Discover the "black hole" of profit loss

Is there a reward for every effort? I believe that the answer of many companies is "no", because high investment often does not bring high returns. Why? Is it inefficient? Didn't you just optimize your workflow? Is the implementation of the new method ineffective? But the actual corporate profits have indeed improved slightly! It's as if the martial arts heroes have been practicing their stunts in retreat for many years, and when they expect to be hit with a single blow, the fact is that the opponent who used ten moves to win in the past now has to use eight moves!

It's not easy to answer this series of questions, but after reading this book, I believe you will suddenly be enlightened. Nievele Lake, the former head of PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting and now the president of Lake Group, analyzed this in his new book "Where is the Profit?" Most companies tend to only focus on the principles of efficiency and effectiveness and ignore the third principle - the principle of optimization, so that they do less than 80% of their potential, and 20% of the lost potential is buried in the futile work process , buried in management models whose actual application deviates from their goals, buried in behaviors that cause customer churn, buried in mediocre performance and poor planning, buried in inadvertent oversights and distractions. The author's research over the years has shown that in the process of a group of enterprise activities, on average, about 20% of the activities are sub-optimal, and for some specific processes, there will be up to 40% of the sub-optimal activities. So the first problem that needs to be solved is to discover where the company's potential profits lie and how to exploit them.

A thought provoking case. These problems encountered by the company may seem boring, and it feels impossible to answer them. However, the author uses a large number of cases to guide and guide the readers to provide readers with a comprehensive, systematic and detailed explanation - from the optimal theory to the practical application of the theory, from the diagnosis process to the solution, from the enterprise to the communication with customers... For enterprises in the realization of In the process of optimization, the author gives pertinent and feasible solutions to a series of new problems that may be faced and various possibilities arising therefrom, as well as the response plans of enterprises. For example, in the section on how to eliminate false management, the author uses simple cases in life to illustrate: the false management of an enterprise is like a hurried bus tour, "I have been here, I have seen it, I have conquered it, there are Photos as evidence", that's all, do you really appreciate the essence of the travel destination? Nobody knows. The management process is obvious to everyone, and there are piles of documents and meeting minutes to prove it, but whether the management results achieve the goal, no one knows either. Similar cases close to life can be seen everywhere in the book, and I believe it will arouse readers' empathy.

Easy to operate tool. The views advocated by the author's third principle are easily reminiscent of another bestseller, "Innovation First, Innovation Later." But in my opinion, Lake's book has a more down-to-earth style of discussion that is easy to understand; the practical tools are clear and easy to use. The author starts from his own personal experience. After years of experience analysis and summarization, on the basis of visiting more than 50 prestigious companies in the world, providing consulting services for more than 80 companies, and researching more than 1,000 companies and organizations, A large number of enterprise models, analysis frameworks and application tools suitable for various scales and forms are extracted for readers' reference. For example, in teaching how to analyze corporate cultural image, the author constructs a 7Cs model, which considers 7 characteristics of cultural categories that drive employees to optimize performance:

· Clarity - do people know what they have to do?

· Competent - do they know how to do it?

· Responsibility - are they willing to do it?

· Careers - Can they stand up to ongoing challenges?

· Communication - Do people accept "must know" and "best know" information?

· Collaboration - Do people work as a team or as a competitive group?

· Culture - Is there a universal behavior? What are these behaviors like?

In each chapter, the author will explain the scope of application and use of these models and tools without reservation, making the book like a practical guidebook for companies to tap their own 20% potential profits. For example, in order to measure the company's customer satisfaction, the author has compiled a small questionnaire, which readers can expand and supplement according to the actual situation of the company, and then put into use:

· Comprehensive experience;

· Initial Contact;

· Main Product;

· Services Associated with the Product;

· Time and Cost;

Plain language. It is not necessary to have a high-level professional background, and does not advocate difficult vocabulary. The author uses simple and easy-to-understand language, a small story, a small fable, simple and simple, step-by-step, systematic and comprehensive explanation with strong knowledge and readability sex. For example, the short story "Who do you want to surpass?" is about two photographers who came to the African savannah to take pictures of lions hunting, but were unfortunately discovered by lions:

...One of the photographers carefully Camera equipment on the ground, ready to escape. "Don't be stupid," his colleague exclaimed, "you can't outrun a lion."

"No need, I just need to outrun you."

This funny little story, The truth of "competitiveness and choice" is vividly illustrated.

For domestic enterprise managers, the guidance and reference function of this book is obvious. At present, China is in a period of economic transformation, and the mode of economic growth is changing from extensive to intensive. How to analyze the sub-optimization problems in their own enterprises, solve these problems, tap the maximum potential, and achieve optimization is a problem that every enterprise manager must face. And this book provides a solution to this problem.

Ada Zhang, Deputy Editor, CEConline Website