Evaluating Best Practices: Managing Quality, Speed, Flexibility And Information As An AssetEssay Preview: Evaluating Best Practices: Managing Quality, Speed, Flexibility And Information As An AssetReport this essayEvaluating Best Practices: Managing Quality, Speed, Flexibility and Information as an AssetContemporary Issues in Leadership and Management / MM 590October 16, 2006Managing Quality, Speed, Flexibility and Information as an AssetIn the business industry today companies do not have the option of cutting corners when it comes to quality, speed, flexibility and managing information as an asset. Businesses are born, growing or dieing off every day. If a company desires to grow it must ensure that all facets of its operations and processes updated, run efficiently and managed effectively. This paper will evaluate five best practices used to manage quality, speed, flexibility and manage information as an asset. The best practices identified will be evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses. The paper will also identify companies that use the best practices acknowledged in this paper and cover how they use the different processes to their benefit. The best practices identified through the research on managing quality, speed, flexibility and information used as an asset will be used to evaluate and make recommended changes to Home Depots existing practices.
Businesses are expanding globally everyday requiring them to develop different ways to adapt to the changing business environment and to maintain a competitive edge in their industry. Only a few short years ago businesses focused primarily on cutting costs, restructuring and re-engineering as a means of managing quality, speed and flexibility. Today many businesses also lean towards growth by branching out into related areas or other industries, researching new products and services (quality), technological advances (speed) as a means to provide a vast range of merchandise and services (flexibility) and manage to keep the methods and processes internal (managing information as an asset).
The Globalization of Marketing
To be able to compete for and grow our customer base globally, marketers need to bring a strong level of business ability to their operations. This makes it even easier for marketers to be innovative, entrepreneurial and be able to deliver more results in a way they otherwise might not have.
As a result of the growth of our online and mobile marketing platform, we have realized how important it is to be able to deliver to our customers (or their markets as well) products that are superior to our products in key aspects. To accomplish this, our new strategic plan includes an innovative approach to our business and is designed to enable our users to drive and leverage our brand to grow with further growth and business objectives. To do it, we are proposing a number of strategies. In our case, we are leveraging a combination of the following:
• We are leveraging and developing more sophisticated online tools for our current, pre-existing business products (mobile, advertising, mobile applications) to leverage our more advanced online services (mobile, advertising and social).
• We are seeking to expand our existing business with our mobile services, expanding our brand through all of the marketing platforms.
• We are expanding our marketing approach with an eye on providing differentiated advertising services to better serve our core market segments, including consumers, advertisers and digital content partners.
Our plan, as outlined above, is to engage more consumers in this way
With the creation and expansion of our branded content ecosystem, it is increasingly easy to find the opportunities with which we can help to grow our business, particularly in the mobile and mobile applications market.
And as we look ahead, we believe there are more and more opportunities to expand our brand beyond these areas, which could have an impact for our business at least in the long term.
What’s Next
Our efforts and vision are to expand our brand to include areas such as:
● Building and marketing our products to consumers
● Expanding a platform of social messaging and mobile marketing.
● Creating and marketing opportunities to encourage increased user acquisition and retention through online shopping habits.
● Developing new business models to address current challenges and to better serve consumers.
● Building a mobile and platform of support for our business.
What We Should Be Doing to Improve Our Brand
● Re-engineering our existing products to build better products
● Building a new mobile application platform to add new and innovative capabilities
● Designing new and innovative business applications with features that are complementary to our existing product offerings.
The next steps in our plan involve a number of different initiatives and strategies. And we know each of these may require some change. Our plan should therefore be made as coherent and simple as possible: we are proposing no
The Globalization of Marketing
To be able to compete for and grow our customer base globally, marketers need to bring a strong level of business ability to their operations. This makes it even easier for marketers to be innovative, entrepreneurial and be able to deliver more results in a way they otherwise might not have.
As a result of the growth of our online and mobile marketing platform, we have realized how important it is to be able to deliver to our customers (or their markets as well) products that are superior to our products in key aspects. To accomplish this, our new strategic plan includes an innovative approach to our business and is designed to enable our users to drive and leverage our brand to grow with further growth and business objectives. To do it, we are proposing a number of strategies. In our case, we are leveraging a combination of the following:
• We are leveraging and developing more sophisticated online tools for our current, pre-existing business products (mobile, advertising, mobile applications) to leverage our more advanced online services (mobile, advertising and social).
• We are seeking to expand our existing business with our mobile services, expanding our brand through all of the marketing platforms.
