Standard Programs
The preference for most clients is to purchase standard programs, if they are available. The reason for this is that nobody wants to incur the time, expense and risk of reinventing the wheel, if it has in fact already been developed and successfully used. Clients will always prefer to buy something that is already established, particularly if the purpose of the program is to implement a business process within their organization. The risk is always much lower if the business process has already been tried and tested. We appreciate this at Appleton Greene, but standard programs still need to be specific, in terms of subject matter, industry sector and geographical location. This enables clients to ensure that their program of choice is a good fit in relation to their corporate objectives. The objective here is to provide clients with as much choice as possible.
This page features a selection of standard programs, provided by Appleton Greene Certified Learning providers (CLP), incorporating executive summaries and standard program profiles.
Customer Service
Business Process Improvement
Business process improvement is a systematic approach to help an organization optimize its underlying processes to achieve more efficient results. It is the methodology that both Process Redesign and Business Process Re-engineering are based upon. BPI has allegedly been responsible for reducing cost and cycle time by as much as 90% while improving quality by over 60%. Process improvement is an aspect of organizational development (OD) in which a series of actions are taken by a process owner to identify, analyze and improve existing business processes within an organization to meet new goals and objectives, such as increasing profits and performance, reducing costs and accelerating schedules. These actions often follow a specific methodology or strategy to increase the likelihood of successful results. Process improvement may include the restructuring of company training programs to increase their effectiveness. Process improvement is also a method to introduce process changes to improve the quality of a product or service, to better match customer and consumer needs.
Consumer Research
Consumer research is the process or set of processes that links the consumers, customers and end users to the marketer through information – information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications.
Customer Research
Consumer research is the process or set of processes that links the consumers, customers and end users to the marketer through information – information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications.
Customer Retention
Successful customer retention starts with the first contact an organization has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship. A company’s ability to attract and retain new customers, is not only related to its product or services, but strongly related to the way it services its existing customers and the reputation it creates within and across the marketplace. Customer retention is more than giving the customer what they expect, it’s about exceeding their expectations so that they become loyal advocates for your brand. Creating customer loyalty puts customer value rather than maximizing profits and shareholder value at the center of business strategy. The key differentiation in a competitive environment is often the delivery of a consistently high standard of customer service.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals. It is seen as a key performance indicator within business and is often part of a Balanced Scorecard. In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy. Within organizations, customer satisfaction ratings can have powerful effects. They focus employees on the importance of fulfilling customers’ expectations. Furthermore, when these ratings dip, they warn of problems that can affect sales and profitability. These metrics quantify an important dynamic. When a brand has loyal customers, it gains positive word-of-mouth marketing, which is both free and highly effective.
Customer Support
Customer support is a range of customer services used to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Regarding technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support.
Service Improvement
The science of service improvement is a mix of disciplines, which aims to build a culture that is supportive of improvement and uses principles and thinking from psychology and organizational development. The objective is to combine the tools and techniques of quality improvement with effective organizational and leadership development. It draws on a breadth of knowledge and research including technical engineering theories of systems, theories about human relationships and social interactions and complexity theory. There are also the theories that support organizational development, design and adult learning.
Service Optimization
An organization that has as one of its goals “to be the most profitable company in our industry” will have Key Performance Indicators that measure profit and related fiscal measures. “Pretax Profit” and “Shareholder Equity” will be among them. However, “Percent of Profit Contributed to Community Causes” probably will not be one of its Key Performance Indicators. On the other hand, a school is not concerned with making a profit, so its Key Performance Indicators will be different. KPIs like “Graduation Rate” and “Success In Finding Employment After Graduation”, though different, accurately reflect the schools mission and goals.
Value Management
In management, business value is an informal term that includes all forms of value that determine the health and well-being of the firm in the long run. Business value expands concept of value of the firm beyond economic value (also known as economic profit, economic value added, and shareholder value) to include other forms of value such as employee value, customer value, supplier value, channel partner value, alliance partner value, managerial value, and societal value. Many of these forms of value are not directly measured in monetary terms. Business value often embraces intangible assets not necessarily attributable to any stakeholder group. Examples include intellectual capital and a firm’s business model. The balanced scorecard methodology is one of the most popular methods for measuring and managing business value.
E-Business
e-Business Development
E-business, is the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Electronic commerce focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesses. Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers. The internet is a public through way. Firms use more private and hence more secure networks for more effective and efficient management of their internal functions. In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. While e-business refers to more strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities, e-commerce is a subset of an overall e-business strategy. E-commerce seeks to add revenue streams using the World Wide Web or the Internet to build and enhance relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty Vessel strategy. Often, e-commerce involves the application of knowledge management systems.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing in general can be portrayed as a synonym for distributed computing over a network, with the ability to run a program or application on many connected computers at the same time. It specifically refers to a computing hardware machine or group of computing hardware machines commonly referred as a server connected through a communication network such as the Internet, an intranet, a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) and individual users or user who have permission to access the server can use the server’s processing power for their individual computing needs like to run an application, store data or any other computing need. Therefore, instead of using a personal computer every-time to run the application, the individual can now run the application from anywhere in the world, as the server provides the processing power to the application and the server is also connected to a network via internet or other connection platforms to be accessed from anywhere. In common usage, the term “the cloud” is essentially a metaphor for the Internet. Marketers have further popularized the phrase “in the cloud” to refer to software, platforms and infrastructure that are sold “as a service”, i.e. remotely through the Internet. Typically, the seller has actual energy-consuming servers which host products and services from a remote location, so end-users don’t have to; they can simply log on to the network without installing anything. The major models of cloud computing service are known as software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. These cloud services may be offered in a public, private or hybrid network. Google, Amazon, IBM, Oracle Cloud, Rackspace, Salesforce, Zoho and Microsoft Azure are some well-known cloud vendors. Network-based services, which appear to be provided by real server hardware and are in fact served up by virtual hardware simulated by software running on one or more real machines, are often called cloud computing. Such virtual servers do not physically exist and can therefore be moved around and scaled up or down on the fly without affecting the end user, somewhat like a cloud becoming larger or smaller without being a physical object.
e-Business Strategy
e-Business strategy is not just for Internet Businesses. An e-business strategy is essential to any organization conducting business over the Internet. It defines both your short-term and long-term e-business goals and involves careful and skilled planning. E-Business strategy is part of your corporate strategy and business plan, and also interconnects with other plans including your marketing, organizational and IT strategic plans. E-Business is multidisciplinary, and therefore involves collaboration among stakeholders and experts from all relevant departments in an organization. Depending on the resources and know-how available within an organization, additional input may be required from outside experts and consultants. In some organizations, they have a separate e-business department and in others they realize that the ‘e’ in e-business is simply part of every departments role. However, there has to be an owner or a manager of the strategic plan, and it’s critical that they have some strategic and managerial insight of all those disciplines.
e-Commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as E-commerce, is a type of industry where the buying and selling of products or services is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction’s life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices, social media, and telephones as well. Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions. This is an effective and efficient way of communicating within an organization and one of the most effective and useful ways of conducting business. It is a Market entry strategy where the company may or may not have a physical presence.
e-Payment Process
e-Payment is a subset of an e-commerce transaction to include electronic payment for buying and selling goods or services offered through the Internet. Generally we think of electronic payments as referring to online transactions on the internet, there are actually many forms of electronic payments. As technology developing, the range of devices and processes to transact electronically continues to increase while the percentage of cash and check transactions continues to decrease. The Internet has the potential to become the most active trade intermediary within a decade. Also, Internet shopping may revolutionize retailing by allowing consumers to sit in their homes and buy an enormous variety of products and services from all over the worlds. Many businesses and consumers are still wary of conducting extensive business electronically. However, almost everyone will use the form of E Commerce in near future.
