The "alignment' problem hampers all enterprises today

All of us have heard of various alignment problems to align the organization, processes, information systems, human resource administration, financial and IT strategies, knowledge and capability development, accounts, capital development, outsourcing, supplier specifications, customer needs, tangible and intangible assets, etc with the business. All of these alignment problems are caused by rigid 20^th century organization and management structures that are laid over the business. The rigid structures conflict with the actual business, causing business change problems, and go further out of alignment as the business changes. Periodically new organization, accounting, process, administration, and other structures must be redesigned to align them closer to the business, and then the cycle is repeated.

All attempts to solve the alignment problem have failed and the problem remains unsolved today

Hundreds of books and solutions exist to solve the "alignment" problems, but alignment problems remain unsolved. Alignment problems can never be solved by laying new structures over the business, or by contriving methods to align overlaid structures with each other. The overlaid structures cannot be aligned with the business, because the actual business has never been defined or organized.

21^st century business management eliminates 20^th century alignment problems

The solution to the alignment problem is obvious. The generally-accepted definition of the enterprise business is "the activity of providing goods and services". The business has two components: "the activity of providing" and "the goods and services provided". We must organize the business to align the business activity in capital solutions utilized performance with the goods and services provided as results. This eliminates alignment problems by organizing the business for 21^st century business management. [more...]

20^th century enterprise management problems can never be solved by conventional thinking

Unsolvable problems of 20^th century enterprise management with reorganization, alignment, costs, value, worth, investments, returns, intangible assets, complexity, etc are well known. What is not well known is the cause; the failure to manage the business. Solutions are prevented by conventional thinking that allows only incremental improvements in the way that enterprises have always been managed and prevents the thinking needed to manage the actual business to eliminate the problems.

Conventional thinking limits the worth of individual human capital

People need to go beyond conventional thinking to gain new capabilities and knowledge to increase their worth by producing higher value results. But conventional thinking prevents this, because the enterprise has never managed human personnel, capabilities, and knowledge as capital, never developed human capabilities as solutions to produce results, never managed result value created, and never managed the worth of human capital.

All the enterprise needs to do is to organize the business for a base of new conventional thinking in the 21^st century

But the enterprise cannot organize the business, defined as "the activity of providing goods and services", because it is not the way things have always been done. High-worth human capital must go beyond conventional thinking to learn the actual business and gain the breakthrough competitive advantages of 21^st century business management. If you can go beyond conventional thinking and increase your own human capital worth, look at organizing the activity of providing goods and services for 21^st century business management, and provide a new base for conventional business management thinking in the 21^st century. [more...]

20^th century management lays many organization and management structures over the business

20^th century enterprise management used today lays an organization structure over the business, instead of organizing the business. Since the business is not defined and organized it is impossible to integrate business organization and management in one business structure. Additional structures are laid over the business for planning, directing, control, and reporting, such as corporate plans, business processes, account charts, and scorecards. Different structures are used for investment planning and capital development. The proliferation of structures creates business and information complexity. Rigid overlaid structures conflict with the actual business causing the wide range of unsolvable 20^th century enterprise management problems.

21^st century business management integrates business organization, management, operations, and development

The actual business is organized for 21^st century business management. One business structure defines the current business and another defines the desired strategic business, so that management organization, planning, directing, control, and reporting are focused on the transition from the current to strategic business structure. Business operations are organized by result groups within the business structure to produce specific chains of results. Capital development is organized and managed through sub-sets of the structure for results and performance solutions to be developed. Projects are managed through a project business structure that organizes new results and solutions being developed and the capital assigned to the project as specific performance solutions. The actual strategic and current business structures are used for all organization, management, and governance needs. [more...]

The economic crisis shows the confusion in business, finance, and economic management

The economic crisis causes serious concerns about the methods for business, financial, and economic management. All of a sudden, banks, financial institutions, and other enterprises realize that they do not manage their actual business and finances. We see the impact in the worldwide economic downturn. The crisis has shown one thing conclusively. We do not understand fundamental business, financial, and economic management problems. Efforts to date are guesswork at ways to ease the situation.

We need a new solution to business, corporation, financial, and economic management

Continual business, financial, and corporate governance problems are caused by deficient 20^th century management used today to manage the enterprise rather than the business. Economic crises occur because businesses are not managed in concert with markets, demand, supply, and coherent government policy. But, no one knows real business management. Corrective actions address conventional enterprise management, and impose more government regulation and compliance reporting on enterprises.

