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The Innovator’s Toolbox: Empowering the Next Wave of Difference Makers

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:40:49 +0000

The need for innovation is gaining prominence on the executive agenda. But, just how do organizations identify the most promising ideas and translate these ideas into successful products? Learn the answer to this question by examining how leading companies empower their innovators with tools and strategies that allow them to leverage ideas and knowledge to develop a steady stream of new and profitable products. Read more....

toolbox for a difference ideas

Managing firms throughout the business cycle: The Davis Way!

maddy — Sat, 05 May 2012 11:40:02 +0000

The first decade of the 21st century has been a rollercoaster ride for economic activity. Business confidence was high at the start of the millennium. This was particularly fuelled by the growth of the internet as a means of buying and selling. A lot of companies have developed websites and there has been a rapid increase in online purchasing. during 2008/9 the rapid growth of world markets came to a halt. Many of the problems stemmed from banks lending money to risky borrowers. When some of these failed to pay back this led to a rapid loss of confidence in the banking system. Banks became reluctant to lend. The Davis Service Group provides textile maintenance services in the UK and Europe. This includes linen hire, work-wear rental, dust control mat, laundry and washroom services. The Group consists of two main operating companies each with its own directors and executive team. These two operating companies delegate responsibility and authority to profit centres throughout the Group. Providing essential services enables the company to grow when economic activity is expanding in its various markets. Read more...

Why You Should Let Employees Voice Their Opinions … in Public

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:54:20 +0000

If we don’t get the freedom of expression piece right,what happens? The mood becomes hot and cold at the same time. Hot with anger, cold with the fear and resignation that there’s nothing people can do about it. Put hot and cold together and you get lukewarm — mediocre and inept. To use a different metaphor, you get a withering of culture and performance. In the vast majority of companies, encourage a level of debate far beyond current tolerances. Employees need to see that new ideas are discussed and debated, without people getting terminated for voicing negative views. This debate will happen in your company whether you think you allow it or not. Read more.....

Energy Management at Motorola

admin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:42:51 +0000

Motorola is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, and also designs and sells wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. This case study reveals as to how under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility Motorola is committed to efficiently and effectively manage its energy. refer to entire case

Football Lessons for Managers

maddy — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:40:17 +0000

Business managers might think that the football World Cup will be best spent ordering distracted employees to close down the video links and concentrate on their work.But there s much to learn from the tournament about organizing teams and motivating individuals.

The experiences football managers collect through their careers are as intense as any a leader in the commercial world could expect to find and the lessons they learn along the way can easily be applied off the pitch. Why else would companies continue to reward managers for their own individual performance, rather than that of their team? To continue reading further Kick (click) here....

Want to Lead a Business Revolution? Study the Real Thing

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:39:59 +0000

Thomas A. Stewart is the chief marketing and knowledge officer of Booz & Company, a leading global management consulting firm. Opinions expressed in this blog are his and may not be those of the firm. Formerly the editor and managing director of Harvard Business Review, Stewart is the author of Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations and The Wealth of Knowledge; Intellectual Capital and the 21st Century Organization. Though the rhetoric’s false, you can find some truly smart ideas by taking it literally. Real revolutionaries know that you can’t just topple the old regime; you have to prevent its coming back. Noel Tichy, the University of Michigan leadership expert, worked closely with Jack Welch early in his tenure as the CEO of General Electric. Welch immediately put his stamp on three GE functions: communications, executive education (Tichy ran GE’s leadership development center, now named for Welch), and the corporate audit staff. As Tichy told me, “All good revolutionaries know that you can’t win unless you seize control of the broadcasting stations, the schools, and the police.” So what’s that mean?

The Financial Close: Optimizing Performance and Driving Financial Excellence

admin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:40:12 +0000

“Financial close” is a company’s ability to complete accounting cycles and produce financial statements for internal management and external legal reporting—and is still a key part of today’s global finance function. Do you know how to overcome the barriers to a fast, high-quality close? Discover solutions that can help you improve your close times and address the challenges of automating and testing internal controls. In the late 1990s, companies became more efficient at closing their books and reporting financial information, but compliance regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act placed additional reporting rules on organizations. The result is often a time-consuming, labor intensive effort to ensure the quality of financial data. Companies are once again focused on improving reporting times and ensuring effective internal controls to govern the accuracy of these processes. Why is it important for corporations to close their books quickly and with quality? Closing fast enables quicker access to financial information, which gives management the foundation for timely and better-informed planning and decision making. The fast close requires a quality close, where processes are monitored to ensure a foundation of trusted information for decision making. Closing fast also helps companies maintain a healthy image in the market, while companies that don’t close fast can often suffer in the eyes of shareholders, investors, regulatory agencies, and trade exchanges. In this white paper, we discuss how corporate finance centers can overcome the barriers to a fast, high-quality close. By converging previously disparate disciplines of business intelligence; governance, risk, and compliance; and enterprise performance management, companies can get trusted data into the hands of key stakeholders in a timely manner. This paper identifies solutions to help organizations improve and sustain their close times and address the challenges associated with automating and testing internal controls. Read more...

THE JOURNEY OF A CREATIVE THOUGHT LEADER

admin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:40:06 +0000

This article tracks the emergence of Helen Storey’s latest social and conceptual public project, Eye and I, which stimulates public responses to a variety of emotional expressions. Visualizing emotional and cognitive processes allows Helen to develop public art as a form that stimulates others to explore their own attitudes and emotions. Helen in interest in reconnecting experience, science and art and her practical demonstration of the connections between these fields makes her a significant thought leader as well as innovative in art she transcends the boundaries between conceptual art, science and contemporary cultural narrative. The purpose of the work is to demonstrate how the creative process is a collaborative and conceptual process and a matter of social epistemology and social construction in the making. The focus of the article is to demonstrate how creative work is part of knowledge building ( as well as knowledge reflection) and an interactive activity not one of just individual endeavour. The research shows how important context and agency are to creativity, a fact oft forgotten by government, policy-makers and business. Read more.....

Roles and functions: contribution to organisational performance

maddy — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:40:00 +0000

A Nottingham County Surveyor, Edgar Purnell Hooley, discovered tarmac by accident in the early 20th century. He found a barrel of tar had spilled onto the road at a local ironworks. This had mixed with waste slag from the furnaces. The result was a dust-free, strong surface. Hooley created and patented the product that could take the weight of the new automobile. In 1903 the Tarmacadam syndicate was formed, its name taken from the developer of the road construction system, John MacAdam. The Tarmac Group is now a large and complex company and is organised into three businesses: 1) Tarmac Quarry Materials – ready mixed concrete, asphalt, aggregates, lime, cement and contracting services 2) Tarmac Building Products – mortar, screed, masonry, packed and 3) Precast products International. This case study focuses on how the people in Tarmac Quarry Materials deliver the highest value for customers, communities, employees and investors. Read more...

General Electric and Real Time

maddy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:40:06 +0000

GE is squeezing time from the way it makes, buys and sells everything from plastic to jet engines. The cost savings are real. But going to real time will also trigger job losses and tougher management. Read more to get insight...