E-Process Improvement
e-Business is the term used to describe the information systems and applications that support and drive business processes, most often using web technologies. e-Business allows companies to link their internal and external processes more efficiently and effectively, and work more closely with suppliers and partners to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers, leading to improvements in overall business performance. While a website is one of the most common implementations, e-Business is much more than just a web presence. There are a vast array of internet technologies all designed to help businesses work smarter not harder. Think about collaboration tools, mobile and wireless technology, Customer Relationship Management and social media to name a few.
E-Training
E-learning is the use of electronic media and information and communication technologies (ICT) in education. E-learning is broadly inclusive of all forms of educational technology in learning and teaching. E-learning is inclusive of, and is broadly synonymous with multimedia learning, technology-enhanced learning (TEL), computer-based instruction (CBI), computer-based training (CBT), computer-assisted instruction or computer-aided instruction (CAI), internet-based training (IBT), web-based training (WBT), online education, virtual education, virtual learning environments (VLE) (which are also called learning platforms), m-learning, and digital educational collaboration. These alternative names emphasize a particular aspect, component or delivery method. E-learning includes numerous types of media that deliver text, audio, images, animation, and streaming video, and includes technology applications and processes such as audio or video tape, satellite TV, CD-ROM, and computer-based learning, as well as local intranet/extranet and web-based learning. Information and communication systems, whether free-standing or based on either local networks or the Internet in networked learning, underlying many e-learning processes.
Internet Marketing
Online advertising, also called Internet advertising, uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. Like other advertising media, online advertising frequently involves both a publisher, who integrates advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be displayed on the publisher’s content. Other potential participants include advertising agencies who help generate and place the ad copy, an ad server who technologically delivers the ad and tracks statistics, and advertising affiliates who do independent promotional work for the advertiser. Online advertising is a large business and is growing rapidly.
Internet Strategy
The process by which a business adopts a web-based approach to marketing and engaging its customers through a proprietary web site. Includes tactical web-based applications for increasing its competitive advantage, improving customer and employee communications, and increasing marketing efficiencies.
Web Analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of web data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. Web analytics is not just a tool for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for business and market research, and to assess and improve the effectiveness of a web site. Web analytics applications can also help companies measure the results of traditional print or broadcast advertising campaigns. It helps one to estimate how traffic to a website changes after the launch of a new advertising campaign. Web analytics provides information about the number of visitors to a website and the number of page views. It helps gauge traffic and popularity trends which is useful for market research. There are two categories of web analytics; off-site and on-site web analytics. Off-site web analytics refers to web measurement and analysis regardless of whether you own or maintain a website. It includes the measurement of a website’s potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and buzz (comments) that is happening on the Internet as a whole. On-site web analytics measure a visitor’s behavior once on your website. This includes its drivers and conversions; for example, the degree to which different landing pages are associated with online purchases. On-site web analytics measures the performance of your website in a commercial context. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign’s audience response. Google Analytics is the most widely used on-site web analytics service; although new tools are emerging that provide additional layers of information, including heat maps and session replay.
Finance
Accounts Management
Management accounting or managerial accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control functions. Management accounting is a profession that involves partnering in management decision making, devising planning and performance management systems, and providing expertise in financial reporting and control to assist management in the formulation and implementation of an organization’s strategy.
Business Forecasting
A financial forecast is an estimate of future financial outcomes for a company or country (for futures and currency markets). Using historical internal accounting and sales data, in addition to external market and economic indicators, a financial forecast is an economist’s best guess of what will happen to a company in financial terms over a given time period – which is usually one year. Arguably, the most difficult aspect of preparing a financial forecast is predicting revenue. Future costs can be estimated by using historical accounting data; variable costs are also a function of sales. Unlike a financial plan or a budget a financial forecast doesn’t have to be used as a planning document. Outside analysts can use a financial forecast to estimate a company’s success in the coming year.
Cash Flow
Cash flow is the movement of money into or out of a business, project, or financial product. It is usually measured during a specified, limited period of time. Measurement of cash flow can be used for calculating other parameters that give information on a company’s value and situation. Cash flow can be used, for example, for calculating parameters: it discloses cash movements over the period. It is used to determine a project’s rate of return or value. The time of cash flows into and out of projects are used as inputs in financial models such as internal rate of return and net present value. It is used to determine problems with a business’s liquidity. Being profitable does not necessarily mean being liquid. A company can fail because of a shortage of cash even while profitable. It is used as an alternative measure of a business’s profits when it is believed that accrual accounting concepts do not represent economic realities. For instance, a company may be notionally profitable but generating little operational cash (as may be the case for a company that barters its products rather than selling for cash). In such a case, the company may be deriving additional operating cash by issuing shares or raising additional debt finance. Cash flow can be used to evaluate the ‘quality’ of income generated by accrual accounting. When net income is composed of large non-cash items it is considered low quality. It is also used to evaluate the risks within a financial product, e.g., matching cash requirements, evaluating default risk, re-investment requirements, etc. Cash flow notion is based loosely on cash flow statement accounting standards. It’s flexible as it can refer to time intervals spanning over past-future. It can refer to the total of all flows involved or a subset of those flows. Subset terms include net cash flow, operating cash flow and free cash flow.
Electronic Payments
The payment system is an operational network – governed by laws, rules and standards – that links bank accounts and provides the functionality for monetary exchange using bank deposits. The payment system is the infrastructure (consisting of institutions, instruments, rules, procedures, standards, and technical means) established to effect the transfer of monetary value between parties discharging mutual obligations. Its technical efficiency determines the efficiency with which transaction money is used in the economy, and risk associated with its use. What makes it a “system” is that it employs cash-substitutes; traditional payment systems are negotiable instruments such as drafts (e.g., checks) and documentary credits such as letter of credits. With the advent of computers and electronic communications a large number of alternative electronic payment systems have emerged. These include debit cards, credit cards, electronic funds transfers, direct credits, direct debits, internet banking and e-commerce payment systems. Some payment systems include credit mechanisms, but that is essentially a different aspect of payment. Payment systems are used in lieu of tendering cash in domestic and international transactions and consist of a major service provided by banks and other financial institutions.
Finance Strategy
Strategic financial management refers to study of finance with a long term view considering the strategic goals of the enterprise. Financial management is nowadays increasingly referred to as “Strategic Financial Management” so as to give it an increased frame of reference. The objective of the Financial Management is the maximization of shareholders wealth. To satisfy this objective a company requires a “long term course of action” and this is where strategy fits in.
