Management Consulting
Jul 27 2011
The Art of Defensive and Offensive Merger Prep
The Art of Defensive and Offensive Merger Prep
As with most other business scenarios, M&A negotiations often force a company to take a defensive or offensive position on M&A due to timing and company priorities. Many organizations are reactive (though they prefer the term opportunistic) and force their organization into a defensive position at the mere rumor of a consolidation. Other organizations recognize that business consolidations are part of their growth strategy and therefore invest more in planning in order to ensure a degree of readiness. The more proactive an organization is in their targeting and internal readiness, the more that effort and resulting assets can be turned into an offensive strategy. The executive team will build off your preparation and confidence.
Jul 27 2011
M&A: An Event or a Discipline? How Ready Are You For Growth?
M&A: An Event or a Discipline? How Ready Are You For Growth?
The consolidation of two businesses may start with marketing or distribution agreements, a joint venture or a CEO call.
Jul 14 2011
Regulatory Reform and Compliance Lifecycle Management
Compliance Lifecycle
Reform, Comply, Report. STOP!!!!
Implementing some form of Regulatory Reform & Compliance Management in an organization could be as simple as the title indicates but rarely is, nor should it be. Quite the opposite, in recent years governing bodies and shareholders have been demanding increased accountability and management transparency resulting in a progressively more complex regulatory environment.
Jul 13 2011
From Brick and Mortar to the Web and Mobile Devices: What’s Your Channel Integration Strategy?
From Brick and Mortar to the Web and Mobile Devices:
What’s Your Channel Integration Strategy?
Remember the good old days when customers walked through a physical door to conduct their business? Back then companies used to take the time to get to know their customers, train their staff, and provide the right products at the right prices. Companies were in total control.
Customers loved the service that firms provided, but demanded greater convenience. Knowing that it was impossible to keep stores open 24x7, firms developed machine surrogates to extend the services provided by staff. Impressed with their brilliance, companies then started to believe that those machines could also improve efficiency and reduce costs, so they multiplied their retail footprint by placing these automated machines everywhere.
Jun 20 2011
Ensuring Consistency Between BSAs in an Organization
As a BSA, most of what we do on a day-to-day basis ends up in a deliverable that is consumed by others. Whether it is a business requirements document, feasibility study, use case diagram, or process model the goal is to produce something that can be easily understood by those who look at it. This level of consistency is not that hard on a small project where there may only be one or two BSAs. The challenge increases within large projects/programs where there may be dozens of BSAs. This challenge also exists for corporations where multiple projects are going on at once in the same line of business and they all have dependencies on each other. One of the underlying competencies of a business analyst is to be able to communicate to a wide audience in a way that is easily understandable. While it is important that each individual BSA has this skill there are things that an organization can do to help the BSA produce the best work possible.