Analytics for Your Varied Team Member Styles

Constructing or selecting a team is not the same as team building. The latter focuses on team cohesion and cooperation, whereas the former, by definition, precedes this exercise in camaraderie.

An effective team requires a balance of skills and team member styles. The problem with most departmental teams, and even executive teams, is that certain team member styles tend to be over-represented in particular functions. You end up with nearly everyone in the team exhibiting one particular style and therefore competing with each other for that one team member role, while other styles and roles go begging.

A model I was introduced to many years ago delineates eight distinct team member styles:

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How is Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Similar to Football?

I was a two-year varsity football letterman playing a defense linebacker at Cornell University. I relate my experiences on the field to experiences on the job. The professional and college football championships will conclude with the number one team at the end of the season. That team will have demonstrated determination, perseverance, and grit to win. It is not much different with organizations striving to improve their performance. They have no “could’ve” or “should’ve” in their vocabulary; instead, they focus on “must have.”

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Budget Gem 2: Link Budgets To Operational Activities.

I’m always amazed at how tenuous the link is between strategic goals and budgets. Most senior managers will claim that the budget process is there to help the organisation implement strategy, and yet when you look at the submission sheets budget holders are asked to complete, there is no link. Sure, the revenues and costs when accumulated with other departments may equate to a strategic target, but budgeting is much more than this. After all we can get a monkey to fill in those sheets and even get them approved by ensuring they line up with targets set by senior managers. But we all know that the numbers themselves are meaningless unless they have been placed in context of organisational activities.

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What Benefits Do CFOs Gain From Best-In-Class BI Tools?

To survive in today’s fast-changing business landscape, companies must develop exceptional skills in financial planning for the future. But constant economic uncertainty is making accurate forecasting more difficult than ever. Fortunately, planning, budgeting and forecasting can be successful with the right business intelligence (BI) tools. Powerful BI tools can decentralize the organization, optimize workflows and…

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A Bucket of Wings: A Case Study of Better-Informed Decisions

Since my family likes to take a day off from cooking on Fridays, we recently visited the deli of our favorite organic grocery store. At the take-out bar, I noticed an unusually long line of people under a large sign reading, “In-House Made Wing Buckets. All You Can Fill. On Sale for $4.99, Regular $9.99.” Well, I love wings and couldn’t resist the temptation to get a few.

The opportunity was to add wings (one of my favorite appetizers) to my dinner. But instead of using the special wings bucket, I chose the regular salad bar container, which was priced at $8.99 per pound regardless of the contents. I reasoned that the regular container was an easier-to-use option (shaped like a plate) and a cheaper option (since I was buying only a few wings). My assumptions about the best container to use led to a split-second decision—I “blinked” instead of “thinking twice.”

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Budgeting vs Forecasting

One of the problems about using terms such as ‘budgeting’ and ‘forecasting’, is that there is no generally accepted definition of what they mean. Budgeting is often referred to an annual exercise where the organisation’s resources gets spread among the departments, while forecasting is about predicting the future.

In recent times, forecasting is seen by some as a replacement for budgeting, and the mechanism through which continuous planning can be achieved. Given my understanding of ‘budgeting’ and ‘forecasting’ I would have to disagree – but it may be that I have misunderstood what is implied by these terms.

This makes it very confusing for organisations wanting to adopt a ‘best practice’ approach as they too may misunderstand what is meant. For example, making a statement such as ‘replace your outdated budgeting process with rolling forecasts’ could imply that budgeting is bad while forecasting is all you need. Which could be both right and wrong depending on how your understand what is meant by each.

Now I’ve got you totally confused, let me explain how I sees the difference between planning, budgeting and forecasting.

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5 Reasons Not to Cut Your 2014 Marketing Budget

Understand the changing role of marketing and you’ll likely want to re-examine how you value and fund this function.

As budgeting season approaches, we huddle around projector screens and decide how to best allocate the overall expenditure budget. We try to determine which expenses are likely to have the biggest impact on growing the top and bottom lines.

After more than 15 years in the industrial world, I’ve learned one certainty: marketing budgets are the most unloved of all budgets at most industrial companies. It also raises two crucial questions:

Why is marketing the first budget line to get axed when the overall numbers don’t jive?
Is doing more with less really the path to success?
There are five good reasons why maintaining a smart and healthy marketing budget could be the most important thing you do to ensure the future of your business.

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Use Data To Support Arguments, Not Arguments To Support Data

The concept of “better-informed” decisions is distinctly different than the concept of “better” decisions— the former is generally a choice, whereas the latter often results from an action. Better-informed leaders don’t always make better decisions, but better decisions almost always start with better-informed leaders. Business intelligence (BI) can be the framework that enables organizations of all sizes to make faster, better-informed business decisions.

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