Financial Control
Financial control, as defined in accounting and auditing, is a process for assuring achievement of an organization’s objectives in operational effectiveness and efficiency, reliable financial reporting, and compliance with laws, regulations and policies. A broad concept, internal control involves everything that controls risks to an organization. It is a means by which an organization’s resources are directed, monitored, and measured. It plays an important role in detecting and preventing fraud and protecting the organization’s resources, both physical (e.g., machinery and property) and intangible (e.g., reputation or intellectual property such as trademarks). At the organizational level, internal control objectives relate to the reliability of financial reporting, timely feedback on the achievement of operational or strategic goals, and compliance with laws and regulations. At the specific transaction level, internal control refers to the actions taken to achieve a specific objective (e.g., how to ensure the organization’s payments to third parties are for valid services rendered.) Internal control procedures reduce process variation, leading to more predictable outcomes.
Financial Transformation
A process whereby a financial institution capitalizes on mismatches between the two sides of its balance sheet (assets and liabilities). Financial intermediaries conduct several types of financial transformation: size transformation; maturity transformation; credit transformation; liquidity transformation; and risk transformation. Sometimes, the term “financial transformation” is interchangeably used with leverage (e.g., corporate financial transformation or corporate leverage and personal financial transformation or homemade leverage).
Investment Management
Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities (shares, bonds and other securities) and other assets (e.g., real estate) in order to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of the investors. Investors may be institutions (insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments etc.) or private investors (both directly via investment contracts and more commonly via collective investment schemes e.g. mutual funds or exchange-traded funds). The term asset management is often used to refer to the investment management of collective investments, while the more generic fund management may refer to all forms of institutional investment as well as investment management for private investors. Investment managers who specialize in advisory or discretionary management on behalf of (normally wealthy) private investors may often refer to their services as money management or portfolio management often within the context of so-called “private banking”. The provision of investment management services includes elements of financial statement analysis, asset selection, stock selection, plan implementation and ongoing monitoring of investments. Coming under the remit of financial services many of the world’s largest companies are at least in part investment managers and employ millions of staff.
Risk Management
Financial risk management is the practice of economic value in a firm by using financial instruments to manage exposure to risk, particularly credit risk and market risk. Other types include Foreign exchange, Shape, Volatility, Sector, Liquidity, Inflation risks, etc. Similar to general risk management, financial risk management requires identifying its sources, measuring it, and plans to address them. Financial risk management can be qualitative and quantitative. As a specialization of risk management, financial risk management focuses on when and how to hedge using financial instruments to manage costly exposures to risk.
Globalization
Global Analytics
Analytics is the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data. Especially valuable in areas rich with recorded information, analytics relies on the simultaneous application of statistics, computer programming and operations research to quantify performance. Analytics often favors data visualization to communicate insight. Firms may commonly apply analytics to business data, to describe, predict, and improve business performance. Specifically, arenas within analytics include enterprise decision management, retail analytics, store assortment and stock-keeping unit optimization, marketing optimization and marketing mix modeling, web analytics, sales force sizing and optimization, price and promotion modeling, predictive science, credit risk analysis, and fraud analytics. Since analytics can require extensive computation, the algorithms and software used for analytics harness the most current methods in computer science, statistics, and mathematics.
Global Localization
Glocalization (a portmanteau of globalization and localization) is a term denoting the adaptation of a product or service specifically to each locality or culture in which it is sold. It is similar to internationalization. The term “glocalization” is a neologism of globalization and localization, referring to a concept to describe individual, group, organization, product or service that reflects not only global standard but also local one.
Global Partnering
In a global strategic partnership, two or more firms from different countries work as a team. They pool their resources or skills to provide better products or services. Furthermore, they reach a broader audience through collaboration. Firms engage in global strategic partnerships because they believe the partnership will lead to synergy, which means increased economic benefits. As the globalization of economies, societies, and cultures continues, and nations become more integrated through networks of exchange, international business development and global strategic management continues to evolve. Global firms that employ business development professionals in multiple locations who share exactly the same body of knowledge, ethics, practices, and standards benefit from a shared body of knowledge and ethics. These companies are well positioned for growth, as are the societies in which they operate.
Global Strategy
Global strategy as defined in business terms is an organization’s strategic guide to globalization. A sound global strategy should address these questions: what must be (versus what is) the extent of market presence in the world’s major markets? How to build the necessary global presence? What must be and (versus what is) the optimal locations around the world for the various value chain activities? How to run global presence into global competitive advantage? A global strategy may be appropriate in industries where firms are faced with strong pressures for cost reduction but with weak pressures for local responsiveness. Therefore, it allows these firms to sell a standardized product worldwide. However, fixed costs (capital equipment) are substantial. Nevertheless, these firms are able to take advantage of scale economies and experience curve effects, because it is able to mass-produce a standard product which can be exported (providing that demand is greater than the costs involved). Global strategies require firms to tightly coordinate their product and pricing strategies across international markets and locations, and therefore firms that pursue a global strategy are typically highly centralized.
Information Management
Information management (IM) is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the planning, structure and organization, controlling, processing, evaluating and reporting of information activities in order to meet client objectives and to enable corporate functions in the delivery of information. In short, information management entails organizing, retrieving, acquiring, securing and maintaining information. It is closely related to and overlapping with the practice of data management.
International Business Development
International business development evolves through the normal processes of trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the advancement of technology in undeveloped nations. In order to achieve sustainable global business development, business professionals often must find ways of adapting to the cultures and societies within which they operate and conduct business. With huge growth opportunities created by the emerging middle class of nations such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRIC countries), many companies in the developed world are stepping in to provide goods and services to those countries’ consumers, and business development professionals provide the necessary legal, financial, and cultural bridges between supplier and consumer.
Outsourcing Strategy
In business, outsourcing is the contracting out of a business process to a third-party. Outsourcing sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another, but not always. Outsourcing is also used to describe the practice of handing over control of public services to for-profit corporations. Outsourcing includes both foreign and domestic contracting, and sometimes includes off-shoring or relocating a business function to another country. Financial savings from lower international labor rates is a big motivation for outsourcing/off-shoring. The opposite of outsourcing is called in-sourcing, which entails bringing processes handled by third-party firms in-house, and is sometimes accomplished via vertical integration. However, a business can provide a contract service to another business without necessarily in-sourcing that business process.
Human Resources
Change Management
Change management is an approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a desired future state. In a project management context, change management may refer to a project management process wherein changes to the scope of a project are formally introduced and approved. Change management processes should include creative marketing to enable communication between changing audiences, as well as deep social understanding about leadership’s styles and group dynamics. As a visible track on transformation projects, Organizational Change Management aligns groups’ expectations, communicates, integrates teams and manages people training. It makes use of performance metrics, such as financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change to design appropriate strategies, in order to avoid change failures or resolve troubled change projects.
Human Capital
Human capital is the stock of competencies, knowledge, habits, social and personality attributes, including creativity, cognitive abilities, embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value. It is an aggregate economic view of the human being acting within economies, which is an attempt to capture the social, biological, cultural and psychological complexity as they interact in explicit and/or economic transactions. Many theories explicitly connect investment in human capital development to education, and the role of human capital in economic development, productivity growth, and innovation has frequently been cited as a justification for government subsidies for education and job skills training.
