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Social Finance: why peer-to-peer lending and crowdsource funding is a threat to banking profits
Social Finance business models connect peer-to-peer loans and crowdsource funding
Board members must take care when using Facebook or Twitter to comment
Board members and senior managers must take care when commenting on facebook or twitter
Sir Richard Branson is wrong in wanting banks to lend more money to small business
Sir Richard Branson wants banks to lend more money to small business. That is the wrong solution to the economic crisis
Management needs to prepare for a Greek exit from the Euro
A Greek exit from the Euro could have far reaching consequences for Europe
Customer service experience: lessons to learn from post-sales support
Post sales customer service and experience remains a problem area for some in business
Story points - why they do not work in business led agile projects
Story points may work in software development but in business project management they are not effective
Periodic portfolio reviews can reduce the drag on your profit
Business failures can be avoided with periodic reviews of the business portfolio and reducing profit drag
Reducing operating costs with eMail? Data protection issues may require a rethink
Using email to reduce operating costs creates risks around identity theft and criminal prosecution
Planning for the impact on business and workforce during the London Olympics
The London Olympics will have an impact on business and workforce that needs to be planned for
Engaging suppliers is vital when turning a business around
Engaging with suppliers is essential when turning a business around
Understanding Business Rhythms in Project Planning
International project planning must account for natural business rhythms
Business turnaround: focus on the core business for success
A business turnaround requires focusing on under performance in core business units
Maintaining the flow: how to keep content coming for your blog
How to create compelling content or retask what you already have
PPI: sins of the past still haunt UK Banks
UK banks are setting aside billions to cope with the PPI (payment protection insurance) scandal
Sins of the past coming back to haunt UK banks
UK banks are setting aside billions to cope with the PPI (payment protection insurance) scandal
New Report: Failures in Performance Management
All organisations will experience underperformance at some point in their histories
How sponsors can impact the success of a turnaround project
Why the way a sponsor behaves will fundamentally affect the success of a project that has failed
Gold plating FSA compliance could be costing you dearly
Why gold playing FSA regulation is costing the general insurance industry dearly
The Social Media ROI debate: settle it by measuring by your Return on Investment
Why the return on investment (ROI) debate in social media has yet to be settled
Improving quality in big data
An integrated approach to improving big data quality is essential for improving effectiveness
The project management options for closing failed projects
The project management options for closing a project that has failed
Can Virgin Money innovate in the mature banking market?
Can Virgin Money innovate in the mature, highly regulated banking market?
Rebuilding operations before the recession ends
Recent recession beating cost cutting in operations may have been a false economy
Achieving a 10 percent increase in sales
Focus on the tier beneath key accounts to generate an increase in sales
Uncertainty remains in the analytics cookies debate
New privacy regulations makes analytics cookies illegal - or do they?
Ineffective management costs business dearly
Research from the Chartered Management Institute suggests British businesses waste thousands each year
Managing releases - how lean startups can mature into serious market players
Continually releasing new features does little to demonstrate a degree of maturity in a lean startup
When it comes to big data you also need big business rules
The operational demands of big data require a better understanding of business rules
Bringing operations on-shore: concerns for senior management
Three key concerns that management should consider when bringing off-shore operations on-shore
Case study: the big data challenge in the enterprise data dictionary
Building an enterprise data dictionary identified multiple issues in the way information was managed
Keeping a scrum on track: why product owners need a business case
The importance of the business case to the scrum product owner
Daring to be the same: why strategy needs more than differentiation
Sometimes it is not enough to differentiate - the basics need to be covered as well
Is outbound customer service appropriate for driving sales?
Are outbound customer service calls an effective way to generate sales?
