This 2009, extensively revised and expanded edition
of Achieving World-Class Profit Improvement is the latest version of
the book originally published in 1999. Key content and particularly
that associated with successful implementation has been expanded and
refined through continuing experience and research. The
fundamentals have withstood the test of time and practice and
continue to ring true and bring results. The appendices now include
the powerful 40-question World-Class
Profit Improvement Test that will allow you to determine
if your cost reduction, profit improvement and/or continuous
improvement process is world class plus another with thirty
practical cost reduction and profit improvement ideas and
opportunities in summary detail.
The book was
written out of necessity. At least that's the way I look at it.
One only has to stand still today to be overrun by change.
Technologies and markets are moving at a frenetic pace. Human
nature shows us, however, that most of us resist change…so progress
is slowed or even stopped…and people and companies are run over.
If you are
reading this as part of the training process for a profit
improvement initiative, consider yourself lucky to have management
with the initiative to take positive action. If you are reading
this because you are in a survival mode, be aggressive in applying
these tools and methods quickly. Keep your eye on the objective
that you must save the core to have a future. If you are reading
this while business is great and you are wondering where you would
ever get the time and resources to do the work, recognize that the
results of a continuous profit improvement process will help you
succeed in the short term as well as the long term. If you can
become a cost-effective organization now, you can better support new
growth. Don't wait until you are forced into a survival mode. I've
helped companies in both extremes and I'll tell you that survival is
not the better choice.
A common thread through my
personal work for over 35 years has been that of being a change
agent or turn-around specialist in a wide variety of organizational
settings. In some cases change was required for growth and in
others it was required for survival. In the course of this work I
have delivered in excess of $100,000,000 additional profits to
employers and clients.
I've had the fun of enabling growth, increasing market share,
fostering new products and services, and ensuring the vitality of
companies. I've also had the heartache of administering CPR to
patients that were just too far gone to resuscitate. I now ask that
companies do the right things today so they will have a brighter
future tomorrow.
Along the way, I compiled and tested the methods, models, and tools
presented here. They were drawn from a broad variety of resources.
When I started, in the early 1970's there just wasn't a lot written
about profit improvement and efficiency but my engineering education
really paid off. The scientific approach can be successfully
applied to almost any system and I have had a ball making
improvements that others thought impossible. I continued my
education with extensive graduate studies in business as I moved
around the country.
In the mid-1990's I
became aware of a force just as powerful as the scientific
method…creativity and innovation in the form of the Creative Problem
Solving model and the International Center for Studies in Creativity
at the State University College of New York in Buffalo. Aha, as we
say when innovation strikes like a brainstorm! I found creativity
tools that tap the power of the human intellect and unleash the
ability for individuals and organizations to solve problems and
create new things in a highly efficient and effective manner. I
also found language and process to surround many of the improvement
methods that I had been using intuitively for so many years. I
became the 136th person in the world to be granted an MS
in Creativity and Innovation. This book recognizes that the new use
of old tools and the new use of new tools can both be very
creative…and effective.
I
have seen too many jobs lost and too many lives diminished by
unnecessary business failures. These world-class principles will
help you succeed…if you apply them.
My advice to you is to skim this, read in depth what you want, adapt
and use what you can, and don't make your work any more difficult
than it has to be. Great secrets sometimes lie hidden in
simplicity.
We use money to keep score but profit improvement and business
improvement is all about people.
Steven C. Martin
President & CEO
Business Solutions - The Positive Way
One of the best investments you can make
order today and start saving
Order Book
- Brand New 2009 Edition at a substantial
discount - limited time offer
