An ideal target for a trading company. Ideal organization: Al-Qaeda. About panaceas in management

"Company number one" or ideal company If the company is part of a community, a country, if the company has high ethical standards, financial strength, attractive locations, progressive working conditions in the long term - this will be my ideal company. Also, if the company has flexible working conditions, a clear path to advancement, competitive compensation, international opportunities for career growth and careers follow a reliable financial base having a full-time job is the most important thing for me. To be an ideal company, it must have a clear vision of the mission and ideas for managing the company to carve out its place in this big world.

There are many benefits of good corporate culture. Some of these benefits include productivity, employee morale and motivation, increased communication and collaboration, employee turnover and company profits. Companies must work to achieve a “good” corporate culture, but a potential employee can be matched by culture fairly quickly during an interview. Ask yourself the following questions to help determine company culture:

  • Will I be involved in decisions that affect me?
  • Do company employees focus on getting jobs rather than politics?
  • Will I be personally responsible for my work?
  • Will I look forward to coming to work for this company?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you can be absolutely confident in your bet that this company is close to ideal. What do I need to do?

Improving organizational culture

Training your employees in the right direction is important step on the way to improving the organization’s work culture. When your employees know how to do things correctly and what the company expects of them, conflicts and mistakes can be greatly reduced.

Discuss with team members issues related to the current culture of the organization. Make changes that you find warranted. Maintain healthy communication with your team. Educate the team about the organization's leadership and the strategies adopted to create a more engaging culture within the company. Conflict is an integral part of any organization and has a direct bearing on the health of its culture. Therefore, when conflicts arise, management must resolve them quickly and amicably.

Creation of an objective, transparent and fair conflict resolution system.

A positive company culture can do wonders for your business, turning ordinary employees into super workers who go above and beyond your competitors.

Provide easy access to information

Give employees quick access to information so they can make independent decisions with the information they need. Failure to do so can result in lost opportunities and income.

Increasing employee engagement

Without frequent interactions between employees, opportunities are missed. good ideas and opportunities. The result: valuable workers frustrated by their insignificance, which can become disheartening as a result of poor cooperation. And yet, how to develop employee engagement when many are working remotely? IP network with integrated voice, video and wireless connection provide interactive web video conferencing, IP telephony, and other tools that facilitate collaboration.

Improve the quality of customer service for your company

In a tough economy, improving customer service may be the key to survival. A company's reputation depends on the quality of customer service. Be kind to your clients, and your client base will increase due to their relatives and neighbors, who will be recommended to them by satisfied clients working with you. But if one is unhappy, it can also cause word of mouth. “The experiences people have with your company, and then what they hear from friends and family members, influence their perception and likelihood of having business relationship with a company. Understand what is important to customers. Speed ​​and availability of services are universal truths. Improving customer service starts with your employees. The most important person in the customer service scheme is the manager, since employee turnover is directly controlled by the manager. Others important qualities are empathy, consistency and patience. Experience is vital, but it can be a double-edged sword: too much, and the representative may seem pedantic or condescending; too little, and the representative won't know how to handle sensitive situations. Improving Customer Experience: Use Online Tools to Personalize Help Your website is typically the first introduction customers have to your company, so your home page should be user-friendly.

Every new day gives you the opportunity to move forward. You can improve your business on several fronts: by increasing profits, reducing losses, getting more customers, expanding markets.

1. Determine your core values What is your mission? What gives your business the most value?

2. The right people Assess the potential of the people you hire and their compatibility with the company's core values ​​and culture. Ask specific interview questions that focus on loyalty, passion for your work, ability to communicate and work with others. These traits can have a significant impact on the productivity and coherence of your employees.

3. Build a system of trust and accountability Your employees need to know that you respect them and trust their abilities. Let's start by empowering qualified employees to have a share in decisions affecting the company. A little extra responsibility shows your confidence. If your employees make a mistake, hold them accountable—not by punishing them for failure, but by examining the mistakes. Be clear about what went wrong, how to fix it, and how to make sure it never happens again. Trust and responsibility extend beyond employee interactions; customer relationships are also very important. If your business isn't honest with its customers, it can damage employee-customer relationships. Learn from mistakes and keep your promises.

