Executive Summary

Customer Profile
Bluffton Motor Works, located in Bluffton, Indiana is a global leader in custom-engineered fractional motors. Bluffton Motor Works serves a wide variety of OEM manufacturers and industrial production facilities.

The Challenge
Bluffton Motor Works (BLMW) needed help identifying highly important, high-impact initiatives for their business.

In the Best Companies for Leaders survey, management consultancy Hay Group identified the top 20 best-in-class companies as well as what makes these companies known for great leadership.

Key findings of the Hay Group's research:

• When asked what organizations value the most in leaders, 83 percent of the best-in-class organizations as compared to others said “execution.”
• Organizations value leaders who can achieve results through others.
• In tough economic times, employees desire more communication and clarity around goals. They want their leaders to become more visible and to be leading from the front.
• During tough economic times, best-in-class companies create clarity, encourage development, drive accountability and recognize successful leaders.
• The top 20 best companies for leaders make leadership development a priority.

In a recent Gallup Management Journal study, the resulting cost from bad project management is reaching astronomical levels.

Why?

Apparently, "when it comes to project management, most organizations put their practices before their people. They place more emphasis on rational factors -- the process itself -- and less on emotional drivers that could lead to project excellence -- like their employees' engagement with the project and company."

Consider these statistics:

• A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries and across various industries, found that only 2.5% of the companies successfully completed 100% of their projects.
•  A study published in the Harvard Business Review, which analyzed 1,471 IT projects, found that the average overrun was 27%, but one in six projects had a cost overrun of 200% on average and a schedule overrun of almost 70%.

What's more, it seems that this trend is here to stay. With an ever-growing need for accessible and integrated data, organizations require larger platforms to manage supply chains, customer relationships, and dozens of other crucial systems. Mega-software projects are now common in private and governmental organizations. Development is not slowing down, especially in emerging economies.

Tough times require tough decisions.

During times of economic uncertainty, strategy refinement and execution need to become a top priority for business leaders.

SWOT Analyses are one of the top-rated core services offered by Six Disciplines.  

SWOT is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in your business.

The aim of any SWOT exercise is to identify the key internal and external factors that are important to achieving your strategy. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories:

Internal factors: These are the strengths and weaknesses internal to the organization. The internal factors may be viewed as strengths or weaknesses depending upon their impact on the organizations objectives. The factors may include all of the 4Ps (product, price, place, promotion) as well as personnel, finance, manufacturing capabilities, and so on.

External factors - The opportunities and threats presented by the external environment. The external factors may include the economy, technological change, legislation, and socio-cultural changes, as well as changes in your marketplace or competitive position.

BOTTOMLINE: While it's important to regularly conduct a SWOT analysis on your business, it's critical to revisit SWOT during times of economic uncertainty. In particular, it's essential that you focus on the internal factors that you can control; not the external factors you can't control. By focusing on internal factors, you'll be better able to unearth new opportunities for innovation.

Speaking of SWOT - here's links to some VERY useful SWOT worksheets.