منذ أن دخل الفكر الاستراتيجي بمفاهيمه المتعددة إلى علم الإدارة مطلع ستينيات القرن الماضي، حقق نقلات نوعية في مفاهيم التنمية والتطوير على مستوى اقتصادات الدول ومجتمعاتها من أمريكا إلى أوروبا وصولا إلى منطقة العربية التي استقبلته بحفاوة أملا أن يغير في اقتصادها الأحادي ومجتمعها الأمي تقنيا في تلك الفترة. وبما أن أصل الاستراتيجية يعني فن الحرب، والحرب تقودها الجيوش، فقد قادت جيوش من الشركات الاستشارية هذا الفكر في منطقتنا بثوب عالمي وعربات محملة بالحلول الاستشارية لأزماتنا ومشكلاتنا، وتعدت بعض أدوارها التحول في فكر الاقتصاد والمجتمع إلى التغيير المبني على تجارب غربية في عالميتها.. غريبة في حلولها. نتفهم تماما أن العالم الأول تطور بفعل هذا الفكر، ولكننا نفهم أيضا أن احتياجاتنا غير احتياجاتهم، وأن فهم ثقافتنا ومواءمتها مع احتياجات التطوير وحلول التكنولوجيا أهم من النسخ واللصق من معايير البنك الدولي وصندوق النقد الدولي ومتاهات السياسة العالمية لتطبيقها على مجتمعات تختلف رؤيتها لمفاهيم التميز والرفاه وحتى السعادة. ودليل ذلك أن لدينا من...
Business Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which gives an advantage to the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations To implement your business strategies and to get positive results out of them you need consider the following key factors: Importance of the strategy First and foremost consider the importance of the strategy to your business and whether the outcome is going to be worth the trouble of the challenges that will be encountered while implementing the strategy. To know the importance of your strategy you need to know the benefits that you will receive after implementing them and the consequences if the strategy fails. If the benefits of implementing the strategy are clearly positive, then any challenges faced in the implementation will be well worth overcoming. Defined Goals and...
A strong organizational culture drives challenges, performance and positive behaviour. Bright people have more options today than ever before. And good pay is no longer enough to hold the best. Do your people come in early and voluntarily stay late or is absenteeism on the rise? No subject is more important to the success of today’s business organization than Corporate Culture. Changing a well-established culture is however a highly complex issue. It is thus very challenging to implement a new organizational culture especially in a multinational environment. Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior that results when a group arrives at a set of – generally unspoken and unwritten – rules for working together. An organization’s culture is made up of all of the life experiences each employee brings to the organization. Culture is...
GCC countries today are facing workforce imbalances creating the need to train their own nationals to be the forefront of all sectors. Nationalization is a topic of rising importance. Over the last few years, the oil windfall and associated strong economic growth have enabled GCC economies to achieve significant and far-reaching success, an example of which is the notable increase in the number of new job opportunities for both Gulf nationals and expatriates. In broad terms, GCC countries succeeded in reducing their corresponding unemployment rates and increasing the labor participation rate among nationals despite the rapid growth in their labor forces. The number of employed in the Gulf reached almost 14 million by end 2008, of which 18% are nationals. With a still large number unemployed nationals in the GCC countries due to the strong correlation between economic dependence on oil and the poor condition of knowledge acquisition, the mismatch...
The customer of tomorrow will be even more sophisticated than the customer of today. The twenty-first century customer will be savvier and have even higher expectations than today’s customer. It is the obligation of the service industry to assume the responsibility of raising the level of service and, likewise, to manage the expectations of our customers. Tough economic times breed even tougher, more demanding customers. Customer expectations are at ever-increasing highs, while customer loyalty, seemingly, is at ever-decreasing lows. It is easier to accelerate your business by cultivating the customers you already have rather than constantly working to attract new customers. Through it all, there remains one inescapable fact: building a business depends on an organization’s ability to profitably deliver some superior proposition of value to some set of customers. If those customers don’t perceive superior value from you, they’ll turn their interest, attentions, and their wallets, to the alternatives...
Cut-throat competition in the Retail Industry today has caused increasing difficulty for retailers to survive in the new economy. For retailers to be successful, they must have revolutionary thinking. This type of thinking involves a desire to embrace change within their organization. Changes include a more focused approach to strategic planning, advanced marketing skills, and a stronger customer focus. The Internet has given a huge opportunity for retailers. It offers a way to grow an existing retail business and increase exposure to that marketplace. Retailers of any size can appear even more successful on the Internet with an effective service and sell site. The Internet offers e-commerce opportunities to grow an existing business on the Web. To keep up with the growing trend, retailers’ websites must be updated frequently to reflect new merchandise and special offers. Marketing skills are very important to compete on the Internet. Marketing on the Web...
Across nearly all industries, today’s small businesses and midsize companies are concerned with improving operational efficiency to support profitable growth. Facing an increasingly competitive marketplace – characterized by globalization, market consolidation, increasing regulation, competition for resources and the rapid pace of innovation – many companies report that improving operating efficiency is critical to their ability to thrive. Several market pressures present both challenges and opportunities for companies with goals for profitable growth. Coping with these challenges and turning them into an advantage requires speed and innovation, responsiveness, and adaptability. While maintaining these attributes becomes more difficult as a company grows – and adds headcount, or expands into new regions or lines of business, the right training can make all the difference. Increasing operational efficiency means reduced costs and increased profit margins. One of the many misconceptions in business is that a training program is there to train the company’s employees....
ISO 9000 provides a framework and systematic approach to managing business processes to produce a product/service that conforms to customer expectations. For customers, the certification of suppliers to ISO standards means that they can be assured that the development of their products and services are compliant to reference documents that are globally accepted. This, of course, means that customers and suppliers are able to compete in markets both locally and internationally. An ISO certified company also reaps direct internal benefits. Improved efficiency is achieved since the ISO process includes constant examination and review of all operational methods and techniques used in the process. The benefits of becoming certified are numerous. Companies should ensure that they are pursuing certification for the right reasons: To improve business processes and save money. Most companies implementing ISO 9000 certification report increases in business process efficiencies, reductions in waste, and improved product quality. To qualify...
Workforce experts estimate that the cost of replacing a worker is 1.5 times the annual salary of the worker. To minimize your turnover costs and maintain a productive workplace, employers need to look beyond the salary and benefits. The GCC region’s economic environment requires a different approach to minimizing turnover, however, like many workforce trends, turnover rates track employment growth. In this new era of ongoing soft labor markets and unusually low quit rates, the pressing issue at many companies is not whether voluntary turnover is too high, but whether it is too low to provide opportunities for introducing new talent and resetting salaries, with the managerial reluctance to discharge poor performers. The costs of unwanted turnover can be huge. Costs such as ramp-up time for new hires, lost sales and lower morale among remaining employees are just a few of challenges that organizations face. Fortunately, it is fairly simply...
Branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about product familiarity. Despite what many believe, brand isn’t about your logo, tagline and glossy brochure. Instead, a strong brand integrates multiple components, all of them necessary, including customer interactions, employee communications, corporate philosophy and advertising/marketing efforts. Developing a brand strategy can be one of the most difficult steps in the marketing plan process. It’s often the element that causes most businesses the biggest challenge, but it’s a vital step in creating the company identity. Your brand identity will be repeatedly communicated, in multiple ways with frequency and consistency throughout the life of your business. The objectives that a good brand will achieve include: Delivers the message clearly Confirms your credibility Connects your target prospects emotionally Motivates the buyer Concretes User Loyalty To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants...
