Having just read another splendid, thought-provoking book, ‘NEXUS’ by Yuval Noah Harari, author of the best-selling ‘SAPIENS’, one sub-section covered the need to align board-level strategies with front-line managers’ tactics if the former are to be achieved Key extracts follow but first the book prompted a few thoughts In war, end-game strategy must be understood by …
Category: 06. Plans
Mar 01
Faulty Economic Forecasts!
Ryan Bourne, an economics professor at the esteemed Cato Institute, announced in The Times that he believes “Britain is paying a heavy price for faulty economic forecasts” Indeed, much the same could be said about many forecasts on offer in many different walks of life – few understand how such forecasts are produced but, when …
May 26
A clear vision for the post-crisis future?
An HBR article by Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz follows – we called this approach ‘normative forecasting’ back in the good ol’ days As the Covid-19 pandemic shakes the global economy and disrupts the way we live, work, and conduct business, leaders are scrambling to manage the immediate fallout. But, as history proves, …
Nov 30
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 …
Nov 27
Most plans go unseen or unused
The following is an extract from ‘Productivity Knowhow’ A good corporate plan is a punchy summary of where an organisation aims to be in five years’ time and, broadly, how it is to get there Essentially, the plan should define the organisation’s ‘business model’ – how it will be better than its rivals and …
Mar 19
Free markets need reins
According to Adam Smith in his The Wealth of Nations: ‘When a businessman has greater profits than he needs to maintain his own family he uses the surplus to employ more assistants to further increase his profits -and the more profits he has, the more assistants he can employ – thus an increase in profits …
Oct 23
Business lives getting shorter
In an article in the Sunday Times, Luke Johnson, chairman of Risk Capital Partners, says turnarounds need exceptional managers or ‘company doctors’ and a radical agenda – and not many are equipped for the job First, why do many businesses fail in the short term, and virtually all in the longer term? In 1950 the …
Sep 30
Implementing plans requires stamina
A good corporate plan is a punchy summary of where an organisation aims to be in five years time, say, and broadly how it is to get there Essentially, the plan should define the organisation’s business model – how it will conduct its business, be better than its rivals and be harder to copy Good …
Apr 26
By George, ‘every company is dying’
According to Sir George Buckley, a top quality UK export from the North of England to the USA and now Chairman of Stanley Black & Decker and Smiths Group, the ‘basic building blocks are the same in all companies’ George says: ‘At the 30,000ft level, every company needs: A dream To know what it wants …