Management Articles

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...

Business » Management | By Josh Stone @ Thursday, 6th March 2008 @ 8:04 AM

There are many factors that come into play when you are trying to decide whether you think that your business would be best suited towards a strictly formal wear approach, or a more casual wear approach. Many businesses tend to look at their competition for some help in deciding exactly what they need in order to make the best choice, but at the same time you need to look at your own business to help really give you the best advice possible. If you are running a business that is very la... more...

Business » Management | By Dan Herman @ Thursday, 6th March 2008 @ 4:18 AM

The vast red and blue oceans of the marketing world tsunamied into our awareness and vocabulary a few years ago, when two INSEAD professors, W.Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne, claimed that competition can be rendered irrelevant. Their book, Blue Ocean Strategy, heralded the news to marketing managers and CEOs all over the world: after years and years of surviving in red bloody oceans, swarming with murderous competitors, finally there's a better alternative! In red oceans, execut... more...

Business » Management | By Dan Herman @ Tuesday, 4th March 2008 @ 11:09 AM

About 95% of what executives in competing companies do is pretty much the same all around. This is good management. If you are CEO'ing a wireless communication services provider, you strive to put up an advanced technological infrastructure with a promising future, cool end-user phones, other devices and accessories, a great service system and competitive prices. Well, this is precisely where your competitors put their efforts as well. The 5% (give or take) that you do differently constitut... more...

Business » Management | By Obinna Heche @ Tuesday, 4th March 2008 @ 10:51 AM

Every business venture, regardless of its venue or its objective begins with a basic idea, the simpler the better. Focus and expansion are much easier from the get go this way. Most importantly, this serves as the business foundation without which the business could not manage or even exist. The main idea is the root of the entire business. Where does this idea usually come from? Several sources are possible, a television show, radio broadcast, a song, a piece of literature, social issues... more...

Business » Management | By David Poulos @ Tuesday, 4th March 2008 @ 1:08 AM

In an ideal world, marketing activity would be self supporting, always pay back multi-fold what it costs to execute, and be effective in reaching every potential buyer in the appropriate sector all the time. But in the world where the sky is blue, marketing activities are driven by several factors, including perceptions of the company and the head marketer there, economic forces that drive consumer behavior of all types and factors beyond your control. As a result of these factors, marke... more...

Business » Management | By Shaun Parker @ Sunday, 2nd March 2008 @ 7:42 AM

Many people believe that management and leadership are two interchangeable entities, however they are not. Managers need development in both areas to be highly effective, but the two subjects cover very different aspects of a manager's role. Management and leadership are defined as: o Management: Is the act of directing a group of people for the purpose of coordinating and harmonizing the group towards accomplishing a goal beyond the scope of individual effort o Leadership: Th... more...

Business » Management | By Kenneth Scott @ Sunday, 2nd March 2008 @ 7:39 AM

Because each of us is unique and different, we have to find out what works best for us in our own ways. The path to this starts with the basics in our own time management. Basic time management is setting up goals and plans that are realistic and reachable. When setting goals for ourselves we should ask Is this goal reachable? Can I achieve this goal? What do I have to do to make this goal successful? Asking yourself the right questions is one basic starting block of developing a time managem... more...

Business » Management | By Obinna Heche @ Sunday, 2nd March 2008 @ 7:15 AM

No one has ever started a home business with the intention of failing, yet there are five things they can do to make sure their business has little or no chance of succeeding. While most people bent on starting their own home business are convinced they have all the right answers, they quickly find out that if they really try they can run it right into the ground. 1. Lack of management experience 2. Improper budget allocation 3. No professionalism 4. Lack of credibility 5. La... more...