SWOT-analysis
SWOT-analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective. SWOT-analysis gives an opportunity to explore market situation in depth.
A SWOT analysis must first start with defining a desired end state or objective. A SWOT analysis may be incorporated into the strategic planning model. Strategic Planning, including SWOT and SCAN analysis, has been the subject of much research.
Strengths: attributes of the person or company that are helpful to achieving the objective(s).
Weaknesses: attributes of the person or company that are harmful to achieving the objective(s).
Opportunities: external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective(s).
Threats: external conditions which could do damage to the objective(s).
PESTLE-analysis
PESTLE analysis is a tool for uncovering factors of environment impact on the company strategy. PESTLE is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors, which are used to assess the market for a business or organizational unit strategic plan:
- Political (government stability, tax policy, trade controls, social policy);
- Economic (inflation, unemployment, crisis);
- Social (demographic setting, social mobility, income distribution, traditions, educational attainment);
- Technological (innovation, spreading rate of innovations, percentage of outdated technology, government support for innovation);
- Legal (Competition law, Labour law, Product License Application);
- Environmental (Environmental law, Material recovery, Energy consumption).
The PESTLE analysis headings are a framework for reviewing a situation, and can also be used to review a strategy or position, direction of a company, a marketing proposition, or idea.
Porter’s 5 forces analysis
The Porter's 5 Forces tool is a simple but powerful tool for understanding where power lies in a business situation. This is useful, because it helps you understand both the strength of your current competitive position, and the strength of a position you're looking to move into.
Five Forces Analysis assumes that there are five important forces that determine competitive power in a situation. These are:
- Supplier Power;
- Buyer Power;
- Competitive Rivalry;
- Threat of Substitution;
- Threat of New Entry.
By thinking through how each force affects you, and by identifying the strength and direction of each force, you can quickly assess the strength of the position and your ability to make a sustained profit in the industry.
You can then look at how you can affect each of the forces to move the balance of power more in your favor.
Mystery shopping
The consumer demand for better service is growing all the time. Companies struggle to meet this demand in the face of high employee turnover, shrinking profit margins and increasing competition. At the same time the business landscape is becoming more and more complex, with 24-hour, multi-channel service now a basic consumer expectation.
Mystery shopping is among the more powerful tools available to companies seeking to improve their service quality. Providing objective data about service execution across locations and delivery channels allows managers to identify specific areas for improvement and to reward employees in a consistent, relevant manner. Despite the problems many companies have experienced with mystery shopping, the need for this research will only increase as customer demand for high-quality service grows.
Improving the way mystery shopping is conducted will benefit consumers, companies and suppliers. Changes in the mystery shopping industry and in the capabilities of some vendors are leading to better data collection practices, but much progress remains to be made. On the other side of the equation, if companies are to benefit from these changes they need to improve the process by which they initiate, design and administer mystery shopping programs.
6 sigma method
Six Sigma is a business management strategy, it enjoys widespread application in many sectors of industry, although its application is not without controversy.
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Black Belts", "Green Belts", etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified targets. These targets can be financial (cost reduction or profit increase) or whatever is critical to the customer of that process (cycle time, safety, delivery, etc.).
Ishikawa diagrams
Ishikawa diagrams (also called fishbone diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams) are diagrams that show the causes of a certain event. Common uses of the Ishikawa diagram are product design and quality defect prevention, to identify potential factors causing an overall effect. Each cause or reason for imperfection is a source of variation. Causes are usually grouped into major categories to identify these sources of variation. The categories typically include:
- People: Anyone involved with the process
- Methods: How the process is performed and the specific requirements for doing it, such as policies, procedures, rules, regulations and laws
- Machines: Any equipment, computers, tools etc. required to accomplish the job
- Materials: Raw materials, parts, pens, paper, etc. used to produce the final product
- Measurements: Data generated from the process that are used to evaluate its quality
- Environment: The conditions, such as location, time, temperature, and culture in which the process operates
Linkage Analysis of Processes
The methodology for process linkage analysis makes extensive use of metrics and algorithms for model construction, connectivity analysis and structure analysis. It provides a structured and objective way to support decision making in process management. It is particularly suitable to assist in the elimination or merging of processes and in the restructuring of the organization to reflect linkage intensity and cluster structure. The experience in our company suggests that the methodology is a valuable tool.
