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process and time table. Both have been credited with important contributions to TI. Budgeting is a necessary part of managing a large complex organization. But like strategic planning, it is a means to an end. What is the end? Overall, in a modern corporation, the end result of top management's efforts must be to cause excitement, innovation, productivity, and risk taking, so that purposeful work occurs across the organization. Leadership in these times requires more than ministering over current resources. Control must be simultaneously "loose and tight," to quote one study of what makes successful companies successful. • Cultivate a customer-driven culture. This is easier said than done— particularly if layers of years and practices have obscured the fact of who really pays the bills. Few established companies have built a distinctly better mousetrap that will be purchased indefinitely by consumers—regardless of service, support, and continuing usefulness. Even the high-rise microcomputer companies are today scurrying to become user-friendly. From a recent book titled Entrepreneuring by this author, here is the second of ten commandments for building a growth company: "Define the business of the enterprise in terms of what is to be bought, precisely by whom, and why. "Businesses/institutions perform certain tasks that provide the goods and services the public wishes to own and use. The nature of these tasks usually changes over time, as those who are served change. The successful company predicts and responds to its chosen customers' needs. At all times, some customers are growing in their ability to buy; others are declining. The astute manager ascertains which is which. The big company corollary to the above is that all hands have to get, believe, keep, and live the message that customers are in the driver's seat. But this is not clear from a look at the contents of a majority of company orientation programs. Or training programs. Or publications. Or performance reviews. Chances are you will find little on the customers of these enterprises. The winds of entrepreneurialism have died, deflating the corporate sails as far as the crew is concerned. Sailing, instead, with the prevailing breeze is not a formula for long-term success in a stormy competitive world containing both sunshine anchorages and hidden reefs. Conclusion I have cited five relatively straightforward actions that have the potential for opening up an established company to fresh thinking. Such thinking is the precursor to behaviorial change, that is, changes in what people do. These new actions are required if established companies are to join in the entrepreneuring revival crossing the country. In short, the management of resource-laden enterprises is confronted by a major opportunity to move with, if not ahead of, the times. Entrepreneuring is a spirited way of life. The door to the club is a wide one. More members are needed. Former members are particularly welcome. C Dr. Brandt also is senior lecturer in management at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. This article is taken from the forthcoming book Entrepreneuring in the Established Company, Copyright © 1983, by Steven C. Brandt. t3^?/compucer Grapnics By the end of the decade, you will just connect your personal computer to our Cray and tune in the cable channel and become part of the movie. Instead of buying pay-TV movies, you will pay us for interactive movies that you're part of We present generic possibilities and you create varieties based on your personality and abilities. You control things, create a custom movie that will never be seen by anyone else or never do anything else. The more interactive a system is, the more it becomes what you want to be seeing, what you want to be doing, what you want to be exploring. You'll be saying a lot about what you're getting through this system. GARY DEMOS Vice-President/Co-Founder Digital Productions
Object Description
Title |
Forecast: Computer grahpics |
Author |
Demos, Gary |
Subject |
Computer graphics -- Forecasting |
Citation |
Tempo, Vol. 28, no. 2 (1983), p. 10 |
Date-Issued | 1983 |
Source | Originally published by: Touche Ross, & Co. |
Rights | Copyright and permission to republish held by: Deloitte |
Type | Text |
Format | PDF page image with corrected OCR scanned at 400 dpi |
Collection | Deloitte Digital Collection |
Digital Publisher | University of Mississippi Library. Accounting Collection |
Date-Digitally Created | 2010 |
Language | eng |
Identifier | Tempo_1983_Spring-p10 |