Tag: Business Owners

Keep the “spam” in the can

I hate spam. I’m not a big fan of marketing in general, though I understand it is a necessary part of getting business. This may sound odd coming from someone who wants to help small to mid-sized businesses get online, but one does not automatically preclude the other. Online marketing and “SEO” can be effective and non-spammy; it just takes some work. I’ll be posting an article on this in a couple of days, but I want to refer you to this article by ZDNet SEO Whistleblower Stephen Chapman that really captures how I feel about spam and evil marketing in a manner far more eloquent that I ever could:
The guru facade: Internet marketing shams, flimflams and other BS.

Enjoy!

Quality Control

Quality

Quality is in the eye of the beholder; a subjective attribute given a product by users, owners, creators, critics, and competitors.  Quality is also objective; an attribute defined by a collection of standards.  From a marketing standpoint, quality becomes a basis for consumer acceptance, appreciation, and brand loyalty.  To manage quality, it is essential to understand and quantify both the desired subjective and objective attributes for the product at hand.

Objective quality standards come from proven industry “best practices”.  Depending on the industry, these may be drawn from an entity such as the International Standards Organization (ISO).  For example, the ISO 29001 standards detail the best and safest known practices for the oil and gas industry.  Failing to follow these practices may result in hazards to human life, the ecology, and the company (BSI, 2011), a la the BP/Deep Water Horizon fiasco or worse.

Generally, standards governing bodies collect and maintain information on successful methods of performing and managing the processes that produce some consumable item.    The ISO is the most recognized and has comprehensive data on many processes in many industries.  They also provide a tried and tested framework for taking a systematic approach to managing an organization’s processes (ISO, 2011).  There are other methods of managing quality that may better meet whatever standards the company chooses to adopt.

Subjective standards focus on the expectations of the afore-mentioned group: users, owners, et al.  These quality standards are only understood through thorough communication with the members of this group, and are the basis for developing the requirements for a product development project.  This is especially true in the IT field, where users are the stakeholders upon who the final product will have the greatest impact.  The processes for managing these quality points will be part of the overall Total Quality Management (TQM) plan.

The rest of this paper will explain three common quality management methodologies, their pros and cons, and when they may be a best fit for a project.

ISO 9001:2008

A sub-set of the ISO 9000 family of standards, the 9001:2008 is a standard for Design, Development, Manufacturing, Sales and Distribution (Quadrant, 2011).  Regardless of industry, these standards form the basis for a quality management framework that can be custom tailored to any company’s needs.  The standards cover everything from internal and external quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty, environmental performance, supplier quality and human resource management (Godfrey, 1997).  Key principles of the ISO framework are:

1) Customer Focus

2) Leadership

3) Involvement of People

4) Process Approach

5) System approach to management

6) Continual improvement

7) Factual approach to decision making

8) Mutually beneficial supplier relationship

(Foong, 2001)

The advantage of the ISO 9001:2008 framework is the international acceptance of the standards which may be very valuable in the global marketplace.  A disadvantage would be the complexity of the framework.  Certainly, with so many business units involved, this quality management model is more than a “one-man-show” in any but the smallest companies.  Although adaptable to even small businesses, full implementation of this methodology seems best suited for larger, widely distributed, companies that could well benefit from the consistency of a standardized TQM initiative.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is intended to take TQM to the highest level that it can attain.  Named by a Motorola engineer in the 1980’s, Six Sigma (a Motorola trademark) refers to the number of standard deviations from the norm in product quality defects per million opportunities (iSixSigma, 2010).  An “opportunity” is defined as a chance for nonconformance, or not meeting the required specifications (GE, 2009).

Touted as more than a quality management system, Six Sigma is a business philosophy that attempts to instill quality in the very heart of the company, down to each employee.  At the core of the model is continuous granular statistical analysis of processes, identification of issues that detract from quality, and taking steps to improve the process.  The value of this could be great if there is near total buy in at all of the company levels.  Achieving this may be difficult as the constant, repetitive information gathering can become tedious (Nussbaum, 2007).

The advantage of Six Sigma would be the company-wide commitment to improvement that the philosophy attempts to instill.  Also, like ISO, the brand recognition of the Six Sigma philosophy is global and useful for marketing.   The disadvantages seem to be the increased attention to measurements and the focus on improving existing processes rather than developing new ones (Nussbaum, 2007).  This model would likely be best used in manufacturing where processes change little even across model changes.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is possibly one of the most used quality management methods in IT.  This method uses statistics from other companies’ high-quality products as a comparison by which to rate your own.  Originating in manufacturing, the practice has spread to other business units over time, creating goals to be met and surpassed based on numeric data; Mean Time between Failures (MTBF), numbers sold, product returns, sales calls made, etc. ad nauseam (Reh, 2011).

The advantage to benchmarking could be the enhanced awareness of what needs to be done to beat the competition.  The disadvantage may be the difficulty and time it takes to get the information on competitors.

