written by Tony Schwartz
What do all people who achieve true excellence and consistently high performance have in common?
The answer isn’t great genes, although they’re nice to have. It’s the willingness to push themselves beyond their current limits day in and day out, despite the discomfort that creates, the sacrifice of more immediate gratification, and the uncertainty they’ll be rewarded for their efforts. (more…)
by Lynette Ryals and Javier Marcos
The practice of business-to-business selling is in a curious state. On the one hand, commentators and academics are repeatedly telling us that transactional selling is outmoded and that relational selling is the ‘new normal.’ On the other hand, most businesses are operating with traditional models of salesperson recruitment and training. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) estimates that in the U.S., $15 billion is spent per year on sales training. However, many salespeople find the training they receive either ineffective or less than useful. Given the importance of skills and capabilities to sales performance, businesses need to reconsider who they recruit into sales roles, and how they train them. (more…)
written by Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind
Uncertainty — market uncertainty, regulatory uncertainty — can adversely affect the success and growth of a company. But there’s another kind of uncertainty that takes a big toll on performance: the lack of certainty that exists within a company. (more…)
Written by Cliff Justice, KPMG Partner, Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory
There is a revolution taking shape in the business services industry, one that disregards the traditional shared services and outsourcing paradigms and centers the design of support services on the needs and priorities of the enterprise as a whole.
Since the information technology outsourcing mega-deals of the 1990’s and through the expansion of offshoring and business process outsourcing in the 2000’s, companies have consistently sought ways to use sourcing strategies to reduce the cost of back office services. (more…)
