By aCatalyst Staff Holy Grail of business must be the illusive change programme that genuinely transforms business performance. In many cases, despite excessive doses of new age management voodoo, and an often jargon filled optimistic start, with time, the balance sheet starts bleeding red ink. With the company worse off, than it was before the […]
Category: Our Thinking
By David J. Abbott “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.” What are some of the key factors that shape doing business in Kenya and East Africa ? And, how can one can compete to be up there with the market leaders ? Get in 10,000 of hours of focussed
Being smart and saying the right things is not enoughRead More »
By David J. Abbott Do you feel that you are working extremely hard and yet it does not seem to be hitting the bottom line ? Are you very busy and almost could not take on any new work, yet the firm’s profitability seems to be stagnant ? You might be surprised how common a
By David J. Abbott Business books and the management press are filled with jargon. Everyone is searching for the next mind boggling bright business idea. Ever sit in a meeting and listen to a presentation, filled with all the right corporately correct words, nodding one’s head politely, yet it was totally incomprehensible? One of the
“There are “serious and widespread doubts about human resources (HR) contribution to organisational performance.” “The activities of HR appear to be – and often are – disconnected from the real work of the organisation” wrote Dave Ulrich of the University Of Michigan in the Harvard Business Review in 1998. “Indeed if HR were to remain configured as
Does human resources fail it’s performance appraisal ?Read More »
Non-governmental organisations [NGO] operating in Kenya [numbering more than 6,000] range from the extraordinary, those who have won the Nobel Peace Prize like the French Medicins Sans Frontiers [Doctors without borders] through to the ordinary,those that were formed last week by two well meaning individuals. Heart of the matter for NGOs is to answer the question, what
Time and constant change are a pair of troublesome disruptors in the Kenyan business scene. Stories abound of yesterday’s market leaders, who are now on life support systems, gasping for oxygen, because they refused to adapt. Many of the leading companies of today did not exist in their present form 20 years ago. Given the
Strategy as a Service [SaaS] provides a quick response and cost effective flexibility to changing needs. aCatalyst Consulting’s approach to strategy is to begin with the end in mind. Strategy is an often misused word. What many businesses have is an operational plan that lists ‘things to do’ rather than a clear map that sets out leverage
Strategy as a Service – Alternative to the Traditional Consulting ApproachRead More »
For some strange reason, complex and lengthy are believed to the requirements for a strategic plan. Exactly the opposite is true. The best ‘game changing’ strategic plans fit on one page, they are simple, setting out where the organisation needs to go. Concise, easily understood by management and staff, a single page visual map where
By David J. Abbott Strategy appears to be everywhere in business, yet the truth is that genuine strategy is rarely to be seen. What most companies have is the corporate equivalent of voodoo. Instead of little dolls and statues with pins in them and reading chicken entrails the voodoo is in the Power Point slides