This model could fit any situation as it is product/service specific.

Thoughts and recommendation

Each of the models has merit and the choice of which model to adopt is contingent on what the company wishes to achieve.  The ISO and Six Sigma models only have real value when there are certified practitioners in key management and training positions throughout the company, ensuring that business-wide standards are developed and adhered to in everything the company does.  Without that kind of commitment, the value is diminished to mostly just the marketing angle of touting their use.  Benchmarking to competitors is probably easier to implement as there would likely be a greater focus on what really matters in the products/services in question.

Added Value

Regardless of the model chosen as a company standard, there must be a commitment to follow-through.  While it is possible to assign metrics to measure objective quality in some things (chrome content in stainless steel to make parts, for example) the subjective measurements are harder to define and enforce: Are requirements concise and understood or broad and vague; is software code clean, effectively commented, well documented and user-tested, or is it not?  How can these be measured and managed?  Much of quality comes down to the individual(s) doing the work.

References

BSI. (2011). ISO 29001 Oil and Gas. Retrieved May 3, 2011, from BSI Group: http://www.bsigroup.com/en/Assessment-and-certification-services/management-systems/Standards-and-Schemes/ISO-29001/

Foong, L. M. (2001). ISO 9001 Quality Management Principles. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from TQM Case Studies: http://article.tqmcasestudies.com/iso9001-principles.html

GE. (2009). What Is Six Sigma? Retrieved May 5, 2011, from GE.com: http://www.ge.com/en/company/companyinfo/quality/whatis.htm

Godfrey, A. B. (1997). Statistical Standards and Quality. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from Quality Digest: http://www.qualitydigest.com/oct97/html/qmanage.html

iSixSigma. (2010). New to Lean Six Sigma. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from iSix Sigma: http://www.isixsigma.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=201&Itemid=27

ISO. (2011). ISO 9000 essentials. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from International Organization for Standardization: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_9000_essentials

Kerzner, H. (2009). Project Management. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Nussbaum, B. (2007, June 11). Six Sigma: So Yesterday? Retrieved May 5, 2011, from Businessweek: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_24/b4038409.htm

PMI. (2008). Project Management Body of Knowledge. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania: Project Management Institute, Inc.

Quadrant. (2011). Quality Commitment. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from Quadrant Plastics: http://www.quadrantplastics.com/index.php?id=158&L=1

Reh, F. J. (2011). How to Use Benchmarking in Business. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from About.com: http://management.about.com/cs/benchmarking/a/Benchmarking.htm

Stewart, T. A. (1996, October 28). Beat the Budget and Astound Your CFO. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from CNNMoney.com: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/10/28/203926/index.htm

 

A Little Project Failure, Anyone?

This is a story of a small project that went nowhere and ended by slinking off with a whimper to the land of wasted time.

I was working for a small internet marketing start-up, performing the role of website developer and search engine optimization (SEO) specialist. Our standard package involved tweaks to a client’s existing website meta-data, a series of marketing videos linked to the website, implementation of a mailing list system for subscriber capture and newsletter broadcast, and creating a linked blog site for the client to draw Google search-engine interest through regular addition of new content. The typical project was un-complicated and small in scope.

We were contacted by a local business to increase their website traffic with the goal of increasing their business volume. The client asked if some modifications could be made to the site to “punch it up a bit”. To close the deal, I agreed to some aesthetic improvements in addition to performing the typical SEO work. As part of the project, the client was given a training course in the use of their blog, and the value of this blog was explained in depth. It was shortly after this point that the project began to degrade.

As part of the website aesthetics sub-project I met with the client to discuss the particulars. I proposed a list of  modifications (background color, a simple cascading style sheet (CSS) to get away from obsolete table formatting, a change to the images in the existing slideshow) and noted the client preferences for layout and color scheme in a text document on my laptop. At meeting end, I assured the client that the changes would be done in a week and that I would schedule a meeting at that time to close the project. That scenario played out, but not as I expected.

At the next meeting I was presented with a new list of vague changes by a client that was very unsatisfied. Their complaints ran the gamut of the site “just not looking right” to disappointment in the number of “hits” the site received. Taken aback, I once again explained what our marking processes did, the time that it took for the SEO modifications to “mature”, and the large part that their contribution to their blog would make (I had been checking their blog since installation and they had not made one entry). Being one who does not like to say “No”, I reviewed their list with them, culled some things that were too impractical to work on, and promised that I would work on the rest. This had not been a good day, and I resolved to redouble my efforts to satisfy this client.

Sadly, this was not to be. On subsequent meetings and visits for video shoots I was met with more verbal change requests and comments of disappointment with the site. Clearly, this project had stopped being about SEO and had become a full-blown website design and development project, without any budget increase, defined schedule, or discernable goal. If you are shaking your head then you’ve probably been there.

