"Management" Posts
How Lack Of Proper Management Systems Built ‘The Nightmare On Las Vegas Boulevard’
By Tom Ryan
We tell business owners that the best managed companies are “systems dependent” rather than “people dependent.” This is a truism, for both small and large companies. One of the best examples, of why this is true, can be found in the story of the ill-fated Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas.
It’s a tale of how a construction company failed to develop the necessary methods, systems, controls and procedures to ensure the quality of its work, causing a half of a billion dollar mistake—yes, half a billion dollars!
The Harmon Hotel and Residences was meant to be part of MGM’s $9 …
Corporate Business Solutions Client Profile: Meet Dave Alwan Of Echo Valley Meats
By 
Dave likes to share that he’s the third generation in the meat business. His family has been in the food industry since 1947 when his grandfather launched the Alwan and Sons Meat Company, a grocery store and butcher shop in Peoria, IL.
As his father says, being in the food business just made sense—everyone needs to eat. His family also branched out into fast food for a while, opening up one of the first KFC franchises in 1972. By age 11, Dave was learning his knife skills, cutting stew meat and roasts in the butcher shop.
Around age 22, Dave …
The Benefits of Engaged Employees
A relatively new school of management thought, since the 1990’s, is that engaged employees are better employees. There has been some amount of confusion about this softer metric ever since, which this handy infographic by Ceridian helps to clarify—what exactly does engagement mean, anyway?
Nope, It’s Not Employee Happiness
Engagement does not mean employee happiness or satisfaction, although this can be a side-effect of employees feeling engaged (and, therefore, the reason for that common misunderstanding), but rather an employee who is committed to their organization’s goals and objectives.
A better term may be ownership. Engaged employees actually take personal …
Your Tax Dollars At Work
By 
If you have an interest in learning more about the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and what it can do for your business, read on. In the next three issues, I will demystify the SBA and provide ideas regarding how to navigate the SBA and help your business take advantage of the myriad of services and programs offered. Remember, these are your tax dollars at work. The strength and power of the U.S. government stands behind you.
According to the SBA’s website, www.sba.gov, “While poor management is cited most frequently as the reason businesses fail, inadequate or ill-timed financing is …
Profitable Business Operations
Business owners pride themselves on working long hours in hands-on capacities. Unfortunately, hard work alone is not enough to ensure profitability or the survival of any business. Companies need to be effectively managed to be successful. One critical element in that process is the implementation and enforcement of appropriate operational systems.
Business functions are a strategic set of interrelated tasks and activities utilized to produce a profit. Business operations flow from and support a company’s overall strategic plan. For those operations to be successful, a business owner understanding sales, marketing, overhead, pricing and cost control is required. A business owner …
Stop The Bleeding
Do owners of small and medium-size businesses worry about needlessly lost profits? Do they worry that their bookkeeper paid a significant invoice twice or made some other large dollar mistake in cash disbursements?
Business owners shouldn’t panic as there are many profit recovery firms that can give them the answer. But, if an owner of a small to medium-size company does not want to hire an outside firm to find duplicate payments and cash disbursement mistakes, he or she can implement a few handy techniques to keep mistakes at a minimum.
About profit recovery firms
Some firms specialize in sales …
Skewed Priorities
If you don’t manage your company, it will manage you.
The ability to understand and increase business value represents a competitive advantage and opportunity for construction company owners. Savvy business owners treat their companies as assets and appreciate their worth rather than merely working in the business as an employee, and not on the business for the benefit of the shareholders. When this happens, it is likely that the business runs the owner instead of the owner running the business.
In the 1980s, business value was computed with the financial and income statements along with the balance sheets. Today, more …
Business Athleticism
There are many similarities between the dynamic of the business world and the dynamic of the sports world. In actuality, these similarities legitimize business as cognitive athleticism. It’s not coincidental that most entrepreneurs along with their employees follow sports with indiscernible passion.
We know who the first and second string performers at our organizations are. We see the coaches within our organizations evaluate promising future superstars while developing the farm team. Industry scouts survey and draft talent from colleagues while concurrently attracting and procuring talent away from companies they’re in competition with. There is an obvious commonality to athleticism.
Sports …
Improve Your Incentive Based Programs
Creating an environment that exudes a corporate culture geared toward overachieving is key in any industry.
While it is easier to measure in some industries than in others, measuring and creating performance criteria in any business can be challenging. But it does not have to be that way.
Professional service firms, like all other companies, have key matrices that they operate under. These can be calculated at an overall corporate level, departmental levels and at individual position levels.
It is incumbent upon senior managers to identify, benchmark and track their firm’s key matrices. Once this is accomplished, not only can …
Is My Business Really Protected
Hopefully, by the time you read this it’s not too late for you and your business.
“Why didn’t anybody warn me about this? I thought I was protected from this type of thing. That’s why I incorporated. The legal system is not fair…I hate attorneys!”
Hopefully, by the time you read this it’s not too late for you and your business. Procrastinators pay a heavy price. You have worked too hard for your business and family to put everything you own in the hands of fate. Those who plan are protected and love their attorneys, the others simply need someone …