Monthly Archives: May 2019

Management, People Management, Planning, Problem Solving, Project Management

Guidelines to Decision Making and Problem-solving in an Organization

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Most of what managers do is to make decisions and solve problems. Often, managers are under stress and with limited time to make critical decisions in an organization. Consequently, when managers encounter a new decision or a problem they must solve, they react with decisions that seemed to work before. Sometimes, this approach can put you in a loop of solving the same problem over and over. It is often more useful to get used to an organized approach to solving problems and making decisions. Not all decisions can be made and problems solved following a rational approach. However, we have a few guidelines that will help managers to get started. You shouldn’t be intimidated by the length of our guidelines because they will make you a better manager.

After you have practiced our guidelines, they will become easy for you. You can utilize them to suit your own needs. It is better for managers to view a problem as an opportunity. Here are the best steps to help managers make better decisions and solve problems effectively.

Define the problem

Most people struggle to define a problem. In most cases, they react to opinions and what they think the problem is. It is better to understand more about the problem before making a decision. You can define a problem with input from others and yourself. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself and others when defining a problem.

•    What makes you think there is a problem?

•    How is it happening?

•    Where is it happening?

•    How is it happening?

•    Why is it happening?

After asking all the relevant questions, you can write down the description of the problem. Write down what triggered the problem to happen, where the problem happened, why it happened and the people it affected.

How to define complex problems

It is good to understand that problems are different. We have complex and simple problems. Complex problems require more materials and input to get solved. If the problem seems to be overwhelming, you should break it down by repeating the above steps. You should verify how you understand the problem. Use tools like Mindmaps to help you define the scope.

Prioritize the problem

In some cases, managers find themselves dealing with different problems. If this is the case, it is important to prioritize the problems and know which problems to address first. You should know the difference between urgent and important problems.

Often, what most managers consider to be important problems are in real sense urgent problems. You need to give important problems more attention. For example, if you are dealing with phone calls, it is important to design your system to prioritize on urgent phone calls.

Understand the role of people in the problem

The role of the manager in the problem can influence how the manager perceives the role of others. Sometimes, if you feel too guilty about your role in the problem, you will ignore the accountability of other people. Also, some managers get blinded so much by the role other people play in a problem that they forget that they also have a role in the problem.

Find the potential causes of the problem

You don’t know a lot about what you don’t know. It is, therefore, crucial to get input from others because they may be affected by the problem as well. You should collect input from other people one at a time. Write down what you have read from other people and your opinions. Write down a clear description of the cause of the problem in terms of what is happening, when it is happening, where it is happening and why it is happening.

Identify alternatives for resolving the problem

When you get at this point, it is helpful to keep other people involved unless you have a personal employee problem. You need to brainstorm and collect many ideas and screen them to find the best ideas. It is crucial when collecting these ideas to not pass judgment on the ideas. You should write the ideas down as you hear them.

Select an approach to solving the problem

You should choose the best approach to solve your problem for a long time. Some solutions are just for a short time and won’t be helpful to your business. Also, it is important to choose a solution that is realistic to accomplish. You should know whether you have the resources to solve the problem and if you have enough time to implement your approach. Consider the extent of the risk that comes with each alternative.

Have a plan for implementing the best alternative

You should consider what the situation will look like when you have solved the problems. Know the steps that you need to take to implement the best alternative solution. Know the processes or the systems you need to change in your organization to ensure that the solution is effective. Managers should make sure that the steps are being followed to solve the problem. You will need resources in terms of money, people and facilities to solve the problems. It is also crucial to know the time needed to implement the solution and write a schedule to include the start and stop time. In most cases, managers choose other people to be responsible for solving the problem. If this is the case, you should know the responsible persons in solving the problem.

If other people are involved in solving the problem, you should communicate the plan to them and ensure that they follow the plan by supervising them.

