Program Objectives

The content below represents the Key Program Objectives (KPO) for the Appleton Greene Organizational Effectiveness corporate training program.

Organizational Effectiveness – Part 1- Year 1

Part 01 Month 01: Introduction

The executive leadership team and local management will be participants in the introduction of the organizational effectiveness training program. The objectives of this workshop are to gain an overall understanding of organizational effectiveness, for each participant to understand their role in improving their area or department, be introduced to the objectives of this training, how to perform an analysis using specific analytical tools and how the success of this training is determined.

To generate an overall understanding of organizational effectiveness, the first section of the workshop will focus on when the world began developing organizational effectiveness all the way to the way it is used today. The participants will be given bespoke examples relating to both, their industry and their function within an organization. This section will end with where organizational effectiveness is trending today and what to expect from the future.

The next section of the workshop focuses on the roles each executive manager will play within this training program and what is expected of each of them. This cements the foundation of ownership with each participant of the process and the results of the training. During this section, participants will receive a brief overview of the challenges of change management, work management and management operating systems.

Determining the success of any engagement begins with understanding a baseline or starting point. The last section of this workshop focuses on determining the perceived and actual baseline of current performance. The remainder of this section and the workshop is to demonstrate and train participants on how to conduct analysis using some specific tools that will be made available to them. These analysis tools focus on opportunities in work execution, defining the gap to absolute capacity and barriers to reaching absolute capacity from both, the employee and manager’s points of view. The local management team that will be conducting the initial analyses will be trained in how to perform the analysis, what to look for when conducting the analysis and why what they are looking for is meaningful and impactful.

The assignment between this workshop and the next will be to complete an initial series of analyses that focus on the work execution (employee and manager day in the life studies), defining the gap to absolute capacity and barriers to reaching absolute capacity. Additionally, they will be asked to complete some initial personal assessments that they will receive feedback on from consultants during the next workshop.

Part 02 Month 02: Analysis Execution

The Analysis Execution module continues the training of the analysis process and begins examining the initial results with the local management teams that executed the analyses. The local management teams will receive feedback on the initial analyses conducted and will be able to share best practices with their peers.

After reviewing the results from the initial analyses, the local management team will receive training on additional types of analyses. These would include work management, flow of work through their departments, skills flexibility assessment, work balancing, work to time ratios and observations. SMED (single minute exchange of dies) may also be taught if applicable to the client.

Additionally, during this section of the workshop, the local management team will be trained on how to spot opportunities in the way the work areas are being managed. They will begin to examine the current culture of leadership and how employees are responding to that leadership. The local management team will be trained in how to both, seek opportunities and how to quantify the impacts.

During the second half of the workshop, the participants will receive training in the subjects of Observations & Lost Time and Facilitative Leadership. The purpose of the Observation workshop is to develop a common understanding of Lost Time. The participants will be equipped with tools that assist in identifying lost time and how to understand the impact Lost Time has on the organization as well as how to resolve lost time issues. The purpose of the Facilitative Leadership workshop is to develop the framework of achieving results through identifying the need to have strong relationships and processes. This model is designed to get to important decisions quicker with a higher level of buy-in.

Part 03 Month 03: Analysis Results

In the Analysis Results workshop, participants will review the comprehensive results from the 2 months of completing analyses. They will review the outcomes of the day in the life studies. The manager day in the life study is a full day study where the participant shadows the manager or supervisor for an entire day to get an understanding of how they plan their day, how they drive execution through their teams, and how they address operational and personnel issues that arise. The participant will witness how they interact with their teams, how they hold their teams accountable and the culture they are supporting in their departments. The participants interact with the manager or supervisor to understand each situation while not interfering with the day-to-day operations. The output of this study is focused around where the manager or supervisor spends their time, as this indicates their priorities. The studies also highlight the operational, leadership and cultural opportunities that currently exist in these departments. The participant will also highlight some of the positive situations observed during the study.

The employee day in the life study is much like the manager day in the life study as it is a full day study where the participant shadows an individual or group of employees for an entire day to get an understanding of how much work is scheduled for the employees, how they process the work and what issues occur during the course of a day while only interceding when the consultant perceives a safety or quality concern. The participant will witness how they interact with their management, how they are held accountable and the culture they help support in their departments. The output of this study is focused on how employees spend their time and the issues they encounter trying to get their work completed. The studies also highlight the operational, leadership and cultural opportunities that currently exist in these departments. The participant will highlight some of the positive situations observed during the study.

Operational, leadership and cultural observations will be prepared from the participant’s analysis studies and be presented to the executive leadership team and the local management. Special care will be taken not to be specific of indicting any particular individual or group of individuals.

In the last section of this workshop, the approach of the rest of the engagement will be reviewed. This will include covering the 8-step implementation and mindset change required. This will link the reason this engagement was initiated, how the analysis supported the need and where the focus will be to improve the effectiveness of the overall company or organization.

