Poor corporate governance allows economic crises and large business losses

Many experts rightly point out that one of the main causes of the economic crisis is the lack of corporate governance. But the solutions they advocate are stronger government regulation and stricter reporting requirements. Corporate regulation is not corporate governance.

How much more will corporations spend conforming to corporate regulations, before we realize that the whole approach to corporate governance is wrong? Today corporations measure and report contrived overlaid structures, rather than the actual business. Corporations govern by enforcing policies and rules, instead of governing approved business strategies and plans. Corporations and authorities address the symptoms of the corporate governance problem from the governance side with more rules and regulations, instead of solving the problem from the corporate side, by organizing and managing the business. We are now repeating the same past mistakes in response to the current economic crisis.

Good Corporate Governance manages the transition of the current business to the approved strategic business

Corporate governance is internal so that the corporate management has the capabilities to ensure continuation of a strong and ethical corporate business that is planned and managed to create strategic result value, maintain and manage capital worth, and control on-going performance costs. Rule No. 6 of 21^st century business management: Plan and govern the transition from today’s value to approved strategic value. Business management eliminates contrived 20^th century structures that cause our corporate governance problems and, instead, organizes the business itself as one integrated structure for 21^st century business management and governance. The future business is planned and approved in the strategic business structure to plan the value of strategic results and the result research, capital solution development, and strategic value creation needed. Result goals are set and managed time period by period to the strategic business. [more...]

20^th century accounting does not keep complete or accurate financial records on the business

Today's enterprise faces many obstacles to professional record capital management because of several 20^th century management problems. Financial accounting is often seen as enterprise records management, but maintains a professional view of what it will record, and acts as an administrative function. Financial accounting records some financial data against a chart of accounts laid over the business. Financial accounting does not keep complete and accurate financial and non-financial records of the actual business. Most actual business data is not captured in financial, statistical, or cost accounts or other enterprise records today. Most other enterprise records are not maintained as information capital to be available to provide needed management information solutions. Problems with intangible assets, unknown value creation, unknown costs, unknown capital worth, inaccurate business net worth, etc have never been solved. Records management is a growing problem in today's enterprise requiring a comprehensive professional records management solution.

21^st century business management maintains complete and accurate financial and non-financial records of the actual business

Business data and record transactions are captured against one business structure to integrate organization, planning, directing, control, and reporting. Structures laid over the business and irrelevant bases of data collected against the structures are removed. Management information includes result value, performance costs, result value-added in excess of costs, capital worth, and capital investment returns that are "unknown" today. Tangible information capital is maintained as facility records to record all financial and non-financial business transactions and activity in computer records, documents, images, archives, etc. Accounting continues independently but can be incorporated as one sub-set of professional records management.

Business management provides an opportunity for accounting to broaden to professional records management

Managing the actual business provides a unique opportunity for the accounting profession to expand to professional records management and eliminate unsolvable accounting and financial management problems. Professional facility records management maintains financial and non-financial facility records of the actual business, and provides information capital solutions from records, where needed to produce results at all levels of business management. [more...]

Obsolete 20^th century enterprise management, used today, causes many unsolvable problems like unknown costs, unknown value creation, unknown capital worth, and unknown investment returns. The costly problems that hamper enterprise performance are left behind easily by using Result-performance Management (R-pM) knowledge and procedures for 21^st century business management. Any responsibly-managed enterprise must investigate totally new methods to organize the business into one business structure for integrated 21^st century business management and significant competitive advantage.

Follow the ten rules for 21^st century business management

Ten rules are provided as a guide to organize and manage results, capital solutions, and performance as one integrated business structure to ensure effective 21^st century business management. Each rule provides new approaches and advantages never possible before with 20^th century enterprise management. These ten rules are explained in the following articles. Details and procedures and are contained in the Business Management Toolkit. Download the Business Management Toolkit at result-performance-management.com and then organize your business to follow the ten rules for 21^st century business management.. [more...]

Rule No. 1 of the 10 rules of 21^st century business management: Organize and manage the business

The conventional definition of the enterprise business is the activity of providing goods and services. The 20^th century enterprise has never organized or managed the activity of providing goods and services, but, instead, lays rigid enterprise organization and management structures over the business. Business change conflicts with the rigid structures, creating unsolvable problems that can only be eliminated by organizing the business for 21^st century business management.