Human Resource Planning
Human resources planning is a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals. Human resources planning should serve as a link between human resources management and the overall strategic plan of an organization. Aging worker populations in most western countries and growing demands for qualified workers in developing economies have underscored the importance of effective Human Resources Planning. It is the process for ensuring that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying those requirements. Workforce planning is a process in which an organization attempts to estimate the demand for labor and evaluate the size, nature and sources of supply which will be required to meet the demand. Human resource planning includes creating an employer brand, retention strategy, absence management strategy, flexibility strategy, talent management strategy, recruitment and selection strategy.
Induction Management
An induction program is the process used within many businesses to welcome new employees to the company and prepare them for their new role. Induction training should include development of theoretical and practical skills, but also meet interaction needs that exist among the new employees. An Induction Program can also include the safety training delivered to contractors before they are permitted to enter a site or begin their work. It is usually focused on the particular safety issues of an organization but will often include much of the general company information delivered to employees. An induction program is an important process for bringing staff into an organization. It provides an introduction to the working environment and the set-up of the employee within the organization. The process will cover the employer and employee rights and the terms and conditions of employment. As a priority the induction program must cover any legal and compliance requirements for working at the company and pay attention to the health and safety of the new employee. An induction program is part of an organizations knowledge management process and is intended to enable the new starter to become a useful, integrated member of the team, rather than being “thrown in at the deep end” without understanding how to do their job, or how their role fits in with the rest of the company. Good induction program can increase productivity and reduce short-term turnover of staff. These programs can also play a critical role under the socialization to the organization in terms of performance, attitudes and organizational commitment.
Innovation
Innovation is the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society. A definition consistent with these aspects would be the following: “An innovation is something original, new, and important in whatever field that breaks in to a market or society”. While something novel is often described as an innovation, in economics, management science, and other fields of practice and analysis it is generally considered a process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they have an impact on society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better.
Motivational Leadership
Motivational Leadership is an art form where a leader implements a model and strategy for influencing people to follow them. They are interested in building a safe and trusting environment, as well as ensuring the company is positioned to be successful in the marketplace. Motivational leadership’s core principles explain that the leader must first have in place strong ethics, clear vision, definable values, authentic communication, and be genuinely motivated to promote collaboration and positive energy throughout the company. Motivational Leadership is important in our world today because it helps to get the most from society. Every team of people or workers needs a leader. Leaders help to organize a project in order to get it completed in the most efficient manner. Leaders have incentives to motivate employees because they help cut costs by working quicker in a positive environment. Additionally, employees will increase quality because they are happy with the leadership and in turn, society will be happy because they will be receiving quality products.
Performance Management
Performance management (PM) includes activities which ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product of service, as well as many other areas. PM is also known as a process by which organizations align their resources, systems and employees to strategic objectives and priorities. Performance management features a process for managing both behavior and results, two critical elements of what is known as performance.
Recruitment Strategy
Recruitment strategy refers to the process of attracting suitable candidates to apply for a vacancy arising within an organization. When an organization needs individuals with certain skill sets, it taps the market. It may require individuals to join the organization to supplement the existing skill or complement the existing skills. In both the cases after careful job analysis and manpower planning an organization develops a candidate profile. This comprises the technical skills sort and the attitude. Depending upon the status of the job market an organization deploys its sources of recruitment(Company website, search agencies, head hunters, campus placement, newspaper advertisement and others). The primary function of these sources is to identify the right kind of people for the vacancy and motivate them to apply to the organization. Recruitment is followed by selection. They are related but not the same though the term recruitment has a blanket usage for attracting, selecting and bringing people on board, which is practically wrong. The stages of the recruitment process include: job analysis and developing some person specification; the sourcing of candidates by networking, advertising, and other search methods; matching candidates to job requirements and screening individual’s candidature. Depending on the size and practices of the organization, recruitment may be undertaken in-house by managers, human resource generalists and/or recruitment specialists. Alternatively, parts of the process may be undertaken by either public-sector employment agencies, commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies.
Relationship Management
A strategy employed by an organization in which a continuous level of engagement is maintained between the organization and its audience. Relationship management can be between a business and its customers (customer relationship management) and between a business and other businesses (business relationship management).
Sustainable Leadership
Sustainable leadership’ recognizes the complex interdependency between individuals, business, markets and society and the ecosystem, with the aspiration that the organization creates prosperity and social value as well as long term commercial success, while protecting the environment in which we are all participants. Sustainable leadership requires leaders to focus on four critical relationships. Intro-personal: attending to own psychological and physical health, in particular the ability to learn from experience, a sense of personal purpose, and care for own physical well being and vitality. Organization: attending to the conversations going on in the organization and how these influence cultural norms, the achievement of business goals and the customer experience. Society: taking account of the fact that we are not somehow separate from the society in which we live and do business, we are all participants in creating this society; aiming to create social value and prosperity not only for ethical reasons, but because business needs a healthy society in which to operate. Environment: protecting the environment and minimizing the environmental impact of the organization.
Information Technology
Business Analytics
Business analytics (BA) refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. Business analytics focuses on developing new insights and understanding of business performance based on data and statistical methods. In contrast, business intelligence traditionally focuses on using a consistent set of metrics to both measure past performance and guide business planning, which is also based on data and statistical methods. Business analytics makes extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive modeling, and fact-based management to drive decision making. It is therefore closely related to management science. Analytics may be used as input for human decisions or may drive fully automated decisions. Business intelligence is querying, reporting, OLAP, and “alerts.”
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing in general can be portrayed as a synonym for distributed computing over a network, with the ability to run a program or application on many connected computers at the same time. It specifically refers to a computing hardware machine or group of computing hardware machines commonly referred as a server connected through a communication network such as the Internet, an intranet, a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) and individual users or user who have permission to access the server can use the server’s processing power for their individual computing needs like to run an application, store data or any other computing need. Therefore, instead of using a personal computer every-time to run the application, the individual can now run the application from anywhere in the world, as the server provides the processing power to the application and the server is also connected to a network via internet or other connection platforms to be accessed from anywhere. In common usage, the term “the cloud” is essentially a metaphor for the Internet. Marketers have further popularized the phrase “in the cloud” to refer to software, platforms and infrastructure that are sold “as a service”, i.e. remotely through the Internet. Typically, the seller has actual energy-consuming servers which host products and services from a remote location, so end-users don’t have to; they can simply log on to the network without installing anything. The major models of cloud computing service are known as software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. These cloud services may be offered in a public, private or hybrid network. Google, Amazon, IBM, Oracle Cloud, Rackspace, Salesforce, Zoho and Microsoft Azure are some well-known cloud vendors. Network-based services, which appear to be provided by real server hardware and are in fact served up by virtual hardware simulated by software running on one or more real machines, are often called cloud computing. Such virtual servers do not physically exist and can therefore be moved around and scaled up or down on the fly without affecting the end user, somewhat like a cloud becoming larger or smaller without being a physical object.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) can be defined as the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior. Studies have shown that people with high EI have greater mental health, exemplary job performance, and more potent leadership skills, markers of EI and methods of developing it have become more widely coveted in the past few decades.
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architecture (EA) is a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning, and implementation, using a holistic approach at all times, for the successful development and execution of strategy. Enterprise Architecture applies architecture principles and practices to guide organizations through the business, information, process, and technology changes necessary to execute their strategies. These practices utilize the various aspects of an enterprise to identify, motivate, and achieve these changes. Practitioners of EA call themselves enterprise architects. An enterprise architect is a person responsible for performing this complex analysis of business structure and processes and is often called upon to draw conclusions from the information collected. By producing this understanding, architects are attempting to address the goals of Enterprise Architecture: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Agility, and Durability.
