Set up your most important decisions for success

Marcia W. Blenko, Michael C. Mankins and Paul Rogers of Bain Consulting contest that many companies struggle to make and execute key decisions. Bain's Decision Insights series describes a five-step process that can boost your organization’s decision effectiveness and improve its performance....


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Smart Decision-Making in the New Era of Financial Challenges

Oracle discusses how organisations can apply the principles of Monte Carlo modeling to Enterprise Performance Management and Business Intelligence applications.

Key points include:

• The Road Ahead: Decision-Making in Times of Turmoil and Opportunity
• The Perils of The Past: Basing Financial Decisions on “Best Story Wins”
• How the Monte Carlo Method Drives Productive Risk-taking
• “People Are Systematically Overconfident in Almost Everything They Do.”
• The Value of Simulations: Predicting Worst-case Scenarios and Mitigating Outcomes

3 Ways Real-Time Information is Changing Decision-Making

August 26, 2010 | 11AM ET REGISTER TODAY! In a recent survey by Vanson Bourne, 94% of respondents say  that responding to information immediately is critical to their business,  yet only 8% currently report information in real time.  Many are unable to filter through the enormous deluge of information  coming at them from every angle.  With the speed of business constantly accelerating,  a company’s ability to respond to information quickly,  defines their competitive advantage.  Trouble is most IT systems and architectures  were not built to handle real-time situational awareness  and in-the-moment reaction.  Operational decisions can no longer be made exclusively  with dated information. This webinar will discuss 3 ways that real-time information  and business events affect your decision-making process.  Through real-time visibility and immediate sense and respond,  you get the right information at the right time.  The result is decision management that is “in the moment”  and operational responsiveness that meets the speed of your business.

Strategic Cost Management

In times of uncertainty, organizations are examining ways to enhance cost efficiencies, by focusing on cost analysis and profitability analysis. The Key is.... The key is to identify a handful of activities of sufficient size and significance to justify separate treatment and for which a single cost driver can be identified. Identifying costs that can be influenced is key to cost streamlining. Refocus resources on really profitable products, customers and channels. NOTE : When using an integrated approach, such as Activity Based Costing  that works on causal relations to allocate costs, changes in the level of activity will not lead to a proportionate change in total costs.This in turn calls for the need to analyze costs according to a cost hierarchy, focusing at four levels: unit, batch, product, company:     * Unit: Unit level costs increase in proportion to the number of units produced (e.g. labour hours)     * Batch: Costs increase in relation to the batch of units being produced (e.g. set-up or purchasing costs)     * Product: Costs at this level are incurred irrespective of the volume of products or batches produced and might include costs like technical support, etc.     * Company: Costs at the company level are incurred and cannot be assigned to products directly (admin and management) Finally, is worth noting that Kaplan differentiates between the cost of resources supplied and the cost of resources used >> (the cost of resources supplied = the cost of resources used + the cost of unused capacity.)   And unused capacity is not entertained in a  Strategic Cost Management framework. O2ibm

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Tuning into their Brain - Employee behaviour for enhanced performance

Organizations have some form of program designed to nurture high-potential employees. However a recent study by the Corporate Executive Board revealed that 40% of "high-potential" job moves  produce disappointing results. Disengagement of employees also is remarkable: One in three emerging stars reported feeling disengaged from his or her company.  Even more striking, 12% of all the high potentials in the study said they were actively searching for a new job.  Why do companies have so much difficulty in their succession planning? The Corporate Executive Board's research revealed that senior managers make misguided assumptions about these employees and take actions on their behalf that actually hinder their development. When dealing with high-potential employees, firms tend to make six common errors: assuming that all of them are highly engaged, equating current performance with future potential, delegating the management of high potentials down in the organization, shielding promising employees from early derailment, expecting stars to share the pain of organization-wide cutbacks, and failing to link high potentials and their careers to corporate strategy. In other words "tune into their brains". Having knowledge of how our brain functions facilitates enhanced performance. Key points to take into account are: Learning should be broken down into "bite-size" to increase itsne absorbency and effectiveness. Allow time for your people to integrate learning into long-term memory.  Fairness and respect gives brain a chemical boost. Stress inhibits clear thinking. Uncertainty arouses fear that decreases the ability to make decisions. Employees need some ownership over situations to better accept change. Engaging people in more active learning techniques improves retention. And here are some things you should do to keep your top talent on track: don't just assume they are engaged - give them stimulating work, a chance to prosper, and recognition or they will walk don't mistake current high performance for future potential - test candidates for ability, engagement, and aspiration don't delegate talent development to line managers - this will limit the talents access to senior members don't shield talent - place talent in live fire roles don't assume top talent will take one for the team - compensate top talent differently and creatively don't keep young leaders in the dark - share strategy with them
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