Verify if the problem has been solved

Managers should always verify if the problem has been solved and one of the best ways to verifying is to resume normal operations in your organization. You should consider the changes that need to be made to prevent the problem from re-occurring in the future. You should consider training, changing policies and putting procedures in place to prevent the problem from happening again. After solving a problem, managers should learn many things from the process. A brief memo can help to highlight the success of the solution.

Leadership, Management, People Management

Understanding the Relationship Between Management and Organizational Behavior

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A successful business should have a good manager and good management. The manager plays a vital role in different activities in trading and helps the business to make a profit. A successful manager should be able to control employees and acquire his goals from the staff by assigning resources, making a decision and directing activities. A successful manager should also be able to perform the four main functions in a business such as organizing, planning, controlling and leading.

The Role of Organizational Behavior in Business

Apart from what we have mentioned above, organizational behavior plays a vital role in a business set-up as well as in management. Organizational behavior is the study of how groups, individuals and structure effect and get influenced by different behaviors in organizations. The knowledge gained from the study of organizational behavior is applied to groups, individuals and structure to improve or make functions more effective in organizations.

Organizational behavior is one of the most critical elements that support management in organizations. Managers can understand different behaviors of individuals in an organization and what groups, individuals and structure are doing as well as predict their actions and realize the effects and causes among relationships in a business setting. With management functions, businesses also use different resources to achieve their goals and objectives. The resources are arranged in four groups namely human, physical, financial, and information resources.

Human Resource

Human resource can be defined as the people that operate an organization. A human resource is an employee or a single person within an organization. Human resources are all the staff in your organization. Human resource can also be defined as the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as benefits, compensation, hiring and recruiting employees, performance management, onboarding employees, training, advising managers about the impact on people of their planning, financial, and performance decisions on the employees in an organization.

Physical Resources

Every company should have physical resources. Some companies need more physical resources than others. Physical resources are tangible items in an organization, and they are essential for a business to function. The items have value, take space and are used in operating the company. All types of businesses need physical resources. Businesses that are product-based use physical resources to provide goods for sale and to operate the business. Businesses that are service-based use physical resources to deliver services such as having tools and space to work in order to deliver the services.

Financial Resources

The financial resource is the money available in business in the form of liquid securities, cash and credit lines. An entrepreneur should secure enough financial resources before going into business. This helps the entrepreneur to be able to operate and promote success sufficiently.

Information Resources

Information resources are vital for businesses. For businesses to be successful, they need information. A combination of external and internal business information resources can provide the background needed to evaluate current business performance and plan for future progress. It is essential for managers to know the types of information that is crucial for business in order to plan for getting, analyzing and using information effectively. 

When managers understand financial, human, physical and information resources, they can use it and compose the functions with four basic functions (organizing, planning, controlling and leading) with the purpose of getting effective results from the organization. Managers will follow that to show how to apply the above basic resources and functions to the organization and its goals.

Planning is the process established to determine the future position of an organization and decide on how to achieve goals within an organization. Organizing is the process of designing jobs. Leading is the process of motivating workers and resolving conflicts within an organization. Controlling is; comparing, correcting and motoring performance with the objectives of the organization. 

The Role of Managers

Managers have a role of performing effective functions and roles in an organization. Managers have interpersonal roles, and these include the figurehead, the liaison, and the leader. Managers also have the roles of making critical decisions in an organization. They act as the disturbance handler, the entrepreneur, the negotiator, and the resource allocator. These are very important roles in decision making. 

Making high-quality decisions in an organization can be productive. Managers also have an information role. This includes monitoring information, dissemination of information and breaking down of information for easy understanding by the junior employees. Information is therefore very important in an organization, and the behavioral processes help managers to get the right information.

