On average, you spend a third of your workday in meetings. Meanwhile, “real” work piles up, leading to endless catch up and discouragement. According to an Epson study, in 2011 in the UK alone, unproductive meetings cost companies $41 billion dollars. Is there a cure for the “meetingitis” that continues to plague companies? 1. LackRead more…

Lower costs, greater efficiency… The promises of outsourcing are many, and industry giants like Boeing are even externalizing strategic tasks like innovation. But what happens when companies become too dependent on external service providers? Boeing had a bitter outsourcing experience with its latest full-size aircraft, the Dreamliner, launched three years late at double the foreseenRead more…

What do Apple, Dell, P&G, RIM, and Amazon, the five champions of operational excellence according to Gartner’s 2011 rankings, all have in common? These companies do not approach the issue as an isolated department-by-department problem. Flexibility, interoperability, and value chain networks contribute to their profitability and guarantees they stay ahead of their competitors. Companies thatRead more…

More information is available from the past 25 years than all that accumulated over the course of the previous five centuries. Unless you know how to find your way through this rapidly growing body of data, information overload can result in lost productivity. How can you keep up with today’s flow of infobesity? Managers haveRead more…

Telecommuting is said to improve employee productivity by 20 to 30 percent, reduce costs for the company, and even have a positive impact on the environment. But a very different reality can lie hidden behind these received ideas: failure is always lurking around the corner, waiting for leaders who heedlessly follow the trend without firstRead more…