by Elizabeth Hines | Aug 5, 2015 | Blog, Strategy, Supply Chain
Before you finalize your budget, take inventory. What do you really need?
A friend recently shared a story with me. Her company had been subject to budget cuts over the past several years. Each year the question wasn’t if there would be cuts, but rather how much would be shaved off an already tight budget.
Because budgets had to be submitted before it was clear what the cuts would be, people began to pad their budgets in the hopes that they would be able to get the resources they needed for that year, and so they could stockpile resources for future years in case budget cuts were even deeper than anticipated. This year, however, things were different.
The company had a new CEO. She was convinced that continued budget cuts were not necessary. Rather, she maintained that there were hidden ways the company could save money. Unbeknownst to the employees, the new CEO looked in every closet, every corner, every storeroom, and every nook and cranny of the building and created an inventory of what was there.
She was shocked at what she found. For example, hidden away she found enough staples, copy paper, and pens to support the company for one, and maybe even two, years. The CEO had the supplies sorted and moved to the cafeteria. She then invited the employees to come and take a look.
What the employees saw were table after table covered in office supplies. The employees were then told that this year the budget process would be different. Instead of padding budgets, employees were asked to put together budgets that accurately reflected their needs. Additionally, rather than procure supplies from vendors, shopping would be local.
That is, shopping hours were posted and employees were told to bring their budgets to the cafeteria and do their shopping there. With very few exceptions everyone was able to purchase the supplies they needed. As a result, budget cuts were not necessary for the first time in several years.
At first glance, this story seems absurd. But, how often have you conducted a full inventory? Start by opening your desk drawer. What office supplies do you have hidden away so that they are at your fingertips, and not a walk away in the storeroom? Are you surprised by what you found?
Before you finalize your budget for this year, I challenge you to look in those dark, and not-so-dark corners, to learn what your company has on hand and what you really need. Can you too shop local? Think about your supply chain, too. How would you bring this lesson to the budget challenges there?
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
Whether it is a wholesale food distributor seeking guidance on how to define and execute corporate strategy; a telematics firm needing high quality content on a consistent basis; a real estate firm looking for a marketing partner; or a supply chain firm in need of interim management, our clients rely on Fronetics to help them navigate through critical junctures, meet their toughest challenges, and take advantage of opportunities. We deliver high-impact results.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
![Workplace diversity impacts the bottom line [Infographic]](https://www.fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Workplace-Diversity-Fronetics-Infographic-795x675.jpg)
by Fronetics | Aug 3, 2015 | Blog, Diversity, Leadership, Strategy
“A diverse organization will out-think and out-perform a homogeneous organization every single time”. A. Lafley, CEO – Procter & Gamble
Recent research conducted by McKinsey & Company found that when it comes to the bottom line, diversity matters. Specifically, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians, and when it comes to ethnic diversity the financial returns are even greater – 35%. McKinsey & Company note that “correlation does not equal causation;” however, “the correlation does indicate that when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful.”
Why are diverse companies more successful? McKinsey & Company believe diverse companies are better able to attract and retain top talent, improve their customer orientation, and have higher employee satisfaction rates than companies that are not diverse. Arrow Electronics’ Cathy Morris points to an additional reason: “Diversity enables better decision-making and diminishes groupthink.”
Workplace diversity has a significant and positive impact on the bottom line – and on the day to day success of your company. How diverse is your company? What can you do to increase diversity within your company?
![Workplace Diversity [Infographic]](https://www.fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Workplace-Diversity-Fronetics-Infographic-scaled.jpg)
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
by Fronetics | Jul 29, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
In an interview with the Kitchn, Food Network’s Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten shared her top three secrets to hosting a successful dinner party – plan ahead, use your best stuff, and have fun building and sustaining relationships with those around you. Her focus may be food, but her advice is applicable to marketing and sales professionals. Undeniably, lead nurturing is remarkably similar to hosting a dinner party.
Using the dinner party strategy, let’s take a look at how your business can actively build relationships with prospects and advance the movement of leads through its sales funnel.
Clean house
As the host of an upcoming dinner party, it’s unlikely you’d host people in your home without first getting it in tiptop shape. The same should be true for your website, your company’s online home. As part of your preparation for a lead nurturing campaign, review your website and make any necessary modifications so that it presents the best digital representation of your business. Beyond increasing conversions, having an attractive, modern website that’s free of broken links and out of date contact information serves to establish your company’s website as a trusted resource for information.
Decide what to offer guests
Preparing a dinner party menu for a number of people requires some forethought and planning. For instance, what type of food would your guests enjoy? Do any guests have food allergies or aversions for which you need to plan? Just as you would build the menu for your dinner party, the decision about what content you’ll offer will be guided by the preferences and content needs of your leads. Create content that is relevant to your leads and make sure to identify appropriate channels of distribution in order to extract maximum value from your content.
