Modern executives make business decisions based primarily on quantitative methods, with less emphasis on other factors, however, the situation in the world economy can teach us that the numbers are not everything.
Since the 1950’s, the use of quantitative methods has been widespread in business schools, becoming absolute in business practice, Guillermo Edelberg writes in an opinion piece in ElFinanciero.cr.com.
Many companies focus only on measuring their customers’ satisfaction, but to know the levels of internal satisfaction is crucial to overall success in getting customer satisfaction, says author Rosanne D’Ausilio.
“Not many companies do this. Their focus seems to be on the external customer only. But knowing what’s going on with internal customers is key to improving the satisfaction of external ones,” D’Ausilio says.
Executives of companies whose customers are other businesses, rely increasingly on the Internet to find information to guide them in the decision making process.
B2B (Business to Business) companies are a growing presence on the Internet, due to the fact that the number of its customers using the Internet for their business decisions is also increasing.
How I can sell more? Why aren’t customers buying from me? Am I losing out?
Any entrepreneur or executive needs to perform permanent and constructive self-criticism by asking questions such as "How I can produce and / or sell more? Why aren’t customers buying from me? Am I losing out ? ", so says Juan Vega Gonzales, director of PROMIFIN, a program sponsored by the Swiss Cooperation in Central America.
The speed of technological change threatens to dramatically shorten the lifespan of companies who do not make innovation the bread and butter of their existence.
If your company has a tendency to rest in bureaucracy, or to react only when the market demands, it will likely have a shorter life span, and the cause of its death will surely be the so called creative destruction.
Along with wishing our dear readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, we would like to inform you that from December 23 to January 1 we will be in editorial recess.
We will resume our daily selection of Central American business news, and our daily newsletter CentralAmericaData Express, on January 2, 2012.
Our government procurement alert service will remain in normal operation during this period of editorial recess.
There is no faster and more effective way of dooming a good product to failure, than by choosing the wrong pricing strategy.
Companies often put great effort and investment into launching new products. However, everything can go wrong when the pricing strategy fails. Let's look at five examples that can ruin a good project, according to Ariel Baños, economist at Fijaciondeprecios.com and author of "The Secrets of Prices" (Ed. Doubleday, 2011):
In terms of salary, knowing when to say no to the boss has its advantages.
In her article for CNNexpansión, journalist Ivonne Vargas analyses the results of an investigation conducted by the United States Management Academy.
"The study 'Do Nice Guys and Girls Always Finish Last?' conducted on 20,000 professionals in the U.S. and Canada, found that rude men earn 18% more than workers who always want to be seen as 'good' or nice.
To fill a position it is customary to choose candidates from those in the labor market, but many of these may be mediocre malcontents.
In reality, the way to get the best people is to look among those who are enjoying their current job, and who are not actively looking to change firms or position, but would accept an attractive offer. They are called "passive job seekers."
People with a high emotional IQ are a positive influence on work groups. Everyone wants to work with them.
This ability to mediate the mood of a group is considered one of the virtues of Emotional Intelligence as defined by author, psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, who generated great interest in the role that emotions play in thinking, decision making and individual success when he published the book Emotional Intelligence in 1995.
The growing trend of change in economies led by the conservation of the environment is creating a demand for a workforce with new skills.
The employment potential arising from the transition to a greener economy cannot be exploited unless new skills related to green jobs are developed, says a study by the ILO covering 21 countries, which together represent about 60 percent of the world population.
"Where there is good discipline, there is order and where there is order, fortune is rarely lacking" Niccolo Machiavelli.
An analysis of discipline as a component of the character of successful people is the subject of a column by Luz Mary Salamis in Prensa.com.
Luz Maria says:
"We admire people who have achieved success and think about their social lives, in their recognition, but are we really aware of the effort they have made in order to get there? If we read about our heroes, we see that many of their achievements are the result of constant and ordered effort. "
Employers are placing more and more value on employees ability to get involved and to take the initiative to do things independently, using innovative ideas.
Being an entrepreneur does not necessarily mean being the founder of a new businesses, but can also mean having an innovative attitude to finding solutions to problems and the habit of transforming challenges into opportunities. And that is something that can be done from inside companies.