Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

They clearly understand the importance of protecting the safety of people using our products, including users’ personal information. Building Trusted Products. To truly understand the value of security, business leaders first need to understand the ongoing role it plays throughout the product life cycle. Sponsored by KPMG.

Team 8

Team P&L Engineering Cost 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 13, 2013

Since 2008, we've benchmarked the performance of nearly 250 operations centers working on both core operations (e.g., accounting, payroll) on dimensions such as cost, productivity, customer experience and ability to increase revenues, using our proprietary methodology, P360. But that's not by accident.

Offshoring 8

Offshoring Cost Benchmarking Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2013

Rather than serving as an adjunct to the core business, or merely a cost center, IT is becoming intrinsic to the very products and services that every company offers. IT abundance will affect every job, product, and customer interaction. Why is this?

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Competitive Advantage Information Technology How To 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Given that the service department is a cost center in most companies, service leaders have long relied on AHT as a critical lever for keeping staffing levels, and therefore costs, in check. AHT has been around for almost as long as the telephone itself. Enabling this type of climate is hard work.

Metrics 10

Metrics Video Cost Cost Center 10

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 2, 2011

In spite of a forest's worth of academic papers and rafts of best practices published by the likes of HBR on the importance of the "soft" stuff, most companies continue to treat people as inputs in a production line. Profitability up 16%, Productivity up 18%, customer loyalty up 12% and quality up an incredible 60%.

Hamel 16

Hamel Customer Loyalty Creativity Cost Center 16

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 4, 2018

The ABU was set up as a centralized profit center with ambitious targets and with direct reporting to the chief operations officer; most often, similar units are organized as cost centers with no specific targets. This setup fosters focus on high-yield projects, actionable analytics, and speed of execution. Support from the top.

Company 8

Company Chief Operating Officer Incentives Project 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 16, 2014

In too many companies, IT leaders, relegated to their cost centers, are subordinate to other C-level executives. Instead, he sees his role as moving the company’s products and services into the digital era in a profitable way. To borrow a computer-science term, the denotational semantics are all wrong.

CIO 11

CIO Information Technology Forrester Technology 11

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 8, 2017

Still early in their health-care-modernization programs, many nations in the Middle East and Asia are already struggling with double-digit annual increases in health care expenditures, well above the rate of expansion of their gross domestic products. Health care needs to define productivity differently.

Health Care 8

Health Care Tourism Pharmaceuticals Cost 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

This poses a deep challenge to companies organized by product and function rather than a customer-centric model like experience and value. In this path, CMOs keep the same title, but are given responsibilities over other areas affecting the customer experience such as e-commerce, product, customer service, and digital transformation.

CEO 8

CEO Marketing Span of Control Sports 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

Lines of business are now getting their own official technology budgets for non-standard software products. CEOs remain reluctant to invite CIOs to the executive table, insisting that IT is a cost center, not the innovation incubator it could be. Shadow IT has been freshly-labeled "departmental IT.".

Supply Chain 15

Supply Chain CIO Budgeting Project 15

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

You’ll often find customer relationship management within marketing, budgeting within finance, supply-chain management within operations, outsourcing within procurement, training within HR, and new product development within R&D. From permanent cross-functional teams, it’s only a small step to having formal capabilities teams.

Development 8

Development Supply Chain Incentives Outsourcing 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 4, 2014

It also has a huge impact on cost, productivity, and customer service. There is a lot of head nodding, smiling, and camaraderie — which is undermined later when participants don’t follow through on the decisions that they didn’t really buy into. Decision spin can be incredibly frustrating at all levels of the organization.

Construction 9

Construction Cost Center Committee Licensing 9

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

We call these people Cost Center Consumers, and they come in two flavors. Divas: These are high maintenance consumers who drive costs up after purchase. They tie up your call centers, incur costly returns, and generate other costs that occur below the gross margin line, which is harder to see.

P&L 14

P&L Supply Chain Retail Price 14

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 1, 2013

We propose business and IT work in that direction by bringing a few tough technological trade-offs front and center, with the goal of finding some middle ground. Today, this topic simply doesn’t come up often enough, leading to a one-size-fits-all approach to managing IT, often as a cost center.

Information Technology 8

Information Technology Technology Cost Center Constraint 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 13, 2013

It''s all the productivity tools and technology you use to get work done, that aren''t part of a line of business; it''s a large portfolio, but any company that has a company directory or something it thinks of as "the intranet" can relate. So what do you do at Google that is different than most IT departments?

