You are currently browsing the Blog - EMS - Business Consultants weblog archives for December, 2008.
29/12/2008 by Geoff.
Linda Trapnell has been invited to speak at the 14th International Conference on Thinking in Kuala Lumpar in June of next year. Other speakers include. Edward De Bono and Tony Buzan. For more information on the conference go to: http://www.14ththinkingconference.com
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22/12/2008 by Phil.
Managing a business and especially the people that work in that business, is never going to be easy. The current economic climate makes it even more difficult with conditions changing day by day / minute by minute. No one can even guess what the next bombshell might be. It’s always tempting to chase the latest management trend (or 3/4 letter acronym) in search of the ‘Holy Grail’ of management techniques that is going to make your business so much more profitable / bring your business more success / make your life easier / give you a better work/life balance.
The problem is these techniques all come with their experts and are held up as ‘the solution’ for the moment. We are all guilty at some point. No one denies that LEAN, 6 Sigma, TPS, Balanced Score Cards, 5’s, TOC, Clouds, etc, etc are all useful techniques which when applied at the right time can have real positive effects. But lets get back to basics. If you don’t have a plan and have not got your team all pulling in the same direction then these techniques are not going to solve your problems.
Deming had it about right - PLAN - DO - CHECK - ACT. And maybe we would add in ENGAGE your people!!!!
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21/12/2008 by Geoff.
No in this instance its not about putting your destination’s post code into the sat nav! But it is about having a route for your business and knowing the effect of decisions you take and where you are taking it.
If you’ve read our article on business planning (http://www.emseff.co.uk/businessplan.html) then you’ll get the key elements that need to be in your plan. At this time there are very few companies that are avoiding the downturn (credit crunch - http://www.emseff.co.uk/creditcrunch.html) so you must have a plan.
At EMS we have always thought there is something missing from the toolbox available to the SME! There are plenty of forecasting tools but they tend to be expensive and hence tend to be the domain of big company’s and accountants. We have now produced an easy to use and affordable tool to predict your P&L and cash-flow that will integrate with your plan - if you would like know more it then just contact us.
Oh, its just as useful for big companies!
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15/12/2008 by Geoff.
As we mentioned some time ago in this blog we have been trying to recruit Linda Trapnell to EMS. We’re pleased to report success! Linda brings valuable leadership skills to our offering with the potential of adding value to our clients. For more details of Linda (skillsets, full rpofile and projects completed) follow this link - http://www.emseff.co.uk/company.html.
Together with Geoff we now have two authorised practitioners in Motivational Maps. If you want to know more about motivating your team read our article - http://www.emseff.co.uk/motivation.html and visit www.motivationalmaps.com (for business) and www.motivationalmapseducation.com
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07/12/2008 by Phil.
Our new website has just been verified as W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) compliant. In a direct quote from the W3C website ‘The social value of the Web is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C’s primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.’ For example you will see that on our site all the fonts are scalable, so that visitors with sight difficulties can view the site at a comfortable font size for them.
Just beware though. There are some companies testing your site and cold calling to talk to you about W3C in a marketing drive for their business. As always just beware and check things out with your website designer or developer first.
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07/12/2008 by Geoff.
Many moons ago Companies where encouraged to have an auditable quality system (BS5750) and where pursuaded to achieve this so they would get increased sales. A bit of a falasy - the more up to date view is that to achieve ISO 9000 / 2000 you need an auditable business process. Having said this it all comes down to what benefits the Compnay is going to get by going through the process:
Unless there are real benefits what’s the point in doing it? Don’t forget there are at least two stages to the process:
We at EMS are well equipped to help you with the above. Contact us if you have a requirement.
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01/12/2008 by Phil.
Phil has just taken on a long term project to assist a printing company in attaining Business Improvement Techniques NVQ II qualifications for a good proportion of it’s workforce. The program consists of workshops and coaching sessions aimed at LEAN improvements identified, implemented and monitored by the students. When I say that some of the students have worked there for 39+ years and the average length of service is 28years, then you will see they have a lot of experience to draw on. More reports as the work progresses.
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