Management Articles

Business » Management | By Melissa Vokoun @ Wednesday, 9th April 2008 @ 4:16 AM

From your organization's infancy to going public, your record of documentation should be complete and thorough. In the beginning you might wonder why you should document the 2 percent raise you gave your bookkeeper or why you reprimanded your sales staff for failing to answer by the third ring. The answer is that, though you might not question these decisions now, someday you will. And someday you may need to explain and justify these decisions to others. Documenting from the start is a... more...

Business » Management | By Andrew Stratton @ Friday, 4th April 2008 @ 11:11 AM

Most executives and business owners know that a successful business must be managed well. However, administrative duties such as salary management efforts keep managers from being more productive, and dedicate more time for revenue producing activities. Businesses can be relieved of the hassles and technicalities by contracting with a company that specializes in payroll management. Many business owners spend large percentage of their time administering salary related issues. Large organiz... more...

Business » Management | By Graeme Nichol @ Thursday, 27th March 2008 @ 10:16 AM

An analysis of your business reveals your company has the standard accounting package that similar industries use. You have several pieces of independent software that tie in inventory and manage your procurement process. Excel spreadsheets are e-mailed around the office and even sent to vendors and customers. As an added bonus you recently implemented a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, which should really advance sales and grow the company. Invoices are created from the sprea... more...

Business » Management | By Nick Angeli @ Thursday, 27th March 2008 @ 5:17 AM

There are two things that no business can do without in order to grow or even just survive. Without employees and customers there essentially is no business and all owners are in a constant battle to retain both. Unfortunately, many business owners do not see this need as important and make some common mistakes that cause them to lose both on a regular basis. Employee turn over is not new and will it is unlikely that any business will ever have a 100 percent retention rate. Between retire... more...

Business » Management | By Josh Stone @ Wednesday, 26th March 2008 @ 8:26 AM

For those businesses owners who are concerned about their public image, there are few things that are as useful and helpful as a good well selected uniform. Picking out the best uniform for your business can have a huge impact upon improving your image to the public. This in turn can result in more people taking your business serious, and also has the benefit of ensuring that your business has the opportunity to grow and expand while still keeping a professional image. Uniform selection... more...

Business » Management | By Jack Deal @ Wednesday, 26th March 2008 @ 2:07 AM

I recently received this e-mail: "I work for City Government and the City Council has been throwing the word "Micromanage" around in the Council meetings. Since there is an election coming up, they all seem to have their own idea of what the word "Micromanage" means (of which some are way off base). What is micromanaging and what is not?" Micromanaging has become a hot buzzword. I use it, my clients use it, and now government is beginning to use it. As stated in th... more...

Business » Management | By Tony Jacowski @ Monday, 24th March 2008 @ 1:33 PM

You may not be aware of it, but the reality is that it is top management that prepares the basic groundwork for the proposed implementations. Without the basic groundwork and top management's help, guidance, and support, it would become quite difficult for the implementation team to initiate the proposed project, let alone the possibility of making progress and completing the project within the stipulated time and costs. For a better understanding of the management's role, let ... more...

Business » Management | By Jack Deal @ Monday, 24th March 2008 @ 1:00 AM

We humans are complex beasts. We live, love, hate, befriend, stress, grieve, excite, depress, yearn and everything in between. To make matters worse, we are a potpourri; a hodgepodge buffet of everything so that the best and worst can even occur within the same psyche. We are in both an incredibly fantastic web of neurons and a real mess. Will Rogers said he never met a man he didn't like. He could have easily said the reverse. Paradox, ambiguity, confusion, uncer... more...

Business » Management | By Obinna Heche @ Thursday, 20th March 2008 @ 3:17 AM

Too many business planners end up spending time and money creating a plan that offers a detail for every little piece of their business. This is great for getting started to make sure nothing is left to chance in getting the business off the ground. For an average business, this type of detailed plan will probably grow into a 300 page book, or larger and will cover every minute detail of operating your business. When it comes time to seek funding, ask yourself who is going to read it. Man... more...

Business » Management | By Josh Stone @ Wednesday, 19th March 2008 @ 10:10 AM

For most businesses there is a set and very specific amount that you can afford to spend on uniforms. Yet this need must be carefully balanced against the actual amount of uniforms that your employees need. Because of this need, you require something that is affordable, as well as looks good and can wear well. At the same time, you have to consider that most employees will need more than a single uniform, especially if they are working full time. But by the same token, ordering too many unif... more...

