martes, 16 de agosto de 2011

Innovation


                                                                                   Innovation



Today a days Business innovation is has become a golden rule.  Innovation has become an important topic for companies that wants to create a sustainable business independently of high Technology.

Costumers, look for associating the consumption of products with a personal experience, the new additions that companies create for products, become a necessity on a short period of time, as for example Toyota Motors. In 1990's was a luxury to have electric windows or alarm system, air condition, now a days when costumers buy a car the expect those "luxuries" to come with the car.

Steve Jobs is a great example of innovation on his book "The innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs", he reveals 7 principals which allowed him to breakthrough success; they are about thinking different.

1.  Follow your heart.
2. Don't let the noise of other´s opinion down your inner voice.
3. Be passionate.
4. Get ready of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.
5. Simplicity.
6. Connecting things.
7.Do something wonderful


In the following link there is a presentation about how Steve Jobs applied different principals in order to create innovative products.

http://www.google.co.cr/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmba.americaeconomia.com%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2Finnovation_stevejobs.ppt&ei=lLtKTquYC9S4twfG59CsCg&usg=AFQjCNGuI7eIKUC5r0UEJPr_3GPIW1x2LA


By KCM

Seven Habits.....

Highly effective people, not simply happens, is a well organize set of habits and the repetition what makes them to be different, so see the world on a different way until they get to the realization that when others win they also win.  Being effective starts with one's self creating independence of mind, of thinking, of doing, of taking an action and being proactive.  Getting ready of old tendencies for not to work in groups because "is a looser".  Is getting ready of the cancer of winning just for not letting others to win, winning only for personal reasons and not a community reasons, even if is at the expense of the community.

Being effective according to Cover is to get ready of that sense to compare our selves with the rest of the world and is to stop comparing others as well, is to recognize that everyone has its own way to be, to achieve and that each of us when we share our achievements and ways to work empower those around.

In the link of this writing there is a marvelous presentation in which talks about those 7 habits that we most learn to develop in order to be an effective person:

 A. Inside Out
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win-win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw: physical, mental, emotional/social, spiritual
B. Inside Out Again 
created by www.LeadershipSuccess.net 








https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AeTIK_15CysPZGdtcDY4ZjRfMHJ4M3c4bXQ1&hl=es

Personal information





Stephen Covey: Five Emotional Cancers

Stephen R. Covey - Seven Habits of Highly Effective People HD (( Part 2 ))

Stephen R. Covey - Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (( Part 1 ))

A person I admire

The healthiest influence in my life


Doña Juanita a lady of few words and many actions, a devoted teacher, soft- spoken, but direct, strict but never tyrannical, always ethical but no inquisitor.  I can´t remember a long speech from her, we had an agreement, “teach me to be successful in school I will do my very best”, she did a little more than that.

She was in charge of accepting students at the Vocational School Monseñor Sanabria, She was very sincere and told me that I had some troubles with the discipline of learning, but not with behavior, that I seemed honest to her, “you will need hard work in order to succeed, but if you really want it, I will help”.

She was honest, direct and fearless deep down, no student wanted to be called into her office, but at the same time, there was a real commitment to molding students into discipline adult learning.

She told me one day “I Spoke to the receptionist Lisbeth; for you be her assistant after class. Every day for half an hour, I attended Lisbeth on her work, “she was in my back”, correcting my posture, grammar, writing and editing.  She pressed me, there were many habits I had to change in order to learn. But at the same time, was the greatest support when I was discouraged. 

When I asked Dona Juanita a doubt, she used to send me to read and write an essay in my own words. If I still had some doubts, which was often the case, she would clear them for me. Suddenly, my problems with courses were left behind and my reading passion took over. At that moment, I was not able to understand what she was doing, latter I learned the meaning of the word, is called “tough love”, and has help me to avoid many troubles.


What is "Market Share" and why it is important in business?

Market share is the percentage of a market (defined in terms of either units or revenue) accounted for by a specific entity.
Increasing market share is one of the most important objectives of business. The main advantage of using market share as a measure of business performance is that it is less dependent upon macroenvironmental variables such as the state of the economy or changes in tax policy. 

Purpose
Market share is a key indicator of market competitiveness—that is, how well a firm is doing against its competitors. This metric, supplemented by changes in sales revenue, helps managers evaluate both primary and selective demand in their market. That is, it enables them to judge not only total market growth or decline but also trends in customers’ selections among competitors. Generally, sales growth resulting from primary demand (total market growth) is less costly and more profitable than that achieved by capturing share from competitors. Conversely, losses in market share can signal serious long-term problems that require strategic adjustments. Firms with market shares below a certain level may not be viable. Similarly, within a firm’s product line, market share trends for individual products are considered early indicators of future opportunities or problems. 



Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have develop a matrix to classify the four categorys of Market Share of a product or "Business Areas" .  This matrix let classify the growth and the market share on 4 groups.





Comment:


The market share is a very important thing to measure, you can´t know how good or bad is your organization if you doesn´t compare it with the others. The products and enterprises have a life cycle in which they born, grow, have a mature and finally die. The market share is very related to the life cycle. There are 3 main concepts that people must know about market share:

-Market potential: It refers to the quantity of product that people are willing to buy. The total market potential is the one that all the enterprises that offers that product are going to fight and try to supply.
-Sales forecast: It is how much our business expects to sell. It is determinate by past sales records and considering how much it will grow or descend.