Negative Effects of Behavior

Understanding behavior plays an important role in management. However, some behavior can affect management negatively. Several problems affect managers negatively, and managers should pay more attention to these. One of the main reasons that cause difficulty in organizations is deviant. The deviant workplace may include hostile behaviors and sabotage, insult, theft, and gossip. The organization should put in place proper firing and hiring policies to control such behavior and ensure the organization is running smoothly. A prevention plan should also, and this includes training managers to identify problems early and set up clear rules with respect to threat, violence, harassment and more. Job satisfaction can improve productivity in an organization, but it can also be a negative influence because employees can feel too comfortable and become sluggish.

Conclusion

It is important for everyone to understand the relationship between organization and management when discussing leadership. It also helps managers to face challenges within an organization and find out the best ways to deal with the challenges. Managers should have a thorough grasp of the theory and practice it. It is also important for managers to be able to administrate and face global challenges, manage diversity, improve services, empower people, provide job satisfaction and deviant workplace. From this information, organizations can run smoothly and gain more benefits through components, perceiving roles and their effects in organizations.

Customer Experience, Customer Management

10 First Steps to Improve Customer Experience

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A business cannot grow without their customers; therefore, companies work hard to win new customers as well as keep their existing customers. Customer experience is the complete perception of a brand for the customers through several interactions with the company during the journey. It is more feeling orientated than problem orientated. Providing overall good customer experience by a company can lead to building long term relationship with its customers while being good only in one area but struggling in other areas can result in an overall poor experience.

Customer experience is different from customer service as customer service is only one aspect of the whole customer experience. It can often be about one single point, specific department or individual. A company provides support to customers who are having problems while purchasing its products or services. It plays a significant role because the whole customer experience can be strongly affected by customer service interaction. So, businesses should improve their customer experience if they want to scale.

Build a customer-focused Culture:

Building a customer-focused culture purely means making the customer experience a central part of the company’s goals and values. According to seohosting, it is 5 times costlier to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. So, the main goal of the company should be customer satisfaction rather than growth and profits. They should be in constant interaction with their customers at every phase of the journey. Without a customer-focused culture, companies can not really reach strong customer satisfaction levels.

Every employee has an impact on customers not only the customer-facing employees who interact with the customers so often. The key to a culture change is to Involve all employees. Each person in the company needs to understand how their role can influence customers.

For example, Zappos uses a customer-centric approach which has been established into their culture to deliver the best customer service and improve customer experience.

Know who your customers are:

It is obvious that if you don’t know who your customers are, you will never know what they want, and how you can help them achieve it. All customers do not have the same needs and you can discover several different types of customers with different requirements and expectations.

To know who your customers are, employees should recognize the targeted customers and think of the services from their viewpoint. Having a complete understanding of the customers through customer engagement data plays a great role in achieving fundamental business goals. It also empowers delivering improved customer experiences across the board. As said by Teradata, only 41% of companies use customer engagement data to update their marketing strategy.

Mobile customer support:

As an average user spends more than three hours daily, browsing and using their smartphone. So, the biggest brands offer mobile apps and mobile-friendly websites for their users to capture their attention and engage them. Customers can get their queries resolved on their smartphones that really improve customer satisfaction level. Some of the companies don’t focus on their mobile support so resulting in poor customer experience.

In the U.S, 63% of people use their smartphones to search for products and customer support every month.

Live chat support:

Customers had to wait in a long queue while contacting the company through phone calls so, live chat is now the fastest way for customers to contact a company directly from its website in real time. In the beginning, it was available only in retail websites online but nowadays, this is not limited to eCommerce websites. All well-known brands offer live chat support to improve customer experience.

Gartner predicts that about 85 percent of businesses will provide a live chat facility on their websites by 2022.

Social media support:

Social media support can be an influential communication way for a company to develop strong relationships with the customers, earn trust and build brand awareness. It is not only used for finding more followers or increasing sales, but it is also used for customer experience improvement.

Younger customers, who normally do not check emails will particularly expect social messaging to be their way to get in touch with companies, brands, and artists. So, it is important for companies to focus deeply on social media support and manage it well. Facebook has more than 2 billion users and Twitter has more than 330 million users. It shows how people are involved in social media.

