The Breakthrough Strategy


Book Description




All the Right Moves


Book Description

Annotation Markides (chairman, strategic and international management department, London Business School) contends that the essence of business strategy is to allow a company to create and exploit a unique strategic position in industry, and helps managers zero in on critical choices that lie at the heart of all innovative strategies. He approaches strategic thinking as a creative process, and poses key questions for readers to ask as he guides them through a framework for developing strategic thinking skills.




Six Sigma


Book Description

The extraordinary breakthrough management program--heralded by GE, Motorola, and AlliedSignal--that is sweeping corporate America with its unprecedented ability to achieve superior financial results. Six Sigma is the most powerful breakthrough management tool ever devised, promising increased market share, cost reductions, and dramatic improvements in bottom-line profitability for companies of any size. The darling of Wall Street, it has become the mantra of Fortune 500 boardrooms around the world because it works. What is Six Sigma? It is first and foremost a business process that enables companies to increase profits dramatically by streamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defects or mistakes in everything a company does, from filling out purchase orders to manufacturing airplane engines. While traditional quality programs have focused on detecting and correcting defects, Six Sigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methods to re-create the process itself so that defects are never produced in the first place. Most companies operate at a three- to four-sigma level, where the cost of defects is roughly 20 to 30 percent of revenues. By approaching Six Sigma--fewer than one defect per 3.4 million opportunities--the cost of quality drops to less than 1 percent of sales. This is because the highest quality also results in the lowest costs. When GE reduced its costs from 20 percent to less than 10 percent, it saved a billion dollars in just two years--money that goes directly to the bottom line. This is the reason Wall Street and corporations as diverse as Sony, Ford, Nokia, Texas Instruments, Canon, Hitachi, Lockheed Martin, American Express, Toshiba, DuPont, and Polaroid have embarked on corporate-wide Six Sigma programs. Six Sigma should be of paramount importance to every forward-thinking executive and manager determined to make their company world-class in their industry.




Mission Impact


Book Description

Create powerful strategies for your nonprofit organization to achieve breakthrough performance in mission impact Does your nonprofit have a reliable way of knowing the impact its making? Beginning with an eye-opening discussion of what strategy is, Mission Impact: A Breakthrough Strategy for Nonprofits reveals how the process of strategy development should be designed with authoritative coverage of mission impact, vision, five year strategic stretch goals, strategy implementation, and management. Step-by-step guidance and practical tools Integrates the very best current thinking on performance and strategy available, drawing from both the corporate and nonprofit worlds Cutting-edge ideas presented in a user-friendly fashion The deteriorating quality of life in our communities screams out for immediate action – for breakthrough improvement, not just incremental changes. Mission Impact: A Breakthrough Strategy for Nonprofits will lead you and your organization to achieve breakthrough performance for maximum mission impact. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.




Design for Operational Excellence: A Breakthrough Strategy for Business Growth


Book Description

Beyond Six Sigma and Lean! Design your processes to facilitate real business growth, in both healthy and unhealthy economies Design for Operational Excellence defines why companies embark upon continuous improvement—and the true answer is not to improve efficiency, quality, or eliminate waste! The reason is to achieve Operational Excellence. Duggan, an established authority on OpEx, provides the design criteria and guidelines that enable you to grow your business organically by refocusing management’s attention from running the business to growing the business. Founded on eight key principles, this groundbreaking system facilitates the continuous flow of value into any operation—from customer service to sales to manufacturing. Kevin J. Duggan is a renowned speaker, executive mentor, and educator in applying advanced lean techniques to achieve Operational Excellence and the author of two books on the subject: Creating Mixed Model Value Streams and The Office That Grows Your Business—Achieving Operational Excellence in Your Business Processes. As the Founder of the Institute for Operational Excellence, the leading educational center on Operational Excellence, and Duggan Associates, an international training and advisory firm, Kevin has assisted many major corporations worldwide, including United Technologies Corporation, Caterpillar, Pratt & Whitney, Singapore Airlines, IDEX Corporation, GKN and Parker Hannifin. A recognized expert on Operational Excellence, Kevin is a frequent keynote speaker, master of ceremonies, and panelist at international conferences, and has appeared on CNN and the Fox Business Network.