How does your product add value? A market driven approach to product backlog categorisation
Creating a more useful categorisation for items on the scrum product backlog
Managing the project portfolio: why the executive sponsor must be an active participant
The role of the executive sponsor is to make hard decisions about the project portfolio
Before the deal is won - how one sales team undermined profitability
Poor pipeline management and behaviour by sales teams can undermine long term profitability
The search for the disloyal customer
Finding our soon to be disloyal customers can reap big rewards if managed strategically
Responding to competitor signals: how to tell the market leader you are a serious player
How your actions can send clear signals to your market leader
In praise of the average performing employee
High performing individuals must be supported by effective performance for the average
Managing scope creep: when account and project management meet
Managing scope creep requires a clear, consistent approach to project management
The call of the competitor: why focusing only on the customer is a weakness in lean startup.
Why understanding competitor signals is as important to a lean startup
Product Owners: do not be fooled by lazy Agile project management
Using Agile is not an excuse for poor project management controls
Working together: managing a portfolio of Agile and Waterfall projects
A portfolio approach to project management can ensure agile and waterfall methods coexist
Does your Scrum Product Owner have the right skills for the job?
The Product Owner is key to successfully delivering a solution in Scrum. Does yours have the right skills?
Is your senior management team failing to deliver?
How to deal with members of the senior management team who fail to deliver against targets
Is iterative process improvement hindering your business performance?
Why Kanban or Six Sigma can hinder improvements in your business performance
Avoiding staff redundancies could boost long-term business performance
Avoiding redundancies could have long term benefits in boosting business performance
Strategy not working? Could be time for the exit decision
The decision to exit a market or sector is a question for strategy - but has profound impacts on operations management
Is your project stalled? How to get it back on track - and keep it there
When a project stalls a considered approach to conflict and project management can recover it
Follow Friday for 29th July
A collection of interesting individuals and their posts from the Tweetosphere
The market leader defined
What makes a market leader and how do you obtain market leadership?
The business analyst is dead: long live the knowledge engineer
A knowledge based economy means business analysis must adopt the tools of the knowledge engineer
Google Chromebook: the network computer reborn
The modern Google Chromebook harks back to the Oracle Network Computer
Follow Friday for 22nd July
A round-up of interesting characters and posts from Twitter
Creating barriers to competition in your aggressive growth strategy
Creating barriers for entrants to surmount is essential in any aggressive growth strategy
Insurance Brokers: how you can improve your documentation
Improving documentation can increase sales for insurance brokers
Effective account management: the key to strategic sales and aggressive growth
Effective account management requires people who take a longer, more strategic view of sales
Follow Friday for 15th July 2011
A round up of interesting tweets and tweeters from the past 7 days
Beware false patterns: the dangers of data analytics
As data sets get larger the chances of predicting misleading patterns increases
When promoting features can be an effective marketing strategy
Why promoting the features of a product could be a successful marketing strategy
The 10% sale: or how to reduce your profit by increasing sales volume
A simple mistake could have resulting in a higher sales volume, but lower profit
Adapting Scrum for successful business projects
Overcoming the problems of using Scrum in business projects
PayPal getting hacked on Twitter has lessons for us all
When the PayPal UK Twitter account was hacked it should have sent a warning to businesses about social media
Do you use respect to motivate your teams?
Respect is one of the essential skills management require to motivate their staff and experts
Follow Friday for 1st July
A collection of fascinating people to follow on Twitter
What will you charge? Setting a profitable strategic price
Setting the right strategic price can be the difference between profitable products and services, and facing disaster
Are the basics missing from marketing your website?
Optimising a website for search engine rankings is a basic marketing activity that should be done from the start
Getting offensive: creating an aggressive marketing strategy for organic growth
An alternative to growth by acquisition - an aggressive marketing strategy for organic growth
Protecting long term revenues: how to use switching costs in your business or marketing strategy
Why switching costs can be a powerful business or marketing strategy to protect future revenues
Follow Friday for 25th June 2011
Integrated marketing, value stream management and Macbooks feature in the #FF for 25th June 2011
Using the right words: the role of language in business change
The importance of the words we use when we decide to change business strategy
Building better operations: 5 signs you need to innovate
Why continuous improvement in Operations with six sigma, Kaizen and Kanban needs to be balanced with innovation
The legend of beer and nappies. Are you over dependent on data analytics?