An understanding of what other channels are suitable for your customer base:

Earlier, there used to be only one way to contact a company but now the businesses must provide the most suitable communication channels to make it easy for the customers to get in touch. Customers can use text, message, email, forums and any other way easier for them to contact. Some old age people prefer phone calls to contact while younger people use social media. It is believed that no single communication medium fits for all and depends on the customers.

Self serve tools:

Self-service helps the customers to get answers to their questions without the assistance of a representative from the customer service team. The commonly used self-serve tools include FAQs and online discussion forums. Self-serve tools are faster, hence ideal for saving customers’ time. It allows customers to take control of the way they use the service. Self-serve tools are no more a “nice to have” in the website. It is required to provide a positive customer experience.

Customer self-serve tools also help in reducing the load on customer support representatives and earn enhanced customer loyalty and experience. The study conducted by Dimension Data shows that 73 percent of the customers choose to use self-serve tools provided in the company’s website, instead of using phone calls, live chat, and social media for support.

Someone to be responsible for customer experience:

Nearly all the departments of a company do really influence the customer experience. It is not the job of one individual or department. therefore, everyone uses their efforts and enhance things in their own area.

In most companies, the marketing department helps in improving customer experience as a whole. In some cases, the top management work for it. But there is a customer experience manager that makes a connection between the company and the customer. And this person helps in managing customer experience job across all different departments.

The ability to research and gather data:

A survey conducted by Salesforce shows that 57% of the total customers share their personal data with companies to get special offers and discounts. Businesses collect a huge amount of data through many activities. It is important to analyze this data and utilize it for providing personalized services to customers and enhancing the customer experience. This helps a company keep a loyal customer base.

A report published by ICMI said that 69% of customers pay additional money if they are getting great customer service.

Ability to benchmark and evaluate:

The company should be able to collect and gather data trying out different things. Which support service is effective and which one is not. To know answers to all these questions there must be feedback giving the option for the customers. This will help the company to measure the effectiveness of each customer support method.

Conclusion:

In today’s technological world and constant access to the internet, every customer wants 24/7 exemplary customer services from a company. So, every company must now try to make better customer service their top priority. It helps the company to take an edge over its competitors.

Management, People Management

The Role of Managers in Organizations

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The job of a manager is vital in an organization. The manager is a planner, producer, coordinator, and marketer. An organization’s success will depend on the caliber of managers in utilizing the resources to achieve business goals. Managers are pivotal figures in the task of creating wealth. Technology, methods of production, the financial setup, and marketing techniques change rapidly, and managers should be competent to cope with the changes.

Definition of a Manager

The manager is someone in an organization who directs the activities done by other people. Managers do their work at different levels, and they have different names in an organization. First line managers are called supervisors, or in construction or manufacturing, they are called foremen. Middle-level managers include various levels of management between supervisors and top-level managers in an organization.

The managers may also be called plant heads, functional managers, and project managers. There are top managers near the top of the hierarchy. The top-level managers are responsible for making decisions in an organization. They also set strategies and policies that affect different aspects of the organization. These people may also be called managing directors, vice presidents, chief executive officer or chairmen.

Managerial Functions

Managers have to perform functions like organizing, planning, staffing, directing and controlling. These functions are necessary for running of an organization and achieving objectives. Planning is essential for establishing strategies and setting goals for coordinating activities.

The organization function of a manager helps in determining the tasks to be done, how to do them and how the tasks are grouped. The staffing function of a manager is essential for employing different types of people and doing different activities such as development, training, compensation, appraisal, and welfare.

The directing function of managers requires the giving of instructions and motivating the subordinates to achieve their goals. Managers should perform the controlling function to ensure that they are being done as planned and correcting any mistakes.

Managerial skills

Managers have a number of responsibilities. Managers should have proper skills for them to perform different roles. Managers should have three essential skills; human, technical and conceptual skills. The importance of these skills varies depending on the level of the manager within an organization.

