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Article Check - Can Finance Really Become a Strategic Partner to the Business?
Niche markets offer a great way to target specific clients and build a marketing strategy. The problem is that when we think about niche markets, we typically think about specializing in one particular product or service. It is important to remember that niche markets also mean targeting one particular industry or type of client.Being a Generalist in a Niche MarketNiche market and generalist are not mutually exclusive terms. While you shouldn't try to be all things to all people, you can provide general services to one type of client. This is where the two strategies intersect particularly well for the computer consultant first starting out. Develop your niche market by marketing yourself as the general point of contact for just a select group of clients.When you're just starting out it’s really important that you don't invest dozens and dozens of hours and thousands of dollars in classes, certifications, tests and prep work. You need to be developing contacts to get paying contacts rather than contriving a niche market. Use the skills you have right now to get those clients. And if you already have a specialized skill set, you don't want to commit to a very narrow niche market before you have a good handle on how profitable that niche is.
From Resource Allocation to Strategy
First, it is worth understanding the tie between resource allocation and strategy - they are the same. Where you allocate your resources is your strategy. PowerPoint presentations, speeches by s
Successful business relationships are based on Value, Competence, Trust, and Propriety.ValueValue: The customer’s perception of your worth, excellence, usefulness, or importance. Value addresses the customer’s question, “What can this person or company do for me?”Value can be articulated by explicitly answering these questions throughout the sales cycle:• How much? (what the customer can expect to gain by doing business with you — in increased sales, lower costs, etc.)• How soon? (when the customer will be able to receive the value)• How sure? (proof that the customer will in fact attain the value stated)Provide norms for the customer so that there is little question of what the customer can expect from you: “We have a track record of providing a 15% cost savings and 90% product availability within 2 days of order.”What are norms that your customers can expect you to live up to?Remember, it is YOUR job to tell your customers what value they can expect — customers shouldn’t have to work to figure out the value themselves. If you don’t explicitly quantify the value your customer can expect to receive — and your competition may be doing this work for your customer — who is going to win the sale?C
Given the time, money and effort spent, you may be a bit demoralized and even speculating that the finance-business chasm cannot be crossed. Paradoxically, the link between finance and the business has been under finance's proverbial nose for some time - resource allocation. A serious concerted effort to optimize an organization's resource allocation ultimately enables finance to develop the bridge between finance and strategy. This discipline known as corporate portfolio management works to actively manage the company's resource allocation as a portfolio of discretionary investments. All companies allocate their resources - very few optimize their resource allocation. Finance is uniquely positioned to enable this because they sit at the nexus of information and data required to undertake a corporate portfolio management effort. (Note: Corporate portfolio management is often referred to by different terms so as a point of reference, terms such as IT portfolio management, enterprise portfolio management, product portfolio management, project portfolio management, resource allocation and investment optimization are similar. In fact, these all are slices or subsets of corporate portfolio management.)
From Resource Allocation to Strategy
First, it is worth understanding the tie between resource allocation and strategy - they are the same. Where you allocate your resources is your strategy. PowerPoint presentations, speeches by s
Have you ever been to a meeting that seemed to be going nowhere and was a waste of yours and everyone elses time?Or have you ever been to a meeting where you wondered what had been agreed?Only to show up a month later and find out that there had been no progress, partly because no-one knew what was expected of them. So they kept quiet with their heads down!How frustrating!To save this being a problem, one possibility that works really well is to have someone capture actions and who is accountable (and by when) for that action during the meeting.This is then circulated to everyone immediately as the meeting closes, so there are no doubts.Attendees know exactly what is expected of them and like a little miracle, things start to happen.And those meetings aren't so meaningless any more.Action - clearly state what is going to happen in an unambiguous wayAccountability - who exatly will make sure this happens - they don't have to do it themselves, but they are where the buck stops. It is agreed and accepted only by someone actually in the meeting.Timeframe - when will the action happen by, without fail.
Given the time, money and effort spent, you may be a bit demoralized and even speculating that the finance-business chasm cannot be crossed. Paradoxically, the link between finance and the business has been under finance's proverbial nose for some time - resource allocation. A serious concerted effort to optimize an organization's resource allocation ultimately enables finance to develop the bridge between finance and strategy. This discipline known as corporate portfolio management works to actively manage the company's resource allocation as a portfolio of discretionary investments. All companies allocate their resources - very few optimize their resource allocation. Finance is uniquely positioned to enable this because they sit at the nexus of information and data required to undertake a corporate portfolio management effort. (Note: Corporate portfolio management is often referred to by different terms so as a point of reference, terms such as IT portfolio management, enterprise portfolio management, product portfolio management, project portfolio management, resource allocation and investment optimization are similar. In fact, these all are slices or subsets of corporate portfolio management.)
