Archive for the 'Strategy and Performance Management' forum

20^th century enterprise management problems are caused by rigid structures laid over the business

The generally accepted “business enterprise” definition is the activity of providing goods and services. The failure of 20^th century management to organize and manage the business enterprise in the activity of providing goods and services creates unsolvable management, business, and performance problems.

The fatal error of 20^th century management, employed by all companies, corporations, and other enterprises today, is laying a rigid enterprise organization structure over the business, rather than organizing the business. Since the business is not organized, the business cannot be managed. Therefore, rigid enterprise management structures for planning, processes, systems, financial and cost accounts, quality, administration, performance, reporting, etc must be contrived and laid over the business. Structures laid over the business conflict with the actual business, restrict business flexibility, move out of “alignment” as the business changes, prevent direct business data capture and management, and do not provide the direct management information needed to manage the business.

20^th century enterprise management improvements can never solve unsolvable problems

We continue to teach 20^th century enterprise management, contrive new 20^th century structures and “business solutions” to lay over the business, and write more 20^th century management books, but we have never solved the top ten problems of 20^th century enterprise management.

1. Reorganization: The business changes while the organization structure remains rigid, causing upheavals to lay a new rigid organization structure over the business and repeat the cycle
2. Accounting and Financial Management: Historic legacies focus on cash control and prevent professional records management and modern capital management of the actual business increasing financial risk and preventing accurate business management information
3. Investment Analysis and Development Project Management: Investments and projects are managed separate from the business, rather than itemizing, planning, and managing the costs, benefits, and return of capital development investments, as part of the business
4. Administration: Performing functions, while leaving tangible and intangible capital utilization and improvement unmanaged
5. Performance Management: “Performance” definitions mix actions executed with the result accomplished, so business processes, performance management, and KPIs mix results and performance and manage “performance quality”
6. Business Complexity: Each organization, plan, processes, system, administration, or other structure is defined separately with different definitions creating business and information complexity and preventing business collaboration and common solutions applicable to any business
7. Information Technology: Business systems, data, information solutions, networks, and architectures are designed to process overlaid structures and managed as technology, not capital, creating costly IT infrastructures and continuing capital management problems
8. Change Management: Change management addresses the conflicts between structures laid over the business and the actual business to change structures, while the business remains undefined and unmanaged
9. Corporate Governance: Problems are addressed from the governance side to restrict and control management, rather than organizing the business to be governed by management on the corporate side
10. Alignment: Rigid overlaid structures go out of alignment as the business changes requiring continual changes to the structures to align closer to the business

These and other unsolvable 20^th century enterprise management problems are discussed, in detail, here at the Business Change Forum.

Solutions to he top 10 management, business, and performance problems of 20^th century enterprise management are described in a referenced article.

The top 10 problems are eliminated by 21^st century business management

20^th century enterprise management problems are unsolvable, because they can never be solved by laying new or improved structures over the business. [more...].

20^th century enterprise management used today lays various plans over the business

20^th century enterprise management cannot plan the business directly because the business is not organized. The enterprise is planned through various structures laid over the business. These overlaid planning structures include:

• Strategic plans using such structures as maps and corporate plans
• Financial plan and budget structures
• Information technology plans and enterprise architectures
• Capital development plans and investment analysis structures
• Human resource hiring and development plans
• Other operational plan structures

Each of these planning structures uses its own set of entities to describe the enterprise, uses different information systems, and requires its own support staff. Each plan must be maintained and updated with actual progress against the planned entities, and reported. The plans plan the enterprise in various ways depending on the particular structures implemented.

None of the overlaid plans plan the actual business

Since the business is not organized, the business cannot be planned. The results produced by the business cannot be planned as an interrelated set. Some results may be planned in isolation as separate entities such as product sold and revenue received. The plans are usually created from estimates rather than a period by period build up from the existing business. Since the business is not planned actual business data is not planned for actual measurement; such as performance costs, performance effectiveness, result value, result quality, capital worth, investment returns, etc.< [more...].

Reorganization is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century enterprise management

The enterprise organization structure is the fatal error of 20^th century enterprise management

Why do we have to reorganize every few years? Why not organize just once and reorganize gradually as the business changes?

There are many 20^th century business organization theories and methods. Hundreds of books have been written on how to organize the enterprise, organization development, and organization change. There are many so-called business organization methods and structures, but these structures organize the enterprise and are laid over the business. The structures do not organize the actual business, causing the unsolvable reorganization problem. If the business is not organized the business cannot be managed. Additional management structures must be laid over the business to manage the enterprise. This is why the enterprise organization structure is the fatal error of 20^th century enterprise management.

Organizes the business for one business organization structure used for all business management

The business enterprise is defined commonly as “the activity of providing goods and services“. [more...]

Accounting is part of one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century enterprise management

A chart of accounts is laid over the business, rather than recording the actual business

20^th century management historically has separated cash from other capital to be managed in financial management and to be accrued and recorded through accounting. The need for the separation has decreased due to technology and advanced solutions. Technology has also led to high-worth information and intellectual capital that needs to be accounted for and managed. But the separate focus on cash tends to prevent other capital of worth from being managed professionally. Capital and cash transactions that are recorded are recorded against a contrived chart of accounts, rather than accurately recording the complete financial status of the actual business.

Establish facility records capital to professionally record the actual business

The business organizes all capital, including currently undefined capital and “intangible assets”. The business manages accounts and other records of the business as facility records capital and provides capital solutions from records as information capital. Facility records are the tangible information capital of the enterprise. Facility records go beyond the limitations of accounting to record:

• Financial records for the full business cycle, including fundamental business data on performance costs, result value, and capital worth
• Non-financial records for statistical, documentation, images, and other records

Business management broadens 20^th century accounting to professional records management to keep records on the actual business and to make records solutions available to produce high-value results.

