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Despite difficulties, companies have developed and implemented powerful knowledgebased strategies because knowledge is an asset. Investing in knowledge assets is tricky. Nevertheless, companies need to have a knowledge pool to fight competition and win. In many service industries, the ability to identify best practices and spread them across a dispersed network of locations is a key driver of value. Such a strategy can create powerful brands that are continually refreshed by the knowledge of how to serve customers better. In such circumstances, it may be impossible to tell whether the value has been created by the brand or by knowledge. The two are inseparable. McKinsey defines a four-step method to identify and implement a knowledge strategy:
Improvement – The Journey
Improvement means performance enhancement and can be achieved by improving one of the many characteristics of the product or process. Improving performance by improving design is one way of achieving enhanced performance. For a typical high-volume manufactured product, manufacturers aim to reduce the variability of the product. In the process of quality checks, they improve its acceptance levels. The focus is on improving performance by reducing defects and non-conformities.
Agents of Change
Change is essential and people eventually learn to accept it. However, why or how change is brought about still intrigues almost everyone. There are two types of changes those that just happen, and those that are planned. Change should not be treated as an accidental occurrence. Visualize all changes as proactive, purposeful, intentional and goal-oriented activities, as if they all were planned changes.
How to Avoid Being Seen as 'Project Management Overhead'
When your company starts to cut costs, these three simple steps will help you to ensure the PMO's survival. We are currently facing a challenging economic climate which is forcing many companies to cut costs in order to survive. There are different ways of doing this, and unfortunately, a popular one is slashing employees, projects and even entire departments. Consequently, almost everyone in the business world is now looking for a way to justify their work to upper management and other stakeholders in order to be spared.
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Process Improvement or Process Re-Arrangement: Will You Know Before It Is Too Late?
Introduction
The introduction of the global marketplace has caused many companies to re-evaluate their entire business structure. They are discovering that the methods and means they used to develop and market their products yesterday may not be as effective as they should be today. With the increase in competition as a result of such influences as the GATT and NAFTA treaties as well as overwhelming growth of the Internet, companies that stand still in their product and process development will swiftly be passed by those who are hungrier, leaner and more agile.
Many companies are looking towards re-organization and process re-engineering in order to meet the these new challenges. The problem is, how will these companies, your company, know that the re-organization and re-engineering will be a true process improvement as opposed to a process "re-arrangement"? Corporate re-organization is simply shaking the tree and watching the monkeys move to different branches. Process re-arrangement is simply changing the way you "do it". Process improvement involves a total analysis of the current state and desired future state of the company from the ground up. It is not a white wash of the current company but a re-development of it. True process improvement is much more difficult but yields much larger, more profitable results!
