Insights on Excellence | Insights Archive
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Drop ship direct to customers from your plant in China? Why not?
August 31, 2007
Today, companies are facing a range of difficult issues. Energy costs and labor costs are rising, and the currency exchange is not as favorable as it used to be. On top of this, the market is flooded with consumer goods, making it impossible to raise prices. What should a company do?
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Chinese labor is cheaper, but probably not as cheap as you think
August 13 , 2007
Some people think industry in China is growing so fast the country will soon run out of factory workers willing to work for low wages.
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For a company to be global, it must leave behind its U.S. biases
July 30, 2007
Perhaps your company is a small to mid-size business caught in the crunch brought about by the deflation in the value of manufactured goods created by China and other low-cost labor countries. You may be thinking of moving some manufacturing to China with the old saying in mind, "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em."
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Economic development offices are there to help
but treat U.S. and Chinese business operations the same
July 24, 2007
Wherever you go when looking to set up a factory or a business, you are likely to find a government agency whose job it is to sell you on the area. This is true in China and in the United States. Economic development departments exist to do what they can to attract your business.
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Want to do business in China? Make sure you're high-tech, cutting edge and green
July 6, 2007
Things have grown to the point in China where the government can begin to be selective concerning the types of businesses it wants to attract. And it wants to attract the types of businesses everyone else in the world wants: clean, high-tech, non- polluting and green-friendly enterprises.
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Make your Chinese factories lean
June 19, 2007
When setting up a factory in China, duplicating the operation and processes you have in the U.S. is often not the smartest approach. You are no doubt moving production to China because labor is cheaper there.
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Get ready for China to shake the world
June 12, 2007
Lately, I've been working on a book with a successful Chinese-American business man about how best to do business in China. This has included a fact-finding trip to China and a great deal of research. I can honestly tell you that what I have learned is not at all what I had expected.
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Labor management technology can evaluate your compensation model
June 5, 2007
Labor management technology (LMT) can become the centerpiece of managing workers. An up-to-date system will be the repository of information about what goes on every day in a business, tying this to the people that make it happen.
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Introducing supply and demand to labor management
May 29, 2007
Have you ever seen that TV commercial with a husband and wife sitting at a table, pouring over a document. An eager salesman sits across the table waiting for their reaction. They hand the paper back to him, show him the door and say, "next" to the waiting throng of mortgage brokers standing in line outside their door. In the world of work-force management technology, something approaching that scene is beginning to occur.
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Keeping track of who's minding the store
May 23, 2007
Some remote business sites are not staffed with management personnel during late-night shifts, but work-force management technology can help mitigate oversight issues. Since the latest technology is real-time, it's possible to know who is on premises at any given moment.
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The benefits of interfacing with employees online
May 8, 2007
Nowadays, more and more people are doing their banking online, shopping online and buying and selling stocks online. Why not have the same setup with employee time and attendance issues?
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How work-force management technology can improve efficiency
April 25, 2007
A work-force management technology system can roll up information in practically any way management may find helpful or revealing. The system can help executives evaluate their company's efficiency. It can take the data from a group of employees and combine it into a department. Departments can be combined into divisions, divisions into districts, and so on. This is important so that actual expenses can be compared with budgets at every level.
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The case for empowering workers
April 2, 2007
How can an automated time and attendance system help counter a high employee turnover rate? One way may be to use technology to give employees more control over the hours they work.
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Using technology to boost employee retention
March 8 , 2007
How can an automated time and attendance system help counter a high employee turnover rate? One way may be to use technology to give employees more control over the hours they work.
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Tracking the work of exempt-status employees
February 20, 2007
Lately in this column we've been discussing the value of workforce management technology (WMT) in providing information that can be invaluable when making business decisions. But what about decisions that relate to activities performed by exempt employees whose time and attendance data may not be entered into a WMT system?
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How to move from command and control to a participatory work environment
February 13, 2007
A company that can prosper in the new global economy ultimately needs to have a different structure than the old command-and-control hierarchy. This hierarchy takes the form of the traditional organization pyramid. But a lean, participatory organization will operate through interlocking, empowered teams. Of course, this is not a change that can be or should be made overnight. It needs to happen over time - to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
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How to win over customers: Give them what they want
February 6, 2007
Henry Ford once said, "The customer can have any color [car] he wants so long as it's black." No wonder the color black and Ford automobiles were associated with one another by the mid 1920s. Imagine how much time, effort and expense Ford Motor Co. saved for more than 20 years by offering its product only in black. Wouldn't it be nice if, as a manufacturer, you could economize in this way? But the truth is, those days are gone - long gone.