5. Reward People usually respond well to well-deserved praise and become motivated to keep doing Good work, which supports your core company values. The best way for you to use this fact to create performance incentives that reward employees when they achieve a goal. The reward doesn't have to be monetary—you can alternatively offer small, unique perks, such as a better parking spot or an honorary title (such as "Employee of the Month"). The strength and vitality of your company culture comes down to your employees doing work that furthers your core values. This positive attitude will carry over to everything - improving relationships with customers, winning new business, and improving your brand as perceived by people outside of your company.

How to Improve Company Morale Without Spending Money

Company morale is a key indicator of employee satisfaction. Tax benefits are critical when attracting talented employees. However, non-monetary rewards remain the critical resource that has a direct impact on improving company morale.

1. Determine what motivates employees through a survey in areas relevant to career development: leadership, praise, recognition, status, improvement goals, and leading others.

2. Connect the company's vision and its mission by connecting individual goals employees. Create an environment that expresses genuine concern for your employees. Ask employees to bring photos, short stories and memorabilia. Employee life and overall well-being fits into the larger goals, mission and vision of the company.

3. Instill a sense of confidence in the company's ability to provide resources for employees to succeed.

4. Highlight employee accomplishments and success stories by displaying them prominently.

5. Lead by example. The behavior patterns you are looking for in your employees.

6. Contribute open communication towards achieving your goals.

7. Increase your level of responsibility. Set clear goals to achieve. Be prepared to explain to your employees how to achieve the goal. Be available to employees. Help them identify problems by working together to overcome obstacles and explain how to achieve personal success. Encourage employees to take initiative to solve problems and welcome their input.

Be creative when creating productive and interesting environment for work. Print posters with inspirational sayings and place them in prominent places.

1. Make sure your employees understand what you expect of them. Employees who understand what is expected of them are much more satisfied and productive than employees who must guess what is needed to complete their job successfully.

2. Smiles. Smiles are contagious; if you smile, your employees will smile too. The opposite is also true. If you go through your day with a grimace on your face, your employees will take on your sour mood.

3. Provide positive recognition. Employees need to hear that they are doing a good job in order to continue doing good work.

Surveys show that many employees are more motivated and valued for their work through recognition than through salary increases or additional incentives.

4. Allow your employees to leave early on occasion if they finish their work early. Some employees don't want to go home, and that's okay.

5. Make the work environment fun. For example, competitions are a great way to improve your mood and, as a result, your work productivity. Sooner or later people will stop being afraid of work. You can increase motivation and loyalty to the company by introducing a less rigid schedule, tying work time to results. An employee may feel responsible for using their time productively.

Determine what your company can offer to improve the work environment. Financial incentives, additional training and other benefits increase labor productivity.

1. Find out what motivates your employees. Give them the opportunity to do a self-assessment to see what is hindering productivity in the workplace. Perhaps the working conditions need to be improved (Internet speed, presence or absence of devices important for work, etc.).

2. Creation effective changes V as soon as possible can improve productivity without any other costs. Adding new resources, flexible time, and educating people are also important components of motivation and productivity.

3. Remove ineffective resources. This could be equipment or people. Sometimes bad equipment or a bad employee can create less than desirable results from an activity. Update the tools that are essential for production process, or replace an employee who refuses to meet the standards set by management. By improving environment, you can change the end result in your favor.

Employers can increase productivity among workers by improving working conditions and removing barriers that prevent workers from expressing their best qualities. Management must provide workers with the tools necessary to perform their duties.

Team building

Events such as office parties or outings will improve employee morale and allow employees to get to know each other better outside the office. Relationships built outside the company can improve team spirit at work. Events and activities also improve employee satisfaction, which can lead to increased productivity.

Connection

To encourage employees, management must communicate its goals to employees. Regular meetings will help maintain a clear vision of employees' goals. Workers without a clear understanding of the company's goals are less likely to work toward meeting them.