From Resource Allocation to Strategy
First, it is worth understanding the tie between resource allocation and strategy - they are the same. Where you allocate your resources is your strategy. PowerPoint presentations, speeches by s
From the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night, you are negotiating, communicating, persuading, and influencing — trying to get people to cooperate with you to accomplish the things that you want them to accomplish. So the pivotal question with regard to selling is not if you are doing it, but if you are good at it.Unfortunately, over the years, a stigma has grown up around the selling profession. Many people feel that selling is a low-level type of activity, and they don't like to be associated with it — even people who are in sales! Virtually no colleges or universities have a "Department of Selling," even though almost 15 million Americans make their living by selling something to someone. It is the largest single identifiable occupational group in the United States.Salespeople are the movers and shakers in every business and industry. They are the key people who create the demand for all the products and services that keep everyone employed at every other occupation.The 'Gap'The basis for all successful sales efforts is a discipline called gap analysis. Gap analysis is clearly defining what your idea, product, or service can do for a person and then deciding how to demonstrate that in a compelling
From Resource Allocation to Strategy
First, it is worth understanding the tie between resource allocation and strategy - they are the same. Where you allocate your resources is your strategy. PowerPoint presentations, speeches by s
How would you like a few extra hours per month to spend with family, to read a good book, or indulge in a hobby? Want more time to devote to the income-generating aspects of your business and activities you enjoy? Tired of spending hours handling routine paperwork and mundane tasks you dislike or don't have time or the desire to complete? Need someone to keep up with the latest software and other technologies?Consider retaining the services of a Virtual Assistant (VA).A Virtual Assistant is a skilled and knowledgeable virtual work partner providing professional, administrative support and specialized business services from her own office.It may be difficult to grasp the concept of retaining administrative and office support services “virtually.” Most entrepreneurs are familiar with brick and mortar services, someone sitting in front of your office door, answering phones and processing paperwork. However, with the advent of new Internet technologies and software enhancements, an offsite assistant can be your technology guru and problem solver, providing administrative, secretarial and executive assistant support services from her or his home office.Cost Effective ChoiceIt can be cost effective to work with Virtual
From Resource Allocation to Strategy
First, it is worth understanding the tie between resource allocation and strategy - they are the same. Where you allocate your resources is your strategy. PowerPoint presentations, speeches by s
Dublin, Ireland, April 23, 2007 – Facing the increasing competition between job sites, the recently started Internet search portal better-job-offers.com criticises sites that do not show any interest in sharing their results. Due to their advertising deals, most sites try to lure job seekers on their virtual premises, which can increase disorientation between users.As announced by better-job-offers.com marketing manager Robert Koch, the site’s search engine experts do not approve that some providers are not willing to share their results. “Being such an important topic to society in general, we cannot understand why some sites refuse collaboration. Of course, the economic side of our portal matters to us. But making business within this sector means to accept one’s social responsibility,” he added.The increasing number of new job sites had led job seekers to experience disorientation, as shown by the first user feedbacks. The portal’s users now appreciate that they can utilize better-job-offers.com as a starting point for finding a job because they also can access results from different job sites and follow the links to additional providers. Trying to constantly enhance their service quality, the search engine experts continuously look out for new part
From Resource Allocation to Strategy
First, it is worth understanding the tie between resource allocation and strategy - they are the same. Where you allocate your resources is your strategy. PowerPoint presentations, speeches by senior leadership, strategy bullets nicely framed on a wall, etc. are all interesting and potentially useful, but they are not your organization's strategy. For instance, if your stated corporate strategy is to have the most engaged and loyal customers (this sounds good, right?), but you allocate all your investment dollars to acquiring new customers, your strategy is actually around customer acquisition. This is a very simple example but clearly demonstrates the dichotomy that can and often exists between a stated and real strategy.
A great article entitled "How Managers' Everyday Decisions Create - or Destroy - Your Company's Strategy" that recently appeared in the Harvard Business Review (February 2007) nicely articulated the connection between resource allocation and strategy and also pointed to the need for a corporate portfolio management discipline. "How business really gets done has little connection to the strategy developed at corporate headquarters. Rather, strategy is crafted, step by step, as managers at all levels of a company - be it a small firm or a large multinational - commit resources to policies, programs, people and facilities. Because this is true, senior management might consider focusing less attention on thinking through the company's formal strategy and more attention on the processes by which the company allocates resources."
The upshot of this is that if finance can enable the process to enable better resource allocation (which is strategy), they will have succeeded in becoming a de facto strategic partner to the business.
The Two Levers of Corporate Portfolio Management
So now the question turns to how to build a corporate portfolio management di
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