To understand what root cause is, lets first look at how we deal with problems in everyday life. Say at work we suddenly feel unwell. We would probably take some generic medicine such as paracetamol to relieve the symptoms temporarily. If the symptoms continue, we go to the doctor to understand what the reason behind the unwell feeling is. In this simple example, the doctor performs the root cause analysis of the patient by solving the problem at its source. Many times, in both life and business, when faced with a problem, we take the paracetamol approach. Just like feeling
Author: Nabil M Hanif
With growth, comes challenges for efficiency
In today’s blog we explore business growth, and the challenges it brings about in terms of efficiency. First, we will understand the various stages of a business lifecycle. A business goes through a broadly defined life cycle consisting of the following phases: Startup Growth Maturity Decline In the startup phase, businesses are focused on developing and marketing their initial set of products and on breaking even. This phase usually has businesses operating at a net loss as the cost of marketing, research and development far exceed the revenues generated. Also, startups are not overly complex in their structure and do
Adaptability – A Must Trait for Businesses
Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher once said, “Change is the only constant in life” and this stands true even today. If we can be sure of anything about the future, it is of change. In this article, we will focus on changes from the perspective of businesses. We know that most business entities do not last forever. Worse still is the fact that the average expected lifespan of businesses has been decreasing over time. A recent study by McKinsey found that the average lifespan of companies listed in Standard & Poor’s 500 was 61 years in 1958. Today, it is less
Business Excellence models for Business Excellence
Excellence is defined as being outstanding or extremely good. A business is defined as an organization or enterprising entity engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities. The combination of those two leads us to the derivation that the path Business Excellence (BE) is a path taken by businesses on a journey towards implementing and following outstanding business practices in the discharge of their duty. But it is much more than just having an outstanding quality process in place. It means achieving excellence in whatever the company does, from leadership to sales, and from procurement to end deliverables, all the while achieving superior
Finance and its importance in modern-day society
Finance. We all have heard this word somewhere or another in our lives. But what exactly is finance? Is it limited to just its practitioners? Or does its implication affect all of us in one way or another? In this article, I am going to look to answer all these questions and many more. A quick google search on the word finance tells us that “Finance is the study of money and how it is used. Specifically, it deals with the questions of how an individual, company or government acquires the money needed – called capital in the company context
Education and technology
Technology. It needs no introduction. For a little less than a half-century, we have been surrounded by huge leaps taking place in this field, be it the development of the first computer, or the first PC or the mobile phone or the smartphone, you name it. Today we live in an age where the size of the world has considerably reduced just because of the advents in technology. Travelling time has become lesser, communication happens within seconds and all of this happens at a reduced cost than what was before. There is no doubt about the benefits that technology has
Business Continuity Plan to tackle the coronavirus
The Coronavirus infection (COVID 19) which started in a small town in Wuhan, China has been making headlines for more than a month now, with one optimistic estimate stating that the cure for the virus is at least 18 months away. This virus has led to massive panic with the financial markets across the world returning the biggest losses since the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Reports of big companies shutting down offices (such as Nike which did so in their EU headquarters) are starting to turn up. Situations like this are unpredictable and if unprepared for, could lead to serious
Process mapping the way to success
What is a process map? It is nothing but a management tool that describes the flow of work on paper. It shows what work is done, who and what is involved in the process and as a result provides a holistic view of the entire organisation, process by process. This effectively reveals processes in the organisation that may have been duplicated, redundant or simply could be done in a better way. The first part of solving a problem is to figure out the problem accurately. A process map helps to diagnose such problems in the process flow of the organisation.
Strategic management
Strategic management – The means to achieving your business goals What is strategic management? To understand strategic management better, it is wise to start at its root, which the word “strategy”. A strategy is the long term plan of action designed to achieve a set of goals or objectives. It is a top- level management plan designed to strengthen the performance of the organisation. A strategy is different from tactic as a strategy is the top-level directions whereas tactic is the method in which the objectives of the strategy are completed. The table below should give an idea of how