Response to Vision of the Project
Top management must successfully handle two responsibilities that are crucial to the effective strategic management of the corporation: (1) provide executive leadership and a strategic vision and (2) manage the strategic planning process. Successful CEOs often provide this executive leadership by taking on many of the characteristics of the transformation leader by communicating a clear strategic vision, demonstrating a strong passion for the company, and communicating clear directions to others. Such transformational leaders, like Bill Gates at Microsoft, Steve Jobs at Apple, and Anita Roddick at The Body Shop, have been able to command respect and energize their employees. They not only articulated a strategic vision, but they also presented a role for others in the company to identify with and to follow. Their communication of high-performance standards coupled with their confidence in their fellow employees often raised performance to a high level. Nevertheless, such transformation leaders can be very difficult to work for and their overconfidence may even get the firm in trouble.
1. QUESTION: Do you think a large company such as APPLE made of individual departments should have a performance management for the whole company or let each individual department make their own? Why or why not?
Benchmarking involves learning how other successful companies do something and imitating or perhaps even improving on their techniques. Pioneered in the U.S. by Xerox Corporation, benchmarking is similar to the time-tested practice of “reverse engineering” in which a company buys the product of another company to take it apart in order to learn how it is made. Given that Xerox developed the concept of competitive benchmarking in the early 1980s, it appears that the concept is here to stay. It is especially useful to companies which are falling behind others in the industry.
Xerox developed the concept when management realized that Japanese companies were slowly taking over the copier market by making and selling products superior to those of Xerox at a cheaper price. Since this is a situation which is bound to affect various companies in the future, benchmarking is bound to be increasingly adopted. Unlike MBO, TQM, or reengineering, almost everyone who uses benchmarking finds it to be very useful and well worth the time and money to do it.
2. QUESTION: How can Bench marking be used as a performance process in your organization? What are the possible pros and cons?