Part 04 Month 04: Work Management

Work management is the intersection of team and business processes that structure the flow of work in an organization for effective load distribution and project completion. Work management principles apply to the scope of the organization’s project operations, and operate with a motive to schedule tasks in a better and more comprehensive manner.

The cycle of work management starts with identifying the work to be done in the organization and planning and scheduling it for different stakeholders and employees across the organization. The work management cycle, however, does not end here. Follow-up is extremely important to figure out all the factors that are helping and the factors that aren’t.

Work management is important in the organization because it improves performance and because it improves overall organizational effectiveness. Anything that allows your organization to deliver better outcomes in a more comprehensive manner will benefit your project. Better performance eventually leads to better quality deliverables within the budget set by the organization. Work management may also work to reduce redundancies that are unnecessarily taking up money and time.

This is one reason work management is employed by organizations across the world. Getting rid of all activities that do not serve any purpose helps create better projects and propels efficiency forward.

While the details are different from organization to organization, work management processes often share the same elements. A typical work management process will be formed with the following elements:

• Identification: To manage work and increase organizational effectiveness, it is necessary that you first define the scope of the work and how and when it is required. Be thorough and accurate in your identification of work processes.

• Plan: The second step following identification is to plan a strategy for work management. Start by making a time-estimate of just how long it will take you to get the work done with your resources.

• Schedule: Now that you have the work planned out along with a timeline, you have to head toward creating a daily or a weekly schedule to define your responsibilities and workflow. Workflow should be distributed across the organization.

• Document: Documentation leaves a proper trail for everyone in the organization to follow.

Work management is an important attribute for organizations to achieve success in today’s competitive environment. The manual will discover multiple facets in the organization and the impact they have on work/load management.

The work management manual will include details related to the following processes.

• Forward Scheduling
• Backward Scheduling
• Project Management Scheduling
• Critical Path Management
• Work Order Scheduling
• Agile
• Lean
• Theory of Constraints
• Capacity Planning
• MOS Workshop

Year 1 (Process Development)

Part 05 Month 05: Execution Introduction

While a blockbuster product, a breakthrough technology or a brilliant strategy might put you on the map to success, only thorough and effective execution can help you get the results and success curve you require. Businesses in this extremely competitive global industry should be able to deliver on their intent. Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t well versed in execution, often by their own confession. A majority of all employees in over 500 companies located globally feel that strategic and operational decisions in their organization are seldom translated into action. The execution process is more often than not found lacking, and while the idea itself might be a million dollar one, the execution leaves much to be desired.

Process execution is a companywide process where every employee should have a clear idea of the role they play in the process. Organizations weak in execution often have issues when it comes to communicating roles to employees across the organization. Employees aren’t able to register their responsibilities and are hence unable to feel accountable for their actions or a lack thereof.

Blurring of decisions and autonomy within an organization can make responsibilities vague for everyone involved. Organizations that are particularly young in nature have a hard time developing their execution processes. This is because these organizations are too busy communicating that they forget to assign roles and responsibilities to each member. The problems also don’t show up from the onset. Since the organization is small, everyone knows everyone and there is no difficulty in pointing out who to go to for what task.

For a limited period of time, things work out well for small firms. However, it is when they grow in stature and executives come in that the approval and execution process gets all murky and convoluted. It is extremely unclear for employees to determine where one employee’s accountability begins and another’s ends. Execution also succeeds in organizations where there is limited second-guessing and criticism from all corners. Such actions stall the process and take up ages for work to start. This course manual studies the introduction to execution processes and what’s best for organizations looking to take action.

Part 06 Month 06: Execution Opportunities

Organizational goals and strategic plans can only be achieved through proper implementation and identification of the right opportunities. How do you ensure that your execution is perfect without any delays and further complications? Through the use of effective opportunities!

Strategy execution is the strategic process in place for recognizing opportunities that can improve your execution. The process comprises of daily systems, operational goals, structures and other measures to step up to every opportunity and to ensure that no chance for change goes to waste.

Even the most thorough strategic plans and objectives can fall flat on their face if they don’t have the right execution strategy to support them. Research suggests that more than 90 percent of all established businesses fail to reach their strategic objectives, which comes down to the failure to recognize opportunities for thorough execution.

The strategic plan is the first step of the execution process and should be formulated and revamped before businesses dive into execution. All decision-makers and stakeholders should reach an agreement or consensus on strategic plans as the business comes together to unearth opportunities that will help carry strategic efforts forward.

The opportunities for process execution will only pop up if the strategic goals and strategies identified by the management team hold true for your organization and can be implemented in the long run. Research identifies that 71 percent of all strategic decisions and executions fail because the strategic decisions behind these executions are second-guessed rather than being based on actual opportunities and requirements. Strategies shouldn’t be considered stagnant; instead, they should be given the headspace to evolve over time, leading to effective execution.