Determine when and how you’ll serve menu items
Traditional dinner parties start with appetizers and move from one course to the next until after the dessert wine is poured. Similarly, the lead nurturing process is intended to push content to leads in a linear fashion, with the ultimate goal being that they’ll emerge as customers. Once your content “menu” is set, you’ll want to decide how you’ll serve them up to your leads. To do that, align content with where your leads happen to be in the buyer’s journey. Leads will enter and exit your lead nurturing campaign at different points, and that’s okay, just be certain that your content is relevant to leads in their specific stage. Regardless, each nurturing touch should be focused and specific and include a call to action to promote advancement in the buyer’s journey.
Create and sustain dialogue
Beyond sharing a meal, it’s likely that you’ll also take part in spirited conversation with your dinner party guests. While it’s certainly acceptable to offer up topics of discussion, your guests will not enjoy you dominating the conversation. Meaningfully adding to the conversation builds relationships not just by showing expertise, but by showing genuine interest. In other words, don’t view the lead nurturing process as a way to blast your prospects with promotional information or marketing materials; treat it as a dialogue. The best lead nurturing campaigns are designed to learn as much about your leads as you would have them learn about your company.
Say thank you
As host, at the end of the night when guests grab their coats and head toward the door, it’s polite to thank them for attending your dinner party. Extend that same courtesy to your customers and leads. Whether it’s by showing gratitude to current customers for their continued support or showing appreciation to leads for their download, saying thank you goes a long way in building connections and professional relationships.
What’s required to run a successful lead nurturing campaign is building trust and establishing relationships with prospects and leads as you develop them into customers. Most of the effort involved in hosting a dinner party happens before guests arrive, so hosts are free to enjoy interaction and conversation with guests during the party. Lead nurturing can be approached much in the same way you’d plan and execute a dinner party. Developing a thoughtful lead nurturing campaign will almost always ensure meaningful – and memorable – communication.
Want to learn more about lead nurturing? Check out these 30 tricks and tips that will change the way you nurture leads.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
Whether it is a wholesale food distributor seeking guidance on how to define and execute corporate strategy; a telematics firm needing high quality content on a consistent basis; a real estate firm looking for a marketing partner; or a supply chain firm in need of interim management, our clients rely on Fronetics to help them navigate through critical junctures, meet their toughest challenges, and take advantage of opportunities. We deliver high-impact results.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
by Fronetics | Jul 28, 2015 | Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
Only 1 in 10 professional marketers describe their lead nurturing efforts as “highly efficient and effective.” For most businesses, that’s simply not good enough. We’ve compiled the 30 greatest lead nurturing lessons into a guide. In it, you’ll learn the secrets of how top companies generate leads and nurture them into customers.
This guide will teach you:
- What makes killer performing landing pages
- The best lead-generating content
- How to create offers that are impossible to ignore
- Secret website optimization tips with A/B testing
- …and more!
This is your guide to start generating more high-quality sales leads today. Learn the tricks and tips you can use to nurture leads. Download it now.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
Whether it is a wholesale food distributor seeking guidance on how to define and execute corporate strategy; a telematics firm needing high quality content on a consistent basis; a real estate firm looking for a marketing partner; or a supply chain firm in need of interim management, our clients rely on Fronetics to help them navigate through critical junctures, meet their toughest challenges, and take advantage of opportunities. We deliver high-impact results.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
by Fronetics | Jul 23, 2015 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Supply Chain
There are many companies in the supply chain that are good at what they do. However, not all companies “do well by doing good.”
Here are 6 companies who are doing well by doing good:
Lego: In a recent move to “significantly reduce [Lego’s] impact on the planet” the company is investing $150 million over 15 years to fund 100+ new employees to work at their sustainable material center in Denmark. The objective is to yield a more environmentally friendly material that will go into making Legos. The company has already been working with environmental groups, cutting packaging sizes, and investing in wind power.
Seventh Generation: In addition to LEED-certified offices, low-emission cars, and efforts to use renewable energy in its manufacturing, the Vermont-based company awards bonuses to employees who dream up more sustainable products for their lines of environmentally-friendly household and personal-hygiene products. They ranked at the top of B Plan’s “best for the environment” list in 2014. They are a company who self-identify as being champions of “honesty, responsibility, and radical transparency in commerce.”
Stonyfield Farms: In working with materials source and supply chain mapping company, Sourcemap, Stonyfield highlights the farmers who provide the main ingredients in their organic food products. By creating transparency in their supply chain, they empower customers to make healthy, informed decisions and they create stronger partnerships with suppliers.
Sustain Condoms: The company focuses on responsibility in more ways than one. They produce fair-trade, vegan condoms and organic, toxic-free lubricants. They concern themselves with social and health issues, as well as the environment: “When we think about sustainability, we don’t just think about the environment. “We think holistically about what is required for the planet and the people living on planet to live in harmony with nature and each other. So, with Sustain Condoms, we look at every aspect of condom manufacturing starting with the rubber tree plantation.” The company also donates 10% of their pre-tax profits to women who are unable to access the healthcare they need.