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Using work-force management technology to enhance operations, quality and compliance
January 25, 2007
A man I know, who works for a large health care operation, was recently given the newly-created title of vice president of patient satisfaction. His organization has the goal of becoming the health- care provider of choice in its region. A work-force management technology system could provide information that could help it achieve this goal. Set up the right way, the system could help the organization track employees' contact with patients and relate this to patient satisfaction levels -- provided satisfaction levels were measured through questionnaires, or post-discharge interviews.
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Boosting employee retention and esprit d'corps
January 18, 2007
Many companies today have a great deal of difficulty attracting workers and retaining them, and according to some projections, the tight labor market is likely to get more so. A few companies must replace up to 70 percent of their work force every year, and there are industries in which the average turnover rate is 30 percent. Why is this situation a serious problem? It can cost companies dearly in lost productivity and customer satisfaction.
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Judging the value of pork in business
January 10, 2007
No matter which side of the political spectrum they lean toward, most business people would agree that Congress hands out bushels of money -- sometimes for good reasons, and other times not -- and it certainly seems the public hardly ever gets an accounting of the effectiveness of that spending.
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Why you may have the platform of a work-force management technology system and not know it
January 4 , 2007
Everyone knows the Maytag man - the lonely maintenance guy who sits with his feet on a desk waiting for the phone to ring, hoping something will break and need his attention. Well, he does exist. As the health-care industry struggles with rising costs and caps on reimbursements from insurers and government agencies, providers have looked for ways to save money.
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How to eliminate paying the Maytag repair man
December 12, 2006
Everyone knows the Maytag man - the lonely maintenance guy who sits with his feet on a desk waiting for the phone to ring, hoping something will break and need his attention. Well, he does exist. As the health-care industry struggles with rising costs and caps on reimbursements from insurers and government agencies, providers have looked for ways to save money.
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Work-force management technology enables modeling to predict effectiveness
December 7, 2006
A good incentive plan can have a big impact on a company's bottom line, and the right Workforce Management Technology (WMT) system, can be helpful in developing a plan because modeling can be used to determine what the impact might be. Suppose someone comes up with an incentive plan to get people to work weekends. Before instituting it, management would be wise to see how much it's going to cost.
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No more double-coupon days at work
November 28, 2006
Have you ever been to the grocery store and noticed the frugal shoppers - women with the coupon pouch as fat as bookie's wallet? They study advertisements in the Sunday newspaper. They time their trips to the store to optimize savings by shopping just when the sales start, or the freshness date markdowns hit, or the double coupon deals go into effect. They are there to get double, triple deals. According to Lisa Disselkamp, writing in the new Oaklea Press release due out in January called "Working the Clock," many employees approach work the same way
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A work-force management technology case history
November 21, 2006
Caldwell Tanks is one of the nation's largest fabricators of water towers. The company uses Workforce Management Technology (WMT), to track the status of its projects. As you can imagine, one of these huge tanks takes weeks to fabricate. Managers now track the time spent on each project, and where a project stands.
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The case of the missing tools
November 16 , 2006
Managers of a manufacturing business in Kentucky suspected tools were "clocking out" - leaving the premises and walking off with third-shift workers. People who wanted to take a tool with them could go out a rear side door where lighting was poor and no security guard was posted at that time of day. Few workers used the door because it was some distance from the parking lot. Locking the door wasn't an option because it had to be accessible for emergency and fire evacuation.
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Using labor data to increase retail sales
October 31, 2006
An outdoor equipment retailer with headquarters in the northwestern United States and dozens of stores located across the county, sells recreational and extreme sports equipment such as hang gliding, skiing, cycling, camping, hiking, backpacking and mountain climbing gear. Not long ago the company's management team recognized a connection between individual store sales and staffing. So they decided to go to an automated time and attendance labor management system with the objective of increasing sales. The ability to use this new system was made a mandatory core competency of its store managers.