Effective strategies are also achieved through proper communication between all stakeholders in the organization. Opportunities to execute strategies can become even clearer and better with enhanced communication between employees and workers within the organization. Since over 95 percent of all employees do not fully understand the strategy in place within their organization, they are always unable to find opportunities to implement these strategies. Employees are also unable to unearth possible alternative strategies that can help improve implementation and increase the chances of success.

Strategy execution does fall down on the participation of all members from a team along with the managerial staff. Managerial staff should communicate requirements to the team; while the team should make sure they adhere to the challenges and come up with opportunities for implementation. All of these measures are only possible through effective communication and collaboration.

During the course of this month’s coursework, participants will be guided through multiple strategies and tips to unearth opportunities. Finding growth potential to set executable strategies is a companywide process that all stakeholders should participate in. As managers or as employees, participants will be taught the art of opportunity identification and the steps they can take herein to get better results.

Part 07 Month 07: Execution Improvements

By now, most participants in this course realize that execution is a critical professional skill that they should strive to learn. But they still might be guilty of either underestimating the importance of execution in career importance or of not realizing how the process can be improved without working long hours.

This month’s workshop will take the concept of execution one step forward and focus on execution improvement in the workplace. As employees and as managers, there is a considerable amount of pressure on every stakeholder in the organization to play their part in the execution process. In fact, when senior managers were asked about the importance of execution in an employee’s skill set, they ranked it first on a list of 16 skills. Employees within the organization ranked it fourth within the list. While senior managers do find it more important than any other skill, employees also realize that it does play a role in organizational efficiency.

It is popularly believed that a business is 10 percent strategy and 90 percent execution. Ask senior professionals from multiple industries and they will agree in favor of this notion. All the reading, absorbing and listening that participants are good at needs to be synthesized for proper implementation and improved execution in the workplace.

This month’s course work will look at ways to hold oneself accountable and find lapses that lead to failure in execution. For some reason, everyone in the business world today is pretty adept at identifying issues with other people, but not their own issues. Hence, the most important step in this process is to learn how to hold ourselves accountable.

Additionally, businesses can also create methods where external accountability measures from the outside world take charge. This could be an external member of the bench or someone from outside the organization. In any case, it is necessary that the person in charge of accountability should hold everyone responsible for their actions.

The coursework also focuses on the responsibility of managers to provide consistent and continuous feedback to team members. Feedback can improve the execution process and help oil minor/major chinks in the armor, which would otherwise go unnoticed until the strategy has failed. All good leaders are known for their feedback delivery and their ability to guide employees through the execution process rather than throwing them under the bus. All participants will be taught the art of feedback delivery, along with the ability to register feedback from superiors in a detailed manner. Process execution can only improve through combined effort from everyone involved.

Part 08 Month 08: Execution Sustainability

After working on improvements within your execution process, this is where the fun starts. Organizations that have established improvements in their execution also need to come up with ways to sustain that progress and to grow their execution process over time.

Managers tasked with implementation should incorporate all observations and data collected during the improvement phase to pave a road map for the initiative. This is the game plan required for a successful execution process that is both, sustainable and durable.

During this phase, the organization seamlessly manages all complications related to major change and comes up with a sustainable plan. A typical sustainability plan should include a mechanism to manage resources, identify resistance measures, work to achieve a conflict management strategy, help with decision making, enhance skills of the working staff and monitor behavioral change among current employees. As resources develop, leadership knowledge and team performance are sustained for longer periods.

The typical components present within the sustainability phase of execution in most organizations include:

• Work Stream – New procedures, processes, skills, and behaviors
• Performance Analytics – Tracks real-time, visual key performance indicators
• Improvement Operating System – A structured framework that overcomes barriers to implementation
• Behavior Change – Targets company culture
• Organizational Development – Strengthens leaders, reinforces new skills
• Training & Skills Development
• Sustainable Results

Organizational effectiveness is best achieved through sustainable execution in the organization, with simple improvement over time. This course will prepare participants to sustain their improvements in the organization and coin concrete measures for effective strategy management. Strategies are best achieved through effective improvements over time in the sustainability process. Sustainable development helps generate positive results and can increase the efficiency of execution measures in the long run.

Part 09 Month 09: Planning Introduction

Planning is considered one of the most basic managerial functions in an organization. The planning process usually involves establishing goals for the organization, setting objectives for everyone in the firm and determining methods through which these goals and objectives are to be attained by the organization. The planning process is hence a rational approach to achieve desired objectives.

Decision making is an important aspect of planning, as it helps choose the right alternatives for future actions. This course introduces participants to the fundamentals of planning within the organization and helps set a base to choose alternatives with a bright future.

Organizations typically plan for both, short-range and long-range decisions, based on their interpretation of social and political economic trends within the market.

