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Five Forces Model By Porter
These factors, when studied together, shape up an overall context for an organization in an industry. To determine strategy for existence and profitability of an organization, the management should analyze the industry and its structure and how they change with the changing environment.Michael E. Porter, 1980, wrote a book named “Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors”. In this book he developed a model that is famous with the name of “Porter’s Five Forces Model” to analyze the industry structure. With the help of five forces model, Porter suggested that an industry structure can be analyzed with the help of five factors. Or, in other words, the profitability of any industry can be determined by a careful examination of five forces that exist within and or for an industry. “The five forces are competitive facto

mean for them later on they will be reluctant to commit. The second is the fear of losing control. In every organization there is a political fabric that determines how things will get done and who will do it and even what things may get done. This political fabric is driven by the personal desires and goals of key individuals to gain more control. The fabric is powered by the network of people who stand to gain from the influence of the political leaders, or who cooperate out of fear that their positions will be threatened if they don’t. The third is lack of leadership. When a leader embarks on a major change initiative – such as entering new

What The Holidays Teach Us About Branding
When it comes to creating and building a brand name, most companies feel compelled to file trademarks and establish “guidelines” to protect their image. Yet some of the most well known brands in the world today are holidays – wide open to use and abuse in the public domain. Despite being public property they still retain a high degree of brand consistency. For example, which holiday comes to mind when envisioning the colors green and red? How about orange and black? Many consumers would instantly recognize these as the colors of Christmas and Halloween. Beyond color combinations we have images -- such as a bright green clover or a red colored heart. Again most consumers would accurately associate these with St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day. So without any trademark protection and no corporate marketing department to enforce brand standards, how is

How many times have you announced a big strategy or organization change and just when you thought it was working it becomes obvious the change didn’t happen? When your idea for a new significant change in strategy is still fresh and new, you must work to gain your organization’s psychological momentum shift towards the idea. The organization hears your message from top to bottom and internalizes what the change means to them, how they might benefit from it, and what they might need to do to make it happen. You’ve got everyone in the company talking about it. Your top management team are communicating and demonstrating their enthusiastic support. Indeed, all of your key leaders, including highly influential top performers are acting favorably toward the idea. If you are going to build momentum behind this change to drive it to its desired conclusion, then your work starts now.

The first one hundred days – even the US President issues a “100 Day Report”. Why? A common mistake that many leaders make is to announce the change, hear the instant positive feedback (ignore the naysayer’s input) and assume that the organization will take it from there. The truth is that the excitement reaches a plateau before the real impact of the change on each individual begins to set in. At this point, you could just as easily gain momentum and move forward or reverse direction and fail completely. This is the time for the idea to become a mandate: for it to take root with all the key stakeholders who need to be accountable for important elements of the plan’s success.

You cannot over-communicate, during this 100 day period, to the leadership team no matter how frequent and repetitive your interactions have to become. The more you communicate and the more you demonstrate that you are holding the key stakeholders and everyone in the company accountable for executing the change, the more likely the momentum will build in your favor. Have each stakeholder report frequently on progress toward achieving key milestones, even if the ultimate implementation of some of them will occur many months later. Progress reports should be both upwards to the CEO, and downwards to the employee population. This will serve to reinforce their commitment and also demonstrate their support to their peer group – another important factor in keeping the momentum going.

Inertia is the enemy of change and there are three key powerful factors feeding that inertia in most companies. The first is fear of the unknown (aka “what’s in it for me?”). If employees are uncertain about what this change will mean for them later on they will be reluctant to commit. The second is the fear of losing control. In every organization there is a political fabric that determines how things will get done and who will do it and even what things may get done. This political fabric is driven by the personal desires and goals of key individuals to gain more control. The fabric is powered by the network of people who stand to gain from the influence of the political leaders, or who cooperate out of fear that their positions will be threatened if they don’t. The third is lack of leadership. When a leader embarks on a major change initiative – such as entering new

What Picture Are You Looking At?
Let me tell you a story that might encourage you to understand that your paradigm determines what you see, irrespective of what you look at. People who live from the 'outside in' tend to believe that what's 'out there' determines them. Those who live from the 'inside out' believe they have control of the things 'out there'.Two (separate) American shoe manufacturing companies send their top marketing specialists to investigate the market for shoes in Africa. After two weeks of intensive research both of them reported back to their head offices.The one’s reply read: “Don’t bother to exploit this market, no one in Africa wears shoes.” The other one’s reply read: “You won’t believe what I have found. The most unexplored market in the world. No one here wears shoes yet". Strange how two people can look at exactly the same context, but see tota

. Indeed, all of your key leaders, including highly influential top performers are acting favorably toward the idea. If you are going to build momentum behind this change to drive it to its desired conclusion, then your work starts now.

