Strategic Innovation Newsletter
Welcome to the October 2009 edition of Strategic Innovation newsletter, a free monthly newsletter on leadership, strategy and innovation. Delivered on the first Tuesday of each month.
Back issues are archived for free downloading at www.DanielLockConsulting.com.
Tips for improving business processes
- Bureaucracy often creates excessive paperwork in the office
- Managers typically spend 40 to 50 percent of their time writing and reading job-related material; 60 percent of al clerical work is spent on checking, filing, and retrieving information, while only 40 percent is spent on important process-related tasks.
- Evaluate and minimize all delays, red tape, documentation, reviews and approvals
- Management reduces bureaucracy by starting with a directive. The directive informs management and employees that each approval signature and review active will be financially justified, that reducing total cycle time is a key business objective, and any non-value added activities will be targeted for elimination.
- A bureaucracy step should be left in only if there is a sizeable, documented savings from the activity.
The 10 cornerstone tools to streamlining
The world of business innovation and strategic planning is ever-changing and always evolving into something new and exciting. Does your business have the strategic agility to survive the world-wide recession of 2009 and onward?
“It’s an ever-changing world,” you’ve heard the statement, but has it really sunk in yet? The world of business innovation and strategic planning is ever-changing and always evolving into something new and exciting.
Does your business have the strategic agility to survive the world-wide recession of 2008 and onward? Intelligent business owners understand the importance of modifying business strategies to embrace innovative ideas and survive.
For example, businesses that once operated from U.S. based call centers found that outsourced work to overseas call centers saved a lot of money and was a sound business decision 7 to 10 years ago.
Customer service became difficult simply because of the language barrier. Unhappy customers would move to another business that hired native English speaking employees.
More recently, the same U.S. based business may have come to realize that the work outsourced overseas is better and more easily managed by employees working from their home office. Even though the businesses may pay higher wages to home-based workers than they would to overseas employees, overhead was cut dramatically.
Taking the opportunity to hire and train employees who could effectively handle customer service from their home office relieved the stress of expensive building upkeep and other bills involved with operating from a large brick-and-mortar business location.
Customer service and retention are up because more workers are native English speakers and the communication gap isn’t a hindrance to customers when they call for assistance.
Strategic skills and competent business planning worked hand in hand to save the corporate world once again.
That was just one tiny example of how successful strategic planning can see your business through even the toughest economic troubles. Businesses around the world search for the perfect employees to fit their needs.
Smart CEOs and general managers embrace the idea of hiring people who are innovative thinkers and will help implement the ideas they propose. Tactical and strategic thinkers help businesses succeed and grow, no matter the economic outlook world-wide.
What is Strategic Agility and Why is it Important?
Strategic agility is the ability to transform knowledge competency into innovative ideas; the ability to successfully reinvent businesses over and over again.
Business, like everything else in life, is ever-evolving. In order to succeed at any type of business, you must have the flexibility, strategic skills and competent business planning to change as needed.
No single marketing plan will work forever.
Take a look at some of the most well-known businesses over the last 100 years. Would the soda companies be successful today if they hadn’t changed their look and tastes over the years?
Imagine for a moment if Coke didn’t take their businesses world-wide. Their success wouldn’t be nearly as obvious as it is today.
How Change Drives Growth and Success
Business is a game you learn as you go. Not one single CEO can say they haven’t learned a lot on the road to success. Business colleges do a great job preparing you for things that may happen, but the ability to really strategize and plan ahead aren’t something you can learn in school.
Common sense, innovative ideas and great business competency create strategic agility; the ability to grow and change your business into something that will last. Change is imminent, embrace it and let it guide your business strategies.
Look to the future by learning from the past. History repeats itself and as long as we are able to recognize and learn from the mistakes of failed businesses of the past, we will continue to grow and succeed.
Don’t let short-term success blind you to the long-term effects of any business decision you make. Always be willing to change and grow!
Strategic Agility, Flexibility & Speed
These four ideals, above all else, can help ensure a successful business. Strategic agility is much more than the ability to adapt to change. You must also know how to respond to change with strategic vision and competent knowledge. You must understand when it is time to dump old business strategies and recreate new ones.
Move on from existing competencies and create your own business rules. Focus on hiring people with who are good at creating new and different winning business strategies.
Flexibility and speed often go hand-in-hand to create the ideal workplace. Most businesses only welcome new business ideas from upper management.
Why? Because those are the people who have earned their way to the top; they’ve been to top notch colleges and are well-educated. Unfortunately, sometimes education isn’t enough. Some of your best business ideas may come from employees from anywhere in the company.
Start by asking your management teams, as well as the executive team, to help by creating new and different ideas or present potential business plans.
By allowing innovation to come forward you open yourself and your business to a whole new world of legitimate new trends and potentially wildly successful business ideas.
Technique of the month: Involve your people
Innovation is all about doing something new and different, and doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money. More often it just means slaughtering some sacred cows.
Below are three quetions to ponder, from the Theory of Constraints (TOC):
- What to change?
- What to change to?
- How to cause the change?