The planning process also involves determining and identifying the different types and volumes of products/resources required from the outside world. These resources are also meant to be allocated in a systematic manner to attain goals and objectives. As managers and as employees, planning is all about identifying cumulative long-term goals and setting a pace at which you proceed to meet that objective.

Planning is an important process in most universally accepted managerial conventions. This introduction to planning also introduces participants to the importance of planning by mentioning its specific techniques and the way to bring a unified sense of direction in the organization through planning measures.

Managers support systematic measures of planning within the organization to gather a sense of direction for every member on the team. This is to effectively manage resources that might otherwise be a cause of conflict for stakeholders in the workplace and to reduce chances of uncertainty. A business plan identifies and lays down a structure for future objectives and helps reduce the impact of uncertainty on business decisions.

There are several practical reasons for planning as well, which will be further elaborated through the use of appropriate examples within the case.

• To distinctively break organizational strategy into a set of manageable objectives for every member of the team
• To provide a systematic and easy guide for all activities in the future
• To further encourage systematic thinking within the organization and to remove communication gaps
• To increase efficient operations and the outcomes generated through them

We will also use this course to identify and highlight the importance of 3 levels of planning, basically known as strategic, operational and tactical planning. Each of these levels of planning has an impact on the goals and objectives of the business. Since planning is highly focused on the future of the firm, participants will also get to know about analysis techniques, such as SWOT Analysis, to provide a framework to identify the future growth potential of the organization, along with threats and weaknesses.

Part 10 Month 10: Planning Opportunities

Organizations of all types and sizes, from Fortune 500 firms to non-governmental organizations, turn to strategic planning as a means to unearth future opportunities and develop their objectives accordingly. We have previously understood that planning is a means to analyze future predictions and opportunities through the SWOT analysis and form a detailed plan of action to meet those objectives. Strategic planning also gives executives involved in the planning process an opportunity to revamp their definitions of the process and turn toward new options and opportunities.

Various areas in the planning process come up with opportunities to not only improve revenue generation, but to also involve operators and planners for effective strategy formulation. Coordination and collaboration can reap effective rewards for the organization and can open new doors of opportunities with contribution from all stakeholders across the firm.

Performance measures are a strategic part of the planning process and can help organizations create and identify a process for future implementation. Performance measures help determine whether all resources within the organization are being fully utilized.

Plans set within the organization help strategically reinforce the importance of goals and objectives across the firm. This workshop also takes a look at the performance measurement process along with a detailed overview of management by objectives. Organizations and managers look to manage through objectives as a means to identify possible growth potential and enhance results. The planning process can also be used as an excuse to find deficiencies in operations and assess them. Deficiencies help highlight areas where improvements are most needed.

The availability of data in the planning process has further honed the process and made it even more comprehensive than before. Managers today realize the opportunities on display for effective planning and optimization across the board.

This workshop is a comprehensive guide to understanding opportunities in the planning process and working on them to signal continuous growth. Managers and employees alike can attend the course and benefit from the many opportunities they encounter during the planning process. With an understanding of deficiencies and a broad outline of performance measures, all resources are utilized without flaws.

Part 11 Month 11: Planning Improvements

Strategic plans for your business’s overall success aren’t always a piece of cake. The process is known to be quite complicated and highly strategic. This is why if you want to signal improvements in your planning process, you should go back to ground zero and come all the way back from there to revamp the planning steps and change the results that you get from them.

Striving to improve your planning process includes great emphasis on communicating changes to managers and stakeholders and getting implementation approvals from them. Improvements in the planning process are meant to achieve a greater purpose of better and more streamlined processes.

In this workshop we will introduce participants to process improvements plans and the bottlenecks that are to be eliminated in the process. The identification of these bottlenecks can eventually help businesses:

• Minimize process completion time
• Improve process efficiency and quality
• Eliminate wasted efforts
• Minimize friction in business processes
• Meet regulatory compliance

Businesses today need to be continuously and constantly agile to respond to the rapidly changing internal and external business dynamic. The business environment today requires shifts in the planning strategy to accommodate for the volatile nature of the industry and to ensure that the entrance of new competitors does not damage your market share.

Businesses should, hence, always be on the lookout for ways to improve their processes. Improvements in this regard will result in better quality services and products. Improvements in the planning process also result in better scheduling for the future and better management of operations and demand.

This workshop will also shed some light on using benchmarking techniques to analyze your planning and execution processes with that of your competitors. Find what competitors are doing and realize the opportunities for improvement that you can also follow here.

Business managers face a unique conundrum when it comes to planning. The measure of success for planning processes can only be identified once the process has actually translated into reality. This, however, is a lengthy task that has limited room for improvement within the actual planning stage itself. With the analysis techniques mentioned in this workshop, organizations will be able to perform analysis during the planning process itself and make improvements without having to wait for results to come out.

