Concept Management Quarter

Chief Execution Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Business Modeling Quarter.

Recitals

Strategy implementation is the enterprise effort undertaken in order to implement the strategy designed during strategy design. The implementation can be divided in four batches:

1. To discover the new strategy designed during strategy design;
2. To analyze what new projects are needed to be launched and/or existing operations are needed to be maintained in order to implement the designed strategy;
3. To create the strategic plan that shall set up goals for every part of the enterprise and budgets available to support their endeavors;
4. To make sure that the created strategic plan is implemented to the best of its potential and results of that implementation serve as the input for strategy discovery of the new DADI cycle.

Concepts

1. Chief execution.
   • Enterprise effort. A determined attempt or a set of attempts undertaken in order to create outcomes of a task, activity, process, project or operations, and/or enterprise.
2. Enterprise goal. A desired outcome towards which the enterprise effort is directed.
   • Goal (objective). Desired outcome or target.
   • Real goal. A goal that an organization actually pursues, as defined by the actions of its members.
   • Stated goal. An official statement of what an organization says, and what it wants its various stakeholders to believe, its goals are.
   • Means-end chain. An integrated network of goals in which the accomplishment of goals at one level serves as the means for achieving the goals, or ends, at the next level.
3. Vision statement. A formal articulation of an organization's vision or mission.
   • Business goal. A state or condition the business must satisfy to reach its vision.
   • Business policy. A business policy is a non-actionable directive that supports a business goal.
   • Business rule(s). A business rule is a specific, actionable, testable directive that is under the control of the business and supports a business policy.
   • Business plan. A written document that interprets the strategic plan for enterprise stakeholders, for instance, financial or governmental institutions with regard to a business opportunity and articulation of how the identified opportunity is to be seized and exploited.
4. Enterprise performance. The accumulated results of all the enterprise's work activities.
   • Efficiency. The degree to which an enterprise gets the most outputs from the least amount of inputs.
   • Effectiveness. The degree to which an enterprise does those activities that result in achieving its goals. In other words, effectiveness is the measure of how an enterprise meets the needs of its clientele or customers.

     Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. -- Peter Drucker, management consultant

   • Capability. An organization's skill and ability in doing the work activities needed in its business.
5. Enterprise administration. Practice and a set of concepts, based on that practice, that define culture of administering all enterprise efforts from identifying business opportunities and up to getting of all enterprise outcomes and/or achieving enterprise impacts.
   • Administration. The process or activity of running a business, organization, etc. or the officials who executive that process or activity.
   • Management. The process or activity of dealing with or controlling things or people.
6. Strategic management. What managers do to develop the enterprise's strategies, policies, and operative rules.
   • Enterprise objective. A measureable step taken in order to achieve the enterprise goal.
   • Objective. A target or metric that an individual, group, and/or enterprise seeks to meet in order to progress towards a goal.
   • Strategic management process. A six-step process that encompasses strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation.
7. Knowledge management.
   • Knowledge.
   • Idea management.
   • Strategic flexibility. The ability to recognize major external changes, to quickly commit resources, and to recognize when a strategic decision was a mistake.
8. Value chain management. The process of managing the sequence of activities and information along the entire value chain.
   • Business development.
   • Deployment. Introduction of a new activity, procedure, or program to an organization.
9. Performance management.
   • Performance. The end result of an activity.
   • Incremental budgeting. Process starting with the current budget from which managers decide whether they need additional resources and the justification for requesting it.
   • Total quality management (TQM). A philosophy of management that is driven by continuous improvement and responsiveness to customer needs and expectations.
10. Compliance management.
11. Entrepreneurial venture. An organization that pursues opportunities, and characterized by innovative practices, and have growth and profitability as their main goals.
    • Self-employment. Individuals who work for profit or fees in their own business, profession, trade, or farm.
    • Licensing. An organization gives another organization the right to make or sell its products using its technology or product specifications.
    • Franchising. An organization gives another organization the right to use its name and operating methods.
    • Strategic alliance. A partnership between an organization and foreign company partner(s) in which both share resources and knowledge in developing new products or building production facilities.
    • Joint venture. A specific type of strategic alliance in which the partners agree to form a separate, independent organization for some business purpose.
    • Startup stage. The stage of development a startup company is in. There is no explicit rule for what defines each stage of a company, but startups tend to be categorized as seed stage, early stage, mid-stage, and late stage. Most VCs firms only invest in companies in one or two stages. Some firms, however, manage multiple funds geared toward different stage companies.
12. Corporate social responsibility. An organization's self-regulated actions to benefit society or the environment beyond what is required by law.
13. Paradox theory. The theory that the key paradox in management is that there is no final status for an organization.