Patagonia: The large, high-end clothing and outdoor equipment company produces products that are “environmentally preferred”, in other words they are organic, recycled or environmentally sound. The company is utterly focused on being a responsible supply-chain-based company, ensuring safe, legal, fair, and humane working conditions through total transparency. They also give 1% of sales to environmental groups worldwide.
Coca-Cola: On the company’s website, just next to the first tab “Our Company”, you’ll find the tab “Sustainability”. The company claims to focus on three main tenants: “Designing consumer-preferred, resource-efficient packaging; eliminating landfill waste; and using recycled and/or renewable materials”. The company has worked hard to reduce use of plastics, aluminum and glass packaging, while working with such organizations and projects as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Water for People, Thailand Recovery, and the Little Red Schoolhouse Project to help provide water, shelter, education, and basic needs to people around the world.
The list of companies who do well by doing good is impressive, but certainly not long enough. The supply chain is “longer and more complex” than ever before and the impact on sustainability is massive.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
Whether it is a wholesale food distributor seeking guidance on how to define and execute corporate strategy; a telematics firm needing high quality content on a consistent basis; a real estate firm looking for a marketing partner; or a supply chain firm in need of interim management, our clients rely on Fronetics to help them navigate through critical junctures, meet their toughest challenges, and take advantage of opportunities. We deliver high-impact results.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
by Fronetics | Jul 22, 2015 | Blog, Current Events, Strategy, Supply Chain
We are increasingly seeing the impact of climate change. We are seeing the impact in the form of drought, wildfires, hurricanes, fires, rising sea-levels, record blizzards, and high temperatures.
The supply chain plays a significant role in climate change. Specifically, there is: damage to the ecosystem caused by industrial and commercial progress in the form of carbon emissions, improper waste removal, energy consumption, and fossil fuel extraction and processing. This damage comes full circle and poses ethical issues regarding business practices for those in the supply chain, and it also impacts business procedures when a climate-driven disaster occurs, such as flooding, drought, and hurricanes. Goods get damaged, deliveries are canceled or delayed, raw materials become inaccessible, energy sources become scarce. With one calamity alone, these can be billion dollar problems. Although overall financial losses from climate-based, weather-related disasters are difficult to measure on a global scale, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “aggregate losses across the world economy have a more than 50 percent chance of being greater than 2 percent of global GDP.”
The Carbon Disclosure Project reported on a survey of more than 2,000 companies and found that “44 percent of them had suffered a disruption in production from rainfall or drought and 31 percent had experienced higher production costs.” A 2007 study led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that by 2070, seven of the ten greatest urban concentrations of economic assets that are exposed to coastal flooding will be in the developing world; none was in 2005. Assets exposed to such flooding will rise from 5% of world GDP to 9%.
In 2010, Russia’s severe heat wave caused a massive drought and spurred wild fires, ruining a huge swath of wheat crops. The losses were estimated to be $15 billion U.S. dollars. The world-wide impact was huge, as Russia’s exports were limited and global prices increased. In 2011, Thailand experienced some of the worst flooding it had ever seen. The death toll was nearly 900 people and financial losses were estimated at $5.7 billion U.S. dollars. When Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast in 2012 it caused devastating losses. The death toll was 72 and the financial toll was estimated to be in the tens-of-billions, up to $50 billion dollars. The supply chain was badly hit, especially for companies like FedEx, CSX, and many retail companies. Understandably, only Home Depot benefited from the disaster. Year after year we see huge human and financial losses, and incredible disruption to the supply chain.
Acclimatise CEO, John Firth, explains the reaction in the supply chain when disaster strikes, and the need for preparation and awareness of companies, “Pakistan’s 2010 floods caused rice production to fall, increasing crop prices. This prompted consumers to buy wheat, which increased the price of that commodity, and, in turn, the price of cookies in the U.K. In addition to identifying categories that are directly exposed, managers should think about the impacts caused by changes in the markets of substitutes.”
Companies have always had to manage supply and demand risks and supply chain disruption, but a new era is upon us. According to a PWC journal on climate change and supply chain risk, the author states, “the other major factor set to exacerbate supply-chain risk is climate change. Often overlooked, climate change adds to complexity. It amplifies or alters existing risks, for example raw material availability (e.g. water, energy) or transport disruption due to extreme weather events. The resulting shocks on the global supply chain can be severe and persistent.”
Many companies are readying themselves for disaster, and some are fighting back, and trying to reverse some of the damage to the climate.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
Whether it is a wholesale food distributor seeking guidance on how to define and execute corporate strategy; a telematics firm needing high quality content on a consistent basis; a real estate firm looking for a marketing partner; or a supply chain firm in need of interim management, our clients rely on Fronetics to help them navigate through critical junctures, meet their toughest challenges, and take advantage of opportunities. We deliver high-impact results.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
