| TOOLS |
BENEFITS |
| Marketing |
| Product / Market Grid Ansoff business unit strategy model |
Very useful in business unit strategy processes to determine business growth opportunities via four growth strategies of market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification – formed over 2 dimensions: products and markets. |
| Brand Asset Valuator |
Helps determine if a brand has value as perceived by its customers, and guides what that value is. |
| 3 C’s |
A framework to help marketers understand the business environment in which they will be competing. |
| Marketing Mix |
The marketing mix is also known as the 4 Ps, which describes the tactical elements of a marketing plan. |
| PLC (Product Life Cycle) |
The product life cycle (PLC) describes the stages of growth a product goes through from launch to the end of its life. |
| GE / McKinsey Matrix |
A model to perform a business portfolio analysis on the Strategic Business Units of a corporation. |
| Sales Mix |
Indicates the contribution of product wise or segment wise sales in total sales to be balanced to achieve maximum profit. |
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| IT |
| Nolan’s IT Growth Stages |
Describes an approach to IT ‘s role in business and helps management understand its role as the organization evolves. There are 6 stages: initiation, contagion, control, integration, data management, maturity |
| Enterprise Architecture |
Helps management understand the relationship between an enterprise’s business components and the outside environment, providing guiding principles for the enterprise as its complexity grows |
| Innovation Adoption Curve |
Describes the adoption and acceptance of innovations by target customer groups based on their characteristics (demographic and psychographic) |
| Project Management Life Cycle |
Helps with the planning and utilization of resources for specific projects |
| RASCI Model |
Used in project management to help identify roles and responsibilities for projects. |
| Systems Thinking / Dynamics |
An approach for studying and managing complex feedback systems, such as one finds in business and other social systems. In fact it has been used to address practically every sort of feedback system. |
| Strategic Alignment of business with IT |
A framework to Aligning Business and IT Strategy from four dominant alignment perspectives: strategy execution, technology potential, competitive potential and service level. |
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| Finance |
| Capital Asset Pricing Model |
Helps determine the price of an individual security, portfolio, or some other asset. |
| Discounted Cash Flow |
Used for investment finance, real estate, corporate finance to determine the attractiveness of a project, company or some other asset, given the time-value of money. |
| Valuation Models |
Useful for justifying the value of an asset, business, share, project or company. |
| Risk / Return Trade-off |
An investing principle that assumes higher returns usually comes with higher risk. The converse may also be true: lower risk is often associated with lower returns. |
| CFROI and TSR Models |
CFROI is an Economic Profit (Cash-Flow) based corporate performance/valuation framework on Economic profit basis, mainly used by portfolio managers and corporations. TSR represents the change in capital value of a listed/quoted company over a period (typically 1 year or longer), plus dividends, expressed as a plus or minus percentage of the opening value. |
| Plausible Theory for unknown risks |
Provides new insights into decision making with unknowable risks. |
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| Org/People/HR |
| Mintzberg Configuration |
Describes six different organizational structures: entrepreneurial, machine, professional, diversified, innovative, and missionary. |
| Kepner-Tregoe Matrix Decision Making Model |
A special, well-orchestrated, synchronized and documented Root Cause analysis and decision-making method. |
| Belbin’s Team Roles |
Identifies nine different behaviors and roles used by members of a team, helping participants understand how to effectively manage the team’s needs and relationships. |
| Greiner’s Growth Model |
Suggests that organizations go through 6 stages of growth, each requiring relevant strategies and associated structures to succeed. |
| Change Behaviour |
Helps to understand how one can change the behavior of people. Helps to predict deliberate behavior, because behavior can be deliberative and planned. |
| Maslow Hierarchy of Needs |
Used in business for understanding the values and behavior of people within organizations and an organization’s customers. |
| EFQM Model |
A model that guides organizations as they progress on their path toward excellence by determining where they are in the journey, providing a common language to ensure proper exchange of ideas, integrating existing and new activities, and offering a core structure to guide the organization’s management system. |
| Path-Goal Theory – Leadership Model |
Understanding of how a leader can affect the performance, satisfaction, and motivation of a group. |
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| SCM/IT/Ops Mgmnt. |
| Benchmarking |
A method for comparing an organization’s practices against the best practices from other industries to understand where possible areas of improvement exist |
| Toyota ’s Total Production System / JIT |
A method to help companies continuously improve the quality of their goods and services. |
| Deming Cycle |
Designed as a business feedback loop to help managers change and improve parts of their product process. It involves 4 areas: plan, do, check, and act. |
| Michael Porter’s Value Chain |
Describes a chain of value creating activities organized in a way where the value results from providing a product or service exceeds the cost. |
| TQM: Six Sigma, Kaizen |
An approach to quality management that outlines the responsibility of everyone involved in the production of a product or service to ensure the highest quality at all times. |
| Experience Curve |
Devised by Boston Consulting Group, it states that the cost of producing a good or service decreases as a firm gains experience in producing it. |
| Crisis Management |
Deals with giving the right crisis response (precautionary, structural and ad-hoc). |
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| Strategy |
| SEPT / PEST |
PEST is an analytical framework that helps management to examine external factors in its business environment when planning strategy. The components are: political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological. |
| SWOT / TOWS |
SWOT is an internal analysis of the company. The reversal of SWOT in the form of TOWS is used for strategy formulation |
| Balanced Score Card |
Used to help management compare financial and non-financial measures against a target value, linking inputs/processes/outcomes/customer in a way that helps the organization achieve its strategic objectives. |
| BCG Matrix |
Developed by the Boston Consulting Group, it classifies a company’s business activities based on market share and market growth compared to its competitors and helps management with resource allocation decisions. The activities are further organized into 4 categories called stars, cash cows, questions marks and dogs. |
| Porter’s Five Forces Model |
A framework for industry analysis and business strategy development that helps companies understand industry attractiveness and profitability. |
| STRATPORT – PADSS |
STRATPORT aids strategic planners to formulate and evaluate portfolio strategies to maximize long-term profit with short-term net cash flow limit. |
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| Accounting |
| Activity Based Costing |
Helps management identify the cost of activities, such as manufacturing and engineering, which are then associated with resources related to those products and services. |
| Economic Value Added / Breakeven Analysis |
Describes a company’s financial performance by measuring the surplus value created on an investment. Breakeven point is used to identify the no loss or no profit situation of a product or service. |
| Ratio Analysis – Z-Score |
Used to predict the financial distress of a business. It can help forecast the potential for business failure. |
| Variance Analysis |
Measures the difference between budgeted and actual results. |
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| Economics |
| Forecasting |
Used to predict the future condition of the economy. |
| Pricing Model |
Helps to formulate various effective pricing strategies |
| Stochastic Model |
Describes the sequence of random events or variables in a process and the possible outcomes that may result. |
| Scenario Planning |
Used to plan multiple possible futures, usually based on different inputs and influences. |
| Harrod-Domar Model |
Helps determine economic growth in development economics based on the level of savings and productivity of capital. |
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