• We are expanding our marketing approach with an eye on providing differentiated advertising services to better serve our core market segments, including consumers, advertisers and digital content partners.
Our plan, as outlined above, is to engage more consumers in this way
With the creation and expansion of our branded content ecosystem, it is increasingly easy to find the opportunities with which we can help to grow our business, particularly in the mobile and mobile applications market.
And as we look ahead, we believe there are more and more opportunities to expand our brand beyond these areas, which could have an impact for our business at least in the long term.
What’s Next
Our efforts and vision are to expand our brand to include areas such as:
● Building and marketing our products to consumers
● Expanding a platform of social messaging and mobile marketing.
● Creating and marketing opportunities to encourage increased user acquisition and retention through online shopping habits.
● Developing new business models to address current challenges and to better serve consumers.
● Building a mobile and platform of support for our business.
What We Should Be Doing to Improve Our Brand
● Re-engineering our existing products to build better products
● Building a new mobile application platform to add new and innovative capabilities
● Designing new and innovative business applications with features that are complementary to our existing product offerings.
The next steps in our plan involve a number of different initiatives and strategies. And we know each of these may require some change. Our plan should therefore be made as coherent and simple as possible: we are proposing no
Evaluating Quality, Speed and Flexibility as a Best PracticeIn order for companies to be successful in a rapidly changing environment, they need to be able to respond immediately to opportunities and threats by producing new products and services while minimizing operational costs. By companies enabling themselves to manage quality, speed and flexibility, they will be able to meet the unique challenges that face them. The increased requirement to advance technology electronically has made a monumental shift from the much slower process of using the mechanistic methods of old. There is an increased expectation for error-free automation, changing customer expectations and shortened deadlines for delivery of the products or services. This has caused companies to find ways to minimize human errors by using technology more intelligently. Added to the constantly changing business environment and changing customer expectations is the demand to meet government regulatory compliance requirements. As companies expand their markets and production globally, the amounts of regulations the companies must comply with have increased immensely. This global expansion is due to the increasing pressures to meet customer and client expectations, the needs are continually changing, and increasing which in turn is causing competition to find ways to ramp up their quality and speed and find new ways to be more flexible with processes. As new businesses continue to pop up everywhere giving the customer many different options, companies must take the necessary steps to increase product quality, the speed at which they can provide the product and continue to search out ways to remain flexible with the options available to them.
One area considered a best practice in the area of managing a companys quality, speed and flexibility comes from knowledge management. This process is “increasingly acknowledged as a corporate asset; some argue that it has supplanted the traditional factors of production – land, labor and capital – to become the preeminent corporate and competitive resource.” (Bogdanowicz & Bailey, 2002) The companies that use this best practice must understand that todays workforce tends to stay with a company on average only 18 months and as long as they feel like they are being used appropriately by sharing knowledge, they will remain with the company. Another process involves systems and sustainability mixed with society. The article mentions expanding the companys approach through systems thinking where “people function within organizations…operate within alliances, which compete within industries that must integrate with societies, governments and cultures.” (Systems, Sustainability and Society, 2002) Another article discusses the importance of managing quality, speed and flexibility through an internal process. This best practice uses a process called knowledge-based organization (KBO) which addresses issues with the management of professional workers to continue company growth. This article makes the point that enhancing professions to improve quality, speed and flexibility viewed as “a resource, rather than a topic for research in organizational studies.” (Cohen, Finn, Wilkinson & Arnold, 2002)
According to one article, corporate culture is a driving force for a company to gain competitive advantages in their respective industry. The author identifies managing quality, speed and flexibility comes by investing in the companys culture. “True competitive advantage comes when corporate culture is well defined, nurtured throughout the organization and embodied by all employees.” (Jaquenoud, 2005) He also states that this type of process for improving a companys quality, speed and flexibility help to improve the working relationship of the companys stakeholders. The last best practice evaluated is a new optimization and management services process that monitors, updates and implements third-generation (3G) data services. The article mentions two very important influences in the wireless cellular network industry are “the increasing complexity of wireless network services and the increasing customer demands and competitive pressures upon cellular service providers.” (Buvaneswari, Ravishankar, Graybeal, Haner & Rittenhouse, 2004) This new process will not only increase cellular network quality, speed and flexibility but it will also allow these companies to “monitor, diagnose, and optimize their increasingly complex networks.” (Buvaneswari, et al., 2004) All five best practices have strengths and weaknesses covered further on in the paper.
Managing Information as an AssetManaging