Business Process Improvement: The Breakthrough Strategy for Total Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness


Book Description

America is in trouble, there is no doubt about it. Here is perhaps the best proof: We are now experiencing the first generation in our history in which children will reach adulthood in a poorer economic climate than thatenjoyed by their parents.




Reinventing Strategy


Book Description

At last-a proven system for developing the strategic innovations every company needs to compete and win As everyone knows, today's unprecedented rate of business change demands new levels of strategic insight and adaptability. Reinventing Strategy is the first practical, systematic guide to creating an adaptive enterprise, showing how companies around the world are using the Strategic Learning approach to consistently out think, out maneuver, and out perform their competition. As Willie Pietersen explains, companies that aspire to long-term success must develop and implement strategy as part of a continuous four-step cycle-Learn, Focus, Align, Execute-and he offers dozens of provocative anecdotes and case studies, illustrating how to implement it at every level of an organization. Written with unusual clarity, frankness, and wit, Reinventing Strategy will change the way managers everywhere approach their greatest and most important challenge: the need to make strategy into a tool for ongoing corporate renewal.




Change the Culture, Change the Game


Book Description

A fully revised and updated installment from the bestselling author of The Oz Principle Series. Two-time New York Times bestselling authors Roger Connors and Tom Smith show how leaders can achieve record-breaking results by quickly and effectively shaping their organizational culture to capitalize on their greatest asset-their people. Change the Culture, Change the Game joins their classic book, The Oz Principle, and their recent bestseller, How Did That Happen?, to complete the most comprehensive series ever written on workplace accountability. Based on an earlier book, Journey to the Emerald City, this fully revised installment captures what the authors have learned while working with the hundreds of thousands of people on using organizational culture as a strategic advantage.




Breakthrough Strategic IT and Process Planning


Book Description

This book is the first publication that combines the principles of business process management with strategic IT planning; the result being a groundbreaking work on strategic IT and process planning. While Breakthrough Strategic IT and Process Planning focuses on the real world of organizations, extensive treatment is also devoted to the politics of strategic planning. As such, a project management approach that combines process improvement, IT, and change management is employed. Other important aspects of process planning are discussed in detail: the strategic allocation of resources, short and long term implementation of the strategic plan, marketing of the plan to gain support for implementation, and development of strategic IT and process plans for business units and departments.




Leading Clarity


Book Description

More powerful than strategy, culture, or innovation, discover the one business tool that is the ultimate game-changer! Leading Clarity offers a bold proposal that changes the trajectory of your business and leadership. Today’s business environment is more complex than at any time in history with greater ambiguity, chaos and uncertainty. Too often, individuals and organizations become bogged down with competing priorities and the constant press of daily demands. This tangled mass of noise effectively handicaps every facet of business. This book provides a proven, time-tested strategy that has brought dynamic results to hundreds of organizations of all scope and size. Informed by in-depth research conducted by the Deutser team, made up of business strategists, social scientists, organizational psychologists, innovation specialists and designers, the framework and methodologies presented will align focus and drive organizational performance. Leading Clarity takes you beyond understanding the strengths and weaknesses of individuals and teams, and guides you through a dynamic process that unveils what is most critical and most enduring about your business. Clarity is the key measure of unprecedented success and a vital factor in productivity, engagement, and performance. Now, Deutser is sharing the secrets of his proven blueprint for creating clarity. With these powerful principles and stories of how to put them to work, you too can leverage the exponential impact of clarity. Learn how clarity can help you: Lead teams and individuals with clear direction and purpose Value inside the box thinking and innovation Identify the impact drivers that keeps your employees happier, more engaged and performing at their peak Infuse positivity into your organization’s DNA as a profitability catalyst Clarity is the dynamic force that aligns and connects the most critical business principles. Leading Clarity moves you beyond any preconceived limitations and sets new direction, expectation and pathways for success.