An over dependence on data analytics and data mining can lead to marketing efforts that do not make sense.
Behind the padlock: have you taken eCommerce security seriously?
After the eCommerce sale has been made operations has a role to play in customer data security
Do you dare to disconnect from the social network?
In the modern world we all want to remain connected to the internet through wifi on our netbook or ipad
Follow Friday for 17th June 2011
A collection of fascinating people to follow on Twitter
Are you getting the best from your suppliers?
Getting best value from suppliers requires an active and strategic approach to management
Launch dates: when sales and operations collide
Getting to a firm launch date takes time - not just a sales persons promises
Is your documentation dull? Why the insurance broker community need to up their game when writing to prospects
If an insurance broker sends out dull documentation it will not be an effective sales tool
Starting outbound telesales in your small business?
Key factors in starting an outbound telesales activity in your small business
Is the lack of innovation in insurance due to regulation or attitudes?
Lamenting the lack of innovation in the UK insurance industry
The right operations? How a competitive strategy affects the way the business operates
Operations need to adapt how they behave to support a competitive strategy in business - which is about more than just cost control
Follow Friday for 10th June
A collection of interesting individuals and their posts from the Tweetosphere
Should you spend more time with prospects and clients?
The majority of firms spend time with clients. I say invest it in proportion to the potential return
Can you boost employee morale by sharing financial performance information?
Is sharing financial performance information good for morale, or something that saps motivation?
Aiming to "fail faster"? Try experimentation instead.
Failure is a bad thing. Companies should learn that experimentation is the real lesson to learn in business
Who owns the Twitter feed?
If your plan is to use social media to offer customer service should the marketing team own the feed?
Are you managing the right operations costs?
Careful analysis by a smart operations director will find the right costs to reduce
Keeping focus on strategy: the role of the Saga in the scrum of scrums
Managing strategic programmes in Scrum using Stories, Epics and Sagas
Follow Friday on Twitter 27th May
A collection of the more interesting tweets from the past 7 days
Is data analytics everything in marketing?
Could an over dependence on data analytics limit marketing innovation?
Implementing the Retail Distribution Review - a strategic change for business
The FSA is making fundamental changes to the retail Financial Services market. Most will treat it as a Compliance issue - and that is the wrong approach to take
Twitter Follow Friday on 20th May 2011
A collection of the more interesting tweets from the past 7 days
Leaders - are you trying too hard to impress your people?
Are you trying too hard to impress your people into believing you are a good leader?
Curating the Product Backlog in long term projects
Keeping the product backlog relevant is essential - but has to be done with care
Eternal battles: the prioritisation process
Prioritisation processes must be aligned to corporate strategy or they will fail to maximise value
Twitter Follow Friday on 13th May 2011
A passing nod to the people who have made the web a little more interesting this week
Why Government projects are bound to fail when Agile is involved
Government projects are bound to fail because of the way it behaves and we expect it to behave
The meeting minutes: a chance to rewrite history
The meeting minutes record what happened and what needs to happen. Make sure they are accurate...
Advised or non-advised selling?
The difference between advised and non-advised sales is minimal, but the impact can be huge
Cash flow management: when to collect subscription payments from customers
Deciding when to collect a subscription from a customer can have a significant impact on cash flow management
The ethical dimension: protecting client confidentiality in the facebook age
Professionals are flocking to social media. But can promotion harm the relationship between advisers and clients?
Hitting the ground running: a better approach for managers
Why a new manager needs to temper their desire to add value quickly and take a more measured approach
Conflicts in designing operating models
Designing operating models is as much about trying to balance conflicting demands as processes
A day of reckoning for PPI
The Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) Market set itself on a course for conflict that may have led to its downfall
Where does the CIO report? CEO, COO or another board member?
Should the CIO reporting lines go directly to the CEO, or through another board member such as the CIO
Aligning call centres with customer demands
The sophisticated customer is placing new demands on our contact centres
Please feel free to browse any of my other content ...