Human skills

Managers should have the ability to work well with others both in a group or individually. Managers should have human skills to get the best from the people working with them. They should also know how to communicate with people, motivate them, lead them and inspire trust and enthusiasm. The skills are essential by managers at every level, but the topmost managers need them the most.

Technical skills

Managers should have the necessary technical skills. They should also be able to work with the tools, resources, procedures, and techniques to achieve the organizational goals. Many middle managers and first-line managers should be involved in a lot of technical aspects within an organization. Some of the technical skills that managers should have include knowledge of proficiency in different specialties such as computers, engineering, manufacturing or finance. Even if the need for technical skills is less when managers go higher the hierarchy but still it is essential for a manager to have technical skills to help in decision making.

Conceptual skills

Managers should be able to coordinate and integrate different activities within an organization. Managers should have the ability to conceptualize and think about abstract solutions. They should be able to see the organization wholesomely and the relationships among the subunits in an organization to be able to visualize how the organization fits in its broad environment. Conceptual skills are also critical in decision-making. It is necessary for all managers to take the necessary decisions. Conceptual skills become more essential as managers make up the hierarchy of the organization.

Qualities of a Good Manager

Managers should be able to undertake different functions from controlling to planning. They have to make decisions for different types of activities in an organization. The decisions that managers take to influence the working of an organization. A manager should have the following qualities:

Education

Managers should have the right educational background. Nowadays, managers should have management education besides other qualifications. Education is vital because it widens the mental horizon and also helps in understanding different things and interpreting them properly. Therefore, managers should be knowledgeable in the business environment to be able to deal with various problems the organization may face.

Leadership

Managers have the responsibility of directing and motivating people working in the organization. They provide leadership to the subordinate staff. The energies of the subordinate employees should be channelizing of properly to achieve goals. If managers have leadership skills, they can motivate the subordinate staff in improving their working and performance to their full capacity in order to benefit the organization.

Intelligence

Managers have to perform more duties than other people in the organization. Their level of intelligence should be higher than other people in the organization. Intelligence is crucial because it helps managers to assess the present responsibilities as well as the future possibilities for the business. Managers should be able to foresee things in advance and take the necessary measure at the appropriate time.

Training

Managers should acquire managerial skills. The skills consist of human skills, technical skills, and conceptual skills. The skills should be acquired through guidance, education, and experience. The skills are necessary for all levels of managers.

Technical knowledge

Managers should have technical knowledge of different activities in the organization. They will be in a better position to inspect and guide if they have the knowledge of those activities.

Positive attitude

Managers should have a positive attitude. Managers have to deal with a lot of people from the inside as well as from the outside of the organization. They should be positive and sympathetic to different suggestions. They should not pre-judge people they deal with. They need to understand people’s problems and try to help them.

There are other skills such as confidence, foresight, maturity, and more skills that a manager should possess. Being a manager is not an easy role and it’s definitely more than just a title. Managers need to be able to make decisions, often with little detailed knowledge, and then they need to deal with the consequences of those decisions.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library, ITIL, Management

What is ITIL CSI?

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If you’ve heard about ITIL CSI and have been wondering what it’s good for, or alternatively, if you’ve been looking at all these professionals recommending CSI and stressing on its importance without ever knowing what it is for sure, then you’re in luck. In this blog post, we’re going to talk about ITIL CSI and what it is. So if you’re a bit confused about what its functions really are or if you’re not sure if you should implement it, then you have come to the right place. In this blog post, we’re going to tell you exactly what ITIL CSI is and what you can hope to achieve from it.

So, What Is It?

ITIL CSI or Continual Service Improvement is a module that provides guidance in creating and maintaining value for customers through better strategy planning, design and operation, and presentation of services. It is basically combing the principles of the firm, practices of the firm and the methods it uses from quality management, change management, and capability improvement. ITIL refers to the management of the firm’s IT services. Whereas, CSI has two main stages. These are

  • service review and
  • process objective.

