I’ve spent a lot of time making and thinking about decisions within organizations. One thing I’ve noticed is that the best decisions are those that are the best informed (obviously). However, collecting and analyzing enough data to make the “best” decision can be a significant investment. This typically results in leaders collecting some data and … Continue reading Organizational Decision Making
Category: Organizational Growth
I posted a while back on Michael E. Porter's idea that either you can compete on cost or differentiation but not both. How should you make that decision? How will you know if your choice will be profitable? First of all my advice is to NEVER compete on cost as a small company. As Porter … Continue reading Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
All business want to increase sales, profit and cash, but sometimes increasing sales doesn't seem to lead to more profit or cash. This may have something to do with the time it takes convert leads into cash. This is commonly referred to as the Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC). It is formally defined as resources into … Continue reading Simplified Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC)
Just picked up the new business framework book Scaling Up written by Verne Harnish over at Gazelles. It's a great book! The book breaks the challenges down into four areas. People, strategy, execution, cash. Very straightforward and includes concrete behaviors and practical examples. Verne and the team also give you plenty of room to experiment … Continue reading Scaling Up
As a small business owner or a sales manager for a small business you should be able to answer these questions: How big is our sales pipeline both in terms of opportunities and dollars? Given the size of our pipeline what are the chances we are going to hit our monthly sales target? How long … Continue reading Critical Sales Metrics for Small Business
I have founded or co-founded a number of startups, worked as a consultant for Fortune 100 companies, and been an executive in large corporations. What I’ve come to hold true is that as a company grows it experiences what Dr. Larry E. Greiner calls “growth phases.” Dr. Greiner postulated the existence of these phases in … Continue reading Company Growth
I read Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline a number of years ago and loved it. I recently reread it and realized it is still as relevant today as it was then. (if not more so). While the five disciplines discussed in this book are extremely useful when managing teams, the one that always seems … Continue reading Systems Thinking, the Fifth Discipline