Showing posts with label Business process. Show all posts

Monday, 25 August 2014

The Seasons of Business

Seasons of Life – Seasons in Business

Nature gives us clues on the change of seasons. Seasons happen… its nature in action. Maybe differently in tropical areas, yet there are hints even in the tropics that change is happening. Seasons are also natural laws that govern our physical lives. You can debate these natural laws all you want, yet they are real, they happen. Either go “with the flow of nature in action” or you get caught in its tidal wave of destruction when you resist what is natural… change.

Going with the “natural law of flow” is a choice you have to make daily. A choice to allow nature and its laws to help you or resist. Those are your only choices, yet it still is “your” choice.

Let say you refuse to believe in or trust the “Law of Gravity“, does the law change through your lack of trust in it, no. If you jump from a plane with no parachute what happens? Do you stay statues quo with the height when you jumped? No! Why not? The “Law of Gravity”. It exists if you believe in it or not. It takes over and will take you down until you hit something that stops you dead in your fall.

What about the “Law of the Harvest”? If you plant “20″ acres of soy beans, you will not reap “100″ acres of something different. If you’re thinking how stupid, yet many expect to reap what they do not sow. They become confused when they don’t get what they want because they ‘THINK’ they are outputting time and energy and therefore “should” get the results they want. SORRY… NOT NATURE. Think about it. A farmer does not wonder or get confused on what his harvest is going to be, he knows. He knows because he knows what he planted, what he had to do to “nurture” his crop to grow, then he had to give it time to grow, then he picks the harvest. The “Law of Harvest” is as reliable as the “Law of Gravity” when it comes to bringing us to a solid footing of what is real… not illusionary. Natures “Law of Harvest” is finite, we reap what we sow. If what you are reaping is NOT what you want… know what you are reaping is what you are sowing, period.

Harvesting the vegetable farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In business I often hear individuals expressing major disappointments, complaining that they don’t understand what is happening because they “think” they are doing all the right things therefore they feel life is “unreasonable” or “down right unfair” because they do not know why bad “things” are happening to them. They are surprised by others:

1. Lack of real commitment.

2. Turnover being high and what seems to be never ending.

3. (My personal favorite) Revenue is up and down… and appears to shrink again… after being up.

4. Everyone undermines each other… there is no team work.

5. There is no fun at work… there’s no joy in the entire process of coming to work doing the necessary tasks and building successfully.

Why are these common statements caught in what appears as a gerbil wheel of a lot of energy output with no positive lasting results? Because the focus is on the state of a situation that we feel requires an immediate action or attention, verses what is really important in sowing an action that follows natures laws. I will fully agree that leadership, either in the home as a parent or in business requires sound direction and ongoing attention. There is always some detail, or problem that requires our attention. Times are always changing, its nature in action… but one absolute reality, a truth that remains constant about life and leadership and a law that will never change – we reap what we sow for better or for worse. Do we sow judgment, blame, guilt or shame… into our choices… personally, professionally or organizationally? Or do we sow unconditional accountability in taking command in the fact that it is our choices, for better or worst that we are reaping.

Spring Flowers (Photo credit: NixBC)

Use nature to guide your choices. Start with Spring. This is the time to invest in seeds to develop our harvest… investing in others is the seeds of strong growth. Support high performance by being clear, then cultivate a strong culture by building a strong “root structure”. Strong roots create a solid foundation for growth. A strong inner structure doesn’t break in adversity… then nurture it. In divine timing… the law of nature in action… your investments in what you plant will pay off. Summer: Protect and nurture your investment. Do not wait until the fall, assess daily… moment to moment… how you are doing. True intent equals outcome always. Regardless of how you feel about it… reality does not lie. Figures don’t lie. Did you live up to your word? Look back. Don’t judge… yet assess honestly what could you have done differently to improve the results/situation. Stop… assess, restart and keep what works… let go… without out judgment, blame, guilt or shame what doesn’t work… simple. Then integrate… again and again. Consistently applying what does work produces results. If you can’t see the whole forest because your in the middle of the trees ask others, your team, family or friends for constructive feed back. Fall: Prepare for new levels of output. Fall brings the effects of the work (seeds) planted in the in spring. Remember, do not expect to reap what you did not sow. You will either enjoy abundance from your honest labor or “make excuses” why you are not. View adversity as the blessing it is… instead of a curse that a judgmental mind will take you to. Adversity reveals our true character. Rise above excuses or be buried in the “nature” of blame. Winter: A time for appreciation and reflection. Turn your thoughts of appreciation into acts of appreciation, then reflect on what requires change to keep up with the changes life brings.

