Continued best practice research

Differentiating Practices

We've learned that three broad "categories" of practices differentiate those who are succeeding from those that are surviving/failing; why and how they're successful (i.e. what they're doing now, how they did it and continue to do it despite changes in markets, rapidly evolving corporate cultures, shorter product life cycles and increasing global competition with an ever present pressure to reduce cost

These broad categories included:

• Alignment between Corporate Strategy and the New Product Portfolio

• Structuring the organization for speed and efficiency

• Building "bridges" to the customer to insure "right" product at time of delivery

While every company (and the respective markets they service) have their own uniqueness, the second study is about today's new operational basics. They're very different than they were even a few years ago. A few have discovered them and transformed themselves. Most have not.

Alignment between Corporate Strategy and the New Product Portfolio

For each of the three categories above, we continue to study the following areas:

• What it "should" be and why it's right; examples of successful organizations and how they've transformed themselves

• Why it's critical

• Why there are failures--various underlying causes and the impacts of not adopting the "should be"

• "Solutions" or the best-practices ...stories/examples of methods and tools exceptional companies have used to transform their organizations/teams