Business Management - All Posts - Ze'ev Ronen - Business Excellence

1612 Views

Blue Ocean Sales Strategy

I write a lot about getting employees invested, about efficiency, improved service, measuring indicators, and precision work with employees and clients. But if, at the same time, you have to lower prices in order to preserve clients in a competitive market, and to supply custom products to every client – you might find yourselves running fast in order to stand still. There's a danger that increased profit as a result of improvements in production will disappear compared to competition in the market, and at best you'll maintain low profit margins.

1536 Views

Who Should Leave the Comfort-Zone, Employees or Management – or – How to Get Employees Invested?

In it they could see how, at the end of the work day on Thursday, at three in the afternoon, the door to one of the departments was left open. Actually, it wasn’t a door, but a wide gate, made of two metal doors. Its width is about three meters, its height about four meters.

4526 Views

The CEO and Management: Division of Responsibilities and Authority in the Organization

The CEO is in charge as far the law, the share-holders or the board of directors are concerned (meaning he's the one accountable). So he must ensure the company reaches its goals and targets, first and foremost profit and resiliency. Of course the CEO's instinct is, then, to be involved in everything, and try and personally lead all processes in the company.

1695 Views

Why It's Important to Define and Advertise Your Organizational Structure?

About a year ago I started working with a medium-sized company, about 200 employees, and a shift-supervisor listed as CEO a consultant who would come to the site once a week. I asked what job the actual CEO did, and he said he had no idea.

1236 Views

4 Important Performance Indicators to Know

Recommended frequency for discussion of indicators: I recommend all indicators' results be discussed by management once a month. At least once a week, they should be discussed in dedicated improvement teams with the relevant manager (operations, sales, finance, marketing, etc.) or their representative. Some indicators should be shortly analyzed daily, as needed.

2016 Views

Working with Lean Canvas and Why It's the Best Tool for New Startups or Products

Often excitement is so overwhelming that companied start developing a new business without first examining risks and chance of success. Sometimes, we look at a business close to ours, competitors are profiting in it, and we decided to enter it and join the big players. We jump into the water, and discover too late we jumped into a red ocean.

1794 Views

Creating a Yearly Work-Plan – A Step-by-Step Guide

Around the end of every year I get questions about creating a work-plan for the upcoming year. First, I'd like to point out that the very end of the year is too late to start working on a yearly-plan for the next year. Additionally, it is better to base yearly plans on a larger, multi-year plan.

1673 Views

How to Manage Dead Inventory and What You Can Get Out of a Yearly Inventory-Check

Dead inventory is accumulated by many companies. Most often it will consist of mistakenly-ordered raw materials, or excess materials which "were on sale", or that have become redundant due to product changes. Doesn’t It Make More Sense to Get Rid of Dead Stock?

1632 Views

Inventory Management and Using the Inventory Adequacy Indicator

When Nestle delved into daily performance in Osem (at the time I managed a large profit center), they showed us, for the first time, the need to measure how many unites were counted in inventory checks in the field, compared to data in the company's digital records.

1746 Views

Statistical Quality Control – What Is It? How To Use It? – The Last Chapter From My First Book

This is the last chapter from my new book: Manage! Best Value Practices for Effective Management. the full book is can be purchesed on Amazon. The purpose of this book is to provide a fresh look on how you can improve business results by making your company matter to your employees.

1618 Views

How to Create and Measure Employee Motivation

We often used the term motivation, but do we always mean the same thing? Last week I gave a talk in two classes in the School of Economics & Business Administration at the Ruppin Academic Center, as part of Dr. Adi Loria ("Select Issues in Management MBA"). The topic was "The Relationship between Management Methods and Employee Motivation".

1639 Views

About Worker Motivation and Increased Production

What did it feel like, the last time you were complimented? For a nice outfit, doing well in school or on a successfully completed project? How did you feel posting about your kid's or grandkid's high grades on Facebook, or WhatsApp, and got dozens of likes?

1603 Views

From defining a job title to defining responsibility: How the right definition can solve interorganizational problems

I am sometimes asked if I provide organizational consultation regarding management conflicts, and I answer that usually the source of the problem lies in the missing parameters in the allocation of authority, within management, and from there, the situation spreads to the entire organization.

3274 Views

How to move from concern to influence, or how to take responsibility for results

Ron works in a senior position at a major company and was in charge of arranging a very important tour with the Minister of Commerce at one of the projects managed by the company. The visit was important to the company, but to Ron it was even more significant. He viewed the success of the visit as a personal test and an opportunity to position himself better in the eyes of the company CEO.

1652 Views

Can We Apply Lean Production without Employees?

In a course I gave to a certain company, some employees mentioned the "lean production" the company was implementing at one of its divisions. Nathan, who works at that division, stated that "actually, all this lean stuff has one hidden agenda. It's directed towards moving maintenance over to the operators, loading them with more tasks than they are already loaded with".

1547 Views

How Can You Prevent Loss of Payments You are Owed?