Social Finance: why peer-to-peer lending and crowdsource funding is a threat to banking profits
Social Finance business models connect peer-to-peer loans and crowdsource funding
Board members must take care when using Facebook or Twitter to comment
Board members and senior managers must take care when commenting on facebook or twitter
Sir Richard Branson is wrong in wanting banks to lend more money to small business
Sir Richard Branson wants banks to lend more money to small business. That is the wrong solution to the economic crisis
Management needs to prepare for a Greek exit from the Euro
A Greek exit from the Euro could have far reaching consequences for Europe
Customer service experience: lessons to learn from post-sales support
Post sales customer service and experience remains a problem area for some in business
Story points - why they do not work in business led agile projects
Story points may work in software development but in business project management they are not effective
Periodic portfolio reviews can reduce the drag on your profit
Business failures can be avoided with periodic reviews of the business portfolio and reducing profit drag
Reducing operating costs with eMail? Data protection issues may require a rethink
Using email to reduce operating costs creates risks around identity theft and criminal prosecution
Planning for the impact on business and workforce during the London Olympics
The London Olympics will have an impact on business and workforce that needs to be planned for
Engaging suppliers is vital when turning a business around
Engaging with suppliers is essential when turning a business around
Understanding Business Rhythms in Project Planning
International project planning must account for natural business rhythms
Business turnaround: focus on the core business for success
A business turnaround requires focusing on under performance in core business units
Maintaining the flow: how to keep content coming for your blog
How to create compelling content or retask what you already have
PPI: sins of the past still haunt UK Banks
UK banks are setting aside billions to cope with the PPI (payment protection insurance) scandal
Sins of the past coming back to haunt UK banks
UK banks are setting aside billions to cope with the PPI (payment protection insurance) scandal
New Report: Failures in Performance Management
All organisations will experience underperformance at some point in their histories
How sponsors can impact the success of a turnaround project
Why the way a sponsor behaves will fundamentally affect the success of a project that has failed
Gold plating FSA compliance could be costing you dearly
Why gold playing FSA regulation is costing the general insurance industry dearly
The Social Media ROI debate: settle it by measuring by your Return on Investment
Why the return on investment (ROI) debate in social media has yet to be settled
Improving quality in big data
An integrated approach to improving big data quality is essential for improving effectiveness
The project management options for closing failed projects
The project management options for closing a project that has failed
Can Virgin Money innovate in the mature banking market?
Can Virgin Money innovate in the mature, highly regulated banking market?
Rebuilding operations before the recession ends
Recent recession beating cost cutting in operations may have been a false economy
Achieving a 10 percent increase in sales
Focus on the tier beneath key accounts to generate an increase in sales
Uncertainty remains in the analytics cookies debate
New privacy regulations makes analytics cookies illegal - or do they?
Ineffective management costs business dearly
Research from the Chartered Management Institute suggests British businesses waste thousands each year
Managing releases - how lean startups can mature into serious market players
Continually releasing new features does little to demonstrate a degree of maturity in a lean startup
When it comes to big data you also need big business rules
The operational demands of big data require a better understanding of business rules
Bringing operations on-shore: concerns for senior management
Three key concerns that management should consider when bringing off-shore operations on-shore
Case study: the big data challenge in the enterprise data dictionary
Building an enterprise data dictionary identified multiple issues in the way information was managed
Keeping a scrum on track: why product owners need a business case
The importance of the business case to the scrum product owner
Daring to be the same: why strategy needs more than differentiation
Sometimes it is not enough to differentiate - the basics need to be covered as well
Is outbound customer service appropriate for driving sales?
Are outbound customer service calls an effective way to generate sales?