Service review refers to the reviewing of business services and infrastructure on a regular basis. Whereas, process objective refers to the reviewing of the processes used by the firm on a regular basis. This includes identifying areas where the targeted process metrics are not reached and holding regular benchmarking, audits, maturity assessments and reviews.

Many business analysts believe that ITIL CSI is best practices for a smaller firm. It best fits the practice framework of most small firms and should be used by all. Small firms have smaller resources than larger firms. Due to these small firms often believe that they cannot reach out to the best practices that are otherwise used by larger firms.

Large firms have a lot of resources. They have the capacity to deal with risks and try on newer firm practices. They can use ITIL and CSI as this framework needs resources and its implementation is complex. However, this is not the case. Smaller firms are flexible, adaptable and have improved relationships with their customers. This provides them an edge in implementing the ITIL CSI.

ITIL CSI as a Tool for Small Businesses

Through ITIL CSI, small firms can easily find out where they are lagging behind as compared to larger firms. They can manage and optimize on their IT department much more efficiently using ITIL. It is much easier to detect an online bug found in the company’s server. It is also much easier to mitigate the risk and improve on the performance of their IT services. Small services often search for a steady IT service and they aim towards delivering services to customers. It is true that since smaller firms have lesser resources, ITIL CSI can be implemented more efficiently as smaller firms need to check out the challenges that they need to overcome or face.

Apart from this, ITIL CSI can help small businesses to expand. For smaller firms to expand successfully a clear-cut strategy is often needed. In order to do this, the resources of the firm need to be accounted for, stakeholders need to consult for any concerns assuaged and quantifiable goals need to be set in. The ITIL Service Cycle helps firms achieve this aim. Once the initial goals have been set or reached by smaller firms, the ITIL CSI helps it expand since each new strategy is introduced, experimented and then implemented,

The Framework

The ITIL CSI is a tailorable framework. It is often referred to as the silver bullet solution. This leads to the organization implementing the ITIL as a whole. ITIL causes hindrance in larger firms. However, with smaller firms, they are able to prioritize what is most pressing. The ITIL not only helps them identify the problem that is there within a firm but it also, helps them improve upon it effectively and efficiently. The ITIL CSI also condenses the roles in a firm. For instance, the roles of the incident manager and problem manager can be taken on by one individual. They can take responsibility for minimizing issues before they escalate.

Moreover, the ITIL is not just about processes it’s about people. A company’s good service depends on the dedication of staff who take ownership of their role. ITIL helps promote a culture of responsibility as each staff is assigned a task which they must fulfill at a particular time. The ITIL soon becomes a part of a company’s culture.

Despite improved and increased efficiency, the ITIL CSI has many other benefits which can be very useful for smaller firms. The use of ITIL CSI reduces costs for a firm. The firm no longer has to spend huge sums of money on hiring Professional advisors. It can help develop a strategy without having to hire a great number of Professionals. It also condenses the roles of individuals in the firm which means that less number of workers are hired. It even increases the productivity of workers as roles are condensed making each and every worker of the firm to work effectively. There is high interdependence between workers which again contributes to the productivity of the firm. ITIL CSI also increases customer satisfaction. Since the ITIL provides predictable processes and a set framework, it is easier to meet customer satisfaction, as well as monitor and measure incidents.

As a result, smaller firms should make use of the ITIL CSI in order to function effectively and efficiently.

Conclusion

As you can see, regardless of the kind of business you run, you will find that ITIL CSI is very important for businesses everywhere. Not only can help you understand how to use your resources effectively within a given budget, but it also helps you understand the need for diverting resources or restructuring your business model. A lot of business owners today depend on this to take care of various departments such as logistics and customer service. Given the competition, you should not fall behind and use this opportunity provided to you and implement this method to further your business.