TWA Consulting

20/08/2020

Did you know about "10 x 10 x 10" rule?
See the explanation by Michael Virardi 👇👇👇

06/05/2020

Should you increase or decrease your marketing budget during the crisis❓ (Part 2)

Our general advice is: during tough times your marketing efforts and budget must be increased. 💡

However, please, DO NOT take that advice literally. Think for yourself! If, for example, your business related to fitness or tourism, or any other business suspended by decision of local governments, then it is clear that it makes no sense for you to increase your marketing budget now (however, you will have to do this after government restrictions lifting).

Therefore, our advice is relevant for those services that could be provided online, or restructured to change their focus from offline to online, for example, retail, education, financial and other services.

Good news for you is that many companies in those industries decreased ❗ their marketing budgets and efforts. In fact, this means that they voluntarily reduced the scale of their business 🤯 and thus reduced their competitive pressure in the industry (remember Porter’s Five Forces).

Besides, our advice is relevant for companies for which the crisis has created a significant increase in demand for their services, for example: Internet providers, video conferencing services, distributed team management services, and others.

Namely, we are inspired by the example of Etsy (Internet retailer specialized on handmade goods) that has invested extra 5,000,000 USD through the end of April for advertising at Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Bing platforms.

And what about you? Did you increase or decrease your marketing budget? Share your opinion in the comments below. 👇

27/04/2020

Should you increase or decrease your marketing budget during the crisis❓

In difficult times, most companies seek to reduce costs. Since the largest expense item in almost any company is the wage fund, companies are cutting staff. This is a classic approach that students have been taught in business schools for many years. And these days, many companies "solve the problem" just like that. The Marketing Department and marketing budget are almost always victimized first. ✂️

However, today management thought has evolved and leading companies have realized that in difficult times they need to strengthen their marketing efforts 💪 to get a chance to maintain market share, or even increase it due to deflated competitors who shredded their marketing budgets and teams. Of course, in order to win this set you have to have a strong Marketing Department, and not an asylum for relatives and friends 🤗 of the company owner, as often happens.

So, what is your company strategy: classic or modern?
What is your bet in this game: to cut the marketing budget or to increase?
Share your opinion on the comments below. 👇

01/01/2020

Dear clients, followers and friends,

We would like to thank you all for being with TWA Consulting this year.

2020 year is coming bringing to all of us a lot of opportunities as well as new challenges: demands for organizations will grow, as well as requirements for managerial competencies of their leaders.

In 2020 we are going to improve and grow your business providing you The Wise Advice.

We wish you a Prosperous and Happy New Year!

Warm regards,
TWA Consulting Team

23/12/2019

Negligent employees damage your company. Find out how to solve the problem and thus become an effective leader of a super productive team.
https://lnkd.in/d7zfbeQ

28/11/2019

2/3 of full-time employees are feeling burned out at work. 🤯 Guess why?

A few days ago Forbes.com published an article “How a Career Break Can Benefit Your Résumé” by Caroline Castrillon. In this article, Caroline talks about how a break in your career can be valuable. Among the main reasons for a career break she mentioned burnout at work.

67% of American workers feel burned out at work according to a Gallup study. 📈
Shocking numbers, isn't it? 😲

However, it seemed strange to us that such a respected resource as Forbes, referring to such a problem, suggests treating the symptoms, and not the cause of the problem. 🤷

❔ Have you ever wondered, what is the main reason for the burnout of two-thirds of the staff at work?

Based on our experience, the main reason is incompetent management.

Let's check whether our conclusion coincides with the research conducted by Gallup one year ago? 🔍

According to the study, there are 5 main reasons:
1. Unfair treatment at work
2. Unmanageable workload
3. Lack of role clarity
4. Lack of communication and support from manager
5. Unreasonable time pressure

So, as you can see all of the reasons are a clear manifestation of incompetent people management. 🗣️

✍️ Share in the comments your opinion about this problem and reasonable solutions.

11/11/2019

Today, during our we would like to discuss such a thing as overtime work.

The first country adopted 8-hour working day nationwide was Uruguay in 1915. Germany in 1918. France in 1919. The USA in 1937. And in the UK, for example, 8 hour limit to the working day has never been achieved.