Part 12 Month 12: Reporting Introduction

Business reports are essential tools for enterprises in today’s business environment. These tools are required by organizations across the globe, regardless of their size and stature. Business reporting is a means of tracking and analyzing the overall health of the business, while also mentioning areas and opportunities for growth.

Some business reporting is also necessary by compliance standards. Financial reports are considered a legal necessity and the failure to produce one might land most businesses into hot waters on the legal front. These legal laws are determined by the government of the country that the business is headquartered in. Regular reporting internally is also highly necessary and is often regulated by business law. Organizations are required to brief stakeholders of all happenings within the organization. It is through these briefings that shareholders understand the actual earning potential of the organization and work on their investments within the organization.

This workshop aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of business reporting protocols, along with the reports that most organizations are expected to produce. Business reports can be both, important financial and marketing tools, which we will delve deeper into within the workshop.

Reporting is basically done through the use of compiling and reviewing information related to specific areas of the organization including finance, operations, sales and inventory control. The reporting process takes the lead in all business analysis processes to provide the foundation for reviews and assessment. Business managers base their research and assessment of business performance on the results displayed within internal and external business reports.

Business reports provide useful insights for all stakeholders associated with the firm. The reports include information business spending, growth and profits. The analysis formed after going through business reports can help develop future projects, revamp marketing plans and improve decision making processes across the firm.

In this workshop we will study in detail the many reports made by a business for the internal and external stakeholders associated with it. The coursework will also help participants identify techniques and ratios to find useful measures such as profitability, liquidity and financial preparedness based on the output generated by reports.

Year 2

Part 01 Month 01: Reporting Opportunities

Business reporting is a thorough process that includes multiple steps and documents. While most of these reports are meant for internal use, there are a few that are released for the general public, government, shareholders and other related stakeholders.

Businesses often fail to identify the opportunities for more profits or investments through effective reporting, be it internally or externally. These opportunities are related to the preparation process for reports and the way they are presented in front of stakeholders.

This workshop on reporting opportunities will address the importance of external reports and also come up with concrete techniques and steps to improve and address the opportunities for better presentation of the reports.

Additionally, internal reports play an integral part in facilitating collaboration and communication between all stakeholders. The more stakeholders collaborate and communicate with each other, the better their chances of achieving the strategic objectives set by the firm and taking them to execution.

Internal reporting between departments is also extremely necessary to stop the creation of silos within the organization. Silos kill communication standards between different departments and can lead to operational deficiencies, where different departments are not aligned with each other.

This workshop also considers a more contemporary approach toward reporting opportunities by listing down the many benefits of reporting and communication between internal departments and stakeholders. The effective communication will lead to better overall synergy and results within the firm.

Participants of this workshop will be presented complicated reporting strategies in a simplified and toned-down manner. The corporate world is changing for the better, and reporting and collaboration is an important part of its future.

Part 02 Month 02: Reporting Improvements

The number of analytics and reporting solutions available to businesses today are just staggering. Businesses can measure almost everything related to every facet of their organization, starting from their sales capabilities, turnover and their reporting standards. Organizations use these reports to churn out reports, dashboards and a lot more to not only keep track of the progress, but to also improve their understanding of internal and external business opportunities.

All the steps businesses take here can become futile and ineffective, as they forget the importance of making improvements in their internal and external reporting procedures. Stakeholders demand are also increasing, and there is a constant pressure on organizations to improve their efforts on the reporting front.

This month’s workshop takes the topic of reporting improvements and looks at it from the perspective of organizational effectiveness. Organizational efficiency can greatly improve in the form of better communication between workers, if there are advanced and comprehensive reporting procedures in place.

Data is undoubtedly one of the most valuable assets available to businesses at its disposal. With the increase in the spread and use of resources such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, businesses will rely on data sources around them even more to make comprehensive reports and improve their analytics for both internal and external use. Failure to identify the importance of data is a critical issue facing most businesses and managers today. Dynamic business reports can lead to a significant increase in the actionable insights available to businesses. Actionable insights include all results from data, which can be acted upon to meet results. Identifying these areas early, can comprehensively improve business success and lead to a better bottom line of growth and success. This course will open the eyes of all participants towards opportunities for report improvement and towards the importance of gathering and reporting data from internal processes for the generation of actionable insights.

Part 03 Month 03: Forecasting Introduction

Forecasting is a technique used by businesses to make informed estimates about the future. Forecasting techniques use historic data and predict market trends to mark future trends. These techniques also determine the direction of future trends and how they can influence results within organizations.

Businesses can utilize forecasting as a means to determine ways to allocate their anticipated expenses and their budgets over a period of time, especially for the future. This analysis is typically based on the demand for goods in the future and how that might impact supply and operation protocols.

