Tag Archives: Parallel

How Do You Present Your Solution to Potential Clients? Eight Recommendations

Situation: For an engineering solutions company, one of the challenges is engaging potential customers with the idea that a domestic solution can cost-effectively meet their needs. If you can combine a manufacturing solution with the service solution this helps. How do you present your solution to potential clients?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Know your clients. Clients have expertise of their own. However, they may lack expertise in all the disciplines necessary to create a full product. How will you fill that gap?
  • Know your strengths. Design is an iterative development process. If you increase process efficiency you can complete more process cycles in a given timeframe, advancing to final product more quickly.
  • Know your key differentiators. Target clients for whom your differentiator is a critical need. For example, do not encourage all of your clients to manufacture overseas. However, if they insist and lack experience managing overseas vendors, be prepared to handle this for them. Consistency of personnel across the life of a project is important, particularly the core team.
  • Know your competitors. How do they handle similar challenges to those that you face? 
  • Know your vendors. “Right-sizing” your contract manufacturer to your client’s product is important. Things will go wrong, and you must assure that the contract manufacturer will give you the priority to get things back on track to meet your launch date. 
  • Know the risks. Invention and innovation require a plan to mitigate the risk that new solutions represent. Develop the design along parallel paths and stage higher risk components or pieces of the design that represent critical path inventions such that they are proven prior to moving forward. If necessary take that feature out of the current design in order to develop it to a production-ready solution for the next product on the client’s roadmap. 
  • Know the situation and client expectations. Sometimes an invention or innovation is the reason for the new product.  In these cases the key is managing the client’s expectations regarding the significantly elevated risks that come with invention. Proceed with your and the clients understanding that the phase gates and even the production dates will slide according to the progress against developing that critical path invention or innovation.
  • Know your expertise. Expertise in material selection and understanding what can be done with materials in the manufacturing process is not trivial. The same is true of vendor qualification, particularly when the project involves new materials.

Thanks to Eric Bauswell of SurfaceInk for his contribution to this article

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How Do You Grow Knowledge Workers into Servant Leaders? Three Methods

Situation: A company’s staff is made up primarily of knowledge workers. These are highly skilled individuals who excel in their roles. The CEO wishes to shift their focus to servant leadership – where the focus is the growth and development of the company. How do you grow knowledge workers into servant leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • One option is to create a different set of incentives. Offering key managers the option to invest in and hold shares in the company will change their perspective. This, in turn, can change their behavior because servant leadership will improve company performance and the value of their shares.
  • Another option, used by Accenture and many Fortune 500s, is to hire a lot of the best and brightest individuals that they can find out of college and see who rises to the top.
    • The ratio in large firms is generally 15 hires to produce 1 high performer. Another CEO at the table is now shifting to this model at his company.
    • Create an entry level position for recent graduates that will allow for this sifting without disrupting the company’s culture.
    • Speed identification and retention of the best talent through annual evaluations of the company’s talent. This includes ratings by employees’ supervisors of both how the individual is doing and their ultimate potential within the company.
    • Be aware of the downsides to this model. One is that the two groups that tend to leave of their own accord are the best and the worst employees.
  • A third option is to create two career tracks within the Company.
    • One track is upwardly mobile. This is the track that identifies, develops and grooms future servant leaders.
    • The other track is a specialty track, which can produce servant leaders along a different dimension – breadth of experience and expertise in key skills of value to the firm.
    • This second track also allows for growth, characterized by levels of title, salary and recognition that reward the acquisition and perfection of skills in key disciplines.
    • Several “kinder, gentler” environments such as 3M have used parallel tracks with great success.

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How Can You Reduce Costs By Consolidating Services? Four Suggestions

Situation: A small company wants to reduce costs by consolidating accounting and operational communications between remote divisions, with home office coordination. Can you more effectively reduce costs by consolidating services or is it better to set up parallel but complimentary accounting and operational communications in each division?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are a number of things that need to be considered, including:
    • Whether the existing legacy system is off the shelf with modifications or was custom designed for your operation.
    • Does the current system meet your needs, and do operators understand it? Is operational understanding diffuse or can only one or two people operate it?
  • How similar are the divisions in terms of product, customers and operations?
    • Do divisions serve distinct, non-overlapping customers with different product lines?
    • Are there important operational differences, for example are some divisions union, and others non-union?
    • On an ongoing basis, except for accounting, do divisions function as complimentary or distinctly separate businesses?
    • How complex are the product and pricing offerings? Could you consider a simple solution like QuickBooks or are there are complexities to your business model and accounting that the off-the shelf or web-based systems can’t address?
    • How much historical data from your current system is needed to support ongoing and future operations?
  • The simplest solution may be to run your current system off of a server, with multiple nodes connected to the system – a direct connection at your home office, and point-to-point lines connecting your remote offices. This will solve both your data transfer and communications needs.
    • Hire a computer consultant to set this up and assist you in establishing a link. It will cost some money, but will save you time and money in the long-run.
  • If you decide to change your accounting system, do so at the end of your current fiscal year. Trying to change accounting systems in the midst of a fiscal year creates an accounting nightmare for a small business.

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