Employee recognition

Managers and supervisors can motivate employees by encouraging and challenging them to achieve goals. Praising employees for a job well done will help inspire employees to do their best. This employee can also inspire other employees to achieve goals productively. Monetary and other incentives are also in a good way increase productivity.

Environment

The work environment can play a large role in productivity among workers. The office layout should be efficient and allow workers to complete their work without obstruction or disruption. Additionally, by providing workers with an office space such as a personal desk, it encourages a sense of belonging, which can improve employee morale and satisfaction. Improved morale and job satisfaction lead to increased productivity.

Limiting your socializing time, both among co-workers and online, can improve your productivity. It's difficult to be productive in today's world, where distracting details and situations go from television to the Internet to the home computer and smartphone. Add in the traditional distractions of family, children, friends and co-workers, and it's amazing that we can get anything done in no time. Luckily, there are steps you can take to quell distractions and improve productivity. Get rid of time thieves. Turn off the TV, sign out of your email, sign out of social networks and other sites such as Twitter and Facebook, stop mindlessly surfing sites and blogs. The Internet can be seen as a wealth of useful information or a major time waster, depending on how you use it. If you can completely disconnect from the Internet, do so. If your job, on the other hand, requires using the Internet to respond to emails or research, limit your use of social media mass media and reading literature and newspapers that are not necessary for work. Find a quiet place to do your work. Noise and movement can be distracting. Without distractions, a quieter place might be possible, such as a public library or your own home office.

Communication in the workplace

Chatting with employees during a coffee break is good, but constant distractions for personal email, text messages, instant messages or visitors can be detrimental to your productivity. Tell your employees not to disturb you during certain hours when you need to be more productive. Tell your friends and family about this.

Organization

Organize your desk to rid it of clutter that can make you distracted. Make sure to remember where everything is, down to the paper clip, pen, and notebook. A clutter-free workplace will help make you more productive. Don't forget to organize your time too. Marking important meetings and project deadlines on your calendar will improve your productivity and allow you to see specific goals.

Incentives

Create a system of rewarding yourself for achievements. For example, if you have a 10-page document due within two weeks and you want it done on time, create incentives to write at least one page per day. The stimulus could be time spent on a favorite website after finishing writing that day's page, or it could be a movie or meeting with friends. Rewarding yourself for your hard work will increase your chances of being productive.

Alena Voronina March 12, 2017 recruitment specialist. there is an individual entrepreneur

Interview question: Describe the ideal leader and the ideal company for you?

Increasingly, in my practice recently, business owner-managers are looking for specialists for their company not only with relevant work experience, in a certain age range, having a diploma from a certain university, etc.

During the initial selection, they are asked to screen out specialists based on qualities such as controllability, compatibility between manager and subordinate. The desire of the owners is quite understandable: to hire an employee who will quickly join the existing team, to understand “onshore” how the future employee will fit into the management style and will be able to perform his functions informally, and not according to a document developed in the company or a job description.
The more matches there are in the existing model “Our company” and “Future employee”, the faster we will put together the puzzle in our task and select the right specialist.

Initially, I make a snapshot of what the company is like and the management style of the owner (overtime work, reporting - in what form and how often, the degree of initiative required from employees in solving the task, management style, KPI system, fines, etc.)
I’m making a graph and a scale to see what parameters I can evaluate with this question.

"Describe the ideal leader and the ideal company for you?" I can ask by phone or Skype (not at the beginning of the interview, approximately at the point where questions about past work come up).

I think this question is very objective, because... the candidate does not previously have information about the existing system and talks about the team, the personality of the manager, the comfortable system in the company - which ones appeal to him, and can also give socially desirable answers to this question - which may not coincide with the realities of the employer.

There are many possible answers. The candidates' fantasies go off the charts, right up to a cup of coffee in the morning from a beautiful assistant)))

But, closer to the topic...
One of the customers asked to evaluate their readiness to work in bureaucratic mode and high control over the work of subordinates.
(The head of the department organizes a daily planning meeting for his department in the morning, and in the evening demands reporting on the tasks completed for the day. Control over the work of subordinates is quite high. In connection with this, there is staff turnover, conversations in the smoking room - “how did you get it”, etc. The owner does not ready to change the head of the department, because the results for the department are high).

