The creation of Six Sigma Methodology is understood to be traced back to Carl Friedrich Gauss and introduced as a measurement in variation in organizations. Six Sigma name comes from the Greek alphabet “Sigma” which mathematician or statisticians uses in statistics to find a standard deviation. Motorola was the first company to use Six Sigma, to measure the quality of products and services from within. In the process of Motorola using Six Sigma, it helped them to pinpoint mistakes such as finances and operations. Six Sigma’s core philosophy was based on business process and customer requirements, extensive training to employees, focus on the organization, and creating an improved system. Six Sigma Methodology describes a business improvement approach that seeks to find and eliminate causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and service processes by focusing on outputs that are critical to customers and a clear financial return for the organization. Continue reading
Modern Management Concepts
Adoption of Blue Ocean Strategies in Business
Strategy involves standing out from the competition and making choices that give the company a unique and valuable position by offering distinctive products and services. Competitive advantage and profitability can be achieved simultaneously by approaches that create consistent internal synergies and combine a company’s operational activities efficiently. Strategies are formed at various levels of the organization. However, a typical organizational structure incorporates strategies at 3 specific levels: corporate, business and functional. Corporate strategy defines a company’s holistic growth and management direction pertaining to its various businesses, products and services. Business strategies, on the other hand, are established at the divisional levels and typically focus on enhancing the strategic business unit’s competitive position in its industry. Functional strategies aim to maximize resource productivity and are typically set by functional departments within each SBU to improve competencies and performance. Blue Ocean strategies are a form of business level strategies that enable firms Continue reading
Minimizing Resistance to Organizational Change
Resistance to change be those affected is often the single most formidable obstacle to its successful realization. It is to be understood at the outset that resistance to change is not, the fundamental problem to be solved. Rather, any resistance is usually a symptom of more basic problems underlying the particular situation. To focus the attention of symptom alone will achieve at best only limited results. The effective solution is that one must look beyond the symptom that is resistance to its more basic causes. It is quite appropriate and practicable for a manager to focus on situational and environmental factors that cause resistance. Many of these are directly within management’s control. Probably, efforts to minimize any resistance should be undertaken while it is still potential rather than real. There are different methods that the managers can use to minimizing resistance to organizational change. Fundamentally, there are only two strategic Continue reading
Managing Leadership in Organizations
Basically, leadership is getting people to follow you. The moral and ethical considerations of leading are beyond the scope of this article, but their importance cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, much leadership is designed around a control/authority model. Many leaders, even the brightest, figure out what has to happen with things in the company, tell people what is needed for the desired results and then expect things to happen-a gross simplification of the process. You would be surprised how many leaders lead this way. In light of the psychological reality that people only do what they want to do, the current approach means that people follow and work only as hard as is necessary to avoid the consequences of disobedience. However, leadership can be a whole lot more than charting out a business strategy that others happen to follow. The most skilled leaders ask themselves, “What can I say or do Continue reading
10 Common Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is itself a process through which the entrepreneur allocate the resources available to the business in a way or in other words in a systematic manner that the entrepreneur can meet the requisites of the business and achieve the objectives of the business as well as of his own. Now a days businesses are being done on large scale or more businesses are being run in one organization therefore, the executive management or the entrepreneurs has to adopt the ways and system through which they can not even secure their time but to save their resources from drain. Entrepreneurship is the process of innovation that reallocates resources to new opportunities, often creating new opportunities through unusual combination of resources and skills of risk taking. The entrepreneurs some time has to face the problems because they prepare their plans personally and create innovations and believe that they are doing the Continue reading
Industrial Espionage
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines industrial espionage as “an individual or private business entity sponsorship or coordination of intelligence activity conducted for the purpose of enhancing their advantage in the marketplace.” While this definition may imply Industrial Espionage to be more or less the same as business or competitive intelligence, but there is an essential difference between the two – while business intelligence is generally under private sponsorship using an “open” methodology, espionage may be either government or privately sponsored and clandestine. Industrial Espionage is the process of collecting information and data for the purpose of generating revenue. Generating revenue is very important aspect for these people. They are not thrill seeker, if the compensation does not justify the reward they will not bother attempting to collect the required information. Individuals who commit Industrial Espionage are not looking for information for information sake, but for information that will Continue reading