Assessing business processes and setting a priority
A business process might be considered to be an arrangement of activities, initiated by a customer with the purpose to realize a request for a product or service. The activities are being carried out by the employees of an organization and depending on the nature of the requested product or service all sorts of means of production like machines, equipment, computers, raw materials, semi-manufactured products and also information are addressed or used.
A review of business processes might contribute to the understanding of the functioning of an organization and improving the performance. To know the structure of a business process from a management and organizational viewpoint a modeling tool that facilitates modeling in a quick and simple way is necessary.
Defining barriers to business growth
Successfully growing a business is much more than just selling more stuff. You must also prepare yourself and your business for a larger more complex world. If you are frustrated that your business has the potential to grow, but can’t find the way through the current hurdles you are facing, which create increased stress, over work and performance issues, perhaps it is time you looked at changing the structure of your business and becoming more professional about how you manage it.
Unless you make the changes, your business will be forever held back. You will not be capable of further growth until you re-create your business to perform efficiently at the next level. You may be held back because your current situation makes you too busy working in the business that you don’t have time to work on it, to develop new systems and controls. It is time to bite the bullet. And we can help you.
Gap analysis of systems
A company can develop an organized plan for achieving a quality standard through the evaluation of the effectiveness of its existing Quality Management System and its supporting documentation, and making a comparison to that of the standard’s requirements and customer expectations.
In information technology, gap analysis is an assessment tool to help identify differences between information systems or applications. A gap is sometimes called "the space between where we are and where we want to be." A gap analysis helps bridge that space by highlighting which requirements are being met and which are not. The tool provides a foundation for measuring the investment of time, money and human resources that's required to achieve a particular outcome.
In software development, for instance, a gap analysis can be used to document which services and/or functions have been accidentally left out, which ones have been deliberately eliminated and which still need to be developed. In compliance, a gap analysis can be used to compare what is required by law to what is currently being done.
Process balancing
Process Balancing is a procedure whereby a set of process steps are "equalized" in terms of resources required to accomplish them. Process balancing tools are used where the process is contained in a defined area.
Primary Issues in Typical Transactional Environments:
- Excess "stuff in process"
- Poor space utilization
- Low employee efficiency
- Long/erratic cycle times
- Poor balance of labor content across process steps
- Conveyance, standby and motion waste
- Disorganized workspace and component/supply storage
- High variability of demand on multiple processing centers, e.g., call centers/customer arrivals
- High variability of task content (non-standard work/procedures)
PLM strategy
A Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategy is one of the four cornerstones of a corporation's information technology structure. A PLM strategy defines a way to achieve aren’t generic. They are specific to individual organizations because they depend on the particular circumstances and resources of the individual organization, and on its particular environment.
The purpose of strategy development is to select the best way of achieving the objectives, given the constraints imposed by the market and the resources, and to position the organization in the most favourable way relative to the competition. The strategy is concerned with decisions which have a long-term business impact, will probably require significant investment, and will determine the type of people needed by the organization.
A PLM strategy is the starting point for developing and implementing improvement plans. A PLM strategy helps everybody to move forward along the same road towards the new environment. The strategy is the starting point – it isn’t the end of the road.
Defining ways to grow
Whether your organization is a for-profit or nonprofit, you have to address certain considerations and make certain decisions if you set out to intentionally grow your business. For many, focused efforts to intentionally grow an organization is not unlike starting the organization in the first place.
You can grow your business just by managing it well, for example, having very good products and services that are sold with strong customer service, etc. Every company has own “best practices” which could stimulate further growth.
This tool makes it possible to define the same “best practices”.