CIO 8

CIO How To Technology Directory 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 25, 2013

Service at American Express, he argued, should not be treated as just a cost center; rather, it offered an opportunity to invest in building the sort of warm relationships between American Express and its customers that the venerable company’s brand had always been based on. Bush saw a way to change the game.

Call Center 9

Call Center Attrition Cost Center Learning-by-Doing 9

Tanveer Naseer

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

They make the workplace more political, needlessly enforcing nerve-wracking centers of power. They don’t make products better and they don’t serve customer needs. The team that worked on this product is angry and exhausted. Your competitor is getting nothing but a disingenuous cost center.

Performance Review 100

Performance Review Review Learning-by-Doing Document 100

HR Digest

JANUARY 5, 2022

For example, Bosch recently introduced the Virtual Visor product, which helps improve safety for drivers by using a driver-facing camera and a smart flip-down LCD to digitally block sun glare. The idea for this product came from creative brainstorming by two Bosch associates, who secured leadership support to bring their idea to life.

Human Resources 52

Human Resources Education Resources Innovation 52

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 16, 2015

CSO, CFO, CIO, IT, Ops (Practice Leaders): Typically, these decision makers run cost centers as opposed to generating revenue. Sales, Marketing, GMs, Product (Business Leaders): These decision makers are directly involved in generating revenue and they are judged based on the numbers.

P&L 8

P&L Due Diligence CIO COO 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 8, 2018

BPM reflected the interactions of different stakeholders, from product creation through supply chain to final assembly. This will likely mean a more flexible work structure as well, in the interest of products and services that ideally can be adjusted to anticipate customer needs. How it effects product design and customer experience.

Management 13

Management Software BPM Technology 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Who at your company will be put in charge of turning buildings operations from a cost center to a revenue center? Furthermore, many of these managers are focused more on productivity and safety goals than energy savings, nor are they allocated budgets to acquire new energy-saving systems even when paybacks would be compelling.

Energy 8

Energy Resources Cost Center Budgeting 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Who at your company will be put in charge of turning buildings operations from a cost center to a revenue center? Furthermore, many of these managers are focused more on productivity and safety goals than energy savings, nor are they allocated budgets to acquire new energy-saving systems even when paybacks would be compelling.

Energy 8

Energy Resources Information Technology Cost Center 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 31, 2012

"The CEO wonders how you spend your time, the CFO wonders how you spend the company’s money, the sales folks think you’re too conceptual, too abstract, and not sufficiently focused on the immediate business, and the production and supply chain guys just think you’re full of hot air.". For one, it’s a cost center.

Supply Chain 13

Supply Chain Real Estate ROI CFO 13

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 6, 2016

IT gains a much deeper understanding of the business and acts as a communication bridge between the two departments, ultimately helping IT deliver a better product for marketing,” Mobley said. Like marketing, IT is often seen as a cost center rather than revenue generator. Now, it’s a very complementary relationship.

Marketing 8

Marketing Banking Technology System 8

LDRLB

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

The Institute for Corporate Productivity ( i4cp ) has just released its latest report entitled “The Future of HR: The Transition to Performance Advisor”. This report combines the results of an i4cp survey of 384 business leaders, with interviews of more than 70 senior HR leaders of large organizations (i.e.,

Ulrich 137

Ulrich Metrics Report Storytelling 137

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 18, 2012

The rapid growth of natural gas production (the biggest energy story of the year) and the high-profile failure of one solar manufacturer (Solyndra) have confused people about the prospects for clean tech. In a mini political tipping point, six Republican senators publicly supported an extension to the wind production tax credit in the U.S.

Supply Chain 11

Supply Chain Constraint P&L Energy 11

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2012

Think profit center, not cost center. This means embedding best practices around how to leverage the economic impact of Hispanic talent and market development into new revenue streams via new product, brand and/or policy introductions. Diversity must be approached as a best practice; not an initiative.

Policies 15

Policies Short-term Diversity Education 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2012

Think profit center, not cost center. This means embedding best practices around how to leverage the economic impact of Hispanic talent and market development into new revenue streams via new product, brand and/or policy introductions. Diversity must be approached as a best practice; not an initiative.

Policies 8

Policies Short-term Diversity Education 8