Management Quotes

Management Quotes

Thursday 1 March 2012

The Ten Most Common Organizational Growing Pains

As organizations enlarge, they often experience a variety of growing pains that signal that something has gone wrong in the process of organizational development. The ten most common organizational growing pains are listed here:

1. People feel that "there are not enough hours in the day."
2. People spend too much time "putting out fires."
3. People are not aware of what other people are doing.
4. People lack understanding about where the firm is headed.
5. There are too few good managers.
6. People feel that "I have to do it myself if I want to get it done correctly."
7. Most people feel that meetings are a waste of time.
8. When plans are made, there is very little follow-up, so things just don't get done.
9. Some people feel insecure about their place in the firm.
10. The firm continues to grow in sales but not in profits.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

It's not surprising that Apple is now the most valuable technology company in the world

1. Apple grew its sales by $22 billion last year. That growth alone is bigger than most companies you've ever heard of. It's also more revenue than the ENTIRE COMPANY generated four years ago.

2. Apple generated $65 billion of revenue last year. That's bigger than the GDP of Iraq, Croatia, Libya, Ecuador, and more than 100 other countries

3. And, yes, that $65 billion of revenue makes Apple officially bigger than Microsoft ($62 billion)

4. Apple's growth last year IN EUROPE ALONE was $7 billion. That's bigger than the GDP of Liechtenstein

5. iPhones now account for 39% of Apple's overall revenue. iPhones did not exist 4 years ago.

6. Apple sold 40 million iPhones last year. That's 110,000 iPhones sold per day.

  
And 4,583 iPhones per hour.
And 76 iPhones per minute.
And 1.27 iPhones per second!
The iPhone is now sold in 89 countries.

7. iTunes--Apple's online music, video, and app store--racked up sales of $4 billion last year. That's $1 billion more revenue than the $3 billion generated by one of world's biggest music companies, Warner Music Group

8. Apple sold $9.8 billion worth of stuff in its retail stores last year. That's bigger than Saks, Barnes & Noble, Ann Taylor, Tiffany, Dick's Sporting Goods, RadioShack, and Bed Bath & Beyond

9. Apple's retail-store sales grew by $3 billion last year. That's bigger than Tiffany's whole business!

10. Apple opened 44 new stores last year, ending the year with 317. Each store sold an average of $34 million worth of stuff, up from $26 million the year before

11. Apple's stores are mind-bogglingly productive: They each sell an average of $93,150 worth of stuff every day
 That's $3,900 an hour. And $65 a minute. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day

12. Apple's retail stores now have 26,500 full-time employees, or 84 per store. Each of these employees sells about $370,000 worth of Apple stuff each year

13. Apple spent only $1.7 billion on research and development last year. Microsoft, with smaller sales and vastly slower growth, spent $8.7 billion

14. Apple spent only $5.5 billion on sales, marketing, and general and administrative expenses last year. Microsoft spent $17 billion.

Thursday 2 February 2012

WONDERFUL SAYING..!!

"When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure."

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Out with the Old, In(novate) with the New



‘If we’re smart, we don’t wait for a challenge.’

Innovation is a key driver of growth in this day and age where ‘stagnancy’, as a word and a concept, can be categorised as a curse in business; and it is incumbent on every business person to explicitly lead and manage it. Leading strategic thinkers are moving beyond a focus on traditional product and service categories to pioneer innovations in business processes, distribution, value chains, business models, and even the functions of management. Businesses are no longer caged by geographical and cultural boundaries; every other establishment has the potential to become a formidable growth machine.
This is where innovation at an individual level comes into play. For which purpose, an employee or a worker at an organisation, irrespective of designation, should be made aware of what the concept actually means. ‘Innovation is combining existing elements in new ways to create value for customers’ says David Wittenberg, CEO, The Innovation Work group.


According to Wittenberg, there are three key traits that needed to be developed into part of your personality as the first step towards innovative thought:
  1. Curiosity – If you are curious you will have more elements in your toolbox and hence more exploitation of new combinations. Your customer base will increase because you understand what value to them is and you begin to finally give them that.
  2. Independent thought – Make changes, on whatever scale. When you think different, you learn and apply a great deal more than you would have otherwise.
  3. A Sense of humour – The definition of innovation is one that talks about new, untried combinations. ‘What is humour? Humour is a sudden recognition of an unexpected relationship.’ Innovation in business comes naturally to such people because they unconsciously practice it every day of their lives.
The true test of success for an idea is whether or not it can make someone else’s life better. Ideas are never really ahead of their time unless technology cannot support them. Acceptability is a natural outcome of the comprehension of a benefit. If an idea is clear or is communicated well enough, the benefit is understood and the idea accepted. There is hence no real ground on which it can be called futuristic. This should not serve as a discouragement, not all changes can be ground-breaking. It is a fact that innovation is necessary either to ensure continuous small improvements (where methodologies like Six Sigma come into the picture) as well as when you face a problem. A problem is intrinsically a situation where there isn’t a learnt response. Learn how to identify a problem by being an observer. Your insight will follow, as will your strategic innovation project.

