3. Resources
1. Human
Team
Assemble a cross-functional team to develop the human resources strategy.
Establish team leadership from the top.
Achieve compatibility between the organization's belief and value systems and overall strategic goals.
Assess current values and beliefs operating in the organization.
Ensure that employees implementing and managing human resources strategies have the means and skills to do so.
Continuously communicate progress, changes in plans, and any other relevant matters.
Keep team size to a manageable level.
Establish meeting guidelines.
Build a confident and cohesive team climate.
Appreciate and celebrate team success.
Implement measurement and improvement systems to support continual team growth.
Generate ideas for team improvement.
Recruiting
Match capabilities of candidates with requirements for positions.
Use job analysis to develop job descriptions.
Tailor recruiting methods to attract the high-performing employees desired.
Use the company's strengths to attract high-quality workers.
Eliminate unsuitable applicants early and focus on promising candidates.
Involve employees in company hiring.
Require many interviews of one candidate with different members of the team.
Establish a formal, thorough interview process.
Check references.
Look beyond the resume.
Training
Invest in training to improve corporate performance.
Conduct a needs assessment before providing training.
Structure training to support corporate goals and strategies.
Train not only to inform but to change behavior.
Deliver training at the point of need.
Reward employees for applying what they have learned.
Provide learning opportunities in a variety of ways and settings.
Align training, compensation, and work practices.
Encourage employees at all levels to take personal ownership of their professional development.
Provide as much training as is feasible to create employee satisfaction and promote employability.
Make sure that training is performance-based rather than knowledge-based.
Management
Develop benefits to attract and hold key employees.
Use goal setting sessions in place of performance appraisals.
Track your staff turnover.
Be aware of company morale.
Be aware of why employees leave.
Create an environment of open communication between employees and management.
Help employees overcome personal obstacles to greater involvement at work.
Delegate decision-making to the lowest level possible.
Performance
Offer compensation plans that provide a stable base with variables linked to performance.
Link incentive targets directly to company objectives.
Develop compensation plans that support strategic goals.
Identify the performance competencies needed to achieve corporate goals.
Link pay incentives to the performance competencies needed to achieve corporate goals.
Provide employees with the opportunity to develop new competencies.
Establish compensation plans that are equitable and competitive.
Compare the company's compensation programs with market rates.
Link top management's compensation to company performance.
Provide regular feedback on employee performance.
Encourage two-way dialog.
Include comments from peers and subordinates when evaluating performance.
Design reward systems to recognize and motivate employees.
Reinforce successful behavior.
Tailor rewards to individual preferences.
Guard against creating unnecessary internal competition.
Include a customer satisfaction element in performance evaluations.
Solicit employee feedback about how the workplace environment affects job performance.
Capture the creative insight of employees by soliciting their ideas for improvement.
Career
Encourage employees to manage and direct their own careers.
Identify career development activities that support both the company's future goals and the career aspirations of employees.
Create opportunities for employees to discover and develop their own skills.
Provide personal support for employees to help them identify and reach their professional goals.
Encourage employees to reevaluate their career goals periodically.
Encourage employees to set realistic, yet ambitious, career goals.
Offer flexible work options that help employees balance their personal and professional lives.
Identify and address management concerns about flexible work options
Union
Encourage union employees to play a proactive role in improving the labor-management relationship.
Communicate regularly with union employees about every aspect of the business.
Solicit ideas from union employees for process and product improvements.
2. Technology
Information
Create a culture that legitimizes and facilitates knowledge management.
Manage the knowledge assets as vigorously and carefully as other company assets, such as capital, equipment, and human resources.
Measure knowledge assets' contribution to bottom-line performance, the strength of customer relationships, and the value of products and services.
Develop processes that systematically transfer the company's knowledge within the organization.
Implement technology that captures knowledge, stores it, and distributes it where and when it's needed in the organization.
Create a document classification scheme.
Organize documents in an efficient, enterprise-wide system.
Solicit system design input from a wide variety of personnel.
Automate repetitive, paper-intensive processes.
Train employees to use the system.
Outline the parameters for business intelligence activity.
Define the objective of gathering and analyzing information.
Obtain management support for business intelligence activities.
Solicit the participation of all business units.
Leverage the collective knowledge of all employees.
Study the competition.