How does your product add value? A market driven approach to product backlog categorisation
Creating a more useful categorisation for items on the scrum product backlog
Managing the project portfolio: why the executive sponsor must be an active participant
The role of the executive sponsor is to make hard decisions about the project portfolio
Before the deal is won - how one sales team undermined profitability
Poor pipeline management and behaviour by sales teams can undermine long term profitability
The search for the disloyal customer
Finding our soon to be disloyal customers can reap big rewards if managed strategically
Responding to competitor signals: how to tell the market leader you are a serious player
How your actions can send clear signals to your market leader
In praise of the average performing employee
High performing individuals must be supported by effective performance for the average
Managing scope creep: when account and project management meet
Managing scope creep requires a clear, consistent approach to project management
The call of the competitor: why focusing only on the customer is a weakness in lean startup.
Why understanding competitor signals is as important to a lean startup
Product Owners: do not be fooled by lazy Agile project management
Using Agile is not an excuse for poor project management controls
Working together: managing a portfolio of Agile and Waterfall projects
A portfolio approach to project management can ensure agile and waterfall methods coexist
Does your Scrum Product Owner have the right skills for the job?
The Product Owner is key to successfully delivering a solution in Scrum. Does yours have the right skills?
Is your senior management team failing to deliver?
How to deal with members of the senior management team who fail to deliver against targets
Is iterative process improvement hindering your business performance?
Why Kanban or Six Sigma can hinder improvements in your business performance
Avoiding staff redundancies could boost long-term business performance
Avoiding redundancies could have long term benefits in boosting business performance
Strategy not working? Could be time for the exit decision
The decision to exit a market or sector is a question for strategy - but has profound impacts on operations management
Is your project stalled? How to get it back on track - and keep it there
When a project stalls a considered approach to conflict and project management can recover it
Follow Friday for 29th July
A collection of interesting individuals and their posts from the Tweetosphere
The market leader defined
What makes a market leader and how do you obtain market leadership?
The business analyst is dead: long live the knowledge engineer
A knowledge based economy means business analysis must adopt the tools of the knowledge engineer
Google Chromebook: the network computer reborn
The modern Google Chromebook harks back to the Oracle Network Computer
Follow Friday for 22nd July
A round-up of interesting characters and posts from Twitter
Creating barriers to competition in your aggressive growth strategy
Creating barriers for entrants to surmount is essential in any aggressive growth strategy
Insurance Brokers: how you can improve your documentation
Improving documentation can increase sales for insurance brokers
Effective account management: the key to strategic sales and aggressive growth
Effective account management requires people who take a longer, more strategic view of sales
Follow Friday for 15th July 2011
A round up of interesting tweets and tweeters from the past 7 days
Beware false patterns: the dangers of data analytics
As data sets get larger the chances of predicting misleading patterns increases
When promoting features can be an effective marketing strategy
Why promoting the features of a product could be a successful marketing strategy
The 10% sale: or how to reduce your profit by increasing sales volume
A simple mistake could have resulting in a higher sales volume, but lower profit
Adapting Scrum for successful business projects
Overcoming the problems of using Scrum in business projects
PayPal getting hacked on Twitter has lessons for us all
When the PayPal UK Twitter account was hacked it should have sent a warning to businesses about social media
Do you use respect to motivate your teams?
Respect is one of the essential skills management require to motivate their staff and experts
Follow Friday for 1st July
A collection of fascinating people to follow on Twitter
What will you charge? Setting a profitable strategic price
Setting the right strategic price can be the difference between profitable products and services, and facing disaster
Are the basics missing from marketing your website?
Optimising a website for search engine rankings is a basic marketing activity that should be done from the start
Getting offensive: creating an aggressive marketing strategy for organic growth
An alternative to growth by acquisition - an aggressive marketing strategy for organic growth
Protecting long term revenues: how to use switching costs in your business or marketing strategy
Why switching costs can be a powerful business or marketing strategy to protect future revenues
Follow Friday for 25th June 2011
Integrated marketing, value stream management and Macbooks feature in the #FF for 25th June 2011
Using the right words: the role of language in business change
The importance of the words we use when we decide to change business strategy
Building better operations: 5 signs you need to innovate
Why continuous improvement in Operations with six sigma, Kaizen and Kanban needs to be balanced with innovation
The legend of beer and nappies. Are you over dependent on data analytics?