Roles

1. Top manager. A manager at or near the upper levels of the organizational structure who are responsible for making organization-wide decisions and establishing the goals and plans that affect the entire organization.
2. Board of directors. A group of influential individuals, elected by stockholders, chosen to over see the affairs of a company. A board typically includes investors and mentors. Not all startups have a board, but investors typically require a board seat in exchange for an investment in a company.

Methods

1. DADI (or DADI pattern). The enterprise development pattern that divides enterprise administration in four batches: Discovery (D), Analysis (A), Design (D), and Implementation (I). Although the batches tend to be both consecutive and complete, this statement is rarely true. Most frequently, Discovery can occur at any time and the newly discovered data re-starts the process.

Instruments

1. Legal entity. Any entity such as an legally-adult individual or a corporation to which the law grants property rights and responsibilities. Particularly, the rights include capacity to buy and sell, enter into agreements or contracts, assume obligations, incur and pay debts, sue and be sued, as well as be held responsible for its actions.
   • Sole proprietorship. A form of legal organization in which the owner maintains sole and complete control over the business and is personally liable for business debts.
   • General partnership. A form of legal organization in which two or more business owners share the management and risk of the business.
   • Limited liability partnership. A form of legal organization in which consisting of general partner(s) and limited liability partner(s).
2. Corporation. A legal business entity that is separate from its owners and managers.
   • Closely held corporation. A corporation owned by a limited number of people who do not trade the stock publicly.
   • Initial public offering. The first public registration and sale of a company's stock.
   • S corporation. A specialized type of corporation that has the regular characteristics of a C corporation, but is unique in that the owners are taxed as a partnership as long as certain criteria are met.
   • Global company. A multinational corporation that centralizes management and other decisions in the home country.
   • Foreign subsidiary. Directly investing in a foreign country by setting up a separate and independent production facility or office.
   • Multinational corporation. A broad term that refers to any and all types of international companies that maintain operations in multiple countries.
   • Multidomestic corporation. A multinational corporation that decentralizes management and other decisions to the local country.
   • Transnational organization (or borderless organization). A multinational corporation in which artificial geographical barriers are eliminated.
3. Limited liability company. A form of legal organization that's a hybrid between a partnership and a corporation.
   • Operating agreement. The document that outlines the provisions governing the way a limited liability company will conduct business.

Results

1. Strategic plan. A plan that applies to the entire enterprise, formalizes its enterprise portfolio, and establishes the enterprise's overall goals. This plan also defines its business models and may or may not include related competitive strategies.
   • Strategy. The plan for how the organization will do what it's in business to do, how it will compete successfully, and how it will attract and satisfy its customers in order to achieve its goals.
   • Commitment concept. Plans should extend for enough to meet those commitments made when the plans were developed.
   • Roadmap. A strategic plan to create a product or complete a project. A roadmap describes the individual steps required to meet a set of goals or objectives. (see Startup Land: A Roadmap for Entrepreneurs for more info)

Practices

• Some practitioners believe that business plans have no value for the business itself.

  No business plan survives first contact with customers -- Steve Blank, entrepreneur

  Indeed, it is impossible or almost impossible to predict revenues with no historical data. Furthermore, every bank asks about a business plan, but no real bank provides a business with external funding based on a business plan alone. Taking into consideration these observations, business plans may be considered as documents that banks need in order to report to the government and to use in their public relations that the banks support business.

The successor lecture is Validated Learning Quarter.