Tag: Performance

UK industrial strategy

The UK government’s ‘Industrial Strategy’ for making the UK more competitive and the economy better-balanced essentially involves increasing R&D investment and workers’ skills It considers five areas for productivity improvement – Ideas, People, Infrastructure, Places and Business environment – and recognises four grand challenges: Artificial intelligence and machine learning Clean growth Future mobility Ageing society …

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Financial cardinals needed

Of the many financial measures available, only three qualify as financial cardinals – the ones whose alarm bells must ring to prompt action in good time They are total revenue, total cost and profitability They’re ‘catch-all’ measures covering all outputs, outcomes and inputs: Total revenue covers net outputs sold and outcomes the customers took into …

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Misleading research metrics

In an article entitled ‘Capitalism is ruining science’, Meagan Day (for www.jacobinmag.com) points out that universities existed before capitalism and pursued not profit but truth and knowledge But no longer The modern university has become increasingly subservient to the imperatives of capitalism i.e. competition, profit maximisation and increasing labour productivity In academia, this manifests itself as …

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ICT for processes – Pearls from Gates

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, suggested the following applications for ICT – Information and Communications Technology For knowledge work: Insist that communications flow through the organisation over e-mail so that you can act on news with reflex-speed Study sales data on-line to easily find patterns, share insights, understand overall trends and personalise service for individual …

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Beware taking the IT plunge

Professor John Seddon, CEO of Vanguard Consultants issued the following wake-up call for business leaders investing in the digital bandwagon The Big Consultancies too often peddle unnecessarily complex solutions to business problems, often not fully understanding the problem causes in the first place For example, Western quality problems in the 80s/ 90s were addressed by the …

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Current measures have huge gaps

Most managers, whether at task, process or organisation level, lack the comprehensive set of performance measures they need to cover all their KRAs (Key Result Areas) In effect, they’re flying blind Current coverage is estimated to be as follows: 90% – Financial results – in particular, Revenue, Costs, Profits – at board level, they might …

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Groupthink waffle or results needed

The following is a precis of part of an email from Professor John Seddon of Vanguard Consultants who  spoke at a public-sector ‘shared services’ conference The opening keynote was from the interim leader of the Government Shared Service programme – a very nice man – who said: We aim to be the best civil service in …

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Great performers employ CI

There’s a direct read-across between how the best in business emulate the best in sport In an article in The Times, Matthew Syed asks ‘What separates greats from wasted talents?’: “Great athletes are hyper-confident – they don’t believe they have any weaknesses – they cannot be beaten – they’re already perfect and so cannot continually improve” …

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Core human needs at work

Much has already been said about hierarchies of human needs which need to be met if workers are to be motivated However, a recent study of 12,000 white collar workers by Tony Schwartz, CEO of ‘The Energy Project’ and Professor Christine Porath of Georgetown University is well worth noting They claim that employees have four …

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Vanguard lead way for big improvements

Productivity is the most important peacetime issue facing any nation or organisation – therefore, one would expect all governments and major business schools, management organisations and consultancies to focus on it  Not so For example: The UK has no well-known, well-supported productivity ‘centre of excellence’ e.g. a UK Productivity Centre – HMG might occasionally set …

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EU to become USE?

Since the euro-based austerity crises visited on Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy – followed by the refugee crises causing Schengen alarm bells to ring loudly across most EU states – then Brexit – and now elections in France and Germany raising increasingly important national sovereignty issues there – the likelihood is the EU, as constituted, will …

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Basic steps to big improvements

There are various acronyms on offer for how to go about improvement projects viz: PDCA from TQM – Plan, Do, Check, Amend DMAIC from Six Sigma – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control SREDIM from Work Study – Setup, Record, Examine, Develop, Implement, Maintain   All boil down to much the same process Managers, whatever their level and …

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Why do national productivity gaps persist?

Philip Hammond, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, is forever saying: “It takes a German worker four days to produce what a UK worker makes in five” Others say much the same about French workers But such claims are not new, they’ve been made over the last 30 years at least We already know the ONS …

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Low Australia productivity affects all, not just a few

New Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, says boosting productivity is essential if Australia is to maintain the living standards it has enjoyed in recent years He warns: “Australia’s remarkable boom times are over and the best way to maintain our standard of living is to have a laser-like focus on productivity”. In his first appearance before …

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It’s the rest, not the best, that’s the problem

The Brooking Institute’s Martin Neil Baily and Nicholas Montalbano considered the causes of the current global productivity puzzle recently “The most promising sign for future growth is that the most productive firms are growing faster than the rest – the frontier is still moving out – but the diffusion of best practices is not pulling the …

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Broad action needed post Brexit

In the Guardian, Katie Allen recommended ways Prime Minister Theresa May could ‘lift the UK economy’s post-Brexit’ blues – via: Tax cuts – especially VAT More infrastructure spending – traffic jams and delivery delays waste a huge amount of time, adding to unit costs and reducing national productivity Encouraging huge increases in housebuilding across the nation, …

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Wage levels versus Productivity

President John F. Kennedy believed that “a rising tide lifts all boats” but many question if that remains true today in the business world They point to data showing that productivity has risen sharply since the end of WW2 whilst wages have stagnated and conclude that productivity-driven economic growth does not necessarily benefit USA workers …

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Pin factory productivity

Adam Smith illustrated how the division of labour could improve productivity in the famous small pin factory example he used in his tome ‘Wealth of Nations’, 1776, viz: 10 workers, each specialising in a different aspect of the work , could produce over 48,000 pins a day However, if each of these ten workers had made …

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Full AI impact may take time

Erik Brynjolfson, an MIT economics professor, says: “We are optimistic about the ultimate productivity growth fuelled by AI and complementary technologies The real issue is that it takes time to implement changes in processes, skills and organisational structures to fully harness AI’s potential as a GPT (General Purpose Technology)”   Benefits from specific applications are …

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GE announces ‘Big Data’ productivity gains

A new report from GE – General Electric, USA – found that the Industrial Internet  could add €2.2 trn to European GDP by 2030, boost productivity and spur economic expansion. The report, called The Industrial Internet – Pushing the Boundaries of Minds and Machines: A European Perspective, says that a mere 1 % increase in efficiency …

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