I considered this question “Describe the ideal leader and the ideal company for you?” optimal for assessing candidates’ degree of readiness to work in such a system.

Unwanted responses:

  • I want independence in my relationship with my manager.
  • The manager gives me complete freedom of action, reporting at the end of the month on the results of my work.
  • I am better at working independently, not in a team.

The likelihood of non-acceptance of the existing reporting system is high, as well as the possibility of conflict.

Desired answers:

  • Clearly sets tasks and monitors execution.
  • Creates conditions for a sense of teamwork.
  • Gives feedback on results.

Additional questions there is a lot to this issue. I will cite some of them so you can dig deeper:

  • What is important to you when setting a task? (independence, or clear valuable instructions when setting, up to “chewing” each step).
  • What type of leader (management style) suits you? (here we look at the style that is more suitable for candidates).
  • How do you build an algorithm for completing the task assigned to you? (independence, initiative, ability to plan).
  • How often do you think you should report on the progress of a task? (the reporting system and degree of control are comfortable for the applicant).
  • How do you react to control of your actions? (readiness for the "manager - subordinate" system, readiness for self-control).
  • How do you react to changing task conditions in the midst of its implementation? (flexibility, readiness to change).

__________________________________________________________________
We receive answers and compare them with how your tasks are set, what type of management you have in the company, what type of manager, how well the candidate’s algorithm of actions corresponds to the company’s standards, what degree of control you have, what kind of reporting, and how changeable the environment is.... The more pluses, the more likely it is that this is “the one you want...” :)
In any case, I think you need to ask not just one question, but several additional ones, so as not to be mistaken in interpreting the result.

There are not so many ideas about an ideal organization that can be officially declared (as not directly contradicting the legal structure). Let's list the most common ones.

Organization of normal order. The idea is based on the elimination of contradictions between different structural levels.

For example, implementation of the plan (requirement of the legal structure) is impossible due to outdated equipment (capability of the technical structure). At the same time, it is impossible to organize work on new equipment due to the lack of qualified personnel(possibilities of a personal structure), and free rates are not high enough (possibilities of a formal structure) to invite skilled workers from the outside. In this situation, changes are made to the formal structure (salaries are increased) and an attempt is made to solve this set of problems.

At the same time, management is trailing behind events. Certain steps are taken after one or another contradiction has surfaced: “Let’s restore basic order...” or “Let’s solve the housing problem...”. And this patching of holes can last as long as desired.

The image of opponents of this approach: “hovering in the clouds”, “avoiding real problems”, “not living with the concerns of enterprises”, etc.

Organization of an advanced enterprise. The model is based on the desire to bring the enterprise to the number of “advanced”, ^known as advanced” by borrowing best practices in various fields and advertising its own achievements.

Increased prestige of the enterprise makes it easier to solve any problems - from priority allocation of resources to attracting qualified work force. What is desired is often presented as reality, since the reality of achievements is not always important for advertising. Managerial steps are largely random and depend on the degree of awareness of others’ achievements in a particular area. A borrowed innovation is subject to “improvement” even before it is fully understood: “And we will do it even better!”

The image of opponents of this approach: “conservatives, mired in routine,” “unable to understand new and complex things,” “not thinking about the prestige of the enterprise,” etc.

Organization of general employment. The model is based on the desire to fully employ all employees of the enterprise.

All the workers are busy with some kind of work: one writes, another counts, a third digs the earth. Nobody sits idle. This picture pleases the eye of the leader, as well as the advocates of “social justice:”, understood accordingly.

Whether a business is necessary or not, whether it is carried out using effective or ineffective methods is a secondary question. The main thing is that no one shirks work and that this work is visible to the naked eye. Those who think and smoke and talk outside the framework of an official meeting act irritatingly: they shirk from work and set a bad example for others.