Information Management
Information management (IM) is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information. Management means the organization of and control over the planning, structure and organization, controlling, processing, evaluating and reporting of information activities in order to meet client objectives and to enable corporate functions in the delivery of information. In short, information management entails organizing, retrieving, acquiring, securing and maintaining information. It is closely related to and overlapping with the practice of data management.
Instructional Design
Instructional Design (also called Instructional Systems Design (ISD)) is the practice of creating “instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing.” The process consists broadly of determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some “intervention” to assist in the transition. Ideally the process is informed by pedagogically (process of teaching) tested theories of learning and may take place in student-only, teacher-led or community-based settings. The outcome of this instruction may be directly observable and scientifically measured or completely hidden and assumed. There are many instructional design models but many are based on the ADDIE model with the five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. As a field, instructional design is historically and traditionally rooted in cognitive and behavioral psychology, though recently Constructivism (learning theory) has influenced thinking in the field.
Project Management
Project management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems. A project is a temporary endeavour designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honouring the preconceived constraints. The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget. The secondary – and more ambitious – challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and integrate them to meet predefined objectives.
Technology Adoption
The technology adoption life-cycle is a sociological model that is an extension of an earlier model called the diffusion process and which was originally published only for its application to agriculture and home economics. The technology adoption life-cycle model describes the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation, according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups. The process of adoption over time is typically illustrated as a classical normal distribution or “bell curve.” The model indicates that the first group of people to use a new product are called “innovators,” followed by “early adopters.” Next come the early and late majority, and the last group to eventually adopt a product are called “laggards”.
Technology Management
Technology management is set of management disciplines that allows organizations to manage their technological fundamentals to create competitive advantage. Typical concepts used in technology management are technology strategy (a logic or role of technology in organization), technology forecasting (identification of possible relevant technologies for the organization, possibly through technology scouting), technology road map (mapping technologies to business and market needs), technology project portfolio ( a set of projects under development) and technology portfolio (a set of technologies in use). The role of the technology management function in an organization is to understand the value of certain technology for the organization. Continuous development of technology is valuable as long as there is a value for the customer and therefore the technology management function in an organization should be able to argue when to invest on technology development and when to withdraw. Technology management can also be defined as the integrated planning, design, optimization, operation and control of technological products, processes and services, a better definition would be the management of the use of technology for human advantage.
Technology Strategy
Technology strategy (Information Technology strategy or IT strategy) is the overall plan which consists of objective(s), principles and tactics relating to use of the technologies within a particular organization. Such strategies primarily focus on the technologies themselves and in some cases the people who directly manage those technologies. The strategy can be implied from the organization’s behaviors towards technology decisions, and may be written down in a document. Other generations of technology-related strategies primarily focus on: the efficiency of the company’s spending on technology; how people, for example the organization’s customers and employees, exploit technologies in ways that create value for the organization; on the full integration of technology-related decisions with the company’s strategies and operating plans, such that no separate technology strategy exists other than the de facto strategic principle that the organization does not need or have a discreet ‘technology strategy’. A technology strategy has traditionally been expressed in a document that explains how technology should be utilized as part of an organization’s overall corporate strategy and each business strategy. In the case of IT, the strategy is usually formulated by a group of representatives from both the business and from IT. Often the Information Technology Strategy is led by an organization’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or equivalent. Accountability varies for an organization’s strategies for other classes of technology. Although many companies write an overall business plan each year, a technology strategy may cover developments somewhere between 3 and 5 years into the future.
Legal
Business Law
Commercial law, also known as business law, is the body of law that applies to the rights, relations, and conduct of persons and businesses engaged in commerce, merchandising, trade, and sales. It is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of both private law and public law. Commercial law includes within its compass such titles as principal and agent; carriage by land and sea; merchant shipping; guarantee; marine, fire, life, and accident insurance; bills of exchange and partnership. It can also be understood to regulate corporate contracts, hiring practices, and the manufacture and sales of consumer goods. Many countries have adopted civil codes that contain comprehensive statements of their commercial law.
Contract Management
Contract management or contract administration is the management of contracts made with customers, vendors, partners, or employees. The personnel involved in Contract Administration required to negotiate, support and manage effective contracts are expensive to train and retain. Contract management includes negotiating the terms and conditions in contracts and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions, as well as documenting and agreeing on any changes or amendments that may arise during its implementation or execution. It can be summarized as the process of systematically and efficiently managing contract creation, execution, and analysis for the purpose of maximizing financial and operational performance and minimizing risk. Common commercial contracts include employment letters, sales invoices, purchase orders, and utility contracts. Complex contracts are often necessary for construction projects, goods or services that are highly regulated, goods or services with detailed technical specifications, intellectual property (IP) agreements, and international trade.
Defamation
Defamation – also called calumny, vilification, or traducement – is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. Most jurisdictions allow legal action to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism. Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and have been made to someone other than the person defamed. Some common law jurisdictions also distinguish between spoken defamation, called slander, and defamation in other media such as printed words or images, called libel. In some civil law jurisdictions, defamation is treated as a crime rather than a civil wrong.
Employer Law
Labor law (also labor law or employment law) mediates the relationship between workers (employees), employers, trade unions and the government. Collective labor law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union. Individual labor law concerns employees’ rights at work and through the contract for work. Employment standards are social norms (in some cases also technical standards) for the minimum socially acceptable conditions under which employees or contractors are allowed to work. Government agencies (such as the former U.S. Employment Standards Administration) enforce labor law (legislative, regulatory, or judicial).
Industrial Relations
Industrial relations is a multidisciplinary field that studies the employment relationship. Industrial relations is increasingly being called employment relations or employee relations because of the importance of non-industrial employment relationships; this move is sometimes seen as further broadening of the human resource management trend. Indeed, some authors now define human resource management as synonymous with employee relations. Other authors see employee relations as dealing only with non-unionized workers, whereas labor relations is seen as dealing with unionized workers. Industrial relations studies examine various employment situations, not just ones with a unionized workforce. However, to a large degree, most scholars regard trade unionism, collective bargaining and labor-management relations, and the national labor policy and labor law within which they are embedded, as the core subjects of the field.
International Law
International law is the set of rules generally regarded and accepted as binding in relations between states and between nations. It serves as a framework for the practice of stable and organized international relations. International law differs from state-based legal systems in that it is primarily applicable to countries rather than to private citizens.
Litigation Strategy
Litigation strategy is the process by which counsel for one party to a lawsuit intends to integrate their actions with anticipated events and reactions to achieve the overarching goal of the litigation. The strategic goal may be the verdict, or the damages or sentence awarded in the case, or it may be more far-reaching, such as setting legal precedent, affecting consumer-safety standards, or reshaping the public’s perception of a societal issue. Broader goals and more challenging cases require a strategist with a greater understanding of, and facility with, the tools of litigation strategy.