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How labor management technology can help bring a company into the 21st century
October 24, 2006
When was the last time a secretary took a memo in shorthand? Okay, maybe there's someone out there still working that way. My guess is he's pushing 90. Really, what do you suppose it's been on average, 30 years? Communications and technology in the workplace have come a long way.
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If things aren't going as they should, try defining your expectations
October 17, 2006
Expectation. It's not a hard word to define. Simply put, it means an anticipated, desired outcome. But if it's so easy to define, why is it sometimes so hard to deliver on expectations?
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Transforming from autocrat to coach
October 11, 2006
The concept of good leadership undergoes a profound transformation when a company goes lean. For things to get done, people have to make their own decisions and be self-correcting. In other words, they have to start thinking for themselves, rather than waiting for someone in management to do their thinking for them. So, instead of managers, leaders of the business need to become coaches who help their players get better at making their own decisions.
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How to get an entire work force pulling together
October 3, 2006
Studies have shown that not everyone in the typical company is working to move the ball forward. A recent one indicates that about 25 percent of the work force is actively engaged and working the way management would like and hope. About 50 percent is neutrally engaged. They represent warm bodies. They come to work, muddle along and don't do any damage to the company. But the scary part of this study said that about 25 percent of the work force is activity working against the company.
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Even when workers are empowered, some things need to be nonnegotiable
Sept. 19, 2006
It used to be that managers told employees what to do, and they did it. The problem was a manager couldn't look over every employee's shoulder telling him or her what to do. In an autocratic organization, if a manager didn't say to do something, it usually didn't get done. That's why, nowadays, managers in most companies are no longer supposed to be dictators. They're supposed to be coaches.
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Overcoming the biggest obstacle to success
September 12, 2006
What is often the biggest impediment to the success of a business? Management by fear and intimidation. A company that's ruled by fear not only has difficulty holding on to people, the people who do stick it out are less motivated to work, and they are certainly not motivated to take initiative.
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For Your Team to Run Smoothly, First Define Expectations
September 5, 2006
How do you get your team functioning as it should? Step one at the first meeting is to answer the question, "What behaviors must a member of our team demonstrate to make sure the team operates effectively and achieves its goals?"
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You have the power to stop the dumping
August 7, 2006
Some teams are really good at coming up with solutions, but when it comes to implementing them, it's often the team leader who gets stuck with the job. Why does this happen? Many leaders are true believers in the old adage "If you want a job done right, do it yourself."
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Communication versus advertising
August 1, 2006
In employee surveys, one complaint employees consistently make is a "lack of communication." Organizations typically respond by putting into place more programs that focus on sharing information and data: newsletters, videos, electronic boards, town-hall meetings and such. All of these programs have their place, but they are not communication. And they are not what employees want.
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Five key factors for a successful business transformation
July 14, 2006
One job of the primary or top team of an organization should be to set overall goals to be accomplished during the year or the quarter. In the ever-more competitive global economy in which most companies now operate, a business must continue to improve and become more competitive or risk extinction.
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Five key factors for a successful business transformation
July 5, 2006
Let's say you've just taken over as the man or woman in charge and you have a brand new vision of what the organization can be. It may be radically different from what others in the organization have in mind, but you want to bring it to fruition, regardless of any opposition you may encounter. It's been my experience and that of others who have taken part in successful business transformations that five factors are required for success.
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In business, successful communications are planned
June 28, 2006
It's amazing how many otherwise intelligent business men and women leave communications to chance. It seems they sometimes forget communication is a two-way street. In a successful organization, communication is not a random event. It's a planned process, just like any other business function.
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Why not try performance management instead of a performance appraisal?
June 22, 2006
Do you dread doing performance appraisals? If you do, you aren't alone. Most managers dread doing them because they don't have good data sources from which to draw information.
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How much frequency is enough?
June 13, 2006
Ever notice how some people never seem to get the message and others will pick up on it almost before it's out of your mouth? This may seem like an abstract question. Nonetheless, there was a time in my career when it was my job to measure such things.
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Stephen Hawley Martin is a former principal of The Martin Agency in Richmond and the author of more than half a dozen books including his newest, Lean Enterprise Leader: How to Get Things Done Without Doing It All Yourself. He is editor and publisher of The Oaklea Press, a book publishing business dedicated primarily to helping business executives increase productivity.