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Making Products Customers Love
Creating products that have long lasting impressions on your customers takes more than effort to put smart products on the market- a market already inundated with competing and compelling products. So, what do you need to do differently to create stellar products or services that will create meaning for us?
Process cleansing
Designing products and services that seek to solve a problem, change systems and behavior, improve or provide value addition rests squarely on the processes you depend on to deliver such results you intended, not accidentally offered.
Your business and service processes are what inform the kind or nature of your product and service offering. Any system that that suffers from irregular assessment, servicing and improvement produces an expected outcome, not unplanned.
An infected meal causes upset in your stomach; which leads to ill health and an eventual poor outlook in your health. Until your gastronomic system is treated, we rarely shall have a healthy YOU. Using this analogy you can imagine how much horror your product and serving offerings are causing your customers.
The take home message here is that be mindful of your process delivery.
Optimum corporate productivity and performance improvement finds energy in highly effective and efficient corporate processes. If your processes are weak, less robust and efficient your products and service delivery suffers.
When the flag is red
Your performance results are lousy when the bottom-line status quarter on quarter is weak against planned target. Which means we are not buying from you, or telling friends and family about you. You lose money, and market share. The red flags are then raised! ‘We need to re-strategize’ says your leadership. Ironically, the red flag record is not the first of its kind in the company history, even for the year. It is symptomatic of your corporate delivery.
When the red flag is shown by the corporate referee (your leadership), it is about time to reconsider and question the processes you are using to deliver results; no matter how abysmal.
Let’s show value
Your failure to recognize and deliver value to a customer can increase your journey from Johannesburg into Harare-that is if you think you know the route so well! Don’t kid yourself. You only kid yourself when you underestimate the journey (process), aware of the borders of change and where to take sensible detours. You cannot accept to be a nomadic traveler, when other travelers show more than enough from their stories. Stories of value, change, long lasting meaning that is shaping people’s live and thinking. Be a smart traveler. Be a process-driven ambassador offering superior value and products to your customers. We are going to teach you more at the CPI2014 event in Accra and Nairobi. Join us.
Photo credit: istockphotos
Ways to talk up to your Boss
Angry at work?
If you are here wanting to speak straight into your boss’s face for something niggling you, you may be committing series of blunders at the work place already. The good news is that these are not blunders, but acknowledging the fact that there is/are reason(s) you want to do just that. From your personal point of view some of the reasons could be that:
- your effort is not recognized
- you feel powerless
- you believe the company/organization does not understand you
- or your performance is not valued
- So, if you are in any of the categories above, you may want to really talk up to your boss.
Ways to talk up to your Boss
- Do a self -reflection of the personal challenges above, particularly bullet 1,2 and 3 or more
- Ask yourself that if you were to employ someone in your own company exhibiting similar traits above, what could be your next line of action to improve performance.
- Have a candid informal engagement with your boss reiterating your difficulties above
- If you receive a cold reception…try 1, 2, 3 again
- If you still hit a rock, your last resort, after a dispassionate personal assessment, is to evaluate your values against that of your company, and take an informed decision.
At Sigmastrat we want to provoke ways to stimulate performance and productivity in your personal life and your time at work. The good news is that we are already testing such models at our offices, and you can do so too. Do not hesitate to attend the next 2013 CPI West Africa Event in Accra to learn more.
Team Management & Leadership
Hello “interested business developer” welcome to this week’s post. Last week it was all about getting to know WHAT business development is and also knowing WHO orchestrates business development – the business developer. This week we continue on our interesting quest of HOW a business developer brings about sustainable business development.
Team Leadership and Management
A good business developer strives to achieve sustainable business development by motivating and developing his or her team to continuously improve their performance. Business developer’s are well vested with insights into the roles and responsibilities of being a supervisor, understands and practices effective leadership and uses techniques that will get the best out of every team member.
As a business developer you will not always be a member or in charge of a team that is understanding and easy to work with. There might be cases where a team member or a number of team members will step on the toes of others or feel misunderstood by other members and engage in actions that might hamper the success of the team. It is at this point in time that the BUSINESS DEVELOPER exhibits good management approach to take care of difficult people and difficult situation.
Time management is key to the development of an organization. Good business developers are equipped with the necessary skills to plan and deliver efficient business solutions with the conscious effort on delivering just in time. Business developer also knows how to avoid activities that steal precious time from the organization.
In the later section of last week’s post, feedback was mentioned as an important tool for the business developer to use in interacting with his or her team. This week I will like to reiterate the importance of feedback to the business developer and the organization. Feedback helps the business developer to understand his or her team, the challenges they are facing and the way the problem is evolving. Feedback is to facilitate better communication, organization, planning and control of the team’s activities. As important as feedback is to the business developer, he or she has to pay detail attention to the events happening around so as to evaluate feedback properly.
What more does a business developer do to achieve sustainable business development? Stay tuned to our next blog post for more tricks and tips. Please don’t forget to leave your comments on this post, visit our website or follow us on Facebook.
Cheers.
