The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade

by Michael Hammer

Book Overview

These are tough times for business. The old solutions no longer work and the silver bullets of the late 1990s have proven to be hollow. Business-people need a tool kit of new ideas and techniques.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400047730
• ISBN13: 9781400047734
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Crown Business
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The customer economy requires more than reenginering

Michael Hammer became a guru by coining the term reengineering and writing bestsellers on business processes. Reengineering was a revolutionary "big idea" that took businesses with storm in the early 1990s. A decade after his first publications, Hammer's book, "The Agenda", acknowledge that reengineering is no "silver bullet" ... it cannot stand alone. Modern management needs to use several business concepts simultaneously to thrive in the new customer economy, i.e. where supply exceeds demand (overcapacity), customers are sophisticated and informed buyers, and many products are becoming commoditised. With long-term trends like globalization and technology, there's no foreseeable end to the customer power that flows from it. So we better be prepared. The nine building blocks of Hammer's "Agenda" address the ways in which firms are managed, organized, and operated: 1. MAKE YOURSELF EASY TO DO BUSINESS WITH (ETDBW). Take a long hard look at yourself ... from your customers' point of view...!, and then redesign how to work to save them time, money, and frustration. 2. ADD MORE VALUE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS (MVA). To avoid the trap of commoditization, in which you fight for a minuscule margin against a horde of look-alike, you need to do more for your customers. 3. OBSESS ABOUT YOUR PROCESSES. Customers care only about results, and results come only from end-to-end processes. Manage them, improve them, appoint owners for them, and make everyone aware of them. 4. TURN CREATIVE WORK INTO PROCESS WORK. Innovation doesn't have to be chaotic. Bring the power of discipline and structure to sales, product development, and other creative work. Make success in these areas the result of design and management, not luck... 5. USE MEASUREMENT FOR IMPROVING, NOT ACCOUNTING. Most of your measurements are worthless; they tell you what has happened (sort of) but give you no clue as to what to do for the future. Create a model of your business that ties overall goals to things you control; measure the items that really make a difference; and embed measurement in a serious program of managed improvement. 6. LOOSEN UP YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE. The days of the proudly independent manager running a sharply defined unit are over. Collaboration and teamwork are now as necessary in the executive suite as on the front lines. Teach your managers how to work together for the good of the enterprise rather than the stab each other in the back for narrow gain. 7. SELL THROUGH, NOT TO, YOUR DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS. Don't let your distribution channels blind you to your final customer, the one who pays everyone's salaries. Change distribution from a series of resellers into a community that works together to serve that final customer. Be ready to redefine the roles of everyone involved in order to achieve that end. 8. PUSH PAST YOUR BOUNDARIES IN PURSUIT OF EFFICIENCY. The last vestiges of overhead lurk, not deep in your company, but at its edges. Exploit the real pow

no real breakthrough, but still very useful

I don't think people can make several breakthough in his life time, and PROCESS is what Hammer is all about, and boy he is good at it. Now come a more mature book, and still he talks a lot about process. It is not a complain, just a statement. I love the book and do a review for local magazine in indonesia.I think it is an important book for all high level management teams to think about. It is not that difficult or specific. It is enjoyable and fun to read. Mostly common sense. Mostly the usual things you will hear from any good adviser.But still, this is an important book, and you still gota read it.

Also for sml and med size co's who work with the big boys

This is the most thought provoking book I've ever read. I picked it up because I thought I could learn some new tricks. I had the honor of working with M. Hammer (in a group setting) in the mid-90's while working for a Lrg Pharmaceutical Co in NJ. He helped them to re-engineer their entire global procurement process. It was a very enlightening experience. This time I am looking to integrate his ideas into leading edge B2B Extranet development. As a developer/designer for 8 years, I am looking to re-invent myself with an eye toward better application development process and its use for Large, Medium and Small company integration.P.S. Keep a notebook handy, some of the most incredible ideas will flood your brain, and there is no way you'll remember them all!

