Horse Racing’s Triple Crown - Just Like Business Analysts

The Kentucky Derby and Preakness horseraces, the first and second legs of the USA’s prestigious Triple Crown races, have been run. The winner of both races, I’ll Have Another, will be trying to win horseracing’s famous Triple Crown by winning the Belmont, but he will need to again outrun the final stretch Bodemeister, the favorite of the first two Triple Crown race legs.

It made me think that thoroughbred racehorses and business analytic and performance management project leaders have similarities depending on which type they are. (This metaphor is also applicable to professional careers.) There are three types of racehorses: starters, stalkers and deep closers. How arebusiness analytics and enterprise performance management methodologies project managers similar?

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About Leadership: Working Through Influence

John D. Rockefeller modeled the organization of Standard Oil on the two models he knew to work: The United States Army and the Catholic Church. These are traditional hierarchical models, and hierarchy became the norm for company organizations for most of the 20th century. In this model, authority and accountability are everything. Ultimately, the chief executive has authority over all the employees of the company, and is accountable for all aspects of its performance.

The model sets aspiration for the individual. Having authority over a larger number of people is better than over a smaller number. Having a bigger budget is better than having a smaller one.

Dare we challenge this model?

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The “Consumption Chain” Solution to Differentiation That Lasts

Differentiation has always been important, but what matters more over the long term is your company’s diligence—and creativity—in seeking it.

You can’t prevent your business model from eroding. But you can build a company that’s capable of managing business-model transitions. One way to do that, says Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath, is to develop the habit of thinking creatively about differentiation. Here’s how.

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A Poorly Managed Company’s Tour Guide

Publicly traded companies issue annual reports that increasingly look like magazines. Almost all organizations publish a brochure with glossy pictures that describe what their organizations do. In either case they are very traditional, and many look the same. What is needed is a new idea – a better way to communicate their branding and positioning message in a similar way that international countries’ government tourist agencies promote their nations to attract tourists.

Follow us on a chronological “tour” with our “tour guide” Gary Cokins, who will explain how this fictional company, Mesdup (get it? as in Messed Up) relaunched itself into a successful brand by incorporating EPM measures.

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CFO Leadership with Business Analytics – Nature or Nurture?

What distinguishes strong from weak leaders?

Having all the knowledge means nothing without the right types of people. One person can make a big difference. They can be someone who somehow gets it altogether and changes the fabric of an organization’s culture not through mandating change but by engaging and motivating others.

[But] for some leaders irritating people is not only a sport but it is their personal entertainment.

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A Wee Dram from Bangalore? Och, That’s Guid!

What does it take to crack a really closed market? Say, like, selling Indian single-malt scotch in Scotland? Let’s ask someone who’s trying. Rakshit Jagdale, executive director of the venerable Bangalore-based Amrut Distilleries says a great product isn’t enough…

Think fine whisky and the first thought that comes to mind is Scotland. After all, that is why the drink is ubiquitously referred to as Scotch by non-connoisseurs and laymen. But did you know that the world’s third-best aqua vitae, or “the water of life” as the drink is fondly called, is an Indian brand? Say hello to Amrut Fusion Single Malt, which was ranked by prominent whisky expert Jim Murray in the 2010 edition of the Whisky Bible.

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