Businesses exist to generate cash flow and make a profit. Any activity conducted by a business must have some tie to this rule, even those that are tangential (i.e.: the company picnic, which is part of team building and morale boosting to spur employee retention and production). In the project world, where large expenditures of time, effort, and money are consumed, it would be wise to know that the expenditures would have a return on investment (ROI). There are some simple guiding categories that can be used to determine if an ROI is in the offing:

  • Cost reduction – The elimination of hardware, software or “wetware” (people) expenses that can be attributed to the proposed project.
  • Cost avoidance – The avoided cost of additional resources for a specific job function because of an increased capacity to perform that job function in the future.
  • Increased revenue – The increased dollar amount of sales attributed to the project.
  • Retained revenue – The dollar amount of sales that will be lost if the project is not pursued.     (Monteforte, 2005)

The returns may not be all about the money. In a closing address to the PMI global congress in North America Dr. Harold Kerzner put it like this: Time and cost used to drive all decisions. Now we’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, are we providing value?’ (Miller, 2009). Kerzner suggests that the issue goes beyond purely monetary consideration to include goodwill or reputation (Miller, 2009). As the old Canon ads used to say, “Image is everything”.

The marketing project my company proposed had a defined business objective that was aligned with the business strategy: Improve the Google search-engine ranking for the client’s website, based on a variety of commonly used search keywords, to place them in the top ten of page-one search results. So, how did that work out? The project was hijacked by the client’s wish to redesign their website, a task that would do very little to help their business. Oddly enough, while pulling the alignment from the business goal made the project futile, it did not stop the project from continuing. I believe the project continues in other hands, probably with the same results.

There were plenty of mistakes made in this fiasco, not least of which was in my neglect in setting the scope of the additional website development (a lesson well learned!). But the largest error was the client’s focus on a task with minimal value to the business. Even admitting that the website is an extension of their “image”, and that a minor update in aesthetics could provide a little intangible ROI, the goal of the project we were selling was an increase in revenue through increased visibility and awareness of their business, something that they agreed to but never followed through on. In retrospect, changing the website was probably a pet project that had been simmering for some time, a sticky trap for an eager sap that became “the job that never ends”.

Learn from my unfortunate experience. When you get a client that wants a “little favor” on top of what you are offering, find out exactly what it is, clarify the scope with them (in writing is best. Just bang out the document right there on your laptop), and make sure they understand what to expect. You may even be able to negotiate the price up. Most of all, have a definite measurement for completion of the work, or you may be caught in an endless loop.

References

Miller, C. (2009, October 15). Harold Kerzner: Project Managers Must Understand Business. Retrieved January 28, 2011, from Voices on Project Management: http://blogs.pmi.org/blog/voices_on_project_management/2009/10/harold-kerzner-project-manager.html

Monteforte, J. (2005, November 15). Five Steps to Business/IT Project Alignment. Retrieved January 29, 2011, from CIO Update: http://www.cioupdate.com/budgets/article.php/3564406/Five-Steps-to-BusinessIT-Project-Alignment.htm

Networking the small and mid-sized business (SMB)

If your business is in the Small to Medium Business (SMB) range (10 to 100 employees), and computers are part of the work environment, you may want to ask yourself a couple of questions:  Do you have multiple instances of the same software spread throughout your plant? Maybe you have different versions of the same business documents on multiple computers, making the latest version difficult to track down.

If this sounds like your operation, you’re not alone.  Putting all your computers onto a network would give you better control of things.  But, mention the word “network” to some business owners and you can see their eyes glaze over at the thought of high-priced contractors, expensive hardware, and months of development.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  Networking has been an integral function of most operating systems since at least Windows NT (the underlying code base for every Windows since Windows 98).  And Unix (the daddy to Linux) was built for networking, so it should come as no surprise that Linux machines can talk to each other “out of the box”, after a little tweaking.  The hardest part of networking is figuring out exactly what you want to do with it.

In most cases, your networking needs will be few:

  • An email system so your employees can talk to each other and your business contacts
  • a file repository so that your people can store, find, and edit important documents
  • an application server so that you can have all your software in one place and keep it up-to-date easily (note, this doesn’t necessarily reduce your licensing fees, but it helps with application management)
  • a Database server so that you can maintain information easily.

This may sound like a lot for an SMB, but all these servers can live on one server.  Ok, that sounds confusing. It may help to know a little nomenclature.  There are two kinds of “server”; the actual hardware (computer), and the application software (program).  The hardware, if robust enough, can handle all the bullet-point items above and still function as a work station for someone.  It wasn’t always that way, but with new multi-core processors on the market in typical desktop computers, there is enough power to accomplish this type of multi-tasking.

There are advantages to networking, and with a little research you can probably accomplish the task in a few hours.  If you don’t have the time, or you just don’t trust yourself, you can always hire a contractor.  I know a guy…jeff@jeffdoesit.biz