In the 20th century, many scientists in the field of psychology, physiology, management and others conducted a lot of scientific studies on the relation of labor duration and productivity. And they discovered the significant harm of work overload.

And many executives these days are aware of the overtime danger.

However, there are also businessmen who take advantage of their success for promoting anti-scientific and incompetent approaches in team management. One of the prominent representatives of this cohort is Jack Ma, founder of one of the largest online retailers in the world (Alibaba), the richest man in China in 2019 according to Forbes magazine.

Jack Ma requires subordinates to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. And calls it a "blessing", promoting this approach in the media.

We believe that such an approach is ineffective and even dangerous, because it harms employees health, damages organization and leads to work-to-family conflicts.

For example, a scientific study published in the Occupational & Environmental Medicine journal shows that work overload and overtime hours increase workplace errors and accidents by 61%.

Negative health effects for employees of such an “advanced” management approach related to the following problems:
👉 Emotional exhaustion, burnout syndrome, depression,
👉 Decrease in efficiency and velocity of work,
👉 Coronary heart disease,
👉 “Karoshi” or death from overwork (mainly happens in China and Japan).

Main negative consequences for the organization are manifested in tangible losses and lost profits from:
👉 Worker absenteeism (due to sick leave),
👉 High staff turnover,
👉 New employees search and adaptation,
👉 Negative working environment due to complaints and grievances.

And what is your opinion? Share it in the comment below. ✍️

04/11/2019

We believe that “work under pressure” arise when managers are unable to organize and plan the workload of their subordinates.

For example, a task assigned to a subordinate on Friday evening with a deadline on Monday morning. Or a 5 hour task assigned with 1 hour time limit. 🤦‍♂️ When a subordinate did not meet a deadline, he/she is insulted and blamed. 🤬

💡Instead of learning how to organize and plan the work of subordinates, the manager considers that the harder he pushes, the better they work.

We consider this a sign of managerial incompetence.
Moreover, in accordance with the Dunning-Krueger effect, these managers do not understand their incompetence and proudly take it outside the company, publishing among job requirements on job search websites.

Main problems of working under pressure:
- Low efficiency and effectiveness,
- High level of subordinates’ stress,
- Tensions in the team,
- Negative attitude,
- Blame games,
- Negative selection: departure of competent personnel, and simultaneous accumulation of timeservers, because in order to work in this organization you do not need to be competent, you need to be thick-skinned.
- Other problems.

Tell us about your experience working under pressure. Do you want to work with such a manager? ✍️️ Write in the comments. 👇

25/10/2019

Let’s talk today about micromanagement.

Some managers believe that they must thoroughly understand the smallest nuances of their subordinates’ work. Or they think that in order to make a good decision, a manager should sort out everything, to the smallest detail. Such people believe that this is the pinnacle of managerial skills. 🗻

We believe that this is a typical managerial mistake.

Firstly, this approach kills the initiative. And over time, such a manager will gather around himself subordinates who will run to him on every issue. The manager himself will lament that his subordinates are incompetent and he is forced to pull all the work on himself. While he have built the work in this way by his own hands. 🤲

Secondly, it is impossible to be an expert in all areas. A good manager gather around himself professionals who understand their areas much better than him. And this is the strength of a good leader: to create a favorable environment for the work of pros, to organize work in such a way that they show the maximum result without telling them what to do and control every micro step.

And what do you think of micromanagement?
✍️ Write in the comments.

18/10/2019

In today's let's think about how planning works in your business? Do you use economic and mathematical methods? Are you building econometric models? Do you analyze previous periods and how deep into the past? 📈

Or do you just trust your intuition 🍀 and the so-called "sense of the market"? 🤞

Some companies that we researched do not make detailed forecasts of their market. Some even forget to consider seasonality. 🤦

Others, using advanced extrapolation methods, forget that they had a shortage of goods in one of the months and extrapolate this “seasonal decline in sales” for the future period.📊

✍️ Write in the comments how the planning process is built in your company?

04/10/2019

Have you ever experienced leadership culture built without ego? We would love to read about your experience in the comments.

Meanwhile we would like to share with you a Bob Davids speech given at TEDxESCP in Paris, as today's .

Find more on: www.tedxescp.com facebook.com/tedxescp twitter.com/tedxescp TEDxESCP is an independently organised TED event, by students of ESCP Europe in Par...