Investors and data analysts within the organization use forecasting to determine events that might impact the company, such as sales expectation and share price fluctuations. Even with the widespread implementation of forecasting techniques, many businesses have failed to make authentic forecasts that hold true for the future.

This workshop will harness customer interest and give insights into the forecasting process. The forecasting process is usually broken down into three processes; a careful study of past trends from a historical perspective, a study of future expected trends that may or may not impact demand and a final link between past performance and future trends to predict the future performance of the organization.

These processes are closely linked to each other and are used to form a detailed forecasting plan for the future. This workshop will help introduce participants to the right techniques for tracking past performance and also for developing ways to predict future trends. Once the future trends are predicted, participants can create a forecast plan for the future.

The extremely volatile and disruptive business environment of today has meant that businesses are in a race against time and a number of other factors to create plans for the future. The COVID-19 pandemic was just one example of how significant the impact of major disruptions can be on business performance and results. With effective forecasting measures, businesses can predict future volatility in trends and create a pattern that helps improve strategic results and implementation.

Part 04 Month 04: Forecasting Opportunities

It is through effective forecasting and detailed predictions that many businesses have established their name in the business world. Forecasting does not only deal with future sales and profit figures, but also gives investors an idea of the return on their investments.

Corporate managers use forecasting to determine the effectiveness of their organization in the future and come up with a detailed plan for future progress. Stock analysts use forecasting to extrapolate the impact of the economy on major trends such as unemployment and GDP. The further out the forecast, the higher are the chances of its failure. Statisticians also utilize forecasting measures to understand the full impact of customer satisfaction and how future measures and trends can improve it.

Forecasting is, hence, spread across multiple dimensions and isn’t limited by implementation. There are multiple avenues governing the implementation and practices of forecasting. Keeping the nature of the forecasts in mind, it is highly necessary that businesses always be on the lookout for effective future opportunities.

Forecasting opportunities can open doors to effective results in the future and can prepare businesses to combat the volatility that is a norm in today’s business environment. This month’s manual will prepare business towards identifying opportunities for better forecasting. The manual will also introduce the concept of opportunity stages in forecasting. This is a strategy in forecasting where the sales and revenue generation team breaks down the sales pipeline into three different processes. Once the sales pipeline is broken into phases, the organization comes up with ways to identify the percentage of sales closed in each stage of the pipeline. This forecasting opportunity and others of the nature will be discussed in the workshop with a special focus on teaching participants the importance they host in our volatile business structure.

Part 05 Month 05: Forecasting Improvements

The attitude of manufacturers and business managers has changed over the course of the last few years – call it the changing economic conditions around us, the profit pressure on conglomerates or the global competitiveness around us, but things are rapidly changing. Businesses realize that true improvement lies in a mixture of strong brand building, accurate sales predictions and flawless internal processes – a lot of which comes through improved forecasting.

In many organizations forecasting is a process left over to the sales side of the organization. In this side of the organization forecasting is used as a technique to predict the future or more accurately, predict future demand. Problems with the forecasting process can go over time and leave organizations vulnerable to market disruptions. The problem eventually grows when organizations fail to realize that the process can be improved and do not understand the worth of improvements in the forecast process.

Many business managers ponder over the value proposition that comes through improved accuracy. There is currently a clear relationship between forecasting accuracy with key downstream variables such as reduced replenishment levels, improved customer service and lower inventory level. On the effort side, forecast improvement requires an effective environment to re-engineer processes.

Demand forecasting should be a priority for manufacturers and suppliers today, especially if they outsource production. The outsourcing can potentially push lead times up and can kill flexibility if improvements aren’t incorporated. The cost to improve forecasts is on the higher side, but businesses need to build an opportunity cost model that prioritizes forecasting.

Any good business will have a sales forecasting strategy as part of its management strategy. However, most sales forecasts tend to be inexact by their nature. The trick to improvement is to recognize areas where they lack and to turn those areas into pictures of improvement for the overall business.

This workshop helps participants develop a true understanding of forecasts and identifies a roadmap for incorporating improvements within the work they do. The course will use models to demonstrate the flexibility of forecasts and to prepare businesses for the future that is to come.

Year 2: (Process Implementation)

Part 06 Month 06: CI Introduction

Customer intelligence is an important part of organizational effectiveness and is a measure that organizations are willing to focus on during the current day and age of data. The data revolution has shifted focus primarily towards data in business. The application of business analytics to customer data is known as data mining, and is now an important part of business structure.

This month’s workshop will help put the spotlight on customer data and the intelligence that can be created through it. Businesses use internal and external sources of CI to improve the generation of actionable customer insights.

Internal data for customer intelligence is generated through customer interactions online and offline. This workshop will elaborate the concept of gathering internal customer data and will also look at the compliance side of things. There are multiple regulations in place currently to ensure customer rights and to safeguard personal data. Business intelligence should be performed with an eye on these regulations and to ensure that there aren’t any breaches within these protocols.

