The Manager's View

One of the most satisfying experiences I have had is building a workforce that is focused on achieving and exceeding organizational goals. I have found that taking five steps can have significant impact on this process. The six steps are: ·       Design the organization and workforce structure around the goals of the organization. This is more easily accomplished if you are starting a new business and more difficult for older and more established businesses. As I have mentioned in past posts, it is helpful to envision an organization successfully meeting its goals and think about the structure and employees driving that organization. Those goals can be making a certain level of profit, reaching a certain market segment, being a market leader, providing a certain level of service and so on. Many businesses may have all of the above and more as stated goals.   With these goals in mind it is important then to look at the organ...

When introducing a new product or service to the market a key, and often critical, consideration is the price for this offering. I have seen folks simply take the cost of production and use a percent mark up as a pricing model. This is the simplest model and it provides a good example for the need to consider other pricing model options. Here are 10 things to consider before setting a price for your product or service: ·       Mark up Based on Cost Vs Retail . In the opening paragraph I gave the example of a model being used that marked up a product by a percent over the cost. The cost used here is generally direct cost or labor and materials. If someone wants a 30% of the asking price to be the mark up, then using 30% of cost won’t provide the desired outcome. Simply put, it is the wrong math. If something costs $1 to make and it is marked up by 30% for a selling price of $1.30 then the profit of based on the asking price...

Starting a new business doesn’t necessarily mean that large amounts of money need to be raised. Even businesses with the potential of capturing a new market of substantial size may not require a substantial investment. This may be good news for individuals with a great idea coupled with expertise and know how. I have seen individuals lose control of their ideas and their vision of a successful company by seeking out investors to support the company in its early stages. This can be avoided by building the business though alliances and involving individuals that can benefit if the business is a success. Steps in sitting up a low cost venture should include: ·       Identify potential prospects that would benefit from the product or service to be offered. These prospects can be interviewed to see if your offering is going to fill a market need. They may be enlisted to further refine the offering. ·       Onc...

It doesn’t appear that government intervention will solve the issue of providing affordable health care. Indeed, Medicare coverage is likely to diminish at a time health care cost is increasing. Further, it appears the efforts to cover the uninsured will only increase the overall health care costs. Nor does it appear that advances in technology and medicine are providing health care that is more affordable. The medical community continues to march forward in its ability to cure the most deadly diseases and rebuild the most broken human bodies. For individuals to benefit from the advances in drugs, surgical techniques and other medical advances requires a good deal of money or the very best insurance (also a good deal of money).   There is a chance that new entrants in the health care market space will find ways to reduce costs and provide quality health care. These entrants will likely be disruptive innovators and enter the market by serving...

One of my earlier blog posts discussed the steps in setting up a new business. The first step was to identify the job to be done for the customer. The steps following were very straightforward and methodical. You can read this post at http://gwrresearch.blogspot.com/2013/01/six-steps-for-starting-new-business.html . I have recently been involved in two start-ups that may prove as useful examples for a less structured, more evolutionary approach. The first is a collaboration between Rice University, MD Anderson Cancer Center and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. The job to be done is to create and commercialize devices for delivery of health care at a distance. The focus is on cancer prevention and care. The organization is known as the eHealth Research Institute. As it turns out, the steps following the identification of the job to be done and the development of a vision statement may be more evolutionary than taking clearly identified metho...

Often there is such a focus on running a business, closing a deal or reaching an objective that attention is given to immediate outcomes. The result of this sort of intense focus may cause a manager to miss important cues that affect the bigger picture. I have a friend that has been very successful in the business world. He and I have started several businesses together and enjoyed some success. I have learned however to not only listen to his words but to try to understand the true nature of his intentions.   I have learned for example that when he is asked to participate in a business venture and he acts very interested and responds to the request for participation by saying “Let me study this” or “We’ll see”, he means “No”. This may be a desire to be pleasant and courteous rather than giving a clear answer. I find this to be true in many business encounters. I have been in countless sales calls where the potential client gave what could be considered buy...

I was invited to help with this project about a year ago. Dr. Robert Satcher a surgeon at MD Anderson and former astronaut spearheaded the project along with Jan Odegard of Rice University and Sharon Pepper of MD Anderson. After a year this project has come together. This is an opportunity for the creation of new devices to deliver healthcare and provide healthcare for populations that are currently underserved. Houston, we have an opportunity. The electronic Health Research Institute (eHRI) was created by formal agreement on April 11, 2013 as a research collaborative between the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University, and the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. The aim of the eHRI is to be a  catalyst for the advancement, integration, translation and acceleration of research and technology to support and enable distance delivery of healthcare , with ...