Consultant's View Articles

Consultant's View, 2012

January 2012
Why "The Cloud"?
Several companies are making a big push for "Cloud Computing". There are a number of new technologies converging into "Cloud Offerings" and the different vendors offer different mixes of those technologies. Between all this, there can be some confusion. There are several main business reasons to go to the "Cloud" but saving money on current operations is usually not one of them. These reasons are
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Evaluating Meetings
Meetings are expensive. Many people who are not authorized to spend $500 on outside vendors can call an hour long meeting of engineers that can cost over $1,000. Does anyone check to see if the meeting was worth it?
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February 2012
Measure, measure, measure?
There is a well known saying in management that you can't manage what you don't measure. American companies have deeply adopted this idea. But there are real problems with focusing on just what is measured. It is possible to be excellent in what is measured and lose one's way.
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Teams?
Business books and articles have been extolling teams quite a bit. One could see a manager taking the push for teams to mean that all he needs to do for greater effectiveness is to assign everyone to a "team". Teams work better, right? Not always. New research shows that putting people in teams might make things worse and team make up is very important.
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March 2012
Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Do you want more income? If so, find out more about what your customers really want. Business advisor after business advisor tell us to find out what our customers want. Yet, few businesses do that well. There are ways to better measure what your customers want.
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Business Models Changing
JC Penny is changing its business model. They are switching to regular pricing and hope to not have to offer constant discounts. Other companies are making deep changes to their offerings to meet new market expectations. Are your business models changing, too?
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April 2012
Is Your Business Protected?
On April 3, a tornado bounced through a Lancaster Texas truck stop, picking up trailers, spinning them hundreds of feet in the air before smashing them into the ground, and providing a strong visual of the dangers businesses face. Recently, a major processor got "hacked" costing them their "approved" status with Visa. There are a lot of ways for businesses to be destroyed. It takes a lot of work to minimize the risks of being in business.
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Silos in your Business
The only businesses that do well with silos are farmers and grain elevator companies storing grain in them. Many other businesses have internal "silos" where parts of the company do not work well with the rest of the company. A business consultant tries to make the case that companies should work to get rid of silos. His argument ignores the facts of human nature.
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May 2012
The Illusion of Stability
As human beings, we want things to be stable. We want steady progress on projects, steady delivery of services, and strong, steady corporate ownership. We want the world to be predictable.
The world is not stable and predictable.
When we operate as if the world is stable, we eventually lose.
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Who to hire in crazy times?
Corporations are known for hiring people that fit in. So, who to hire when a corporation is facing a chaotic situation? When things are crazy, you want to hire people who can handle crazy situations.
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