Mir Moiz’s Weblog
Life is meaningful, only when one wishes to make it. We are creatures of time and we’ll wither away in it. The little moments of joy we find and create are all that will live with us.Archive for Business
Departments and Functions
Often times we come across common perceptions that are misleading and vague.
People require a very focused and keen behavior at work and in life to succeed. That is essential.
There is a major difference in how we perceive the departments of a company and how we perceive functional nature of those departments. Both are very different.
A department is a group – a label to a collection of people that come together to become responsible and actionable towards its core function.
If you have a department in your company that does not focus on a core functional nature then that department is ineffective and non-productive and will remain so till a rigid framework is defined.
Departments should never be multifunctional. There should always be just one core function, if you seek to guarantee efficiency and success.
© MIR
Commerce, Trade or Business
A lot of people get confused about the merits of the differing terms of commerce, trade and business and use them interchangeably quite often, yet the three terms are entirely different.
Business is the overarching entity that holds within it commerce and trade.
Commerce is the buying and selling part alone. It’s an activity that can be performed not an entity that can be owned.
Trade is also the activity of buying and selling but it refers primarily to the exchange of high value and high quantity and mostly over long distances.
It is also an activity that can be performed not an entity that can be owned.
To own a business is to own an entity that has the capacity to conduct commerce or trade in goods and/or services.
© MIR
Incentives and Operational Success
As we phase into this new era of mechanization and automation. The one thing that is loosing sight with business owners and corporate heads is the ‘Human Element’.
The innate capacity of people to rise up to challenges and/ or demonstrate their natural inclination to forsake others as they have been forsaken.
Incentives have a lot to do with businesses success or failure.
As you do, so you reap.
When the heads of business gradually loose sight of the needs of their workers, in time the workers loose sign of the business’ needs.
Yet most all business barons wonder what went wrong to take away that passion and zeal their workers once had, while they themselves are the ones contributing to that end.
The key is ‘Appreciation‘ and the best way that businesses can appreciate their workers is through meaningful incentive schemes.
Life has the same approach, each phase of our life offers challenges yet when meet their is always a pot of gold or rather a pot of happiness at the end.
Businesses need to see the rationale in this natural approach. Offer incentives to your sales people, incentives to your operational staff. Identify key deliverables that lie at each level of your organization and then create incentives to attract your people to deliver their best.
Be generous in helping them make their lives awesome and in turn they will act their best to make you and your organization win, win and win at every turn.
What goes around, simply comes around.
– MIR
Why now is a great time to be in business
(MoneyWatch) It’s a lousy time to start or grow a business, right? Wrong! Over half of America’s Fortune 500 companies started during a depression or recession.
As far back as the first century BCE, Horace noted that “Adversity reveals greatness; prosperity conceals it.”
Re-Thinking Businesses
An introductory talk given at Rotary on Dec 15, 2010, highlighting my professional experiences and aims for the future.
The talk started with a note of thanks to the members present.
Talk~
I have been asked for a small talk upon my work and I have a limited time to do that… therefore I will try and keep it as focused as possible.
With a view to this opportunity I asked that it should be titled “Re-Thinking Businesses” for that is what I pursue as a profession for myself.
The book I have put forth for reference towards my ideas is a very acclaimed manifesto written by Mr. Tom Peters in 1982. It is titled, “In Search of Excellence”.
Since then it has been used for value building within innumerable organizations in the United States and now serves as a guideline for businesses the world over.
For my talk, I would like to lay a Thought Foundation by providing my audience with three keywords to keep in mind.
The first is VALUE, the second is VALUE and the third is VALUE!
It is all about VALUE.
Businesses are about VALUE and life is about VALUE.
VALUE is the strongest underpinning that drives our personal and professional ambitions.
VALUE is a commodity and VALUE is a service.
VALUE is what I am happy with when I get it and VALUE is what others are happy with when I provide it.
VALUE is all there is to it!
My professional chronology stems from the year 2000.
It is a span of 10+ years of engagement as a technologist growing into an Analyst.
My studies are grounded in “Management Information Systems” where I acquired some milestones with a number of significant projects over the years.
2001 ~ 2004
An online brokerage system connected with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for a hedge fund brokerage company in Hong Kong, long before online trading was introduced as a main-stream.
2005 ~ 2006
An analytics and statistical evaluation system for a company called BeyondROI, which serves some of the major names in Fortune 500/ 1000.
2006 ~ 2008
I served in a role as project manager for AAA Partnership, a construction projects management company, with some key initiatives for AAA ventures.
2008 ~ 2010
Business Process Re-Engineering, designing Standard Operating Procedures for “Operations & Maintenance” of Multinet Pakistan.
MIS applications developed for OPEX control, along with leading the MIS department itself.
2011 ~ onwards
My aim is to formulate “Mir & Associates” as a major business consultancy, with a portfolio offering of two things… “Business Process Re-Engineering” and “Business Intelligence” for our organizations in most all of the major verticals.
——-|
What is Re-Thinking Business all about?
In simple terms – It is about VALUE creation.
It is a method of renewed empowerment of businesses from top to bottom.
Examples of companies that have pursued this internationally and in Pakistan would be…
United States Postal Service
Canadian Post
APC
British Petroleum
Royal Dutch Shell
ING Group
VISA
World Bank
Amtrack
The United Nations
US Air Force
IBM
Research in Motion
Siemens
British Airways
American Standards Company
Caterpillar
DuPont
Tetra Pak
In Pakistan… some notable names would be
The State Bank
Engro Group
Fauji Fertilizer
Shell Pakistan
… among the few that I know off!
——-|
Tom Peters highlighted some eight points in his book that stand valid for businesses as a guide since 1982.
1. A bias for action, active decision making.
2. Close to the customer.
3. Autonomy & Entrepreneurship.
4. Productivity through People.
5. Hands-on, Value driven.
6. Stick to the knitting. Stay with the business that you know.
7. Simple form, Lean staff.
8. Flexibility with centralized values.
My social services engagements include the initial setup and ground work for Karachi Relief Trust and a stint on water provisioning for the recent floods with a senior from the Acumen Fund.
Thank You.
© 2010. Mir Moiz
Reinventing Capitalism
Now the world is thinking about reinventing capitalism for the needs of the 21st century.
Mir Moiz's Weblog 