Balance, Alignment and Renewal: Understanding Competitive Essence
Common to every great company is the ability to create and maintain a unique combination of business attributes that enable it to outperform its rivals. This competitive essence comprises both a company’s ability to succeed in today’s markets and its positioning for the future.
Content: Article | Authors: Paul F. Nunes, Tim Breene | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, Management
Using Benchmarking Metrics to Uncover Best Practices
For companies, embracing change means seeking out and adopting best practices. Benchmarking–the research and analysis of quantitative, empirical data–is a way to isolate weaknesses and strengths and to make connections between best practices and performances. Once these connections have been made, determining which practices are appropriate for an organization to adopt becomes a competitive imperative.
Metrics expert Chris Gardner recently discussed the dynamics of benchmarking for … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Chris Gardner, Emma Skogstad | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subjects: Best Practices, Management
Swamped: Why do balanced scorecards fail?
Where Mergers Go Wrong
Most buyers routinely overvalue the synergies to be had from acquisitions. They should learn from experience.
Content: Article | Authors: Diane L. Sias, Robert S. McNish, Scott A. Christofferson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Best Practices
Sizing Up World-Class Procurement
The Rise of the High-Performance Learning Organization
Results from the Accenture Learning 2004 survey of 285 cross-industry learning executives reveal that a select group of “high-performance learning organizations” are leading the way when it comes to the impact of learning and training on overall performance.
Content: Article | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Management
Managing the IT Lifecycle
How can an organization derive maximum innovation and strategic value from its IT function? By adopting a three-stage approach that considers IT mastery as a management and organizational capability rather than a primarily technical one.
Content: Article | Authors: Gary A. Curtis, Jeanne G. Harris | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, IT / Technology / E-Business
Benchmark Against “Frugal Leaders” to Improve ROI on IT
Mapping spending plans to industry averages is one strategy to help set competitive levels, but averages are, well, average. Better yet, an examination of spending priorities of best-in-class peers can shed valuable light on spending levels and priorities.
The best comparisons are against frugal spenders that consistently achieve a high ROI from IT investments. This may or may not reveal a “silver bullet,” but it can … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Tom Pisello | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subjects: Best Practices, IT / Technology / E-Business
Supply Chain Champs
A new survey shows that consumer goods companies can streamline their operations without compromising customer service.
Content: Article | Authors: Jochen Grosspietsch, Jörn Küpper | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations
The Best and the Rest
New research shows a large and growing gap between companies in their approaches to marketing-a gap that increasingly corresponds to similar variations in their financial performance. Here’s how a handful of companies have achieved significant business impact with marketing capabilities so pioneering, and so broadly applied, that they are true pacesetters.
Content: Article | Authors: John G. Freeland, Paul F. Nunes, Stephen Dull | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, Marketing / Sales
In Search of Performance Anatomy
Performance anatomy is perhaps the most elusive characteristic of all great companies. But with its distinctive perspective on the interaction between leadership and strategy, people development, IT enablement, performance measurement and innovation, it is critical to defining a high-performance business.
Content: Article | Authors: Robert J. Thomas, Tim Breene | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, Management
Do You Have the Disciplines to Grow?
Here’s how growth companies do it.
Content: Article | Authors: Michael Treacy, Robert P. Gandossy | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Best Practices, Management
APQC Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative research
Executives wanting to know how their organization’s performance stacks up in comparison with that of their industry peers and leading-edge organizations worldwide can access a valuable new resource. A group of large corporations, government organizations and consulting firms has joined forces with the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), a Houston-based nonprofit, to form the Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative. The organization will create and promote … [ Read more ]
Content: Online Resource | Source: American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) | Subject: Best Practices
Driving High-Performance Outsourcing: Best Practices from the Masters
Companies beginning an outsourcing initiative often have more questions than answers. This article presents the results of a study by Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit, synthesizing the outsourcing best practices and ideas of hundreds of global executives from companies who have “been there, done that.” In addition to the overall results, you can see specific survey results by industry, including automotive, consumer goods and … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Sources: Accenture, The Economist | Subjects: Best Practices, Outsourcing / BPO
Charles E. Lucier and Janet D. Torsilieri
The race to change the rules of the game in an industry has two distinct legs. First, the company works toward perfection of its complex business system – learning to achieve industry-leading levels of performance, tuning its value proposition and developing a viable economic model. In our sample, the first leg required an average of 4.5 years. That was the time it took FedEx to … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy
5 “I’s” of IT Mastery
UK Department of Trade and Industry – Best Practice
Government has been at the forefront of best practice and quality management and this site published by the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) reinforces the use of best practice principles as a way of helping businesses become more efficient, competitive and profitable. Contains case studies, reports and a range of self-assessment tools, to help improve many aspects of a business from innovation, raising … [ Read more ]
Content: Online Resource | Source: UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) | Subjects: Best Practices, Management
Success Through Shared Services: From Back-Office Functions to Strategic Drivers
If you think the book has already been written on shared services, think again. With the renewed emphasis in recent years on profitability as the key corporate metric, “forgotten” functions such as finance, human resources, procurement and IT are back in the spotlight. They are not only being viewed as sources of cost efficiency, which has been the traditional focus, but also as tools for … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations
When to Walk Away From a Deal
Deal making is glamorous; due diligence is not. But if your company is beginning to look again at the growth opportunities offered by acquisitions, take heed: Your due diligence team can make or break your business.
Content: Article | Authors: Geoffrey Cullinan, Jean-Marc Le Roux, Rolf-Magnus Weddigen | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Best Practices