Occupational Safety And Health
Occupational safety and health (OSH) also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS) or workplace health and safety (WHS) is an area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe and healthy work environment. OSH may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, and many others who might be affected by the workplace environment. In the United States the term occupational health and safety is referred to as occupational health and occupational and non-occupational safety and includes safety for activities outside of work. Occupational safety and health can be important for moral, legal, and financial reasons. All organizations have a duty of care to ensure that employees and any other person who may be affected by the companies undertaking remain safe at all times. Moral obligations would involve the protection of employee’s lives and health. Legal reasons for OSH practices relate to the preventative, punitive and compensatory effects of laws that protect worker’s safety and health. OSH can also reduce employee injury and illness related costs, including medical care, sick leave and disability benefit costs.
Property Law
Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership and tenancy in real property (land as distinct from personal or movable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system. In the civil law system, there is a division between movable and immovable property. Movable property roughly corresponds to personal property, while immovable property corresponds to real estate or real property, and the associated rights and obligations thereon. The concept, idea or philosophy of property underlies all property law. In some jurisdictions, historically all property was owned by the monarch and it devolved through feudal land tenure or other feudal systems of loyalty and fealty.
Management
Business Modeling
A business model, which may be considered an elaboration of a business process model, typically shows business data and business organizations as well as business processes. By showing business processes and their information flows a business model allows business stakeholders to define, understand, and validate their business enterprise. The data model part of the business model shows how business information is stored, which is useful for developing software code. See the figure on the right for an example of the interaction between business process models and data models. Usually a business model is created after conducting an interview, which is part of the business analysis process. The interview consists of a facilitator asking a series of questions to extract information about the subject business process. The interviewer is referred to as a facilitator to emphasize that it is the participants, not the facilitator, who provide the business process information. Although the facilitator should have some knowledge of the subject business process, but this is not as important as the mastery of a pragmatic and rigorous method interviewing business experts. The method is important because for most enterprises a team of facilitators is needed to collect information across the enterprise, and the findings of all the interviewers must be compiled and integrated once completed. Business models are developed as defining either the current state of the process, in which case the final product is called the “as is” snapshot model, or a concept of what the process should become, resulting in a “to be” model. By comparing and contrasting “as is” and “to be” models the business analysts can determine if the existing business processes and information systems are sound and only need minor modifications, or if re-engineering is required to correct problems or improve efficiency. Consequently, business process modeling and subsequent analysis can be used to fundamentally reshape the way an enterprise conducts its operations.
Collaborative Planning
Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), a trademark of the Voluntary Inter-industry Commerce Standards) (VICS) Association), is a concept that aims to enhance supply chain integration by supporting and assisting joint practices.
Corporate Sustainability
Sustainability organizations seek to implement sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. Recently, the natural environment has become a key strategic issue in both the business and academic communities. Through “implementing sustainability strategies, firms can integrate long-run profitability with their efforts to protect the ecosystem, providing them with opportunities to achieve the traditional competitive advantages of & cost leadership and market differentiation via environmental responsibility. Sustainability strategies have been persistently employed in a number of organizations. A sustainable system generally can be defined in environmental terminology as a living system which operates in a way that it does not use up resources more quickly than they can be naturally replenished; a sustainable economic system operates in a way so that expenditures are either equal or less than the income. Sustainable social systems maintain that all members are allowed to contribute, thereby synthesizing the final product. Corporate Sustainability refers to a company’s activities, voluntary by definition, demonstrating the inclusion of social and environmental concerns in business operations and in interactions with stakeholders. Each individual organization should choose its own particular goals and approaches as they pertain to corporate sustainability, matching the organization’s aims and intentions and aligning with the organization’s strategy, as an appropriate response to the conditions in which it functions.
Entrepreneurial Strategy
An entrepreneurial strategy is a simplified strategic framework designed for smaller companies, particularly innovators wishing to “get to the next level”. It should be designed to help the entrepreneur identify and strengthen their firm’s unique offering and then maximize their revenues and gross profit.
Management Strategy
Management in business and organizations is the function that coordinates the efforts of people to accomplish goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization or initiative to accomplish a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Management is also an academic discipline, a social science whose object of study is the social organization.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions (abbreviated M&A) are both aspects of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or new location, without creating a subsidiary, other child entity or using a joint venture. Mergers and acquisitions activity can be defined as a type of restructuring in that they result in some entity reorganization with the aim to provide growth or positive value. Consolidation of an industry or sector occurs when widespread M&A activity concentrates the resources of many small companies into a few larger ones. The distinction between a “merger” and an “acquisition” has become increasingly blurred in various respects (particularly in terms of the ultimate economic outcome), although it has not completely disappeared in all situations. From a legal point of view, a merger is a legal consolidation of two companies into one entity, whereas an acquisition occurs when one company takes over another and completely establishes itself as the new owner (in which case the target company still exists as an independent legal entity controlled by the acquirer). Either structure can result in the economic and financial consolidation of the two entities. In practice, a deal that is an acquisition for legal purposes may be euphemistically called a “merger of equals” if both CEOs agree that joining together is in the best interest of both of their companies, while when the deal is unfriendly (that is, when the target company does not want to be purchased) it is almost always regarded as an “acquisition”.
Organizational Change
Organizational change is a structured approach in an organization for ensuring that changes are smoothly and successfully implemented to achieve lasting benefits. Globalization and the constant innovation of technology result in a constantly evolving business environment. Phenomena such as social media and mobile adaptability have revolutionized business and the effect of this is an ever increasing need for change, and therefore change management. The growth in technology also has a secondary effect of increasing the availability and therefore accountability of knowledge. Easily accessible information has resulted in unprecedented scrutiny from stockholders and the media and pressure on management. With the business environment experiencing so much change, organizations must then learn to become comfortable with change as well. Therefore, the ability to manage and adapt to organizational change is an essential ability required in the workplace today. Yet, major and rapid organizational change is profoundly difficult because the structure, culture, and routines of organizations often reflect a persistent and difficult-to-remove “imprint” of past periods, which are resistant to radical change even as the current environment of the organization changes rapidly.
Organizational Development
Organization development (OD) is a deliberately planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization’s effectiveness and/or efficiency and/or to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals. OD interventions are about change so involve people – but OD also develops processes, systems and structures. The primary purpose of OD is to develop the organization, not to train or develop the staff.
Performance Improvement
Performance improvement is measuring the output of a particular business process or procedure, then modifying the process or procedure to increase the output, increase efficiency, or increase the effectiveness of the process or procedure. Performance improvement can be applied to either individual performance such as an athlete or organizational performance such as a racing team or a commercial business. In Organizational development, performance improvement is organizational change in which the managers and governing body of an organization put into place and manage a program which measures the current level of performance of the organization and then generates ideas for modifying organizational behavior and infrastructure which are put into place to achieve higher output. The primary goals of organizational improvement are to increase organizational effectiveness and efficiency to improve the ability of the organization to deliver goods and or services. A third area sometimes targeted for improvement is organizational efficacy, which involves the process of setting organizational goals and objectives. Performance improvement at the operational or individual employee level usually involves processes such as statistical quality control. At the organizational level, performance improvement usually involves softer forms of measurement such as customer satisfaction surveys which are used to obtain qualitative information about performance from the viewpoint of customers.
