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Happy Friday!
I hope you’ve had a great week! Read below for the EOW for today, Friday, October 6, 2017.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tip!
As always, “Success is continuous improvement.”
What is integrity? According to dictionary.com, integrity is “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.” Why is it important in business? Integrity in business is important because it builds internal and external trust amongst all the people that have dealings with the company.
Effective leaders “walk the talk”; in other words they do what they say. It is imperative that during the early stages of a startup that codes of conduct be established that convey how business will be done and how employees, clients and suppliers will be treated. Companies that have great cultures are avid believers of collaboration. They encourage employees to share ideas and work together to solve problems.
“Two heads are better than one but 7 heads are even better”
When your company is impacted by rapid growth it is often found that you lose touch with your employees, reaching targets takes priority instead of optimizing client satisfaction, and company values may become diluted as employees may start to do anything necessary to keep their jobs. Effective leaders implement department headcount caps of 170 or less, discuss company values, mission and strategy daily, and have employee-centric cultures.
For example, an automotive air bag manufacturer, Takata, wanted to cut costs so they opted for a cheaper material which resulted in a mass recall. Evidently, they increased their losses by not maintaining integrity in their product. There are many other ways to cut cost but keep quality and this showed their lack of consideration for their customers. They were more concerned about their bottom line. It is going to take a long time for them to build trust with those customers that they lost because of their poor judgment and poor ethics.
Nevertheless, it is important that leaders ensure that their employees understand and never stray from the company’s core values by discussing this matter daily. Customer satisfaction, internal and external respect amongst employees, clients and suppliers, and collaboration are the key factors that make for an enduring company. When employees trust their coworkers and leaders they work together as a team and protect the company from harm.
Happy Friday!
I hope you’ve had a great week.
Today, I would like to discuss some alternatives to reducing costs during business financial hardships instead of mass layoffs. Strong and effective leaders build trust in their companies and see their employees as their second family sometimes even as an extension of their family. When employees become aware of financial troubles in the company their stress levels go higher than usual, their health may become impaired, and productivity is also affected. Laying off a plethora of people causes employees to lose trust and loyalty to a company. When employees trust their leaders they are less likely to move on to greener pastures because security, trust, and opportunity is integrated into the culture offering a peace of mind.
Through an expenses analysis you can identify expenses that your company can live without and requiring employees to take 4-8 weeks of unpaid vacations during hard times can also free up cash as well. However, the unpaid vacation should not be forced and only those employees that can afford to take time off should take advantage of this. You can also offer employees the opportunity to work from home as this will reduce your electricity bill.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this E.O.W!
As always, “Success is continuous improvement.”
“An effective inventory management process includes the sharing of inventory data between buyers and suppliers. Procurement Managers use the total cost method when purchasing and inventory analysts anticipate and understand demand trends (collaborate with Marketing to understand customer purchasing behavior and trends) and share this information with suppliers.”
Happy Friday!
I hope you’ve had a great week.
Today, I will leave you with a short tip on how to keep product costs and defects low.
I hope you found this short tip useful! As always, “Success is continuous improvement!”
“Internal departments in a firm that are far-removed from daily operations can affect the quality of a product or service. Every department within a company should identify, collect and monitor quality costs within its control.”
Happy Friday!
I hope you’ve had a great week.
Today I leave you with a short tip on how CFO’s can save money on business insurance.
As always remember, “Success is continuous improvement.”
It is common practice to determine your target customer when developing a business. However, this tunnel vision buyer group mentality leaves money on the table for businesses. To truly optimize profit and revenue a company’s leadership must be well aware of the many buyer groups (purchasers, actual users, and influencers) that can offer opportunity to enter into a new market space with high profit potential.
For example, say you are leather shoe manufacturer who usually focuses on retailers as its main buyer group. Through analysis of your current, similar and alternative products coupled with identifying the pain points of using your product you can realize a low-cost profitable opportunity to reel in your end users; essentially entering into a new market space.
A more effective strategic customer analysis would require you to understand the following:
Businesses must also understand what factors motivate buyers to purchase based on price or quality. However, it is imperative that you just focus on the buyer group that has the highest profit potential at a lower cost and your company’s capabilities are able to meet their priorities.
“Sources of variation can be found in the process itself, the raw materials used, the operator’s (employee’s) actions or the environment. For example, software settings / updates, tool wear, humidity, heat, and over-adjusting a machine are all sources of variation.”
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