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Consulting Interim Management |
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Company Cycles |
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Some development-phases of companies, dealing with technical matters are explained. It gets clear, why continuous changes play such an important role for a company to survive. Changes offer the opportunity to adapt to the environment and pick-up new chances avoiding to have to re-improve the same things eternally. Can you find chapters you know very well from your own experience and have kept in good memory? |
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Strategy Processes Methods M & A Environment |
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Workmanship, and how it began Many companies started, producing products, or offering services, the market just needed at that time, based upon the skills of individuals or groups. These skills were sometimes extraordinary or unique and guaranteed the success of the company. Quite often also inventions played an important role. |
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As long as beliefs and skills play an important role |
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As soon as beliefs and skills are not enough |
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Experience, and how it matured Successfully operating an enterprise for some time, with the skills and the knowledge it has, results in getting experience in this area. Experience can be by far the strongest element in a company’s unique selling points. |
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Knowledge, and how it grew Understanding a product or an application in most cases comes next. Very thorough, also theoretical, understanding results in a higher level perspective, and can even more guarantee the success of a company. |
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With growing demands on a market more customers but also more competitors come up. Now skills knowledge and even experience no longer protect from being comparable. Now it is of major importance, to develop a very thorough understanding of the whole market, the company’s position, of all products and services offered, of the competitors’ skills and the own strengths and weaknesses. |
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Strategy, and how to prepare for the future |
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This knowledge on one hand and the company’s owner’s demands and visions for the future on the other hand are the major cornerstones of developing a strategy for the company. A strategy gives a realistic view of the company, its markets and targets, its abilities and its weaknesses, the resources and the future view it has. It can be an orientation for the management like a lighthouse and if it is good, it can be broken down to key projects and the operative budgeting process for the respective period. |
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To realize a development of the company in the sense, the strategy laid out, can be a lengthy process. Projects have to be identified, responsibilities must be assigned and a system of communication has to be established. Processes have to be created the way, that they can be managed, and quality, in the sense of the ability of a process to be manageable, plays an important role |
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Processes within a company have to be permanently checked for simplicity. Organizations tend to make necessary daily changes by adding up special treatments for the cases, the organization could not manage with existing rules. Organizational complexity grows. The ability to manage complex processes may be an asset, if this process creates value. But as soon as another competitor on the market can create the same value, but manage the process simpler, it is necessary to review and simplify. |
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Organisation, and what kind of battle order |
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Simplicity, and how to get lean |
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Companies, successfully operating already for more than hundred years, in most cases today deal with different matters, as they have a century ago. These companies have carefully observed the changes, happening around, and have kept their ability, to adapt to changes in their environment. They see the changes as a challenge, not a thread. |
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Change, and how to survive |
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Big flops in companies or significant reductions in profit are often signalised long before, but only as very small merely inaudible or invisible signs. These maybe detected by experienced persons from outside of the company, having an open mind and no prejudice. Typical for these situations is, that the early indicators of a thread or an undesirable development are really small, compared to the strong information of the daily business. This is especially true in times when the company is performing very well. The only means against getting insensitive is permanent change. |
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Sensibility, and how to recognize small signals |
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A privately owned company may include the total fortune of an owner. So he is motivated to keep it and develop it in the best way possible. The necessary future development of the company may sometimes not comply with his expectations. This can be because of changes on the worldwide markets, as well as because of the inability to find a successor for the management of the company within the family. So, for different reasons, there can be a change in ownership or a merger with another company, which is a significant event in a company's lifetime. Very often people are not really prepared for the coming changes and chances for synergies are gambled away. |
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Change of ownership, and how to get divorced |
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