What is Sustainable Business Development
Most business owners are looking for new ways to get their products out into the market and known by consumers. They are also looking for ways of making sure they continue to stay in business by adapting to the fast changing business environment. The question they find themselves asking time and time again is HOW to do this. In the weeks ahead the discussion will be centered around Sustainable Business Development and answering the important question of HOW to develop a business in a sustainable manner. Today’s post will start off by looking at what business development is and as always the rest of the goodies regarding sustainable business development will be unraveled.
Business development is a term which takes its roots from the world of business and commerce. It generally comprises tasks and processes that are designed to develop and bring about sustainable growth in a business. In today’s dynamic and vibrant business environment, the fusion of information technology with traditional business practices, advance marketing techniques, detailed accounting of activities, ground breaking sales and customer relations development all form part of business development. We have made an attempt to give meaning to WHAT business development is, but the question of WHO brings about business development needs to be addressed.
Through the use of analytical thinking and problem solving the business developer is tasked to find potential growth opportunities and implement best strategies and practices that will help an organization take maximum advantage of its opportunities. In the implementation of task and processes that will bring about potential growth opportunities, it is key for the business developer to pay close attention to feedback from the organizations working units such as production, marking, sales, and operations. Oops that tip wasn’t supposed to come out until later. But I guess now we know feedback is key in bring about sustainable business development. What more does a business developer do to achieve sustainable business development? Stay tuned to our next blog post for more tricks and tips. To learn more about what has been discussed in this blog post, visit us at www.sigmastrat.com .
Cheers Mate.
Sigmastrat – What are your views on Performance Improvement Software?
What are your views on Performance Improvement Software? Are they the most effective way of driving the PI process?
Continuous Improvement Blogs Ghana
If you are into Process/Performance Improvement, then join us on linkedin ‘Continuous Process Improvement Africa’ . This is a group for you.
You can also post blogs here or reply to posts.
A continuous improvement process (CIP or CI) is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek “incremental” improvement over time or “breakthrough” improvement all at once.Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.
This is what a friend of mine said:
CPI = Continuous Process Improvement, which begins with Continuous Personal Improvement Continuous Personal Improvement is the process of sanctification.
Sigma = standard deviation = missing the mark = sin. The closer we can get to the designer’s intent, the more consistently we can deliver the “ideal” to those around us. Missing the mark may not mean falling outside of the specification limits, but always has a cost to society.
Spec limits = the law. Think 10 Commandments. Thou shalt not…. doesn’t tell us what we should be doing — only what we shouldn’t. Focus on the law begs us to challenge every little activity as acceptable or not acceptable (“don’t commit adultery” is the law, but does that mean I can still flirt? Can I read baudy magazines?). Focus on the law will always lead our eyes away from the true goal, and will always have a cost to society. But, focusing on the ideal state — on the designer’s intent or the “middle” of the spec will always drive down variation, because our focus is continuous improvement rather than “good enough”.
Come onboards lets discuss CI/CPI/CIP in relation to Africa
Performance Improvement in Ghana
Sigma Strategic Business Consult Limited (Sigmastrat) is a business strategy, performance Improvement and project management consulting firm that serves as a key advisor to leading companies in Ghana and the West African sub-region. We provide our clients with unique insight to drive critical decision making and solve their most pressing problems. Sigmastrat also provides LEAN Kaizen and Six Sigma solutions. We are dedicated to helping companies and organizations improve their performance and achieve sustained profitable growth.
Sigmastrat has a widely spread footprint with a mobile, highly experienced team of technical specialists and performance improvement experts with impressive track records and over 100 years combined experience in various fields of business growth.
Apart from Corporate level strategy, Sigmastrat offers bespoke Management training services, both online and class rooms based, and have tailored on-site sessions to meet specific corporate needs.
Every year, the majority of our business comes from clients with whom we worked in the previous year, an indicator of our ability to achieve lasting results for our clients. Our client relationships are enduring, as many clients have remained partners for years. We are dedicated to helping clients achieve meaningful and measurable results in areas critical to their success. We measure our success by the results our clients achieve and by the depth and extent of our relationship with them.
Sigmastrat is registered in Ghana as Sigma Strategic Business Consult Limited. Registration Number CA 89379
Seven Deadly Sins of Business Process Management (Contributor: Chris Taylor)
• Compliance to quality standards (such as ISO, TCF)
• Employee training and task performance support
• Performance Management where scorecards and metrics are tied to relevant processes activities
• Customer journeys
• Alignment to frameworks (SCOR, APQC’s PCF), and more.
• Benchmarking and metrics
• Sidestepping personalities and political motivations (‘inconveniencing everyone equally’)
• Scoping of effort and gap analysis
• Preventing duplication

“Shout your BPM achievements to the heavens and earth so that your BPM system may prosper on the land”
• Use frameworks to accelerate discovery and adoption
• Make it easy for every employee to find what they need
• Keep it all up to date
• Make it easy to understand
Corporate Performance Improvement in Ghana
Sigma Strategic Business Consult Limited (Sigmastrat) is a business strategy, Performance Improvement, and project management consulting firm that serves as a key advisor to leading companies in Ghana and the West African sub-region. We provide our clients with unique insight to drive critical decision making and solve their most pressing problems.
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