Management Questions

Is your company reaching “full potential” value for its customers? Answer yes or no to the following six questions:

1. We make it easy for prospective customers to find us and understand our products and services.
2. We have the capability to offer expertise, tools, and other assistance to help customers determine their criteria for a good solution and which solutions best fit their situation.
3. We offer various approaches for customers to acquire our products and services, such as different payment options, leasing, financing, etc.
4. We can and do help customers with logistics and other issues related to receiving our products and services.
5. We provide flexible options for support and assistance to customers in installing, implementing and using our products and services.
6. We have a range of options available to help customers recycle, reuse, reduce waste, upgrade, and dispose of our products at the end of a product’s useful life.

If you answered yes to all six questions, congratulations on meeting the criteria for creating a differentiated offering for your customers. You may, however, want to ask yourself whether all your salespeople are consciously applying a lifecycle strategy and are maximizing the potential for every customer.

Source: Is Your Sales Team Creating Real Differentiation? by Tom Roth | MarketingProfs.com

240No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2010/01/19/questions-for-creating-a-differentiated-offering/Questions+for+Creating+a+Differentiated+Offering2010-01-20+03%3A22%3A34Administrator Posted by Administrator / Business Continuity / Crisis Questions

237No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2009/11/10/defining-the-future-talent-agenda/Defining+the+Future+Talent+Agenda2009-11-10+22%3A09%3A34Administrator Posted by Administrator / Business Continuity / Crisis Questions

• How would the key decision-makers be placed in communication with each other quickly so they could be informed and make a joint decision? What is their advance standard of how fast they would commit to making a decision? Would all of them be involved in the decisions related to financial commitments involved in decision-making? If not, who would be?
• Who inside and outside your organization would have the most reliable information most quickly, and how would you reach them most swiftly, should the situation require speed?
• Who outside your organization should be contacted first to be informed of the organization’s stance and action?
• Who inside your organization would inform whom, and how, and how fast?
• Who are your most powerful allies and critics, in general and on this kind of situation?
• Who could counter each critic?
• Who, outside your organization, would be most likely to comment on the crisis first (which reporters, other experts, consumer activists, government officials, and so on)?
• What approach would each of these people take (positive, neutral, or negative) toward your company’s situation and subsequent position?
• How knowledgeable and credible would they be? Who are your credible current and potential outside advocates in these situations?
• How can you deepen their knowledge, support, and able advocacy of your organization, in advance of such situations?

Source:
Be the Face They Trust When the Crisis Hits
by Kare Anderson
The CEO Refresher, April 2007

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Before getting started with a business-continuity plan, CIOs should ask some strategic questions:

• Have we created a financial-impact model for the per-hour cost of outage and the effect on revenue, profit, and legal actions? Assuming the hourly cost is millions of dollars, how would a prolonged outage affect profit?
• If a major disruption occurs, can we recover and in what time frame? What if it takes longer?
• Has someone outside of IT reviewed the priority of processes, people, systems, and applications? Are our procedures adequate, and will our personnel have the skills and tools to minimize the loss of profits?
• What legal and compliance implications are not factored into our plans?
• Which suppliers are critical to the effort? Have they updated their plans to include an evolving global delivery model?
• Have we included the corporate risk department in the analysis? Are we compliant with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Are CXOs willing to sign off on a commitment to business continuity?

Recovering or reinstating infrastructure services must not be the only consideration. On a tactical level, the questions to ask include:

• Will the necessary personnel be available?
• Have any been lost in the disaster, and if so, who can fill in?
• Has our testing involved more than executing a “known” disaster scenario; can we implement processes without prior notice?
• What would happen if our customers couldn’t access their order, financial, and transaction data?

source: Fending Off Disaster / Mark Dangelo / Optmize, September 2003, Issue 23 / http://www.optimizemagazine.com/issue/023/leadership.htm

6No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2005/11/30/business-continuity-questions/Business+Continuity+Questions2005-11-30+22%3A03%3A38Administrator Posted by Administrator / Business Continuity / Crisis Questions