Does Management Get It?

"Corporate executives are more likely than their project managers to minimize project challenges, deny or limit resources, and then overstate a project's success. "

Especially if they are in sales.

Ain't that they truth.

Can't comment further - need to go and make up for the lack of resource on our major project - oops no, I need to go and do something totally unrelated but equally urgent.

Hi Chris,

This is very true!

When a salesperson became successful and named for good to run part of the business related to outside, sales, services, R&D, and production. She/he will manage the company's products and services with autority and ego or ego and autority. The result is stagnation of the whole organization.

If sales are slow, the technical department needs to innovate and create attractive products to customers, old and new, and at lower price for more attractiveness. However, there are no many definitions what to do to innovate, except the price, old and new. Most of the time, we buy raw materials at lower price or change one of them from one supplier to another by paying less. Excuse is, work fast, we have time-pressure!

If sales are up and profits come in, hiring more salesperson is important but we cannot get new or repairing equipment to produce faster and/or more efficiently to save some money. Excuse is, produce and fill orders!

Marketing research is a fine science but very few managers understand how to create pertinent questions to obtain and collect valueable answers for value-creation with new products. For example, sales people, old and newly hired asked customers, mainly contractor painters: What would you as performance for a good primer sealer latex for new dry-wall in the construction industry? The product was never reach the market because was too expensive. However, everyone recognized that the product performed as was asked! Management misunderstood that contractor business is based on price or very price sensitive and quality is secondary. Why we build up questions, did work by questionning people that never helped R&D and sales, and finally the company?

Yes, sales people must contact consumers, negotiate prices, and check good supply and delivery of everything, products and bills and ask for a cheque.

Sales department must stay in sales, Gil.

its a reality..

there is even a popular theory that business is sales, even if there is nothing to sell but the idea...

hmmm.

Chris

Nah, corporate executives pale in comparison to politicians.

Yep.

http://pmpaspeakingofprecision.com/2010/08/24/4-mistakes-when-making-engineering-or-process-changes/

there are a host of ways for them to mess it up.

Milo