1. Are you able to break down your operating inventory into the three major categories when reporting levels—safety, replenishment and excess or obsolete stock?
2. Is your company using the most effective method to calculate your safety stock levels? Are you using statistical formulas that incorporate the accuracy of sales forecasts, required production lead times, manufacturing schedule adherence and service-level data for each SKU? Or are

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Francois Faelli, Pratap Mukharji, Raymond Tsang, Sam Israelit, Thierry Catfolis
Source: Inventory management: 10 questions to diagnose your inventory health
Subject: Operations Questions

What a company should ask itself

• Do we understand customer profitability at the transaction level (by product, customer, and channel)?
• Who really buys our product and why?
• Which customers would we fire? Which customers should we be doing our best to keep?
• Do we scientifically measure pricing choices made by customers?
• What drives our customer segmentation? How do we approach our customers differently?

What a company should ask customers

• Are

… [ Read more ]

Authors: George Stalk, Jr., Peter Stanger, Peter Wetenhall, Philippe Morel
Source: Pricing Myopia
Subject: Pricing

1. Why does your business exist?  This question reveals your true purpose.  It is the most powerful question, and all other questions revolve around this nucleus. Go beyond just products and profits in expressing your purpose.  What is your company’s unique value contribution to the world?
2. Which business are you really in?  This question implies a choice among alternatives.  Choosing wisely depends on the linkage

… [ Read more ]

Author: Norm Levy
Source: Want Better Answers? Try Better Questions
Subject: Miscellaneous Questions

1. Is the idea truly disruptive? Consider: Is the job BIG, as well as unsatisfied? Can we find a compelling foothold customer and solution to make progress? Can we start small and earn early profits? Can we avoid competition from large incumbents?
2. Can we find a way to implement with low fixed costs (to allow for iteration) and to pilot the concepts cheaply?
3. Are there long-term

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Brad Gambill, Scott D. Anthony
Source: One Hundred Days To Disruption
Subjects: Entrepreneurship Questions, Innovation Questions

CEOs should ask the following 20 questions to assess whether their organization is inflation ready in the three critical areas of pricing, procurement, and finance.

Pricing

• Do we have dedicated resources for pricing intelligence?
• Do we employ state-of-the-art pricing analytics?
• Do we have short- and long-term guidelines for price setting?
• Is inflation factored in to pricing decisions?
• Do we have real-time information on competitors’ prices?
• Do we continuously monitor customers’ price

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Daniel Stelter, Ulrich Pidun
Source: Making Your Company Inflation Ready
Subjects: Finance Questions, Pricing

Here are the three important questions to ask before you start planning that next customer survey:

1. What is the survey for?
   • To give a consistent year-on-year picture for performance management
   • To compare relative performance in specific areas across a competitive set
   • To understand what customers want; what they value; and how they decide “who to use” and “who to recommend” (not always the same).
2. Who are you

… [ Read more ]

Author: Martyn Drake
Source: Three Questions to Ask Before You Start Surveying Customers
Subject: Communications Questions

The following questions can serve as a starting point for those contemplating integration in the wake of a merger. If your leadership team can answer all nine questions concerning your next PMI transaction, that bodes well. If there are gaps in your company’s responses, or some grey areas, then the prospects for a successful PMI may well be reduced. And an abundance of blanks on … [ Read more ]

Authors: Freddy Strottmann, Johannes Gerds, Pakshalika Jayaprakash
Source: Post Merger Integration: Hard Data, Hard Truths
Subject: Mergers and Acquisitions Questions

Information

1. What happened? (Reporting)
2. What is happening now? (Alerts)
3. What will happen? (Extrapolation)

Insight

4. How and why did it happen? (Modeling, experimental design)
5. What’s the next best action? (Recommendation)
6. What’s the best/worst that can happen? (Prediction, optimization, simulation)

Authors: Elizabeth Craig, Jeanne G. Harris
Source: How to Turn Data into a Strategic Asset
Subject: Management Questions

A great MICRO manager asks questions like:

• What are the deadlines for a particular project?
• How do we measure progress (and are we making progress)?
• Is there sufficient feedback exchange?
• How do we promote more accountability within the team?

But how about the MACRO part of management? Beyond your day-to-day role as a manager, you must also consider each person’s career trajectory.

A great MACRO manager asks questions like:

• What

… [ Read more ]

Author: Scott Belsky
Source: The Secret to Great Macro Management
Subject: Management Questions

You need to group your questions under three very broad questions:

1. Does the partner have the skills and resources I need? It’s important to distinguish between the skills a partner possesses and what the JV needs to succeed. They may not be the same thing. You also need to make sure that your proposed partner has been reinvesting and upgrading its skills, and not

… [ Read more ]

Author: Paul W. Beamish
Source: The International Joint-Venture: A Discussion with Professor Paul W. Beamish
Subject: Partnerships / Alliances Questions