If you were to design a business model from scratch, you would have to make four decisions:

1. What are the boundaries of my business, both vertically (the degree of integration along the value chain) and horizontally (the width of the portfolio of products offered and markets served)?
2. What is the nature of the relationships between my business and parties outside the boundaries of my business,

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Henri de Bodinat, Herman Vantrappen, Michael Ungerath
Source: Bringing business models down to earth
Subject: Strategy Questions

Are you asking your prospects the wrong questions?  When most sales reps are developing a B2B sale, they limit questioning to generic issues like which products the prospect is currently using.  Here’s a better idea: ask questions that reveal if the prospect is truly qualified to buy and how the buying decision will be made.

Here are ten sample questions, adapted from material provided by Keith … [ Read more ]

Authors: Geoffrey James, Keith Rosen
Source: 10 Tough Questions to Ask Prospects
Subject: Sales Questions

1. Do you offer a clear message and value?
2. Have you established Trust & Credibility?
3. Have you answered all the main objections?
4. Have you addressed the emotional “ownership” of the sale?
5. Have you substantiated your claims?
6. Have you made the next steps clear?
7. Could you have said the same thing in a 1/3 of the words?

Author: Bryan Eisenberg
Source: Optimizing Website & Landing Page Copy – A 10 Step Process
Subjects: Marketing Questions, Sales Questions

• Can we quantify our supply of and demand for leaders, both now and in the future?
• How many positions are filled by external recruitment versus internal promotion?
• What’s the win-rate for “must have” recruits?
• How do our retention rates for top and mainstream talent compare with those of our competitors?
• What is the rate of retention of external hires versus internal promotions?
• What are the overall promotion rates by

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Alan Bird, Lori Flees, Paul DiPaola
Source: Kick-start your talent machine
Subject: Leadership Questions

1. What are the implications of our business strategy and our approach to value creation for our executive compensation system? What behaviors are we trying to motivate? Does the system support our strategy? Does it encourage our executives to act like owners?
2. Is the overall pay package appropriately balanced? Between fixed pay and variable pay? Between short-term-variable and long-term-variable pay? For each level of the

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Frank Plaschke, Gerry Hansell, Lars-Uwe Luther, Mathias Schatt
Source: Fixing What’s Wrong with Executive Compensation
Subjects: Corporate Governance Questions, Human Resources Questions

• Are your pricing policies well-defined, allowing for both control and flexibility?
• Are those policies aligned with strategies to grow revenue and profits?
• Are mechanisms in place to monitor pricing policy compliance over time to identify potential abuse?
• Do you have incentives in place to encourage pricing compliance and increase sales growth?
• Is there a process to handle pricing exceptions? Are they clearly defined?
• Are roles, responsibilities, and decision rights

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Ann Tansamrit, Donna Stella, Pushkin Pant, Sara Matlock, Shalin Shah
Source: The High Cost of Pricing
Subject: Pricing

• How well is your business model suited to globalization? In general, an e-commerce business needs to move bits (information flows), money (payment flows), and atoms (physical flows). Moving bits requires telecommunications infrastructure. Moving money requires payment infrastructure. And moving atoms requires physical infrastructure. The extent to which your business relies on these infrastructure elements determines the ease of transportability of your business model
• What foreign

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Mohanbir Sawhney, Sumant Mandal
Source: Go Global
Subject: International / Global Questions

• How many levels of security are there?
• Is access assigned by individual, by category, or both?
• How easy would it be for an unauthorized person to enter the system?
• If the system has modem capabilities, how do you prevent unauthorized access?
• Does the security system record failed attempts to access?
• Does it lock out a modem after a predetermined number of failed attempts?
• How are policy, customer, and transaction notes

… [ Read more ]

Author: Terry Sweeney
Source: Ask The Right Security Questions Before Choosing an ASP
Subject: IT Questions

1. Are we building the right set of market-driving capabilities? The right market-driving capabilities are those in which excellence yields a sustainable competitive advantage and allows the leaders to drive the market. Recognize that often it is as challenging to determine which core competencies the corporation must have as it is to develop and build them.
2. Are we delivering I.T. services at the right level of

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Charles V. Callahan, Joseph Nemec Jr.
Source: The CEO’s Information Technology Agenda: Seizing the Right Opportunities
Subject: IT Questions

To tailor the design of a best-in-class M&A function, companies should answer five critical questions:

1. What is the M&A function’s role in the company? Does it reactively support ad-hoc decisions or proactively shape corporate strategy?
2. What expected value and volume of deals do we need to realize in the next three to five years?
3. Do we want to concentrate expertise on the M&A team or spread it

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Anant Shivraj, Daniel Friedman, Daniel Kim, Jens Kengelbach, Maximilian Strauch
Source: Is Your M&A Organization Built to Win?
Subject: Mergers and Acquisitions Questions