Organisations, whether they are geared towards profit or otherwise, consist essentially of people working in groups.
 
Irrespective of the size, geographical location and the level of technology employed, it is the quality of the people that eventually determines the effectiveness of an organisation and the achievement of its mission.
 
A lot has been said about people and organisations but most will agree that ultimately, the aim of any organisation is to ensure it has the right people for each available position, right from the top to the bottom of the organisation. Is this normally the case?
 
“Right person”, if not anchored against certain principles, could be understood differently by many people and organisations.
 
It could simply mean somebody who is not a threat, in whatever ways, to the person making the decision. At the other extreme, the organisation would go to great length to...

THERE was certainly a lot of rethinking done on fundamental concepts at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos last week. Themed "Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild", the annual pilgrimage of world leaders, corporate captains, community leaders and other global movers and shakers took the opportunity on the world recovering from one of the most severe economic and financial catastrophes to shape a better tomorrow.
 
Not even capitalism was spared from being scrutinised, although the conclusion seems to be pointing not towards making any fundamental changes to the philosophy but more towards how capitalism should be applied to benefit the global society at large.
 
The key messages from the conversations at the annual meeting were pointed towards aligning purposes of organisations in the interest of society whilst at the same time not denying the rights of investors to create and receive value from...

By Nik Mohd Hasyudeen Yusoff

The business world is about winning the hearts and minds of the customers and position a business ahead of its competitors. In short, a business should be "competitive". Very straight forward? Not so.

Being competitive or "competitiveness" may not mean the same to different entrepreneurs and business executives. Some feel that being competitive means selling the goods and services at the cheapest price possible, some feel its about selling something different to customers. So, what is competitiveness and how do companies and enterprises attain competitive edge?

Let's visit the observation by Michael Porter on the forces that shape industry competition, something that has been extensively used to...

By Nik Mohd Hasyudeen Yusoff
People are saying that we are now experiencing the "perfect storm" the confluence of events which created havoc in the global economy and affected everybody around the world. Never in the history of the world we have high fuel prices, weak American economy, the burst of the sub-prime bubble, high commodity and food prices and disasters such as those experiencing in Myanmar and China, all at the same time.

Whether we like or not, our businesses would be affected in one way or another. The control over the prices of fuel in Malaysia has been re-structured as the subsidy is no longer sustainable and huge subsidy diverts funds from other productive spending of the government such as infrastructure for the future. The fact that the government has lifted the ceiling...

By Nik Mohd Hasyudeen Yusoff
Most finance functions of enterprises provide accounting and financial management support as part of the overall operations of those enterprises. For small and medium enterprises, the significant portion of the tasks of the finance function revolve around financial reporting activities to comply with the requirements of the laws including submission of tax returns as well as day to day cash management activities. Some may be involve in decision support by providing information for the directors and management in making operating and strategic decisions. While directors and management could be comfortable with the present performance of their finance function, they should also review whether the present performance is adequate in order to face the ever changing business environment. 

What are the additional areas...