In the past, when I managed a company that manufactured and supplied office furniture to institutions, I began my term by visiting the delivery area to find out how deliveries are handled. To my surprise, I discovered that there was no follow up on packing lists and that the drivers didn't always turn them in.

1464 Views

What is the Kanban system and how can it help us both in our businesses and at home?

Just keep one spare tube in the drawer. When the current one is finished, take out the new one, take it out of its box, but don't throw the box away. Place the empty box in the same place as your shopping list, as a reminder of what you need to buy. By the time you use up the present tube of toothpaste, you will have bought a new tube on a routine shopping trip at the drug store or supermarket.

2242 Views

Teamwork – How important is it and how do you create it?

One employee interviewed said that she loved working there. People were nice and she enjoyed working with them. I showed this same employee a photo of the sign over the door and asked her if she recognized it.

1728 Views

Failure Analysis: To Arrive at the Root Cause and Create a Solution with the Five Why Method

We may often be faced with a specific problem, a breakdown. The breakdown may be in production, in purchasing, in sales or in any other realm. Our first goal is to resolve the problem: to find the reason, to come up with a solution and to carry on.

1873 Views

The Y Generation – Is there such a thing, and what does it say for the world of employment?

My young daughters, who will soon turn ten, often use a phone app called music.ly, filming themselves in a clip with a song in the background. When I asked them one day how they synchronize separate clips of each person onto the same screen, they looked at me in disdain – a look reserved for someone who is generations behind the technological times…

2448 Views

Is there a link between Salary and Motivation?

I often hear the claim that salary is the key to employee motivation. Every time, I ask whoever said it - what makes their work interesting? Why do they stay long hours after work even though they aren't getting paid for extra time? The answers are usually in the range of "my responsibility", "I'm significant", or "people listen to me". "And where is it expressed in your salary?" I ask. Here is where the conversation usually ends. I'm under no illusion that I've convinced my companion, although perhaps sometimes I have. Let's talk about the real factors that generate motivation and interest in work for everyone.

1999 Views

My door is always open, or, the power of transparency

You know that saying that a lot of CEO's repeat, "My door is always open to my employees" ? When I was a CEO, I, too, thought my door was always open to my employees, but was that really true? Not necessarily.

1998 Views

Hotbeds of waste: Where we lose major money without noticing

Many companies I have encountered search for ways to save "in the spotlight", meaning areas where it is easy to see and to attribute to a particular focal point in pricing – for example, purchasing, defective product, work costs or logistics. And an action whose objective is to strengthen employee bonds falls under Welfare and is usually considered a luxury, ending up being the first thing to cut.

1651 Views

The flowchart – a tool for efficiency and clearing bottlenecks in processes

The product was highly profitable, but still, it seemed we might be able to shorten the process and make it more efficient. So, the course participants suggested a few significant improvements and elimination of some of the stages.

1696 Views

Coping with Dilemmas – Costs and Benefits

When the dilemma is personal, I recommend making your own decision in all cases. Remember that everyone, including those close to you, has personal agendas and interests in your decision. However objective the person you choose to advise you may be, they will be influenced by their own attitudes and perceptions of the matter. When the decision is an organizational one, the situation is different, and I'll expand on this later.

1965 Views

The ideal CEO – An Article Celebrating the Publication of My First Book

This month will see the publication of my first book will: Manage! Best Value Practices for Effective Management. To celebrate it, I would like to dedicate this weekly article to the role of the ideal manager. 

13639 Views

Twelve principles of effective management - The first chapter from my first book: "Manage! Best Value Practices for Effective Management"

This is the first chapter from my new book: Manage! Best Value Practices for Effective Management. The purpose of this book is to provide a fresh look on how you can improve business results by making your company matter to your employees.

1674 Views

Brainstorming – The Basic Tool for Problem-Solving and the Development of Creative Thinking

Brainstorming is one of the basic tools in the development of ideas, problem-solving, creative thinking or any other group endeavor. When we develop Fishbone with the objective of arriving at the root cause of a specific problem, brainstorming is the basic tool we should use.

2310 Views

Increase in Output and Efficiency using OEE measures

At a major public company's plant, output was never measured. Production planning was performed on the basis of machine work hours for each product, and there was no control undertaken on this either. As the objective is to produce some kind of product, or to provide a service, we need to measure output and not the hours during which we have manufactured or planned production.

1918 Views

What is the Pareto Principle and how can it assist us?

If we address the 20% of principal products manufactured (see example later on), we can attain a significant improvement in results (eg. profits). In this way, we can concentrate our efforts and resources and be decisive and efficient.

Page 3 of 4

Manage Cover Front w150My First Book: Manage! Best Value Practices for Effective Management

The book brings together a set of tools that every CEO should know, presenting them in a clear, concise and consistent fashion that will leave the reader with comprehensive and useful knowledge to assist them in their careers as managers.

Read the first chapter & Reviews from previous readers >>