Business » Management | By Dan Herman @ Saturday, 15th March 2008 @ 7:15 PM

Are you an MBA Clone? Was your business education more like "business programming"? If your answer is no, you are probably not fully aware of the fact that you have been "produced", together with many other executives, to think and act in a similar predictable manner. This phenomenon happens as many MBA programs around the world gravitate towards standard sets of concepts and tools. As a result, many executives have been turning into what I call, MBA Clones, thus un... more...

Business » Management | By Dan Herman @ Saturday, 15th March 2008 @ 7:08 PM

In our hyper-competitive markets, MBA clones pose an imminent and tangible threat to the competitiveness of the companies they work for. Many executives today attend the same MBA programs, study the same books, read the same newspapers and magazines, and go to the same conferences and workshops. Standardization in MBA programs results in a similarity in the professional approach and managerial thinking of their graduates. It also shapes the vocabulary and agenda of all the business media and tr... more...

Business » Management | By Stephen Campbell @ Saturday, 15th March 2008 @ 1:51 PM

In this technological world, there are still so many small work from home businesses which make little or even no use of the internet as part of their overall business strategies. By that it is mean that even if they do have a website - it may as well not be there as it receives little or no traffic; and in cases it may not even be indexed in any of the major search engines. Any traditional small business (whether you be a make up artist, woodworker, plumber, clockmaker or massage therapi... more...

Business » Management | By Court Tuttle @ Wednesday, 12th March 2008 @ 5:08 AM

As a manager you need to figure out what you want your people to accomplish. The best devise is a mission statement, which is a short document that tells your people, your customers and your suppliers what you are about. A mission statement makes it easier for everyone to pull together if everyone knows what the object is. With this statement you figure out where you are going and you then look at whether your organization can support this objective. If your organization does not, you ... more...

Business » Management | By Donald Mitchell @ Tuesday, 11th March 2008 @ 7:01 AM

Organizations provide many reasons why they prefer to rely on their own people. These concerns include: -The frequent rate of failure among joint ventures -The difficulty of getting a high priority for resources needed from allies -The time spent working with allies -The effort it takes to attract allies, often unsuccessfully -Disagreements with allies over future directions -Allies' slowness to respond -Inexperience in obtaining benefi... more...

Business » Management | By Donald Mitchell @ Sunday, 9th March 2008 @ 2:27 PM

"No man is an island, entire of itself." --John Donne This article emphasizes the importance of seeking new allies, adding more resources, and accepting new ideas to adapt to irresistible forces as quickly as possible, rather than staunchly maintaining your independence and thus developing poorer solutions more slowly. Conservative desires to rely on old standbys and take few chances in responding may actually be much riskier during a time of seeming crisis than trying your luck... more...

Business » Management | By Donald Mitchell @ Sunday, 9th March 2008 @ 7:27 AM

Irresistible forces have a way of arriving at what appear to be inopportune times. This timing can mean that those who normally deal with new issues are already occupied with other pressing matters, and that budgets for new initiatives are already committed. The result can be that a delay occurs in determining what response is appropriate. Having the same people deal with every important issue causes lost momentum in the same way that closing off several lanes of traffic for constructio... more...

Business » Management | By Donald Mitchell @ Sunday, 9th March 2008 @ 12:45 AM

Companies can be slow to see the cause and effect relationship between a problem and an irresistible force that is creating the problem. In a budget shortfall, people search out cost cuts rather than the causes of the budget shortfall. An excellent way to improve in this area is to change the organization's questions about what to do when problems are perceived. Instead of "How can costs be rapidly cut with little harm?", I propose these new questions. You will also find o... more...

Business » Management | By Donald Mitchell @ Friday, 7th March 2008 @ 3:16 PM

When your house is on fire, you call the fire department. You don't try to use a squirt gun to put out the flames. Similarly, businesses need enough expertise when the heat of adverse conditions threatens to destroy their enterprise. One of the most interesting circumstances of the Gulf War was the Iraqis' burning of Kuwait's oil fields as they withdrew. These oil fires were expected to burn for years and to create one of the worst environmental disasters ever. For... more...

Business » Management | By Dan Herman @ Friday, 7th March 2008 @ 1:52 AM

I have encouraging news for you: many of your competitors are afraid of strategy. You might call it strategophobia. Strategy has two terrifying characteristics. First, strategy is a choice. "We are going to go for target customers X, and not the rest," or "The major benefit we will offer consumers is Z and not all sorts of other things." It seems that when you choose, you have to give something up. There are executives who are not willing to give up on a target group of c... more...