Re-Defining Terms of Engagement for a Perilous Future

In the Preface, Hammer makes a remarkable observation about the impact of a previous book, Reengineering the Corporation: Since its publication, "businesspeople have been deluged with books promising simple recipes for eternal victory. Perhaps part of my atonement for this unintentional transgression has been to write The Agenda." In his newest book, Hammer identifies and illuminates "a set of nine emerging business concepts that underlie how the best companies around are mastering today's turbulent environment." He devotes a separate chapter to each of the nine "Agenda Items." They are:1. Make yourself easy to do business with you (ETDBW)2. Add more value for your customers (deliver MVA)3. Create a process enterprise (make high performance possible)4. Tame the beast of chaos with the power of process (systematize creativity)5. Base managing on measuring (make managing part of management, not accounting)Hammer: "The purpose of measuring is not to know how the business is performing but to enable it to perform better....A good measure must be accurate, actually capturing the condition it is supposed to describe. It must be objective, not subject to debate and dispute. It must be comprehensible, easily communicated and understood. It must be inexpensive and convenient to compute. It must be timely -- that is, not requiring a long delay between the occurrence of the condition and the availability of the data."6. Loosen up your organizational structure (profit from the power of ambiguity)7. Sell through, not to, your distribution channels (turn distribution chains into distribution communities)8. Push past your boundaries in pursuit of efficiency (collaborate whenever and wherever you can)9. Lose your identity in an extended enterprise (integrate virtually, not vertically)At the end of each chapter, Hammer provides a brief but precise summary of recommended guidelines and action steps based on key points. Hammer proposes a full "agenda" of items and relevant issues which, obviously, decision-makers in each organization must modify to accommodate their own organization's specific needs, interests, issues, problems, resources, and opportunities. How to plan and then implement a program once an agenda has been formulated? Hammer responds to this question in Chapter 11. He suggests several strategies for integrating efforts with sharp focus. He explains why it is so important to devote much more attention to "people issues." He offers what he calls a "20/60/20" formula for managing different constituencies differently. He explains why committed executive leadership must constantly be evident. He also shares some ideas about effective communication. And finally, he emphasizes the importance of achieving verifiable improvement throughout each phase of the implementation process. I have learned from my own experience that it is highly desirable to pick the "low hanging fruit" as quickly as possible. In the 12th and final chapter, Hammer shifts his attention

HIGHLY DISAPPOINTING!

As one who has taught business management and been a counsultant and counsellor for over thirty years, I was disappointed with this book. It was the author's "I-know-it-all" attitude more than anything that irked me. There are dozens upon dozens of books in the marketplace on what businesses should do and what they should not do to maximize profits. Some books are excellent, others are not worth the money. While there are some basic management principles that should always be adhered to particularly when it comes to financial and quality control, motivating employees and customer service, each business also has some unique aspects. Business is not a "one shoe fits all" game. Over the years, I have come across far too authors and business owners/executives of companies, both large and small, who feel that just because they know what works for THEIR COMPANY, they ASSUME they know enough to run any business and make it successful. This could not be further from the truth. An owner or C.E.O of a successful hotel chain, for example, will not have sufficient knowledge of the industry to run a transport company. He will have no idea of federal transport law, logistics, dispatch, hub readings, log miles, calculation of drivers' pays, or even what makes the industry tick. The successful hotel chain CEO, without question, knows his business, but it is a myth to think that just because he (or she) knows his own business, he automatically becomes an expert on everyone's business.There are some excellent books in the marketplace on general business principles that are worth their weight in gold, unfortunately, this is not one of them. "The Agenda" contained a lot of mumbo-jumbo and irrelevant chatter that could have been summed up in a lot fewer chapters. Some truly good and highly recommended books are "the Myth of Excellence" by Fred Crawford and Ryan Mathews, "21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader" by John C. Maxwell, and "Think Like an Entrepreneur" by Peter Hupalo.