Industry Focus

     It is very important for business to look around and see what is going on the industry. This is very important for survival in the competitive marketplace. This broader perspective helps organizations to introduce or enhance products and services more effectively and efficiently.

Vision, Mission, Strategy, Goals, and Objectives - All these are important for business.

Why are some businesses not able to compete with other companies in the Information technology industry? These companies that are unable to compete are not able to cope up with the industry trends and practices.

In an article on HP layoffs hp-layoffs-a-sign-of-bad-management,  the author asks what can CEO do when company is not performing well? The answer is CEO has to understand industry trends and practices and perform SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to find out why the company's strategy is not working.  

Quality of meetings

How to conduct effective meetings?

1. Ensure that a published agenda is in place - This helps ensure that team focus on the items without talking about "things" in random fashion.

2. Encourage participation - Participation and feedback are the key elements of effective meetings

3. Arrive few minutes early - Ensure that you arrive few minutes early before participants arrive.

4. Familiarity with the Subject matter - Ensure that you are familiar with the subject matter that is being discussed.

5. Actions, Risks and Issues tracking - Clearly record the action items, risks, and issues and ensure that these are tracked to closure. 

Five Competitive Forces that shape the strategy, Great Video

Lack of Ethics or Silly Mistake?

Did Scott Thompson (Former CEO of Yahoo) demonstrate lack of ethical behavior or did he make a silly mistake? 

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not have a degree in computer science. Did they not succeed without manipulating academic credentials.

What is ethics? Ethics is honesty, morality, integrity, social responsibility, and accountability.

Corporate CEOs continue to behave unethical behavior. Are greed and orientation towards short-term profits causing this type of behavior?

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Government Services

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse is pervasive in most of the government services in all democratic societies.  

The main root causes of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse are lack of accountability and corruption.

Take the case of the US. The congress blames the president for not getting things done. The president blames the congress for not getting things done. Finally very little gets done to improve the government services and the public frustration and anger continue to grow.

It is good to hear few of the republican presidential candidates talk about using Lean Six Sigma methodologies to eliminate waste in government agencies.   

One of the first steps that any quality oriented government can take is consolidation of multiple federal agencies.

Every quality initiative starts with commitment from the top management. Top management in the context of government services consists of the president, the congress, and the secretaries of the state. Let us hope that the top management of the government services takes solid steps to plan and implement quality initiatives to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

As quality professionals, we have a very important responsibility to continue to promote the importance of quality initiatives to improve the government services.