Eliminate unsolvable problems by organizing and managing one integrated business structure

The business must be organized as one structure to integrate enterprise business organization and management. Business activity is organized as capital solutions utilized in performance. Goods and services are organized as the results produced by business activity. Business results and capital solutions are organized together into a business structure. The business is organized by deploying specific capital solutions to performance domains to utilize in performance to produce specific results. The one integrated business structure is utilized for all 21^st century management planning, directing, control, and reporting to leave 20^th century organization and management problems behind. [more...]

Business processes and information systems laid over the business today prevent management of costs, value, and quality

20^th century management lays monolithic business processes and information systems over the business to manage business performance. Results produced by the business are defined as performance and are not specifically identified and managed as a set or chain leading to final results that go to the customer. This prevents to business from managing the cost of producing a result, the result value, the result quality, and the result value added. Much time and money is wasted trying to reconcile ill-defined processes and systems for business collaboration, since result chains cannot be organized or managed.

Rule No. 2 of the 10 rules of 21^st century business management: Generate profits from a chain of managed value and quality

21^st century business management organizes the capital investments available to be utilized in business performance, performance producing each result, and business output results as value-quality chains. This allows capital solutions to be utilized in cost-effective performance to produce value-quality results leading to high-value and high-quality customer results.

Customer results are outputs from managed result value-quality chains

Business management redefines business processes and information systems as process solutions by the results produced and manages each result in the result value-quality chain starting from input results from the supplier, result value added along the enterprise result chain, and the final result to the customer. Result value-added is managed across the chain to contribute directly to the profit result. The business can integrate and manage the chain to help suppliers meet enterprise input needs and to add more value by meeting customer needs. [more...]

20^th century management does not maintain accurate financial and non-financial records on the actual business

Management needs complete and accurate information on the actual business for good corporate governance and business management. This is not possible with 20^th century management used today, which does not organize or manage the actual business. Records are not kept on the capital investments utilized as capital solutions by the business as a set or on the economic output results produced by the business as a set. Thus, there is no set of complete and accurate records on the business to provide actual business management information. Instead, information is maintained against contrived structures laid over the business, such as organization, planning, budget and account, and reporting structures.

Instead of accounting for the business, a chart of accounts is laid over the business. Accounting maintains a sub-set of enterprise records in financial and statistical accounts. The full cycle of performance costs incurred and result value created is not recorded. Many non-financial records that should be maintained are not considered as accounting responsibility and are never recorded and managed as information capital.

The records management problem is getting serious with the explosion in email, file transfers, and other records created, entering, and leaving the enterprise. The enterprise has no way to reference records to the actual business, to prevent records being lost due to information complexity, and to properly manage records as information capital.

Rule No. 4 for 21^st century business management: Keep financial and non-financial records on full business operations and development

21^st century business management requires accurate financial and non-financial records for the full cycle of business operations, along the chain of results produced by the business, and across the operation-development continuum. Business management maintains financial and non-financial records on the actual business to provide accurate and complete management information. The actual business is recorded so that one consistent set of accurate and complete facility records can be maintained on the business and accurate reports on the full business cycle of cost-effective performance producing value-quality results, the results from supplier-provided input results and through enterprise business results to final customer results, and the investment costs in new capital solutions and the return in new result value are provided. 21^st century business management broadens traditional accounting to professional records management for complete financial and non-financial business records. [more...]

20^th century enterprise management cannot optimize operations in the capital solutions that produce output results

The 20^th century enterprise today is organized, but the business is not organized. Capital investments in the business are not organized to implement and utilize capital solutions as part of the business. Therefore, business operations in the capital utilized as specific capital solutions, the performance of the solution to produce specific output results, and results produced cannot be managed. If business operations are not managed, performance cannot be optimized to produce high-quality results and the result value-added that contributes to the profit result.

Rule No. 5 for 21^st century business management "Operate to optimize operations, result value-added, and the profit result"

The ten rules for 21^st century business management help each enterprise to understand how well positioned they are to compete with the coming 21^st century business environment. Rule No 5: "Operate to optimize operations, result value-added, and the profit result" establishes an enterprise routine of managing and supporting capital solutions, managing the utilization of a solution in performance to produce a result, managing the results produced, and managing the return on investment and contribution to profits over time.

21^st century business management manages cost-effective performance to produce value-quality results and profits

Capital is managed to capture the cost of development or improvement, to ensure solutions are qualified to produce the desires results, to capture the result value created to determine the return of investment and the continuing solution worth, and to optimize the investment, qualifications, capacity, and reliability of each solution.

