Recent briefings have focused a lot on customer-development, but the development of other resources also has important implications for strategy and performance.
Virtually all organizations, for example, are heavily dependent on the flow of potential employees, not just from previous employment positions, but also out of the education system. Some powerful firms deliberately reach back into these earlier stages to help stimulate the education and training of the very population of graduating students on which their future business will depend. ...
Earlier briefings [starting at no.24] explained how resources carry attributes with them when won by, or lost from an organization. Resources also carry attributes with them as they develop from stage to stage.
Staff Experience
A common case concerns staff experience, which for simplicity can be measured in years. The figure below shows a three-level staff structure, with junior staff being hired with no experience. Thereafter, three distinct mechanisms raise or lower experience:
- Junior staff add one year of experience for each ...
So far, we have simply assumed that resources can be switched on and off, but in many cases, resources may develop through a series of states. Sometimes this happens entirely within an organization, such as products being moved through stages in the R&D process. For some items, though, development may extend outside the organization, such as the growing awareness and interest of potential customers, and the continued influence of former customers.
How does this influence strategic thinking?
Staff developmentThe promotion of ...
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Sad to see Shell cutting 5000 jobs, making staff re-apply for 15,000 jobs, and aggressively driving down suppliers’ prices in an effort to cut its debt. This just 4 years after desperate efforts to hire 1,000 experienced oil engineers due to past failures to develop enough of these key staff. I guess Shell’s Annual Report will not be declaring staff to be ‘our most important asset’, but it’s still shocking to see the massive damage firms and even entire industries can inflict on themselves with this kind ...
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