363 Posts Found

At the heart of best practice in purchasing is a set of skills. One of the most important is the one that enables managers to understand what determines cost.

Content: Article | Authors: Julie A. Ask, Timothy M. Laseter | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Finance

Benchmarking isn’t just about data-culture and circumstances must be taken into account when you view the results. Here are the best practices of leading practitioners and advisers.

Content: Article | Author: David Stauffer | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations

Since 1992, A.T. Kearney has performed a series of studies to explore the trends, business developments and emerging issues surrounding procurement. For 10 years, we have seen leading companies transform a transaction-based business necessity into a strategic weapon with the potential to deliver significant competitive advantage. These leaders use marketplace knowledge and supply relationships to create value via innovation, growth and cost leadership. They have … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations

Business people exercise leadership in the community as well as the commercial world, yet we know little about the magnitude, form, and significance of their engagement in this other leadership arena. In many ways it has been the invisible side of leadership. We know that community involvement is widespread: a 1993 Conference Board survey of 454 companies revealed that over 90 percent have formal volunteer … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: James E. Austin | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Best Practices, Leadership

Knowing the risks of offshore outsourcing will help you avoid shoals along the way.

Content: Article | Author: William Bierce | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, Outsourcing / BPO

This content is restricted to site members. Please log in or register

It appears that the old aphorism, “people are our most important asset,” is actually true. Compelling evidence suggests that organizational success comes more from managing people effectively than from attaining large size, operating in a high-growth industry, or becoming lean and mean through downsizing — which, after all, puts many of your most important assets on the street for the competition to employ. But while … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

What drives great companies? In an environment of unprecedented complexity, traditional explanations and prescriptions are no longer adequate. To become a high-performance business today requires an entirely new framework of understanding-and a new set of practical, solutions-oriented capabilities.

Content: Article | Author: Tim Breene | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Human-resources executives have long argued that superior people-management practices can significantly improve a company’s bottom line. But hard numbers detailing how best to motivate and reward the people on your team and in your company were tough to find.

In search of this kind of data, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a global human-capital consulting firm, explored and correlated the HR practices and financial fortunes of 750 companies … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bruce Pfau, Ira Kay | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources

Measuring and managing your company’s intangible assets can lead to a clearer view of corporate value.

Content: Article | Authors: Jon Low, Pam Cohen Kalafut | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Whatever their strategy, CEOs are convinced that grooming top leaders is absolutely key to their companies’ ability to compete. Chief Executive magazine ranks the top 20 companies for leaders.

Content: Article | Author: Leah Nathans Spiro | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Best Practices, Leadership

As markets become more global, organizations face the daunting task of coordinating goals, actions and resources in order to function as one company. The mantra, “think global, act local,” challenges organizations to be more centralized-to leverage size and scale-while simultaneously being more decentralized and able to react to local demands and markets. The need to operate globally but act locally has spawned a flurry of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

The link between corporate performance and effective information technology (IT) management is clearly emerging. Companies that are leaders in their markets and industries (“Market Leaders”) are better at using IT to enable business strategy. Market Leaders deploy IT more strategically, and in doing so maximize the impact IT has on corporate performance. [A Study Conducted by CIO Magazine, PRTM, and The InterUnity Group]

Editor’s Note: find … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: CIO Magazine, PRTM, The InterUnity Group | Subjects: Best Practices, IT / Technology / E-Business

Read about getting maximum payoff from benchmarking efforts as well as how to grab the benefits and dodge the pitfalls.

Content: Article | Author: Eric Krell | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Arthur D. Little studied six companies with excellent performance “that are – at least to the outsider – in unglamorous business sectors, relatively unknown to the consumer, and downstream in the food chain of huge and highly competitive industries such as automotive, consumer goods, and pharmaceuticals.” The companies are global leaders in their sectors, with annual sales between $1 and 4 billion. They are from … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Herman Vantrappen, Yusuke Harada | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

Transforming supply chain operations can have a substantial impact on a company’s ability to grow and prosper, new research from Accenture, INSEAD and Stanford University has found.

The three organizations undertook the multifaceted research project to understand how companies derive competitive advantage from their supply chains. The research demonstrates a correlation between the quality of a company’s supply chain and its financial performance. It also … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jeffrey D. Brooks | Sources: Accenture, INSEAD, Stanford University | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations

When white male employees at Abbott Laboratories begin complaining that all the good jobs go to women, Miles White knows his diversity drive is a success.

Content: Article | Authors: C.J. Prince, Miles White | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources

New research shows that out-performers emphasise the strategic, the external and change, whereas under-performers focus on the tactical, the internal and control.

Content: Article | Authors: Brett Savill, Miguel Rosellón, Pieter Roeloffs | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

This article is a follow-up to “The Facts About Growth,” which explored the findings of an extensive study by Bain & Company of the factors leading to consistent company value creation. While the early part of this article is repetitive of the earlier article, the latter part offers some good new insight.

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Zook, Jimmy Allen | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

America’s poshest inn reveals its secrets for satisfying the world’s toughest customers.

Content: Article | Author: Tahl Raz | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Best Practices, Customer Related