External data typically comes through these three categories.

• Personal demographics: Personal demographics include all sources of data such as income levels, debt levels, age and marital status. Such data is usually analyzed to explore buying patterns of all people within specific income brackets.

• Geographic demographics give an idea of data aggregated from different locations. Such data is usually analyzed by firms to explore buying patterns in different areas with particular demographics. A rural area for instance might have people with different characteristics and behaviors online in comparison with an urban area.

• Attitudinal data resources, which includes the information related to how most customers perceive the company. This data is usually gathered through the use of contact centers, surveys or even comments related to products on social media apps. Customers show their approval or disapproval of products through online comments.

Most large scale companies continue to be fascinated and beguiled by the management theories of times gone by. Organizations strictly worship the concepts of economies of scale, price advantage and distribution. These have for long been the mantras of growth for manufacturing companies. But with major advancements today, customer intelligence is the new transformation, and companies should catch on before it’s too late.

Part 07 Month 07: CI Opportunities

This month’s workshop focuses on how unearth opportunities related to customer intelligence in the organization. Companies do not know their customers anymore. Surely they do know and understand when they last came in, what they ordered and how much they spend on average on their products, but that is just about it. Compare this to the grocery store owner down the road. The store owner knew buying preferences, behavior and a lot more personal details related to each customer. This personal and intimate relationship has watered down over time and we are now at a stage where there is a massive disconnect between organizations and their customers.

We have also discovered that reconnecting with the customer and building new connections is the definite path to success in the business environment today. This requires a 360-degree turn on the viewpoint most business have fostered since ages. Businesses should now be armed with complete knowledge of their buyer’s behavior, financials, sentiments, personal preferences and context. Connections can only be formed once you have these gritty private details available.

You might not know it, but most companies today are already seated on a scattered pile of customer data. The biggest tragedy is that only a meager 5 percent of this customer data is currently being utilized by brands. The biggest problem is more than just this. The biggest problem for traditionalist organizations is that data is so unevenly scattered across their firm that it is almost useless.

The tech challenge most firms face today is to identify opportunities in customer intelligence and come up with ways to integrate disparate data sources including CRMs, ERPs, external sources and accounting information together to build real customer intelligence. This month’s workshop will focus on identifying opportunities and starting a real wave of change towards gradual incorporation of customer intelligence measures. Having a 360 degree view of your customer’s behavior can open numerous avenues for customer retention and new sales potential. Developing this view is a no more a matter of choice but an operational need in the contemporary business environment.

Part 08 Month 08: CI Improvements

Customer Intelligence is an important part of business analytics as it helps provide you with actionable insights needed for improving business metrics such as retention, revenue, acquisition, churn, repeat purchase and many other related metrics. Customer intelligence is shaped by a number of factors including analytics generation by marketing teams and the why and when of the customer journey.

The data centric economy of today relies heavily on information transmitted over by customers. Businesses that have caught up with the wave of change have realized that customer data comes in numerous forms and not just through what is accessible to them easily. Customer data is the very starting point of analysis, and if you want improvements in your customer intelligence measures, it is necessary that you take concrete steps to improve data collection.

Customer data seldom informs you about the behavior that customers show while purchasing goods and products. In fact, it is at best a measure of simple facts, which need to be put in the analytics rostrum for effective results.

Customer intelligence is the outcome that results from measures put into understanding customer behavior and the data generated as a result of it. Businesses that put these data sources in high quality analysis programs are able to generate quality outcomes.

Businesses are often sitting on mountains of data that isn’t utilized by them. Tech experts in the business world suggest that 80 percent of all data generated by customers barely gets attention from big businesses. This means that the information is never put into action, and there are no improvements incorporated in business processes as a result of the data. Businesses may have a serious outlook toward gathering data, but as long as they aren’t putting that data into reasonable models and tech solutions, they won’t be able to gather the analytics they require. This simple integration process deals with improvements in customer intelligence and is the reason corporations have turned toward tech analytics solutions to improve the measures they take in this regard.

This workshop aims to help participants get a gist of the recent improvements in customer intelligence and analytics. Measures such as the greater implementation of AI in business analytics have improved techniques for better data analysis and customer intelligence. Business managers that are currently at a loss of knowledge related to these changes can greatly benefit from this workshop.

Artificial Intelligence or AI is one of the most popular trends in data analytics today. Businesses have realized just how they can use AI centric processes to analyze and explicate unstructured data. Without the real time analysis of AI models, unstructured customer data is of no use to businesses, be it for analytics or for understanding customer behavior. With the information in this course and the greater implementation of AI models across the business world, our participants will be able to significantly improve their customer intelligence measures after this workshop.