The Accounting Problem

Accounting does not record the actual business

Due to 20^th century management problem number one, the business is not organized. [more...]

20^th century enterprise management plans the future enterprise and does not plan the business

20^th century enterprise management used today develops strategies and plans using maps, corporate plans, budgets, etc that are laid over the business. Corporate plans plan the corporation and are unable plan the strategic value to be created by the business and the capital development needed to create strategic value. The business is not planned and strategies and plans become invalid as the business changes. New plans try to bring the enterprise plans in closer alignment with the current and future business.

The business strategy plans the actual future business needed for success

Business management defines the enterprise business as “the utilization of capital of worth in performance to incur costs to produce value in results”. This definition includes the current business that must be conducted every day to utilize capital the enterprise invests in to produce results needed for business success. The definition also includes the future business that must be the objective or the business strategy to produce strategic results utilizing capital that must be available when needed?

The management strategy plans the business at the strategic horizon

The strategic business is “the utilization of capital of worth in performance to incur costs to produce value in results at the strategic horizon”. The strategic business is described as management strategy capital. The business strategy, strategic business structure, and business plans to execute the strategy are management strategy solutions.< [more...].

Business performance utilizes capital available to the business to produce business results

Business management defines the business as “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for costs and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. Every business in the world invests in capital, in order to have the capital needed to produce output results. Every business in the world must produce specific economic output results in order to be successful. Business performance is the actual utilization of capital to produce results.

20^th century business performance includes both actions executed and results accomplished

The 20^th century definition of performance used in business today includes both the actions executed and results accomplished. This definition causes many 20^th century management problems and prevents actual business definition and management. Business performance management, capital development, business processes, management reporting, key performance indicators, etc mix both performance and results produced together as performance. This causes problems today in actually distinguishing and separating results produced from the performance executed. Sales performance includes the both utilization of human salesmanship capability in actions executed and the volume and value of sales accomplished.

21^st century business management separates results from performance to manage the performance producing a result

Actual business performance does not include things accomplished or business results. [more...].

Administration is one of the top ten problems of 20^th century management

20^th century enterprise management includes wasteful and counterproductive administrative functions

20^th century administration performs a function involving fixed routine tasks. Responsibility is for the function or the process of administering, rather than producing results. Administration is responsible for managing enterprise capital, but few administrators recognize this responsibility, in effect preventing proper capital management. Much capital is assigned to centers or labeled as “intangible assets”, removing it from professional management. Other capital is loosely administered through functions, instead of being specifically managed to produce benefit and achieve a return on the enterprise investment. The emphasis is on administrative performance rather than capital result management.

The solution is to replace administration with professional capital management

All enterprises invest large sums in the business to acquire or develop capital solutions. All enterprise capital investments must be organized for professional 21^st century business management for operation, support, development, and utilization to produce results. Administration is replaced with capital management. Capital managers must produce capital management results to develop, maintain, and improve the worth of capital to provide specific solutions. [more...]

Performance Management is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century management!

The definition of performance and performance management is a fundamental 20^th century enterprise management problem

Since the 15^th century, performance has been defined as both the capital utilized in action executed and the results accomplished. The definition prevents management of results separate from performance and restricts enterprise management to one confused performance dimension. Performance management is a big part of 20^th century management, with a variety of structures like processes, dashboards, and scorecards laid over the business. Key performance indicators (KPI) mix result volumes, capital utilized, and performance levels. Business process re-engineering focuses on business process management and performance quality to produce a process output. Many performance and productivity methods and consultants redefine costs out of the process and into other capital utilized in the business.

Separate results and capital from performance to enable 21^st century business management

The performance management problem is eliminated by separating results and capital solutions from performance to organize the enterprise business in results produced, capital solutioins utilized, and the performance of a solution to produce a result. The enterprise business changes each time management decides to produce a new result, close a finished result, or utilize a different capital solution. Capital management acquires, develops, improves, and supports capital solution investments that have the potential and are qualified to produce results. [more...]

Methods like Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, and ISO 9000 Standards do not provide the quality management needed

We have had structures like Total Quality Management (TQM) and the ISO quality system for ISO 9000 standards and certification, which were found lacking as a management method. We also reengineered our business process with BPR, specifically to help us manage performance quality. But, performance quality proved difficult to comprehend and manage. Six Sigma provides another structure for our final production quality. Now we have business process and performance management (BPM) to manage the quality of our processes and performance. Even with all this, we still have not found a way to manage quality as the business routine of everyone in the enterprise.

Customer-determined quality is managed result by result by managing the businss

Quality must be managed as part of the managed business defined as “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for costs and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. By definition, in the business, value and quality are attributes of results, the economic outputs produced across a managed business. Result-performance Management (R-pM) provides the knowledge and procedures to organize the business by organizing results produced across the business as one-off results or as result chains and by organizing the capital utilized as solutions in business performance to produce each result. With an organized business, the company can manage quality as an attribute of results, not performance, and can manage real quality for any result, not just final results from production. [more...].

Alignment is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century enterprise management!

Alignment covers many problems arising from conflicts between the actual business and overlaid structures

We keep hearing about alignment problems. Alignment problems are caused because the business is not organized. Alignment problems arise from actual business change in results produced and capital utilized as solutions in performance, which remain undefined and unorganized. Instead, the enterprise is organized, planned, directed, controlled, and reported through separate and distinct structures laid over the business. With every business change, rigid overlaid structures go out of alignment with the business. Many solutions are available supposedly to enable alignment. Many books have proposed alignment solutions. However, in spite of all of these solutions and books, alignment problems remain. The alignment solutions attempt to align organization and management structures with each other with nothing to align against. [more...]