Work Plan - Ze'ev Ronen - Business Excellence

A company gave its employees a quarterly bonus. The bonuses were granted to employees who met their personal targets, which were determined according to an agreed scale. The employees were used to receiving the quarterly bonus and eagerly anticipated it at the end of each quarter.

Do you remember the days when we worked six days a week? Has moving to five days had a bad effect on employers or employees? Has efficiency decreased? Have we been achieving less?

Assuming the company sells 20 products, the items are listed from the products generating the highest profit at the top of the list to the products generating the lowest profit at the bottom of the list. According to the Pareto principle, there is a good chance that the first four products on the list produce around 80% of the company’s revenues. If we focus on improving the profitability of these four products, we will achieve substantial improvement of the company’s profitability in an effective way.

It is widely accepted that without data and careful analysis, businesses cannot advance. Not assessing and not controlling processes is like driving a car without the ability to see the way or check how much petrol is left in the tank.

This article was written during wartime. Life continues and businesses continue to operate. I have recently been asked many important questions regarding the correct way to operate a business in the face of the current difficulties and obstacles.

Yesterday we hiked from Neve Ativ to Birkat Man and from there to the lower parking lot of the Hermon site. The weather was wonderful. The sun was with us all day. There was snow, there were amazing views and an excellent group of hikers. Bottom line - it was excellent. But as sometimes happens, the road to the goal – the trip – was full of pitfalls.

Work meetings take up time, and it's often wasted time. But there are also efficient meetings, that give a sense of purpose and a drive for change. I assume many of you are among those whose experience with meetings is that they're a waste of time. You leave every meeting frustrated, and have learned to stay quiet to make the meeting go faster.

If you have a convenience store at a gas station, you need to stock a number of essential items customers might suddenly need, or buy impulsively when they stop to fill up. Nobody does their weekly grocery shop at a gas station.

The Coronavirus hit us like an apocalyptic vision. I think that if anyone had raised the possibility of such an event, even in November 2019, we’d have all treated them like a fool. Despite the surprise, globally people adjusted remarkably quickly. It’s enough to look at the parallel development of vaccines, and their approval by health authorities, within 10 months, to understand the revolution in tends of behaviors and thought patterns that occurred over the last year.

It might seem odd, but some businesses and people benefited from the global effects of the pandemic. For example, let's say you're a manufacturer of a niche product like facemasks, and suddenly it becomes the most sought after product worldwide, sold for exorbitant prices. It can seem as if luck fell out of the sky, into your lap. What will you do?

Javier is a young tour guide, Until recently, he had a lot of work. He speaks Spanish fluently, and as a result he had, among is other clients, many Birthright groups from South America.
And then came the Coronavirus, and Javier found himself without work, and with the realisation that life is unlikely to return to how it was anytime soon.

Ei'lam and I analyzed the company's operations, and for all other fields managed to create a profit generating work-plan with reasonable effort. Contrastingly, it seemed impossible to create such a work-plan for the import and distribution side of the business.

A medical start-up I worked with in the past faced a considerable schedule delay. I suggested the CEO display the company's goals and schedules in a prominent location, breakdown company goals to personal ones assigned to each managers, and thus delegate responsibility to them.

In my last article I discussed strategies for businesses during the Coronavirus crisis: the gazelle and the hedgehog strategies. When the gazelle senses danger it raises its head, looks around, and runs forward. At times it will change direction, but will always continue moving and keep its head up. 

We're nearing the end of 2019, have you prepared a work-plan (and budget) for 2020? Maybe you have a three-year or five-year plan? If the answer is no – this is the last chance to do so. And maybe you think work plans aren't necessary?

Dividing the product to its two parts, which traditionally would have been one whole (the frame and the temples), and the possibility to create different and varied pairings, created something different. Unlike the usual product. This was a case of very interesting innovation. It enabled the company, for instance, to offer clients a vast number of choices for a relatively low cost. At the same time, this new method gave clients a feeling of independence and customization. Creating "a personal look".

Facit is a famous example, but there were others. A recent example from Israel comes from the world of cellular parking services. I heard it from Ro'ee Elbaz, Pango's CEO ever since it was a small startup of four employees. In 2007 a tender for cellular paying services for parking was published by the center for local government.

A few weeks ago I met with Rona, a brilliant entrepreneur, and we discussed setting up her business. Towards the end of our meeting I suggested that, alongside starting her business, she could also take over her accounts management. "Why?" she asked amazed. "That way you'll have better control of your expenses", I answered and added, "It's very simple, and will save you money too. When you have a small business it's important. "

American companies reward participants based on how much money was saved for the company as a result of their proposal. The rewards average 458 USD. Comparatively, Japanese rewards average 3.88 USD (less than a hundredth of American rewards).

I used to manage an organization with several hundred employees, under a collective agreement. The premium paid to employees who exceeded production goal was set in the collective agreement, old an anachronistic. It wasn’t a real encouragement and it didn’t contribute to motivation, and didn’t change employees' way of doing their work. 

Space itself is thus affected by the people and objects in it. All matter is made up of electrons and protons which vibrate and influence the energy field - colors, which are themselves a frequency, textures, and the way a certain space is designed.

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.

When the team deals with sales development or debt collection, there is almost no new information on a daily basis, and so there's no need to meet daily. But work on the production floor is continuous and at the very least daily. So there are new developments every day. Should results be analyzed daily? Weekly? Monthly?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.