Browsing Category Performance Management

A Strategy between the Gap and the Result

In a recent short commentary on Strategy in the McKinsey Quarterly aptly titled “Synthesis, capabilities, and overlooked insights: Next frontiers for strategists”, Fred Gluck (who was also the founder of McKinsey’s Strategy Practice way back in 1988, as I learned) says strategies always come from one of three sources – strategic planning, strategic thinking, and opportunistic decision making. In this article, Gluck delves a bit into how these three work, touching upon some interesting insights. I recommend you read it…

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Metrics Can Mean Everything. Or Nothing.

  During a long weekend last year, a group of friends and I headed to a small  sea-side town around 100 miles from Bombay. Enroute, we stopped at a small hotel for refreshments – a franchisee of a reasonably well known restaurant chain in India. However considering it was along a highway, although a busy one, we weren’t sure of the quality of their service or their menu items. Such a situation calls for a safe bet on steamed ‘Idlis’,…

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Time to Get Cracking With BPM

A little more than a fortnight ago, I had bounced a few thoughts about how BPM should not merely be about automation but should instead be about unlocking competitive advantage. I had taken an example of two firms in a quest for competitive advantage implementing packaged software; and discussed whether  they would find a definitive edge over each other even if they both choose the same software products. If they both got on the BPM bus, there could in fact…

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Who Is the Boss in Social #BPM – You or your Customer?

How will social BPM affect your customer? The possibilities that Social concepts lend to BPM are interesting. Doug Mow used the the right words – Today’s social media reality makes the customer a very influential source of word of mouth pressure both positive and negative. I think the use of the word Influential is very important to note. There has been much said about how Social Media will impact traditional methods of managing functions that involve customer interactions with the…

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IT priorities, Return on Investment from #bpm and the CEO

The recession may have started to ease up, but the pressure on CEOs to get more competitive and drive growth will continue. Alongside that, the need to keep a closer watch on expenditure is likely to also continue for sometime. This is particularly true about IT investments – something that took quite a big hit in 2009. According to Gartner, IT spending is forecast to a 5.2% decrease from 2008 spending of $3.4 trillion and is expected to return to…

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Emerging from one era, into another…

Even as we begin to hear about the easing up of the recessionary phase, it is not difficult to see that things are not going to be the same as they were before. And one of the biggest impacts this recession is likely to have is not in our pockets, but in our minds. Whether it is you or your organization, the biggest effect may well be the shift in thinking that this recession has brought about. And it does…

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Unlock that Revenue Hiding In Your Processes!

The failure rate of software implementations involving CRM has always been a cause of concern for both vendors as well as buyers. What makes a CRM implementation successful? How can an organization ensure ROI beyond expectations? In tough markets, how can organizaitons be sure to impact topline throught investments in CRM?

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