Process Improvement
Process improvement is an aspect of organizational development (OD) in which a series of actions are taken by a process owner to identify, analyze and improve existing business processes within an organization to meet new goals and objectives, such as increasing profits and performance, reducing costs and accelerating schedules. These actions often follow a specific methodology or strategy to increase the likelihood of successful results. Process improvement may include the restructuring of company training programs to increase their effectiveness. Process improvement is also a method to introduce process changes to improve the quality of a product or service, to better match customer and consumer needs
Project Management
Project management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems. A project is a temporary endeavour designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honouring the preconceived constraints. The primary constraints are scope, time, quality and budget. The secondary – and more ambitious – challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and integrate them to meet predefined objectives.
Relationship Management
A strategy employed by an organization in which a continuous level of engagement is maintained between the organization and its audience. Relationship management can be between a business and its customers (customer relationship management) and between a business and other businesses (business relationship management).
Social Responsibility
Social responsibility is an ethical theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. Social responsibility is a duty every individual has to perform so as to maintain a balance between the economy and the ecosystems. A trade-off may exist between economic development, in the material sense, and the welfare of the society and environment. Social responsibility means sustaining the equilibrium between the two. It pertains not only to business organizations but also to everyone whose any action impacts the environment. This responsibility can be passive, by avoiding engaging in socially harmful acts, or active, by performing activities that directly advance social goals and shareholder returns.
Succession Planning
Succession planning is a process whereby an organization ensures that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company. Through your succession planning process, you recruit superior employees, develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and prepare them for advancement or promotion into ever more challenging roles. Actively pursuing succession planning ensures that employees are constantly developed to fill each needed role. As your organization expands, loses key employees, provides promotional opportunities, and increases sales, your succession planning guarantees that you have employees on hand ready and waiting to fill new roles.
Marketing
Account-Based Marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM), also known as key account marketing, is a strategic approach to business marketing in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one. Companies such as BearingPoint, HP, Kilroy Travels, Progress Software and Xerox are reported to be leading the way. Account-based marketing is a demonstration of the trend away from mass marketing towards more targeted approaches. It parallels the movement in business-to-consumer marketing away from mass marketing where organizations try to sell individual products to as many new prospects as possible to 1:1 marketing where they concentrate on selling as many products as possible to one customer at a time. While business marketing is typically organized by industry, product/solution or channel (direct/social/PR), account-based marketing brings all of these together to focus on individual accounts.
After Sales
Refers to all measures of marketing, which are taken from manufacturers and retailers in order for a successful business transaction or sale to customers for their own products and binding them to their own services. After sales encourages repeat and additional purchases, increasing customer satisfaction and ensures long-term customer loyalty. After sales often achieves a higher margin than new business, and is a sustainable ways to increase customer value and profitability.
Brand Management
Brand management is a communication function that includes analysis and planning on how that brand is positioned in the market, which target public the brand is targeted at, and maintaining a desired reputation of the brand. Developing a good relationship with target public is essential for brand management. Tangible elements of brand management include the product itself; look, price, the packaging, etc. The intangible elements are the experience that the consumer takes away from the brand, and also the relationship that they have with that brand. A brand manager would oversee all of these things.
Business Development
Business development comprises a number of tasks and processes generally aiming at developing and implementing growth opportunities between multiple organizations. It is a subset of the fields of business, commerce, and organizational theory. Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets, and relationships.
Business Partnering
Business partnering is the development of successful, long term, strategic relationships between customers and suppliers, based on achieving best practice and sustainable competitive advantage. The business partner model is a process where HR professionals work closely with business leaders and line managers to achieve shared organizational objectives. The mission of Business partnering and the key-aspects of the discipline has been developed recently in the tourism field. The mission of Business partnering (for tourism) consists in creating, organizing, developing and enforcing operative (short-term), tactical (medium-term) and strategic (long-term) partnerships. Partnering is the process of two or more entities creating synergistic solutions to their challenges
Economic Planning
Economic planning refers to a coordinating mechanism outside the mechanisms of the market. There are various types of planning procedures and different ways of conducting economic planning. As a coordinating mechanism for socialism and an alternative to the market, planning is defined as a direct allocation of resources; contrasted to the indirect allocation of the market. The level of centralization in decision-making in planning depends on the specific type of planning mechanism employed. As such, one can distinguish between centralized planning and decentralized planning. An economy primarily based on central planning is referred to as a planned economy. In a centrally planned economy the allocation of resources is determined by a comprehensive plan of production which specifies output requirements. Planning may also take the form of directive planning or indicative planning. Most modern economies are mixed economies incorporating various degrees of markets and planning.
International alliance.
Market Entry Strategy
A market entry strategy is the planned method of delivering goods or services to a new target market and distributing them there. When importing or exporting services, it refers to establishing and managing contracts in a foreign country. Many companies successfully operate in a niche market without ever expanding into new markets.
Market Intelligence
Market Intelligence (MKI) is gathered through internal analysis, competition analysis, and market analysis about the total environment forming a broad spectrum of assembled knowledge, which is then used for developing scenarios so that timely reporting of vital foreknowledge for future planning in the areas of strategic, tactical, and counter-intelligence decision-making can be applied operationally and strategically in respect to the whole organization’s strategic interest for the whole market. The structure of the Model of Market Intelligence is a double helix that can usurp to make copies of itself in other dimensions and realities to reveal an ever infinity of knowledge and forecasts. The Market Intelligence Model provides a missing link present in organizations at the highest levels. The model gives reassurance to help ensure a broad scope of checks and balances protecting the CEO, senior executives and government senior officials as well as the organization, its value and performance. Market Intelligence is what makes intelligence, intelligence.
Market Research
Market research is any organized effort to gather information about target markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy. The term is commonly interchanged with marketing research; however, expert practitioners may wish to draw a distinction, in that marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes, while market research is concerned specifically with markets. Market research is a key factor to maintain competitiveness over competitors. Market research provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, market size and competition. Market research, which includes social and opinion research, is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organizations using statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences to gain insight or support decision making.
Marketing Communications
Marketing communications are messages and related media used to communicate with a market. Marketing communications is the “promotion” part of the “marketing mix” or the “four Ps”: price, place, promotion, and product. It can also refer to the strategy used by a company or individual to reach their target market through various types of communication.
Marketing Integration
Market integration occurs when prices among different locations or related goods follow similar patterns over a long period of time. Group of prices often move proportionally to each other and when this relation is very clear among different markets it is said that the markets are integrated. Thus market integration is an indicator that explains how much different markets are related to each other.
Marketing Performance Measurement & Management
Marketing performance measurement and management (MPM) is a term used by marketing professionals to describe the analysis and improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing. This is accomplished by focus on the alignment of marketing activities, strategies, and metrics with business goals. It involves the creation of a metrics framework to monitor marketing performance, and then develop and utilize marketing dashboards to manage marketing performance. Performance management is one of the key processes applied to business operations such as manufacturing, logistics, and product development. The goals of performance management are to achieve key outcomes and objectives to optimize individual, group, or organizational performance. MPM however, is more specific. It focuses on measuring, managing, and analyzing marketing performance to maximize effectiveness and optimize the return of investment (ROI) of marketing. Three elements play a critical role in managing marketing performance – data, analytics, and metrics.
Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its resources on the optimal opportunities with the goals of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing strategy includes all basic and long-term activities in the field of marketing that deal with the analysis of the strategic initial situation of a company and the formulation, evaluation and selection of market-oriented strategies and therefore contribute to the goals of the company and its marketing objectives. Marketing strategies serve as the fundamental underpinning of marketing plans designed to fill market needs and reach marketing objectives. Plans and objectives are generally tested for measurable results. Commonly, marketing strategies are developed as annual plans, with a tactical plan detailing specific actions to be accomplished in the current year. Time horizons covered by the marketing plan vary by company, by industry, and by nation, however, time horizons are becoming shorter as the speed of change in the environment increases. Marketing strategies are dynamic and interactive. They are partially planned and partially unplanned. Marketing strategy needs to take a long term view, and tools such as customer lifetime value models can be very powerful in helping to simulate the effects of strategy on acquisition, revenue per customer and churn rate.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smart phone. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas.
Negotiations Process
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of two or more people/parties involved in a negotiation. Negotiation is a process where one party involved in negotiating attempts to gain an advantage, not only for their own party, but also for at least one other involved party, by the end of the process. Its aim is distinct from that of compromise, in which more than one party suffers a net loss of goals or resources. Instead, basic negotiation is aimed toward efficiency in either resource distribution, goal and resource integration, or most commonly, both. Negotiation occurs in business, non-profit organizations, government branches, legal proceedings, among nations and in personal situations such as marriage, divorce, parenting, and everyday life. The study of the subject is called negotiation theory. Professional negotiators are often specialized, such as union negotiators, leverage buyout negotiators, peace negotiators, hostage negotiators, or may work under other titles, such as diplomats, legislators or brokers.
New Business Development
New business development concerns all the activities involved in realizing new business opportunities, including product or service design, business model design, and marketing. In the traditional definition of Business development, Business Development is mostly seen as growing an enterprise, with a number of techniques. The mentioned techniques differ, but in fact all of them are about traditional marketing. The main question in these issues is: how to find, reach and approach customers and how to make/keep them satisfied, possibly with new products. Since this definition is limited and lacks some essential factors in business developing, a complete new definition of Business Development will be introduced. Of course, the theory on “traditional” marketing is still correct and can be adopted from the old definition. When supplying a solution, it is important to focus on the total offering you give instead of only focusing on the product or service. An offering is a package consisting of different proportions of physical product, service, advice, delivery and the costs, including price that are involved in using it. Hereby the advice, adaptation to the customer and the costs are the most important factors to get the right combination within the offering. Drawing on contingency theory, an idea central to new business development is that different product-market- technology combinations can require different marketing strategies and business models to make them a success. To chart the factors that are involved and create synergy between them, new business development draws heavily upon the fields of technology and business networks. The new business development process is to recognize chances and opportunities in a fast changing technological environment. Often uncertainty arises because of new technology and their new markets.
Product Marketing
Product marketing, as opposed to product management, deals with more outbound marketing or customer facing tasks (in the older sense of the phrase). For example, product management deals with the nuts and bolts of product development within a firm, whereas product marketing deals with marketing the product to prospects, customers, and others. Product marketing, as a job function within a firm, also differs from other marketing jobs such as marketing communications (“marcom”), online marketing, advertising, marketing strategy, public relations, although product marketers may use channels such as online for outbound marketing for their product.
Sales Management
Sales management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of sales techniques and the management of a firm’s sales operations. It is an important business function as net sales through the sale of products and services and resulting profit drive most commercial business. These are also typically the goals and performance indicators of sales management.
Sales Outsourcing
Sales outsourcing allows companies to attract and maintain a sales force without having to make them full or part-time employees. Outsourced sales groups typically shoulder all or most of the risk by tying their compensation to success, without a base salary or benefits. Sales outsourcing represents a quick way by which service providers or manufactures can access distribution, and is becoming more and more popular. Full ‘sales outsourcing’ is observed where companies have an external third party sales force. It is differentiated from value added reselling or distribution in that the business model can be based on shared risk, although there are models where the outsourcer is paid for all of their activity – just as with a hired direct sales force, but the outsourcer provides rapidity, flexibility and experience. Other names for sales outsourcing include ‘indirect sales’ and ‘channel sales’.
Production
Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply, “lean”, is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Essentially, lean is centered on preserving value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as “lean”. TPS is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world’s largest automaker, has focused attention on how it has achieved this success.
Logistics Management
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet some requirements, for example, of customers or corporations. The resources managed in logistics can include physical items, such as food, materials, animals, equipment and liquids, as well as abstract items, such as time, information, particles, and energy. The logistics of physical items usually involves the integration of information flow, material handling, production, packaging, inventory, transportation, warehousing, and often security. The complexity of logistics can be modeled, analyzed, visualized, and optimized by dedicated simulation software. The minimization of the use of resources is a common motivation in logistics for import and export. Logistics management is that part of the supply chain that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customer requirements. A professional working in the field of logistics management is called a logistician. Materials management, Channel management, Distribution (or physical distribution), Supply-chain management.
Manufacturing Production
Manufacturing is the production of merchandise for use or sale using labor and machines, tools, chemical and biological processing, or formulation. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale. Such finished goods may be used for manufacturing other, more complex products, such as aircraft, household appliances or automobiles, or sold to wholesalers, who in turn sell them to retailers, who then sell them to end users – the “consumers”. Manufacturing takes turns under all types of economic systems. In a free market economy, manufacturing is usually directed toward the mass production of products for sale to consumers at a profit. In a collectivist economy, manufacturing is more frequently directed by the state to supply a centrally planned economy. In mixed market economies, manufacturing occurs under some degree of government regulation. Modern manufacturing includes all intermediate processes required for the production and integration of a product’s components. Some industries, such as semiconductor and steel manufacturers use the term fabrication instead.
New Product Development
In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the complete process of bringing a new product to market. A product is a set of benefits offered for exchange and can be tangible (that is, something physical you can touch) or intangible (like a service, experience, or belief). There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation, product design and detail engineering; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new product within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share.
Operational Audit
Operational Audit is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation. Operational audit is a future-oriented, systematic, and independent evaluation of organizational activities. In Operational audit financial data may be used, but the primary sources of evidence are the operational policies and achievements related to organizational objectives. Operational audit is a more comprehensive form of an Internal audit.
Process Innovation
Process innovation means the implementation of a new or significantly improved production or delivery method (including significant changes in techniques, equipment and/or software). Minor changes or improvements, an increase in production or service capabilities through the addition of manufacturing or logistical systems which are very similar to those already in use, ceasing to use a process, simple capital replacement or extension, changes resulting purely from changes in factor prices, customization, regular seasonal and other cyclical changes, trading of new or significantly improved products are not considered innovations.
Procurement Management
Procurement management is a process used to make sure item you purchase from external suppliers meet your need. You can use this to negotiate prices and get the best quality. The procurement management is the process of ordering supplies or items needed to run your business. Each business has their own process when it comes to procurement management.
Quality Management
The term quality management has a specific meaning within many business sectors. This specific definition, which does not aim to assure ‘good quality’ by the more general definition, but rather to ensure that an organization or product is consistent, can be considered to have four main components: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product/service quality, but also the means to achieve it. Quality management therefore uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality.
Supply-Chain Management
Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the flow of goods. It includes the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption. Interconnected or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses are involved in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain. Supply chain management has been defined as the design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally. SCM draws heavily from the areas of operations management, logistics, procurement, and information technology, and strives for an integrated approach.