a big payoff. Follow these seven steps to optimize accounts receivable management, reduce days sales outstanding, and create immediate and long-lasting value.

Content: Article | Author: John Salek | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, Finance

12: The Elements of Great Managing is the long-awaited sequel to the 1999 runaway bestseller First, Break All the Rules. Grounded in Gallup’s 10 million employee and manager interviews spanning 114 countries, 12 follows great managers as they harness employee engagement to turn around a failing call center, save a struggling hotel, improve patient care in a hospital, maintain production through power outages, and successfully … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: James K. Harter, Rodd Wagner | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Over the past few decades, many companies have become obsessed with benchmarking-comparing their performance with rivals on industry-wide standard metrics. But benchmarking pulls companies in exactly the wrong direction, because it leaves them looking more similar to their rivals, rather than more different.

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Emory | Subjects: Best Practices, Competition

Why has Dell been consistently successful over the past decade? Aside from the operational discipline and talented people, Dell founder Michael Dell and CEO Kevin Rollins cites their success on “years and years of DNA development that is not replicable outside the company.” In a word: culture. Culture can be the glue that holds an organization together and leverages it well into the future. Find … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Paul Meehan, Paul Rogers, Scott Tanner | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

We conducted empirical research on the way various compensation structures work for or against shareholder value creation. We looked at S&P 500 executive compensation plan data, supplemented by conversations with hundreds of executives and consultants. Against this standard, the evidence indicates that certain practices prove out favorably; some with plausible rationales have questionable value, at best, and some are clearly counter productive.

Content: Article | Author: Marc Hodak | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Best Practices, Corporate Governance

It may be 104 years old, but the company churns out cutting-edge products like a brash new startup. Here are the secrets of its success.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Arndt | Source: BusinessWeek | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation

Accenture research suggests that market leaders climb to the top of their segments by building incredibly strong bonds with their customers. They’ve done so by mastering the skills and capabilities that form the core of marketing–especially those identified as having a significant impact on loyalty-and by recognizing that responsibility for marketing is shared across the organization.

Accenture also discovered that there are five key factors that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Marianne Seiler, Susan Gurewitsch | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Marketing / Sales

Think you’re a great leader? Try doing the work of those you lead.

Content: Article | Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Great companies first build a culture of discipline…and create a business model that fits squarely in the intersection of three circles: what they can be best in the world at, a deep understanding of their economic engine, and the core values they hold with deep passion.

Content: Quotation | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

In order to discover radical innovation opportunities, a company should not only acquire the competencies of the future but also weed out those of the past. In particular, it needs to overrule so-called “best practices” with “next practices.” This is not easy when leaders have blessed best practices as knowledge jewels that shall be protected and handed down to new generations of professionals and managers. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation

We benchmarked 15 companies that had grown organically for a decade at three times the GDP. We looked at who their people were and what they did. By the end of 2004, we came up with five growth traits. The first is external focus. Then there’s imagination and creativity. And a growth leader must be especially decisive and capable of clear thinking. Inclusiveness is also … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Best Practices

Here is a blueprint for innovation and breakthrough performance improvements. This complete benchmarking toolkit provides a thorough roll-up-your-sleeves guide to identifying and adapting the best business practices, operating tactics, and winning strategies that will drive for continuous quality, productivity, cycle time, and cost improvement within your organization. Written by experts with years of successful benchmarking practice, this book addresses all aspects of best practice benchmarking … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Christopher E. Bogan, Michael J. English | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

It’s been long known that preview pane and the blocked-images feature in email clients are problematic for marketers. The majority of email readers are using both the preview pane and the default blocked-images functions to decide whether to open emails and block unwanted downloads.

Companies that do not take steps to address these findings with their email design and format will be doing a disservice to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Daniel Jung | Source: MarketingProfs | Subjects: Best Practices, Marketing / Sales

Many “best practices”, though useful for illustrative reasons, are not ultimately implemented, because they don’t come with sufficient context to be successfully applied.

Content: Quotation | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subject: Best Practices

Combining the elements of best-practice frameworks such as ITIL, ISO, and COBIT can result in integrated systems and process improvements.

Content: Article | Author: Jean-Pierre Garbani | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, IT / Technology / E-Business

It’s been every company’s quest to achieve IT and business alignment, but if executives did some true introspection, most would have to admit that there’s still a gap to close. The Corporate Executive Board, a best-practices research organization for senior executives, has conducted one of the most comprehensive research studies on the topic of alignment, and found that there are significant, ongoing gaps between … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jaime M. Capellá | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, IT / Technology / E-Business

By moving from lagging practices to leading practices, organizations can plan their budgets faster and more effectively, resulting in better business outcomes. Based on APQC’s extensive benchmarking research, learn how best practice organizations take advantage of single-instance ERP, rolling forecasts, and activity-based management to improve their performance in financial planning.

Content: Article | Author: Lisa Higgins | Source: American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) | Subjects: Best Practices, Finance