-Market share: Is the comparison between the market potential and the sales forecast; with this you could know how much of the demand is not being supply, so your business could plan actions to supply it.
The market share is a very important tool, every marketing department should have a forecast of it, because it helps to improve sales and strategic plans.
Diego P

Social Responsability

Here are 5 kinds of social responsability, This is a topic that is not as technical as other "business administration" topics; But it is as important as other corporate strategies.


Social responsibility is a form of self-regulation that businesses adopt as a part of their corporate conscience and citizenship. Often referred to as corporate social responsibility or CSR, this policy spurs businesses to develop means to monitor the public’s social perception of them as a responsible business. The business goal of social responsibility is to encourage the company’s actions toward the positive impact of consumer, community and employee responsibility.

Voluntary Hazard Elimination
Companies involved with social responsibility often take action to voluntarily eliminate production practices that could cause harm for the public, regardless of whether they are required by law. For example, a business could institute a hazard control program that includes steps to protect the public from exposure to hazardous substances through education and awareness. A plant that uses chemicals could implement a safety inspection checklist to guide staff in best practices when handling potentially dangerous substances and materials. A business that makes excessive noise and vibration could analyze the effects its work has on the environment by surveying local residents. The information received could be used to adjust activities and develop soundproofing to lessen public exposure to noise pollution.

Community Development
Companies, businesses and corporations concerned with social responsibility align with appropriate institutions to create a better environment to live and work. For example, a corporation or business may set up a foundation to assist in learning or education for the public. This action will be viewed as an asset to all of the communities that it serves, while developing a positive public profile.

Philanthropy
Businesses involved in philanthropy make monetary contributions that provide aid to local charitable, educational and health-related organizations to assist under-served or impoverished communities. This action can assist people in acquiring marketable skills to reduce poverty, provide education and help the environment. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on global initiatives for education, agriculture and health issues, donating computers to schools and funding work on vaccines to prevent polio and HIV/AIDS.

Creating Shared Value
Corporate responsibility interests are often referred to as creating shared value or CSV, which is based upon the connection between corporate success and social well-being. Since a business needs a productive workforce to function, health and education are key components to that equation. Profitable and successful businesses must thrive so that society may develop and survive. An example of how CSV works could be a company-sponsored contest involving a project to improve the management and access of water used by a farming community, to foster public health.

Social Education and Awareness
Companies that engage in socially responsible investing use positioning to exert pressure on businesses to adopt socially responsible behavior themselves. To do this, they use media and Internet distribution to expose the potentially harmful activities of organizations. This creates an educational dialogue for the public by developing social community awareness. This kind of collective activism can be affective in reaching social education and awareness goals. Integrating a social awareness strategy into the business model can also aid companies in monitoring active compliance with ethical business standards and applicable laws.

Taken from: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-social-responsibility-strategies-10633.html

COMMENT:



As we could read in the article, there are many ways of make “social responsibility”. Actually this is a very important process or program for every business. The corporative image is fundamental because it will impact in the costumer perception of the company. When these programs are good structured and have good purposes is when they really work.
Some companies call social responsibility to programs that in the end will improve their incomes or represent operative saves. The real social responsibility is when the projects are non profit, it means that the results of making that project instead of  being reflected on the earns of the organization it will be reflected on the social development.
The social responsibility projects are made to return to the society part of what they gave to the develop of the enterprise. One thing that business are trying to do with social responsibility is to take care of the environment, it is like a way of compensate all the bad things that were caused by many years of making things that degraded the natural resources.
Personally I think that the social responsibility is something that EVERY business should have, it doesn´t matter if it is a small or a big organization; this because enterprises own everything they actually are to the society that have maintain the business.
Diego P




lunes, 15 de agosto de 2011



As the presentation expose, the human resources department is responsible of the develop of all the employees and employers. The HR is a “staff” department which makes programs to improve the performance of the people who work on the organization. They need to success in 4 specific areas: Financial, Internal costumers, HR internal process and learning.
The scorecard is a tool to quantify the advances in strategy, for example in the financial part the strategy objective is to improve the profits to give to the shareholders better incomes, another thing to improve is the employees productivity, this will make that the organization work in a better way by taking advantage of each employees skills. All those things will cause that the ROI “return over investment” would be bigger and that means that every dollar that the enterprise invest will have a bigger return.
In the “internal costumers” which are the employees the HR department should provide a good work environment, create a place with the best conditions to work and this would cause that the employees will feel more comfortable. The HR department hire new personnel, this is one of the most popular and important process that this department do; they are the ones who should hire the best professionals to work in the organization and develop their hidden skills.
In conclusion, the HR department instead of the fact that is a staff department is in charge of essential process of the organization. This department is so important that even in a small business is needed; it is supposed that in an organization with more than 15 people it is needed.
                                                                                                                                                                             Diego P.

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson



Ideas occur at any time when you have an idea write it, share itwith your friends, they will give their opinion, researches and analyzes how profitable is the idea. But never wait for the right time to have a good idea.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU