What are the characteristics needed for success?

Sarian Bouma provides a unique insight into the kind of personality it takes to start a project and make it in the business world. When faced with adversity she claims there is no room for excuses and focused independent thinking is the key to maintaining a strong threshold in a volatile and risky environment, where race, ethnicity and gender are irrelevant if you have the attributes of a winner.

If you're in a fight make sure you win

As much as you would like to avoid disputes with your key clients, you might find yourself faced with these types of unenviable challenges. Speaking form personal experience Kay Koplovitz recommends that when you are faced with this type of battle, you owe it to yourself and to your constituents to protect your turf, an unpleasant but inevitable eventuality.

Defining a market for your new product

When you have a new product for a new market, you need to define that market before you can successfully launch the product. Ping Fu describes her experience in launching a new product and explains the principles involved in making a really successful launch and the importance of strategic business models and defining your demographic.

A guide to weathering the perfect storm

William Harrison speaks about his own difficult experiences with his former company JP Morgan and how to put things in perspective when facing the most severe of problems, including difficult mergers and unpredictable market climates. There are many variants that can burst the bubble of a company; he highlights how to stay calm and balanced.

Know your client and understand their business

Do your research. Earl Graves discusses the importance of getting to know one's clients. Researching your client will allow a greater knowledge of where they come from and what you should expect. Noting what may seem like small and trivial things can open doors and create relationships built on trust.

The importance of being a good role model

Paul Anderson offers an insight into the importance of being a good role model to your employees and how the behaviour and demeanour of a manager will be noted and observed by the rest of the company. The values you want your team to embrace at work should be executed from the top level, in effect leading by example, even if you think nobody is looking.

Leading people through organisational changes

Amy Butte shares how she worked with employees to improve their administrational procedure in order to gain higher revenues and positive team morale. When changing a department that is effectively stuck in its ways, making technological changes to the infrastructure, changing the organizational alignment and committing to transparency are essential.

Make your company one that embraces change

Domino's Pizza's CEO shares insights into a process every leader needs to handle and that is the fear of change. Anticipating what will happen in the future of your business is as important as dealing with current affairs and a great organisation should be ready and excited about unexpected alterations in the market. To turn a negative into a positive you must transform your team's thinking into wanting to embrace change.

The impact of strategic storytelling

When conveying an important message, deliver with a story. A strategic story has enormous power as a tool of recall and can be extremely effective at explaining to a team of employees the reason for a certain direction. Stories are remembered far more easily than graphs and statistics and are a proven means for maximum recall.

Cooperation with the media can be highly beneficial

Working with the media rather than against them produces more positive than negative coverage, a lesson Donald Cruickshank learned while watching Richard Branson. He also provides insight into which types of media work well and why paying attention to your successful competitors can lead to a greater personal achievement.

You can't predict the future, but you can plan for It

Energy industry veteran Erroll Davis Jr offers some valuable insights into preparation and planning as a way to future-proof your company. Stating clearly that there is no precise way of predicting the future he outlines the method of making strategic decisions against carefully calculated perimeters in order to give yourself multiple options.

An organisation is only as strong as its leader

Colin Day discusses different approaches to leadership and passes on suggestions to help you lead your company better. A leader needs to be direct, action-orientated, confident and most importantly lead by example. This in contrast will have a positive effect on the company and your employees will instinctively imitate this behaviour.

Balancing entrepreneurial and Plc cultures

No company can stay a start-up forever. EasyGroup's founder shares insights on managing the change to Plc status without ruining your company's DNA. He highlights the difficulties for a manager transitioning from someone with entrepreneurial drive to someone that owns a Plc and has to deal with risk management.

Keep consistent company morals regardless of pressure

If you believe in what you're doing, don't lose focus and hang on to it. Clive Mather presents tips that help your company articulate, share and live up to its principles. Speaking from his own difficulties with an anti-apartheid movement, he suggests exactly why business ethics are crucial in defining a company and how conceding to intimidation can be a very dangerous precedent.

Concentrating on the core aspects of your business

Most businesses are simple. Ford Motor Company's former President shares ideas to help you avoid over-complicating the way your company works. Coining the phrase 'back to basics', he emphasises that if part of your job description does not contribute to the survival of the company, it must be a distraction and should effectively be removed.

To keep focus always have clear goals and objectives

Sir Gerry Robinson offers advice on making sure you and everyone in your company know what you're trying to achieve and what their role in achieving this is. In order to clarify exactly what the objectives are and define what will be classified as success, you must start from the top down, whilst still allowing open debate and letting people create their own vision.

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