The image of opponents of this approach: “idlers”, “free artists”), “putting themselves above others”, “misunderstood geniuses”, etc.

Organization of rational work. The bearers of these ideas are driven by the desire to improve every work and every undertaking, eliminating everything superfluous and unnecessary.

All sorts of things labor movement Any employee must be extremely rational. No forces - human or mechanical - are wasted, everything is thought out, everything is regulated. Any movement of the manager’s little finger (which, however, is also regulated) sets in motion a huge production mechanism in which each employee is a cog who correctly understands his role, is happy with it and receives a precisely calculated reward for it.

The image of opponents of such a campaign: “those suffering from a lack of gray matter,” “those who do not understand the essence of the scientific and technological revolution,” “succumbing to emotions,” etc.

Organization of the human condition. The idea is generated by the desire to create conditions for all workers in which work would give them maximum pleasure (or minimal displeasure), so that they would not even think of causing any damage to the enterprise or looking for work on the side: “All efforts go to our native enterprise!” .

The main thing is a living person with his problems, and not a far-fetched principle. All issues are resolved only by those who are then responsible for them. The role of the manager is reduced to providing qualified managerial (“fatherly”) assistance to subordinates.

Comes to first place personnel policy, which is understood more broadly than usual: if an employee has personal problems, let him have the opportunity to solve them first, otherwise he will still think about them and work poorly!

The image of opponents of this approach: “strangers, dangerous people”, “washing dirty laundry in public”, “those who would be better suited to work in another organization”, etc.

How do you find your organization? What adjectives do you use to describe your organization, to simply answer the question: “What is your organization?” Successful? Dynamically developing? Stable? Leading? Steadily developing?

What is an ideal organization

To begin with, I will turn to physics. More precisely, to the law of the entropy of the universe: if you do not expand, you decrease.

It is no coincidence that they do not look at the “economy as a whole”, not at the growth in in absolute terms, but on the rate of growth, on the rate of economic development.

In business, the bicycle principle always works: stop - fall.

Let's add to this great amount external factors- crises, volatility, competition, miracles of legislators, etc. The question of expansion is a question of survival.

But what is an ideal organization?

Ideal organization it is an organization capable of self-expansion.

Self-expansion is expansion without external forces.

I know a company that “successfully” overcame the crisis of 2008-2009 due to constant investments and signed bundles of bank guarantees from its founders - a large financial group. Was such an organization ideal?

Is an organization that develops using attracted resources ideal? No, it's not ideal.

By attracting external financing, for example, by going through an IPO or otherwise selling part of the property, the organization ceases to be ideal, because its integrity is violated, owners change (which, quite often, entails a change in the original Idea, Mission, Goal of the organization, .

An ideal organization is capable of progressive growth on its own. Such growth is almost always progressive, and it is clear why.

But such growth is natural and durable.

How to build an ideal organization?

The secret to an ideal organization consists of four secrets:

Perfect administration

Ideal ethics (ideal control)

The word “ideal” in this case is not synonymous with “unattainable”. In this case, the word “ideal” means logical and done correctly.

Skepticism is inappropriate. “The ideal does not exist,” the skeptics will say.

Isn't it possible to draw a "perfect circle"? Maybe. This requires non-shaky hands and a compass. And an ideal isosceles triangle is constructed with knowledge and adherence to geometry for the fifth grade of high school.

So why do skeptics argue that it is impossible to build an ideal org board with ideal administration in ideal activities and ideal control?

Skeptics say that seat belts do not save. Skeptics claim that prenuptial agreements kill love, and that depressive paranoids insure their lives.

Over the years of research, I was able to make sure that the laws of building organizations, just like the Pythagorean theorem or Newton’s law, are simple, on the one hand, and mandatory on the other, otherwise the constructed structure is not only not ideal, but easy It is destructible both on its own and under minor external influences.

Four laws in four areas of building an ideal organization: org chart, administration, production and control.

How to do three of these four “secrets” correctly - I tell you on the pages of this site in general outline and in more detail to your listeners, clients, partners and employers. For the latter, I develop (adapt) and build this ideal working machine in companies.