Middle-class India, as an ecosystem, discourages innovation. And thus follows the importance of having manageable processes in place to establish a culture of innovation in a business. Holding leaders accountable for encouraging innovation makes a tangible difference. According to Mckinsey research reports, 30% percent of the senior executives surveyed were accountable for it, through formal targets or metrics, in their performance reviews. They were more likely than the broader group of respondents to view innovation as one of the primary growth drivers, to manage it formally as part of the leadership team or through an innovation council, and to learn from their failures to achieve it.

On the same lines, innovation that goes unnoticed makes clear how important a professional network really is. You might just have the most revolutionary insight but lack the resources to implement it. There are a number of ways to grow in the business world; each of them requires you to put in the requisite effort yourself. You need to work hard to get to know the right people that would help you employ your capabilities in the right avenues that provide a scope for growth and an undistorted visibility. ‘Hope is not a strategy.’ Of course, networking does have its own ground rule – Make sure you are a value creator to the opposite party, not a value taker.

How sustainable should your innovations be? Is sustainability a smart option for businesses? Executives behave as though they have to choose between the largely social benefits of developing sustainable products or processes and the financial costs of doing so. But that’s simply not true. It is essential to realise that almost all businesses are looking only to increase profit under the guise of development of technologies that are intrinsically sustainable – in actuality, the intention behind doing so is that such technologies improve the bottom and top line returns as well. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. Companies that talk about zero-waste are entering such an arena to cut costs and create goodwill – ultimately both of which add to the purpose of the company’s existence: profit. Waste management is evidently climbing up not just the political agenda for a reason different from environmental benefit.


So what is the moral of the story? If you haven’t gotten to it yet, it’s never too late to begin, simply because you can’t afford to not do so. All that is needed to get started is an insight, which is nothing but a discovery that comes after seeing what everyone else sees but thinking what no one else has thought. The procedure is not as tricky as it seems. Reliance Communications, for example, was born from an insight as simple as could be: people like to talk to their family and friends. One cannot stress enough on the criticality of being observant. Indian customers cannot be expected to be honest about your product if their opinion is not favourable, because of their cultural norms that do not advocate displeasing anybody. Observation is therefore the best bet to figure what creates value for that very customer. Value is, after all, the ratio of Benefits to Price: people pay for benefits, neither a product nor a service.

Tuesday 3 January 2012



"If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances"

Monday 2 January 2012

MESSAGE OF GURU GRANTH SAHIB

The Guru Granth Sahib promotes a moral teaching that Sahib explains is about living a life of Truth, respect for others, and high moral standards. Followers of the Guru are considered to be members of the Sikh religion, and they are known as Gurmukh – which literally means “follower of Guru”.

Qualities promoted by Sri Guru Granth Sahib

All people of the world are equal

The Guru Granth Sahib promotes the message of equality of all beings and at the same time state that Sikh believers "obtain the supreme status" (SSGS, Page 446). Discrimination of all types is strictly forbidden based on the Sikh tenet Fatherhood of God which states that no one should be reckoned low or high, stating that instead believers should –“reckon the entire mankind as One” (Akal Ustat, 15.85).
Sri Guru Granth Sahib promotes the concept of equality by highlighting the fact that we are made of the same flesh, blood and bone and we have the same light of God with us – Soul

Women's Status
Guru Nank Dev Ji said "Sikhi does not teach you to raise you hand on a women it teaches you to respect them"
Sikhism also preaches that equal respect should be given to women.

Speak and live truthfully

Sikhs believe in the importance of truthful living, which can only be created by purity of mind and not through religious purification rites. They believe that impurity of mind leads to many other vices such as anger, lust, attachment, ego, and greed.

Control the five vices

Devotees of Guru Sahib believe they must control the animal instincts of Pride/Ego, Anger/Temper, Greed/Urges, Attachment/Dependency and Lust/Addiction.

Live in God's hukam

A Sikh believes they should live and accept the command of God easily and without too much emotional distress. They attempt to live in contentment and in Chardikala (positive attitude)

Virtues

The Sikh religion emphasizes several other virtues: Truth (Sat), contentment (santokh), Love (Ishq), Compassion/Mercy (daya), Service (seva), Charity (dana), forgiveness (ksama), humility (nimrata), patience (dheerjh), non-attachment (vairagya) and renunciation (taiga).
These believers attempt to avoid anger (krodh), egoism (ahankara), avarice (lobh), lust (kama), infatuation (moha), sinful acts (papa), pride (man), doubt (duvidha), ownership (mamata), hatred (vair), and hostility (virodh). In the Sikh religion, freedom from these vices, or Sahaj, is attained through tension-free, ethical living, grounded in spirituality avoiding self-mortification and other religious rites of cleansing.