Now is the time to wake up to the unsolvable problems inherent in 20^th century management that lays easily-distorted contrived structures over the business, preventing actual business management.

Business management is the fundamental solution to business, financial, and economic management problems

Business management is the only way to manage the actual business as the foundation for 21^st century corporate, financial, and economic management. Business management replaces overlaid 20^th century structures with one business structure. Information technology focuses on detailed business data on capital invested, economic output results produced, performance utilizing capital solutions to produce results, business descriptors, enterprises, and time periods for strategic planning for one accurate set of management information. Corporations are managed as consolidations of corporate businesses. Finances are managed as part of capital invested in the business. The actual business is manage and consolidated as part of the economy, in concert with markets, demand, supply, and government policy.

We must open our minds to the new business management solution needed

Business management often is rejected, as not the way things are done. But, we cannot continue to manage the enterprise as has always been done. We must open our minds to unsolvable 20^th century management problems and expose the actual business hidden under overlaid structures. The current recession is the ideal time to address the problem, while business is slow, capital solutions are under-utilized, the problems are fresh, and new solutions are being sought. [more...]

Information systems today report massive amounts of information, but no information on the actual business

Information complexity is a common outgrowth of contrived organization and management structures laid over the business. The organization structure creates entities for unit, position, job, function, manager, etc. Management structures create entities for objective, process, center, account, group, activity, responsibility, object, station, and on and on. Each generally-accepted structure uses different entities and different names and definitions for the same entity, preventing information integration and reconciliation. Although much work and many information systems are involved, no actual business data is captured and no actual business management information is reported for management use.

R-pM manages one set of consistent, complete, and accurate business management information

Result-performance Management (R-pM) utilizes modern information technology to organize the business for 21^st century management. R-pM stresses information quality to report one consistent set of information to manage the actual business. R-pM eliminates information complexity by organizing and managing the business through six information sets to define precise capital solutions utilized by the business, business performance, business results, business interactions, and business change over time. [more...]

The economic crisis shows the problems with 20^th century Business Process Management

Financial institutions and other corporations state that they have problems due the the failure to manage asset value, full operating costs, and the margins in outputs produced. This is part of the basic problem causing the economic crisis, failure to manage the business. One of the major features of 20^th century management, Business Process Management, prevents management of the business. Corporations must manage processes and cannot manage specific capital investments, output results produced, and the performance of capital solutions utilized to produce a result.

Business processes must be replaced by result chains to manage costs, value, and quality

Rule 2 for 21^st Century Management is to: Generate revenues from a chain of known value. The rule says to define the results produced and manage each result in the result value-quality chain; starting from input results from the supplier, proceeding through result value added along the corporate chain, and ending at the final result to the customer. Business processes used today do not allow this. The corporation must redefine business processes by identifying the results produced and the capital solutions utilized within the process to isolate the most cost-effective performance to produce the highest value-quality result. Results must be managed result by result within a set to produce the input result to the customer value-quality chain.

R-pM manages result value-quality chains as part of the managed business

Result-performance Management is the only method to manage the corporate business and result value-quality chains to know full costs to produce a result, the value of the result, the value-added by performance as well as capital solution qualifications, performance effectiveness, and the quality result by result in the chain. R-pM ensures that customers receive managed value and quality in goods and services from the corporation. [more...]

The coming prolonged recession provides the opportunity to replace dead-end 20^th century management

21^st Century Management Magazine explains the unsolvable problems with 20^th century management used today that caused all past crises as well as the current crisis. The crisis is also the opportunity to replace 20^th century management with breakthrough 21^st Century Management to organize and manage the actual business, businesses within a corporation business, and businesses within an industry, market, or economy. Result-performance Management (R-pM) provides the foundation for a Business Management Program to manage businesses, financial capital, and economic cycles properly to prevent future crises.

R-pM is the only solution for business, financial, and economic stability

R-pM organizes the actual business for 21^st Century Business Management. Finances are no longer managed by separate structures, but are managed as part of all corporate or financial institution capital. Corporations are no longer diverse entities, but are businesses that are part of the corporate business. Industries, areas, sectors, and economies are businesses that are built up from component businesses. Economic management is based on business and consumer result demand and supply and capital solution demand and supply and builds up from organized businesses in an industry, area, or sector.