Why Become A Truck Driver?
There are a great number of good reasons for someone to become a truck driver. First and foremost among those reasons would be the great pay. Did you realize that most truckers, their first year out on the road, earn an average of $35,000 a year? And, that after just a few years out, those same truckers are making an average of $45,000-$50,000 annually? And finally, veteran drivers who own their own trucks make average salaries that are over $100,000 a year. What other profession can you get into, where the pay is that good?One other great reason to get into trucking…….. is the chance to see some of this great country of ours. How many states have you been to? Are you one of those people who haven’t been to very many places? Well, get into trucking and you will have the opportunity to explore America. See why most people consider this to be not

nt, you could just as easily gain momentum and move forward or reverse direction and fail completely. This is the time for the idea to become a mandate: for it to take root with all the key stakeholders who need to be accountable for important elements of the plan’s success.

What Gives You The Right? - An Introduction To Managing Change
Back, (maybe I should say "way back") in the '80's, as a senior manager in Hewlett Packard Ltd.,UK, I was regularly asked to give talks to groups from both the public and private sectors.The most common themes were People Development, Performance Appraisal, Continuous Improvement and "Managing Change"I suppose it would be fair to say that my 'presentations' and discussions were somewhat animated with a great deal of walking about and mingling with the audience. So much so that I could not get comfortable with overheads and tended to use two flipcharts on which I could prepare key messages on one and take notes on the other especially when important points were made or questions were not answered fully.It would also be fair to say that after a while the talks became routine and I always welcomed a challen

ve each stakeholder report frequently on progress toward achieving key milestones, even if the ultimate implementation of some of them will occur many months later. Progress reports should be both upwards to the CEO, and downwards to the employee population. This will serve to reinforce their commitment and also demonstrate their support to their peer group – another important factor in keeping the momentum going.

Carpet Manufacturers
Every room looks incomplete without the touch of sophistication and exotic beauty that a carpet lends to it. Carpets are what legends are made of. They have forever been a subject of fascination for ages now. Perhaps, from the time of the fascinating stories of the Arabian Nights which talked about Djinns and magic and flying carpets- One might hardly be able to recall any snippet from the orient, which was complete without some mention of an exquisite carpet. No movie shot of Baghdad or the Middle East has yet looked satisfactory without frame capturing the huge carpet markets.Today, the carpet industry is not restricted to its place of origin. The ancient industry has spread far and wide, having been bestowed with a new face which has been largely a gift of modern technology and the latest machinery. Carpets have replaced the crude rugs of yes

If the momentum on the project is not achieved and sustained through highly visible leadership in the first one hundred days, then the likelihood of its success will be seriously diminished. In all likelihood the changes needed to shift the operational and behavioral DNA of the company to your new strategy will not happen. The political network will slowly weave its web and reform components of the plan and shift the priorities of the key stakeholders back to their familiar fear-based roles. Your entire plan will slowly unravel. You may successfully implement superficial elements of the plan, so that external measures and positioning of the “new” process or function appear to be consistent with your plan. Employees will take their cues from their leaders, and if those leaders are working against your strategy their own behavior will fall in line with that. The result is that nothing more than lip service will be applied to implementing the new strategy.

How do you reduce the effect of the inertia forces to build and maintain momentum for the change?

First, create a plan that involves all of the key leadership up front. Get each of them to focus substantial energy over a period of just a few short months to achieving the goals of the change plan. Create an all-consuming short term project to reduce the opportunity for the political fabric to undermine your plans. Keep stakeholders very busy demonstrating to you and to each other that they are taking the steps necessary to plan and implement the change and becoming champions of the change with their employees. Don’t give them time to evaluate or modify the goals of your plan based on their prior political ambitions.

Next, tie business operational performance and expected outcome based results measures to each stakeholder’s project plans. This helps them identify new metrics for their success that can only be measured if they successfully manage to change process to its desired conclusion. They will have no choice but to connect their success to the new strategy.

Then, involve key influential top performing employees early in the plan and get them similarly committed to the outcomes of the change. They will be your eyes and ears and feet on-the-ground to influence and keep the rest of your employee population on track. They will also help squelch the naysayer

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The absence of an agreed-upon definition for e-commerce creates a challenge when comparing e-commerce modalities in different countries. For some people, e-commerce is limited to credit-card transactions that take place over the Internet. For others, e-commerce means using any electronic device to purchase goods or services. The entire e-commerce process is complex and requires meticulous and well-informed planning to succeed.

Creating labels for any application can be quite arduous if you are still using a word processor to create the labels and an ordinary printer to print them out. Now label printing has become extremely easy with the f state-of-the-art, label printers at affordable prices. Printing labels is now as easy as entering the data and pressing a few buttons on a label printer.

A business of any size can employ branding strategies to improve their bottom line.

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