Develop an internal web-based information sharing system linking all members of the organization to one another and to all relevant external publics.
Evolve into a learning, knowledge-based organization, led by a senior management team committed to the knowledge-sharing ideal.
Encourage the corporate cultural changes that will promote acceptance and use of these new methods and philosophies of sharing knowledge.
Think about how people use information.
Develop a realistic assessment of how much the organization can credibly change and how information technology can realistically support that change.
Create an opportunistic business environment.
Employ creative people and leverage their creativity.
Promote continuous education.
Protect corporate information with appropriate network security measures.
Measure knowledge sharing and the organization's intellectual assets.
Conduct an annual inventory to identify valuable intellectual property that supports business goals.
Link research and development projects to company business strategies.
Technologies
Assess existing information technology systems that support critical business processes.
Design a decision-making methodology for selecting technologies that will help the company achieve its business goals.
Plan for and execute a systematic rollout of the new technology.
During implementation, thoroughly train employees to use the new technology to its maximum potential.
After implementation, monitor employees' needs, reactions, and abilities in the new technology.
Use a formal procedure to measure how the new technology affects the business.
Restructure the function of the internal information technology organization within a corporation.
Create a strategic alignment between business and information technology.
Transform IT professionals into business partners.
Develop an integrated, company-wide approach to information technology.
Direct the IT department to evolve along with industry- wide technology changes.
Integrate strategic information technology planning with corporate planning to facilitate business process reengineering.
Develop a comprehensive information systems (IS) architecture to help align IT and corporate planning.
Develop a business model as a framework for change.
Create an innovative environment.
Leverage data warehousing.
Centralize data management.
Provide borderless information across organizational boundaries.
Empower end-users by promoting creative manipulation of data.
Manage change to efficiently introduce new information technology strategic applications and philosophies within the corporate environment.
Ensure that the overall business strategy is kept in focus at all times.
Promote understanding and cooperation between the IT department and other business departments and executives.
Assess the organization's readiness for change.
Follow the maxim: "Strategy dictates structure."
Create an innovative working environment.
Implement change effectively.
Prepare for constant technology change.
Align technology objectives with overall corporate strategy.
3. Material
Identify requirements for the most cost-effective use of fixed assets.
Establish standards and policies for capitalization, depreciation, and maintenance of fixed assets.
Foster strong leadership to ensure fixed assets are maintained and used to their fullest.
Implement a comprehensive and flexible fixed asset software program.
Track inventory and maintenance of fixed assets.
Create a comprehensive strategic facilities management plan integrated with corporate business strategies and corporate real estate (cre) business planning.
Define and assess needs of facility management customers, including senior management, business units and external customer groups.
Design a facilities management service base that anticipates and responds to customer needs within the framework of the strategic facilities plan.
Develop and implement service delivery approaches that incorporate timeliness, quality and cost efficiency in support of business processes.
Define a risk management strategy that is thoroughly integrated with corporate strategy.
Identify, analyze and quantify all risks that the company could be exposed to; financial and otherwise.
Develop a strong relationship with brokers/insurers.
Establish an automated claims processing system.
Develop a comprehensive business continuity plan
Protect the company's patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, and other intangibles and intellectual property rights.
Integrate business continuity planning with strategic management.
Shape communication flow to enhance recovery and strengthen image.
Design plans to resume key business processes in the shortest possible time.
Build a continuity and crisis foundation.
Ensure critical IT systems sustain minimal or no downtime.
Scan the environment for signs of trouble.
4. Financial
Budgeting
Link budget development to corporate strategy
Design procedures that allocate resources strategically
Tie incentives to performance measures other than meeting budget targets
Link cost management efforts to budgeting
Reduce budget complexity and cycle time
Develop budgets that accommodate change
Cash management
Select core cash management banking partners
Develop accurate cash forecasting models
Improve investment yields at lowest cost
Review cash management system regularly
Create a centralized cash management infrastructure that serves global needs
Cash flow
Strengthen cash flow by explicitly managing payment dates and terms
Manage communication with suppliers to establish mutually agreeable practices
Analyze money, quality, and time costs in current accounts payable processes
Implement rigorous, pervasive policies to protect against disbursement fraud and overpayments
Establish controls appropriate to the risk and value of corresponding transactions
Reduce the volume of accounts payable transactions
Integrate accounts payable with related operations
Process accounts payable electronically
Billing
Generate clear, concise customer invoices that are easy to read and calculate
Establish billing methods that meet customer needs and improve the bottom line
Automate the billing system and integrate it with internal and external information systems
Develop cross-functional employee interaction to facilitate customer service
Leverage billing data to gain strategic business advantage
Eliminate barriers to payment
Use the credit and collections process to enhance customer satisfaction
Automate the remittance processing function
Assign and update customer credit ratings
Develop, motivate, and monitor collections specialists
Outsource the collections function and monitor the vendor's performance
Identify and act on distressed and delinquent accounts
Travel
Establish a written travel policy
Consolidate corporate travel management with a single travel agency
Negotiate discounts with preferred travel vendors
Assign a corporate travel manager to oversee travel policy and manage vendor relationships
Use a multipurpose corporate card to integrate travel expense management
Streamline expense accounting by centralizing and automating the process
Leverage technology to simplify repetitive travel actions
Payroll
Decide which payroll activities to outsource and which to keep in house
Integrate payroll, benefits, and human resources data in one central information system
Eliminate paper from time-and-attendance reporting
Strive to pay 100 percent of employees electronically
Use an employee self-service vehicle to decentralize payroll data entry and increase access to information
Use the number and length of payroll cycles that minimize payments per month while meeting employee needs
Close the book
Redesign the close-the-books process
Seek incremental improvements continuously
Shift tasks away from period-end to simplify closing the books
Provide management reports centered on key performance indicators
Adopt integrated systems that extend across business units
Financial information
Identify and understand the information needed by internal customers to execute the business strategy, satisfy customers, and evaluate and improve business process performance.
Measure and report profit contributed by appropriate segments, e.g., by product line, by customer, by channel, by division, by geographic location.
Integrate financial analysis with operational and industry analyses to identify opportunities for improving business performance.
Use cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis, contribution margins, and relevant costs and qualitative factors to evaluate special business opportunities, outsourcing, and other short-term resource allocation decisions.
Use the attributes of world class financial information systems to evaluate the company's existing financial information systems and identify opportunities for improving performance.
Ensure that key decision makers understand the strengths and weaknesses of internal financial information.
Provide accurate and reliable activity-based cost information for resource allocation decision making.
Capital management
Assess capital investment and allocation decisions according to shareholder value added
Employ real options analysis to value potential investments and improve capital allocation decisions
Devise capital allocation strategies that influence competitor capital planning
Make finance a strategic partner in the capital planning process
Use the capital planning process as an opportunity for knowledge sharing and building on experience
Tie performance incentives to the capital investment strategy
Establish a capital structure that is conducive to achievement of overall corporate objectives and which maximizes the long
Base decisions about debt versus equity financing on an in-depth understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of each
Minimize the company's cost of capital while achieving operating objectives
Base equity funding decisions on an accurate assessment of share value, cost of distribution, and capital needs
Tailor financial instruments to the company's individual needs
Explore alternative sources of funding
Financial risk
Evaluate financial risks in the context of business objectives
Involve senior management in financial risk management
Establish written risk management policies that define the goals and limits for hedging and trading activities
Educate operating managers and make them an integral part of the financial risk management process
Continually evaluate the company's financial risk exposure and the effectiveness of financial risk management strategies
Adopt clear and consistent accounting and disclosure practices for risk management transactions
Tax
Establish and maintain a tax basis balance sheet
Develop and utilize a standard comprehensive reporting package to gather accurate information for accounting and tax purpos
Establish formal procedures to communicate and implement effects of global tax law and rate changes
Develop an accounting map to get from individual entities balance sheets to the consolidated balance sheet(s)
Train US and non-US accountingtax personnel in the accounting and tax reporting requirements by which the corporation is affected due to operations in the local countries.
Internal audit
Develop a value-added customer focus that will drive the internal audit organization
Broaden the definition of risk to develop an audit plan that significantly improves business process performance
Use communication strategies that improve audit reports as well as motivate knowledge sharing and organizational learning.
Ensure that internal auditors have traditional and non-traditional audit backgrounds
Reengineer the internal audit organization to continuously improve the audit process
Integrate technology into all aspects of the audit process to increase effectiveness and efficiency