Performance, in the utilization of a solution to produce a result, is managed to meet expectations in performance, to work together with other solutions to produce the same result, and to optimize the cost, effectiveness, capacity utilization, and uncertainty of each solution utilized.

Results are managed to utilize integrated solutions to reach result goals, to create result value greater than total performance costs for result value-added, to produce a high-quality result, to produce the expected volume of results on time, and manage the risk of a poor result.

Results are managed with the capital solutions utilized and performance as the routine, High-value results are periodically optimized by managing the volume, value, quality, goals, and risk of results by optimizing the capital solutions utilized and the performance of the solutions. Optimizing ensures that performance is cost-effective to produce high value-quality results, to return investments in capital solutions, to manage and maintain capital worth, and to provide the result value-added that contributes to the profit result. [more...]

20^th century enterprise management lays strategic structures over the business

20^th century enterprise management contrives structures to define the corporate strategy in corporate plans, maps, investment plans, IT plans, financial plans, and other structures laid over the business. The strategic business is not planned. The overlaid structures do not relate to the actual business and may conflict with structures used to manage the corporation. Strategic value numbers are pulled out of the air. There is no good method to govern the transition from the current corporate status to the strategic objective. Corporate governance cannot govern the actual business, so it governs through compliance with arbitrary rules and regulations.

Rule No. 6 for 21^st century business management: Plan and govern the transition from today’s value to approved strategic value.

The business is “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for cost and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. The business must be planned to know the economic output results that must be produced for business success and the capital investments in the business that are required to produce the results. The business must be managed to know result value, full performance costs, result value-added, complete capital worth, capital investment returns for all solutions, and other essential business measures that are unknown today. The strategic business structure provides the foundation for planning the results to be produced and capital to be utilized at a 2-5 year strategic horizon. Strategic result value is substantiated in specific period by period result goals requiring growth in value of current results and the value of new results enabled by implementation of capital of worth.

Business goals are planned from the current to strategic business for management and good governance

21^st century business management enables good management and governance of the transition to the strategic business by reporting financial and non-financial status against result goals and performance expectations, updating strategic estimates, providing result evaluations and performance assessments, and providing management information on anticipated opportunities, threats, and developments. Good corporate governance ensures responsible business management and planned progress to the approved strategic business. [more...]

20^th century management cannot manage investments, development, or returns

20^th century enterprise management develops capital as a tangible asset or project outcome. The specific capital items to be developed and the specific business improvements to be made are not defined or managed. So, it is impossible to plan and manage capital development to provide a measured return on investment.

Rule No. 7 of 21^st century business management: Manage all capital investments to gain a planned return

The investment management problem is solved by rule no 7 of 21^st century business management. All capital investments must manage the results to be produced by the investment as well as the capital needed as specific capital solutions. The increase in value in new and improved results and the development cost of specific capital solutions must be planned to justify the investment. Development project results are managed to implement solutions to create value and added result value is measured in operations know the return on investment.

Plan and develop both the results and capital solutions needed in results-driven capital development.

21^st century business management replaces capital development with results-driven capital development to actually plan and manage capital investments and development for a measured return on investment. The return on investment is provided by the value created in results produced to date attributed to each capital solution utilized. [more...]

20^th century enterprise management administers human resources as employees

20^th century enterprise management administers human resources and is unable to manage human capital as capital utilized by the business. The business is not organized to produce specific economic output results and human capital is not organized as capital solutions, within the full set of capital solutions utilized to produce the results. Human capital management addresses general human resource development, rather than specific development to add value to the business and increase human capital worth.

Rule No. 8 of 21^st century business management: Manage human personnel, capability, and knowledge capital to increase human worth

Human capital must be managed as readiness capital to keep personnel ready to produce results, production capital to provide the capabilities to produce specific results, and information capital to provide the knowledge required to produce high value-quality results. The objective of human capital management must be to increase human capital worth by producing results of higher value to the business.

The enterprise must organize the business to utilize human capital to produce business results

To follow Rule No. 8, the enterprise must organize the business to invest in and utilize human and other capital as specific solutions in performance to produce high value and high quality results. Human capital is maintained to be ready to produce results. Human capital is developed as capability solutions to utilize specific business processes to produce specific results. Human personnel and capabilities also are supported with the knowledge needed utilize other capital solutions and to produce specific results. [more...]