The agenda by Michael Hammer: a book review

¶ … Agenda by Michael Hammer

The pioneer of reengineering business concept and author of Reengineering the Corporations, Michael Hammer now come up with the new concept of economy that has transformed the tradition supplier driven economy to more customer-dominated era. In his book The Agenda he has highlighted industrialized economies are setting new standards of doing business and giving powerful position to customers. Customers are no longer committed to one vendor due to technological changes and shortened product life cycle. Therefore it has now become important for all businesses to learn new agenda of doing business in the customer driven economies. The book presents significant nine agendas for doing business distributed in different chapters as the book proceeds.

The first agenda for conducting the business is Running the business for customers. To do so business must adopt easy to do business with strategy. This means that creating convenience for customers to do business with you, making it effort less to contact you and building a relationship which is painless. This strategy is applied in the business through removing barriers in the way customer keeps the contact with your business, customizing different classes of customers through market segmentation, maintain updated customer database to know what they will ask for before they actually do, make customer feel comfortable for doing business with you, get customer involved in the project and measure the things that customer care.

The second agenda discussed is Giving customer what they want. This means adding more value for your customer. When customer finds your business to be valuable they are willing to pay what company wants and you can earn more profit on that. More Value Addition is the strategy in creating customer value. Practically it is achieved by providing solution instead of just product or service, analyze customer problems that go beyond the product, service or the company, observe what customer does with the product or service and lastly price the customer on value not merely on cost.

The third agenda is Putting process first. Customer is more concerned with the value created by the company. Process in simple terms is described as organized group working together to create value for the customer. Working together means all the work functions of the organizations are assembled to the common corporate goals. In practical terms good process or workable process is the one that is technologically advanced, customer focused, holistic and flows through an organized design on working. The process approach is focused on the collectivism and developing the skills and abilities of the work groups rather than individuals.

The fourth agenda is Creating order where chaos reigns. Author in this agenda defines the parameter for success which is built on coordination and discipline. Business activities must fit together and done in the right order. The work order must be shifted from ad hoc to more planned and disciplined. When the work functions are in the form of groups it doesn't decrease or effect the creativity of individual on the contrary it has been observed that individual skills are enhanced when working as a team.

The fifth agenda talk about Measure like you mean it. The measurement part to be involved in management not just limited to the financial aspect of the company. In today's business world shareholders and customers are more concerned about improving performances. Measurement system should be of such that it identifies the inefficiencies in the system. People must be aware what things are measured and management must apply business models in their measurement process. Measure designed must be objective, timely, easy to calculate and easy to understand.

The sixth agenda is Managing without structure. Currently businesses are geographically distributed with different managers controlling their territory. This approach had narrowed the focus of managers on the corporate goals and objectives. The new concept of managing is redefining managers as the representatives of markets, products or process instead of having control over them. To practically apply it requires establishing managerial teamwork and cooperation, group-based reward system to be introduced and formal structure to be replaced with inspirational leadership.

The seventh agenda is Focus on final customer. In business like food item manufacturing and electronic item manufacturing, product reaches its final customer after passing through number of intermediaries like wholesalers, distributors, retailers, dealers and other intermediaries. It takes long time to reach the final customer as it passes along various hands and each phase adds to its cost and no value. This has given rise to the importance of intermediaries in today's market place. Intermediaries are treated differently; manufacturers and intermediaries must collaborate to leverage each other's capabilities for creating distribution system that maximizes value for the customer.

The Eighth agenda is Knock down your outer wall. Performance is no longer assessed on the internal functions of the company. It is evaluated on company's working with their customers and suppliers. Getting rid of the overhead cost will create real value for the company and enhance the profitability. Breaking the walls means integrating operations with suppliers. The process of placing an order and fulfilling it should be considered as one process. The five guidelines that can be followed which will assist the companies to collaborate are the final customer comes first, the entire process to be designed as a unit, no activity to be performed more than once, work should be done by the person in best position of doing it and the entire collaboration should be one.