Source

The Seed

My Strategy for Giving Away Millions

Expecting a Fruitful Season!

Waiting to sow the seed funding

The Natural Laws of Blogging:

Top 3 small business stories for Phoenix Business Journal 2012

2012 Year End Sustainability Wrap-up

Lewis W. Diuguid | Sowing seeds for revival along Troost Avenue

It is the ultimate example of how you reap what you sow: Huge numbers of American workers who voted for Obama are now seeing their own jobs slashed below 30 hours a week as employers desperately try to avoid “Obamacare bankruptcy.”

Belief with intent = success

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Thursday, 21 August 2014

Efficient Business Processes

Efficient Business Process Management – A Crucial Requirement for Ensuring Business Success

by: Shannon Margolis

In today’s highly competitive business climate, the success and longevity of enterprise businesses of all types and sizes primarily depend on efficient business process management. Considering the fact that a proper business process management plan that incorporates the latest, state-of-the-art business process solutions is what separates the successful, prominent businesses from the rest, all business-oriented companies are permanently looking for improvements in this particular area in order to strengthen their position in the market. By establishing a top-quality business process management plan, customized to fit the exact needs and requirements of your business, you can significantly improve the efficiency of your business, thus ensuring better profits and better exposure.

The concept of business process management encompasses an extensive series of specific activities performed by businesses in order to optimize their regular processes. The activities comprised by business process management can be divided into three distinctive categories: design, execution and monitoring.

The design phase either refers to designing customized business processes or adopting already existing processes and modifying them to fit the specific needs of a certain business. During the stage of business process management design, organizations can also test the efficiency and reliability of the newly developed business processes before introducing them into practice. By integrating specific software for process design to be used for obtaining graphical representations of workflows, as well as for implementing and maintaining workflows, organizations can transform the evolution of business processes into a less demanding and challenging experience.

The phase of process execution, just like the name suggests, basically refers to the execution of the previously designed processes by using various applications. While in the recent past the succession of activities conducted during this stage of business process management depended almost entirely on human intervention, today’s advanced technology allows for a good level of automation, significantly limiting the need for human intervention. Modern software in the category of Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) provides efficient automation solutions, allowing companies to use computer language in performing specific activities. Although the need for human intervention in the phase of process execution hasn’t been completely eliminated, nowadays it represents almost a negligible factor when using highly-competitive software tools.

In order to ensure that their used BPMS is efficient, organizations should check if the software respects the principles of business process architecture (accounts for all the major segments of business process architecture: enterprise architecture, policy and procedures, project management, logistics and so on). Some of the most popular BPMS used at present are built on the Microsoft Platform and include names such as BizTalk Server, SQL Server, InfoPath, MOM and SharePoint. With a good level of training in business process architecture and business process implementation using advanced BPMS, companies can substantially increase business efficiency and prosperity.

The last stage in business process management consists in process monitoring. The process monitoring stage involves performing a series of activities aimed at obtaining conclusive data on the performance of business processes, as well as finding and timely correcting any emerging problems. The monitoring of processes and the reporting of existing problems can nowadays be handled entirely with BPMS. With the right software tools, companies can rapidly identify performance issues, being provided with detailed statistic data and in-depth analyses of each distinctive category of business processes.

The long-term results provided by high-quality business process solutions and efficient business process implementation inside organizations are: significantly increased business efficiency, higher business adaptability, versatility and agility in the market. In order to ensure the optimal performance of your business processes through efficient business process management, you can either employ the services of a reputed business-consulting company and receive the latest solutions, tailored to fit the exact needs of your business, or form your own team of professionals with a good level of training in business process implementation using advanced Business Process Management Systems.

For more information on business process management please visit http://ift.tt/1gDj6XT