What might be the image of an “ideal” company from a sales point of view? This is a company with best sellers"in your own class"? No! Is this the company that has the best sales system? No! Is this a company that sells on an “industrial” scale? No! In this article, the author offers his vision of an “ideal” company from a sales point of view.

In the article “”, I tried to give an algorithm for the practical construction of the Sales Department as a system that implements “industrial sales” and ensures a significant increase in sales in the company.

The image of the “ideal company”. What could he be like?

If you imagine the image of an “ideal” company, you can get something like the following picture:

Perhaps this is every business owner's dream! When “everything is on its own.”

What's happening in today's market?

So what are we seeing in the market today?

  1. From 500 to 1000 projects per year, which are implemented by large design companies (for example, IT companies) no longer yield anything. In the best case, this is fulfilling the sales plan and growing by 10-15% per year.
  2. Hundreds letters of thanks from clients, press releases about successfully implemented projects, etc. - all this is lost in the huge flow of information and is practically no help in business.
  3. Hundreds of salespeople from large companies are “fighting to the death” for their clients with their competitors. And with varying degrees of success.
  4. Companies participate in hundreds of competitions with the same varying success. Etc.

Why is this and what is the problem? The main problem of large and customer-oriented companies with a wide product line is that they are “everywhere and nowhere.” There are many suppliers for one client. It’s impossible to “distinguish yourself” from your competitors and stand out from the crowd of similar companies! But!

What does an “ideal” company need?

Dear reader will probably say: “This is all good and, perhaps, correct!”, But “Where can I get a “candy product” and how to create it?”, “Where can I get services that are highly in demand by the market and how to make them impeccable?”, “How stand out from the crowd of competitors?”, “What should we do in such a situation?”, even to the point that “All this is theory! In practice, everything is different!”

There is only one answer - you need it new strategy! A strategy aimed at moving to a new level of work, which will allow us to develop and gain new, strong competitive advantages, stand out “from the crowd” and “show off the product.”

What exactly is needed for this? But you don't need much:

1. Take a fresh look at the chain: customer needs - product - sales - project implementation (or delivery).

a. See that the Product is primary! And the product must satisfy the needs of customers as fully as possible. Then it will be a highly sought after market. Then:

b. There will be a desire to create “candy products” and a desire for impeccable quality of services. Then:

c. Specific tasks will appear to create “candy products” and provide impeccable quality services.

But in the modern world this is not all. Therefore, you also need:

3. Begin to create a new recognition of the company (new brand). Not by the name of the company, its turnover or its position in the ratings, but by completely different parameters:

a. By recognizable goods and services - “candy products”. It is not necessary to have a unique product; you can provide a number of services better than competitors.

b. For completed large, complex and possibly socially significant projects.

c. According to the company’s competencies in individual “locomotive” areas. So that the market knows that projects<такой-то направленности>The Best Company does the best.

If the project company has a wide product line, then the following blocks need to be built, but in a new way (using specific examples):

1. Strong Marketing Block.

Goal: analyze market trends and competitors’ efforts, demand and formulate offers according to demand.

Who is needed for this? To begin with, 1-2 strong marketers on 2-3 of the company’s most successful and promising solutions. For what? In order to permanently bring these solutions to “candy products” (!) in close connection with the Block of Innovative and Technical Competencies.

2. Strong block of innovative and technical competencies.

Goal: improving your products (goods and services). According to constantly emerging new (innovative) technologies. Let’s start with the “locomotive” ones, for which there is the biggest backlog. How? “Locomotive” solutions (2-3) should be based on the latest technologies in demand by the market. Then they will first become competitive, then become better than their competitors.

If these blocks do not work closely together, there will definitely be no result!

3. Strong Project Management Unit.

Purpose: to analyze the progress of implementation, for example, of large and significant projects and introduce new approaches and principles project management. For what? To implement projects faster and better than competitors, and therefore to receive additional margins and profits, as well as to stand out from them for the better.

