Concentrate on your core.....

#PerformanceARMADA

Q: How can we improve the organization's performance?
A: Before answering your question.... let me ask you What does a company exist for?

This a memorable conversation, I had few months ago with a friend in Germany doing business studies...

Hassan, a company exists to serve its customers long into the future.

The most important activities in your organization are those which are directly concerned with satisfying customers.

In IBM these activities make computers;

In Barclays they give banking services; 

In Safeways they sell food.

You should put all your effort into these central activities which are usually described as the three core functions: 

- Sales/marketing identifies customer demand, stimulates new demand, collects customer information, organizes advertising, takes orders, etc;

- Operations actually make the goods and services;

- Accounting/finance raises capital, invests funds, collects money, pays bills, maintains accounts, etc.

You can probably think of a long list of other activities, such as research and development, human resource management, information systems, administration and public relations.

But you can either include these supporting activities in one of the core functions, or they are not directly concerned with products and customers.

Every organization has to do the core functions. If you don't make a product, sell it and organize the finances, you wont have an organization to worry about.

But you can put different efforts into each one.
Coca-Cola puts more effort into marketing, but it still needs to control its finances and have efficient operations;

JP Morgan emphasizes its finances, but it still needs efficient operations and marketing.

The only way of improving performance is by concentrating on these core functions, and doing them better.

Bottom line is there are three core functions involved in supplying a product. You can only improve overall performance by doing these core functions better.

The contributor is Director of Hardware Engineering at Powersoft19.

Powersoft19 (www.powersoft19.com) specializes in engineering consultancy of hardware, firmware, software, web-applications and interactive media development along with automated testing and independent quality assurance as a service. Powersoft19 has delivered multiple safety-critical embedded systems in several industries comprising Rail, Material Handling, Mining, Gas Detection and Smart Grid.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any team, division or business unit, subsidiaries and technology partners of the Powersoft19.