In order for a business to be successful it is essential that it must have a management system capable of ensuring the business can achieve its goals and objectives. The ISO 9000 series of standards relate to Quality Management Systems however as businesses will tend to have one system, formalizing the system to focus solely on quality will have no real benefits to your business. Therefore, it will be necessary to move away from a system focusing wholly on quality, to a system that focuses on all the characteristics of your business.
The main reason your business is in existence is to highlight the requirements and expectations of your customers and other persons concerned (employees, suppliers etc) to accomplish an advantage over you competitors. In addition to this, another objective must be to gain, sustain and develop your businesses performance and resources.
As a means to achieve improvements within your business you should ensure that your business employs the key principles that are fundamental to ISO 9001:2000, these are:
- Customer Focus;
- Involvement of People;
- Leadership;
- Process Approach;
- Factual Approach;
- System Approach;
- Continual Improvements;
- Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships.
Following the principles highlighted above ensures that your business focuses on what your customer actually requires and not what they think they require. In order for your business to move forward successfully it is essential that you run it in a methodical and well thought out manner that is highly perceptible. To achieve success from your business you must ensure that your business adopts a business management system which will ensure that continual improvement is constantly being driven by the management system. If your business is to develop and have a business management system that will allow growth and sustainability, you will have to ensure that you build a management system that is focused on your customers. To achieve this objective your business management system must contain systems and processes that are easily understood by the individuals within your business. It is also crucial that these systems can be managed easily and improvements made if they are necessary without any detrimental affect on the day to day operation of your business. The processes within your management system must be capable of being measured to ensure they are performing as required. It does also mean that when setting these key performance indicators, intelligent thought is given to the areas that you are measuring. It is worth remembering that individuals are likely to improve in areas in which they are being measured. Therefore it is critical that any process measuring is carried out in areas that will benefit the system and your business as a whole.
By: Mark Inglis
Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’
Business Management Principles
April 17th, 2010Mission Statements Were a Marketing and Management Fad
October 16th, 2009The auction rooms for the goods owned by now bankrupt companies are filled with fancy posters of mission statements. Mission statements were a fad of the 90′s and have had their day.
Don’t know what I am talking about? Here’s the sort of thing that companies enjoyed to hang on their walls – “To deliver the best possible service, in the most efficient time to our customers in the best possible blah blah blah”.
The first problem with mission statements was that they were so filled with generic rhetoric that they could have been written about any company. They sat proudly on the wall as if someone knew what they meant and as if someone cared. They looked great and looked purposeful.
Management fell in love with mission statements. After they had been to a management seminar, managers became convinced that a mission statement was the key to success “Our employees need the statement. They give everyone a purpose. They make sure that we are all working for the same goals”. What a bunch of rubbish that all turned out to be.
I was in a medium sized corporation and I was horried to hear one day that the CEO had decided that not only was it important for us to have a mission statement, but it was important that the employees decide what it was going to say!! Umm, that to me said “Hey, I don’t know where this ocmpnay is headed so you tell me!!!”. So, at the annual conference we were all split into groups to decide that the mission statement for the company should be. Then, we were all going to get together at the end and combine the best ideas from each group.
You can guess what the mission statement became. Yep, a generic waste of time. It of course was full of “best service”, “customer focus”, “striving to achieve” etc. I think there was even a bit of environmental consciousness thrown in!
If you’re looking for direction, then the direction in a company comes from the top – from the CEO. Mission statements are no subsitute for strong leadership. What the company is about can usually be summed up in a few words. Where a company is going is best articulated from the General down through to the troops. Hanging a sign on the wall just aint going to cut it.
If the rank and file of the company doesn’t know why we’re here and where we’re going and what part an individual plays in the overall plan, then the captain isn’t doing his job. Mission statements are dead.
Fortunately now I work for a bus hire company and we’re small enough that the liklihood of someone deciding we need a mission statement is low. Bus hire companies aren’t immune though – I will always be on the lookout for the warning signs and tactfully defuse anyone who has been to a management seminar pushing mission statements!
By: Robert Gower