Part 09 Month 09: Final Analysis

The final analysis of an organization is based on an understanding of the competitive industry as a whole and the internal and external stakeholders linked with an organization. This month’s workshop will provide an in-depth overview of analyses in the modern organization, along with the different techniques that are used for internal and external measurements.

Additionally, the workshop will be linked with opening new avenues for analysis in the firm, keeping in mind the greater reliance on tech improvements and the analytical tools that have emerged as a result of that. The competitive landscape of the market is also rapidly changing around us, and there are a number of companies with new and improved offerings. As a corporate in this competitive environment, your final analysis should also include measures deemed necessary for improvements in your competitive advantage. The competitive advantage can take you places, and if properly prioritized, it can help win you a significant portion of the market. This workshop will help business managers and owners ask questions such as:

• How is our business different than that of our competitors? Are there any major differences, or is it all the same?

• What are general market conditions of the industry we operate in and what kind of future outlook can we expect?

• What is the demand for our services and products in the market?

• What are the opportunities in the industry to reach new customers and build new partnerships?

• What is the tech orientation in your industry and how much do your competitors rely on tech solutions?

• What are some common customer complaints and problems related to the current services and products you offer in your industry?

• What ‘if only’ statements do you think your customers usually make?

With answers to these questions, businesses are better placed to run their own analysis and find a perfect understanding of where they are.

Year 2: (Process Review)

Part 10 Month 10: Analysis Improvements

This month’s workshop takes the concepts discussed in last month’s training session forward and looks at the different ways businesses can improve their final analysis process. A simple analysis is distributed in both, internal and external factors. Internal modes of analysis look at the factors within your organization, including operational efficiency, the productivity in your manufacturing unit and the current revenue streams generated by your business. External modes of analysis study the external industry around your business and help define the potential of your organization. SWOT, PESTEL and other competitive analyses come within external analysis, as they study the external business environment beyond your own firm.

The competitive analysis performed to evaluate your competition and see where they stand is a continuous process that does not stop with one single analysis. The analysis process needs improvements from time to time to help in the delivery of a competitive advantage for the business in question. Only strengths that satisfy customer needs should be considered as core competencies during this analysis.

Moreover, business analyses are organized at a micro level as well to introduce improvements in different processes. It is highly critical that managers and analysts working on an analysis process have access to the right tools to signal improvements over time. This workshop will look at ways to incorporate technology in the analysis process and make it more comprehensive for everyone to understand. The use of technology in business analysis can prove to be advantageous for future motives as well, as businesses prepare for the future of business analytics.

Part 11 Month 11: Final Results

Organizational analysis is a vital cog in the wheel of organizational effectiveness and is incorporated with the sole aim of appraising the operations, growth and work environment within businesses today. Undertaking organizational analysis is an important requirement today as it enables businesses to identify potential bottlenecks in their processes and work to remove them in a comprehensive and detailed manner.

Organizing the final results achieved through the analysis process is an important part of implementation in the business world. Important aspects of finalizing the results include strategic evaluation of how the analysis can lead businesses forward.

In this month’s workshop, we take a detailed look at the concept of finalizing outcomes from analysis processes. Customer intelligence or CI can only prove to be beneficial if the results andinsights generated through it are used in an effective manner. This month’s workshop will gear business managers, entrepreneurs, employees and other participants toward preparing results at the end of a detailed analysis process and ensuring that these results are in line with what your customers would expect.

For this very reason, businesses conduct internal and external analyses on a routine basis. The results achieved through analyses can be properly implemented within business processes to improve coordination and operational efficiency. Organizational effectiveness benefits as a result of this increased collaboration, as organizations incorporate these results within their processes.

Part 12 Month 12: Next Steps

Once the analysis process is over, businesses prepare themselves for the steps that directly follow the intelligence they have gained. Organizational effectiveness is achieved through sustainability in measures immediately following the analysis and implementation process. An organization’s main task is to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the process of goods being converted into outputs. The very structure of the organization is designed around these tasks, and hence the steps following the organizational effectiveness process are to maintain standardized operations and high standards within these processes for an elongated period of time. The socio technical model of organizational effectiveness determines that the ability of an organization to produce relevant results is determined by its ability to seamlessly perform this core task.

Once the organizational effectiveness process is over, businesses and managers find their operations in pristine condition and might be tempted into delaying future steps. However, the period after organizational effectiveness requires businesses to split their operations into three integrated primary factors: integration of technology, responsiveness in geographic location and efficiency in work shifts.

Integration of technology will help maintain a standard set of operations that are easy to follow for the business in the long run. Organizations are developing their scope on the tech front, because it’s the need of the hour and because it will help them move forward.

Additionally, responsiveness in location allows organizations to seamlessly service customers and core distribution centers without delays. Finally, standardized efficiency in operations will help incorporate efficient manufacturing processes and improve the overall output generated by the organization. This workshop will list effective ways to perform these tasks and to take steps forward after the organizational effectiveness process.