Who is needed? To begin with, 2-3 of the strongest project managers (PMs) and, for starters, “playing” coaches. For what? To disseminate the best approaches and principles of effective project management throughout the company. How? Analyze current projects, adjust the progress of their implementation, adjust the composition of the project team (if necessary), conduct training for less powerful RPs, etc., up to replacing ineffective RPs.

5. Strong Presale Block - Sales Block of the Future.

Goal: the highest quality and efficient work with potential clients in order to receive an order. Myths about sellers who are able to “sell snow in winter” but who do not know their products are just myths. And illusions. Both product knowledge and sales skills are important. It’s easier to build up sales skills than to dive into the industry of technically complex solutions.

For 20 years, so-called “product managers” periodically appeared on the market, who were trained in products and acted as the main sellers of these products. Then the paradigm of companies changed, product managers were replaced by product managers corporate clients, then they appeared again, then “disappeared” again. Why?

Because:

a. "Primary" product. If a product is not good enough, the market will not consume it widely.

b. There was no wide market coverage. There was a product, but the market was not widely aware of it.

What could be the way to achieve the state of the “ideal” company?

There is only one way - the desire for impeccable quality of goods - the desire to create “candy products” and the desire for impeccable quality of services - the desire to flawlessly implement projects or provide services of the highest quality. This is true for companies with completely different business areas - consulting, serving clients, performing certain work (projects) for them, etc.

If there is such a desire, the tasks of creating “candy products” and providing impeccable quality services will certainly arise. I will give some options for possible business development for companies of different levels of development and scale.

It is quite obvious that it is quite difficult to “jump” from one state to another, for example, to grow from a StartUp a company with several thousand employees with developed production, sales, marketing, HR, etc. services.

1. For companies with a mono-product, the key will be to improve their product by increasing the technological unit and marketing, and more powerfully promoting it to the market.

2. For companies that have several key solutions (products), it would be advisable to select 1-2 of the most successful ones and implement a pilot project according to the approaches described above.

3. For companies with a weak sales unit, it is advisable to build a classic sales system. This will allow you to have sales (projects), develop and eventually move to a new level of development.

4. For large companies with a wide product line and a well-established sales system, it is quite possible to propose the following sequence of actions:

a. Implement a pilot project according to the proposed approaches and within a small working group. In large companies you can always find “smart heads” (“diamonds”) to solve such a problem.

c. Achieve results - recognition through pilot solutions/services.

Analyze the results of the work done: what worked, what didn’t work and why? Adjust further work.

d. Go to the next goods and services (products) in order of importance and importance.

Of course, this is not quick or easy. But I'm sure it's possible.

Classic mistakes

The approaches described above are already in practice at a number of companies, but many of them are ineffective. Why? Because the “cauldron method” is used and not purposefully, but formally. For example, a Center for Innovation and Technical Competence is being created. What happens next?

  1. There is no clear statement of the task for this Center and the required sequence of actions. As a result:
  2. A manager who does not have the relevant competencies is invited to fill this position. And this question is key! Further:
  3. The entire product line of the company (consisting, for example, of 50-70 large solutions/products) is immediately “hung” on this Center. Key words: “immediately” and “all”.

It is quite obvious that the output will be 0. Why? It is impossible to find such an amount of resource that would be able to digest such volumes of information and perform such work in the foreseeable future! Companies take years to rebuild. Why should changes, and quite significant ones at that, be implemented quickly? Unclear!

Conclusion

Conclusion: an ideal company from a sales point of view is a company in which traditional sales missing!

To be fair, it is worth noting that such an image of an “ideal” company may not be achievable. Especially for design companies. Or it is achievable, but in the horizon, say, more than 5 years and only through clear and targeted work in this direction. But! The pursuit of this - such a chosen strategy - will definitely contribute to the company's growth faster than the market growth. Why?

Because the essence of the approach is the formation of the strongest competitive advantages, working with the market on another - more high level, building a recognizable brand and striving for technological/product (or operational; different for different companies) leadership.

“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”

Jack Welch

But it’s better: “If there are no strong competitive advantages, they need to be created!”