Governments can stimulate and recover their economy through a Business Management Program

A free download available to R-pM Community Members at result-performance-management.com “A Government Business Management Program to Answer the Economic Crisis” outlines the need, content, and advantages of the program. A forward-looking government has to opportunity to lead the world to solve the economic crisis and prevent future crises. The Business Management Program is the only concrete solution to build confidence that action is underway, to provide the near-term economic stimulus, and to implement competitive advantages for breakthrough long-term growth. [more...]

The financial crisis is caused by business performance problems

Business performance used by financial institutions, corporations, and other enterprises today is a problem. Business performance is defined to include both the performance of the business in the utilization of capital and the output results produced by the business. Capital utilized in performance and results produced are mixed together in business processes, performance management, key performance indicators (KPI), and other business performance structures laid over the business. Business performance improvement stresses performance, performance quality, and the flow of performance without managing improvement to business results produced by the performance or the investment in capital solutions utilized by the business to manage investment returns and capital worth (also called asset value).

Business performance management prevents actual business management

Structures laid over the business hide actual business capital solutions, actual business performance, and actual business results produced. The business changes with each change to a result produced or new investments in capital solutions utilized. Business change cannot be managed and conflicts with overlaid structures causing unsolvable 20^th century management and performance problems.

R-pM converts performance management to Result-performance Management

Result-performance Management (R-pM) organizes the actual business through organized and managed capital solutions utilized in performance to produce specific results in a business structure. The one integrated business structure is used to manage the business for each part of the enterprise. The organized businesses within a larger enterprise add up the enterprise business structure. R-pM manages each business in the enterprise and the complete enterprise business to eliminate performance problems through 21^st century management. [more...]

The current financial crisis shows the need for actual best business management practices

After every corporate financial, management, or governance crisis or scandal the call arises for best business management practices. However, nobody knows what real best business management practices are, since no one has any experience in actually organizing and managing a business. The practices installed are never actual best business management practices, but are a collections of rules and regulations or methods to better manage structures that hide the business and prevent actual business management.

20^th century best practices are the best of bad business practices

20^th century best business practices are a collection of organization, process, system, and administration structures laid over the business for a particular purpose, which have proven effective elsewhere. All 20^th century best business practices are bad business practices, because they add to enterprise overheads and costs, and do not help the enterprise to operate or manage the actual business.

R-pM provides the business definitions and structure for good best practices

Result-performance Management (R-pM) instills best practices across the business for 21^st Century Management. R-pM manages the business by managing the capacity, investment, qualifications, reliability, return, and worth of capital solutions; utilization, cost, effectiveness, uncertainty, and value-added of each capital solution in guided performance; and the volume, total cost, quality, risk, value, and value-added of each result produced. The set of solutions deployed and utilized to produce a result is defined as a capital module. The capital module that produces the best value-quality result can be defined as a best practice. All best practices are then built into the business structure to operate and manage the actual business.

The only way to prevent future corporate financial, management, and governance problems is to use R-pM to organize and manage the businesses. Governments that want to improve local business competitiveness significantly and prevent future crises, must investigate R-pM. [more...]

Past and current financial crises have been caused by failure to manage the actual business

All financial crises, corporate governance problems, and other problems due to inadequate corporate or financial institution management have roots in one fundamental problem, the failure to organize and manage the actual business. 20^th century management lays many structures for organization, strategies, account charts, processes, scorecards, etc over the business to manage the enterprise. The actual business in the cash expenditures for specific capital investments, performance costs from capital utilization, value created in results, and value added providing profits, capital returns, and capital worth is hidden under overlaid structures and never reported to management.

Enormous sums of money are used to cover up actual problems and restore confidence

No attention is being paid to eliminating the pervasive financial institution and corporate management problems that led to the crisis. The funds are used to pay a higher worth for the currently worthless and unsellable assets of those who mismanaged corporate and personal funds, and transfer the potential further losses and gains to taxpayers. In effect, we keep covering up the unsolvable problems of 20^th century management that have never been solved and can never be solved by more 20^th century management.

Governments should help enterprises manage their actual businesses to eliminate 20^th century management problems

The big change is the change in thinking required to put aside the lifetimes of misleading teachings and experience and visualize and understand the business as “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for costs and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. Managing the business is common sense used by all to manage their personal businesses. The investment in managing the actual business is very small and recovered quickly in the added value-added of a managed business.

The cost of a government investment program to assist local enterprises to organize their businesses for 21^st Century Management is insignificant compared with the cost of bailing out companies and covering up the failures of 20^th century management. The program will provide transparent reporting of the business for management, shareholders, and regulatory authorities. The program will provide real economic boost in the new value created by organized and managed businesses. [more...]