An over dependence on data analytics and data mining can lead to marketing efforts that do not make sense.
Behind the padlock: have you taken eCommerce security seriously?
After the eCommerce sale has been made operations has a role to play in customer data security
Do you dare to disconnect from the social network?
In the modern world we all want to remain connected to the internet through wifi on our netbook or ipad
Follow Friday for 17th June 2011
A collection of fascinating people to follow on Twitter
Are you getting the best from your suppliers?
Getting best value from suppliers requires an active and strategic approach to management
Launch dates: when sales and operations collide
Getting to a firm launch date takes time - not just a sales persons promises
Is your documentation dull? Why the insurance broker community need to up their game when writing to prospects
If an insurance broker sends out dull documentation it will not be an effective sales tool
Starting outbound telesales in your small business?
Key factors in starting an outbound telesales activity in your small business
Is the lack of innovation in insurance due to regulation or attitudes?
Lamenting the lack of innovation in the UK insurance industry
The right operations? How a competitive strategy affects the way the business operates
Operations need to adapt how they behave to support a competitive strategy in business - which is about more than just cost control
Follow Friday for 10th June
A collection of interesting individuals and their posts from the Tweetosphere
Should you spend more time with prospects and clients?
The majority of firms spend time with clients. I say invest it in proportion to the potential return
Can you boost employee morale by sharing financial performance information?
Is sharing financial performance information good for morale, or something that saps motivation?
Aiming to "fail faster"? Try experimentation instead.
Failure is a bad thing. Companies should learn that experimentation is the real lesson to learn in business
Who owns the Twitter feed?
If your plan is to use social media to offer customer service should the marketing team own the feed?
Are you managing the right operations costs?
Careful analysis by a smart operations director will find the right costs to reduce
Keeping focus on strategy: the role of the Saga in the scrum of scrums
Managing strategic programmes in Scrum using Stories, Epics and Sagas
Follow Friday on Twitter 27th May
A collection of the more interesting tweets from the past 7 days
Is data analytics everything in marketing?
Could an over dependence on data analytics limit marketing innovation?
Implementing the Retail Distribution Review - a strategic change for business
The FSA is making fundamental changes to the retail Financial Services market. Most will treat it as a Compliance issue - and that is the wrong approach to take
Twitter Follow Friday on 20th May 2011
A collection of the more interesting tweets from the past 7 days
Leaders - are you trying too hard to impress your people?
Are you trying too hard to impress your people into believing you are a good leader?
Curating the Product Backlog in long term projects
Keeping the product backlog relevant is essential - but has to be done with care
Eternal battles: the prioritisation process
Prioritisation processes must be aligned to corporate strategy or they will fail to maximise value
Twitter Follow Friday on 13th May 2011
A passing nod to the people who have made the web a little more interesting this week
Why Government projects are bound to fail when Agile is involved
Government projects are bound to fail because of the way it behaves and we expect it to behave
The meeting minutes: a chance to rewrite history
The meeting minutes record what happened and what needs to happen. Make sure they are accurate...
Advised or non-advised selling?
The difference between advised and non-advised sales is minimal, but the impact can be huge
Cash flow management: when to collect subscription payments from customers
Deciding when to collect a subscription from a customer can have a significant impact on cash flow management
The ethical dimension: protecting client confidentiality in the facebook age
Professionals are flocking to social media. But can promotion harm the relationship between advisers and clients?
Hitting the ground running: a better approach for managers
Why a new manager needs to temper their desire to add value quickly and take a more measured approach
Conflicts in designing operating models
Designing operating models is as much about trying to balance conflicting demands as processes
A day of reckoning for PPI
The Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) Market set itself on a course for conflict that may have led to its downfall
Where does the CIO report? CEO, COO or another board member?
Should the CIO reporting lines go directly to the CEO, or through another board member such as the CIO
Aligning call centres with customer demands
The sophisticated customer is placing new demands on our contact centres
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