Resources

48 Resources for

stuart cross

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BNET Author Biography
Stuart CrossStuart Cross is a founder of Morgan Cross Consulting, which helps companies find new ways to drive substantial, profitable growth. His clients include Alliance Boots, Avon and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
more about Stuart Cross »

BNET Resources

Is Breaking Up So Hard To Do?
The break up of UK banks has opinion divided. But splitting companies into more coherent entities can be the catalyst for future success. by Stuart Cross
Tags: Financial Services, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-11-03
The Ultimate Leadership Test
Albert Camus, the French author and philosopher, once wrote that we are the sum of our choices. This is certainly true for business leaders. No matter how great a visionary or communicator you may be as a business leader, in the end you will be judged by the choices you...
Tags: Barack Obama, Leadership, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-07-14
Five Ways to Get Radical Ideas Accepted
When it comes to strategy development, one of the most common mistakes a team can make is to discount radical options too early. Believing that the potential solution will be unacceptable to their bosses, and won't fit in with the corporate agenda, the idea is stifled before...
Tags: Idea, Pricing Strategy, Pricing, Team Management, Marketing Research, Marketing, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-07-08
Five Questions to Identify the Secret of Your Success
Understanding, developing and exploiting your company's strengths and competitive advantages is at the heart of any strategy for business growth. Yet many business leaders do not fully understand how and why their company wins. Executive teams often draw up a list of strengths and competitive advantages based on gut...
Tags: Competitive Advantage, Customer, Sales Strategy, Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-06-30
Don't Take the No-Risk, No-Growth Option
Avoiding risk is the most effective way to make your business irrelevant, redundant and bankrupt. Unfortunately, it appears that, in the face of the recession, risk avoidance has become the preferred strategy of most British companies. Last week, the insurer RSA and the Future...
Tags: Risk, Recession, Business Leader, Strategy, Security, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-06-23
Why Collaboration is so Difficult
Effective collaboration is to business performance what inaugural speeches are to the effectiveness of governments and presidents.  Although both may promise big prizes, they are quickly overtaken by current realities, entrenched stakeholder positions and inadequate operational capabilities. For every Lincoln, there are likely to be many Carters, Bushes and Clintons....
Tags: Team, Sales Team, Collaboration, Groupware, Enterprise Software, Software, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-06-16
Time for a Meeting Revolution: All Those in Favour?
Research published today by IT company Parity found UK business professionals spend the equivalent of eight weeks a year in face-to-face meetings. This is compounded by a lot of other research from Canada to New Zealand that comes to the same conclusion: unnecessary...
Tags: Manager, Blogging, Strategy, Internet, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-06-09
Why Executives Try to Do Too Much
The biggest flaws I see in most executive teams is their desire to do too much. In the current economic climate the temptation to add a few more projects to the agenda, in a bid to offset declining sales and profits, is understandable but mistaken. Too many...
Tags: Initiative, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-06-02
Don't Panic! You Earned that Promotion
"The Peter Principle" suggests that managers get promoted to their own level of incompetence. I propose an alternative view: that managers are promoted to their own level of insecurity. Let me explain. Last week, my football team, Preston North End, lost to Sheffield...
Tags: Success, Confidence, Stephen Covey, Leadership, Outsourcing, Team Management, Management, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-05-19
5 Ways to Keep Long-Term Goals Alive
In turbulent times, there's a danger that longer-term objectives go out the window. Many of the business leaders I work with find it relatively easy to identify and develop strategic visions for their company. For them, the difficulty comes in translating these ambitions into immediate results....
Tags: Tesco, Performance, Goal, Performance Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-05-12
Head vs. Heart: Which Drives Your Decisions?
Despite what we may choose to tell ourselves, many of our major decisions are emotional, not rational. They play to our ego and sense of self worth, or are driven by a desire to follow others. For example, I bought a new HD...
Tags: Decision, TVs, Tv & Home Theater, E-mail, Banking, Smart Phones, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Online Communications, Financial Services, Consumer Electronics, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-04-22
Mind The Gaps
Many operational problems arise not out of the work done per se, but from the gaps between one team and another. These points of handover and joint working create ambiguous responsibilities and accountabilities, leading to failures in communication and inconsistent output quality. A factor in the UK...
Tags: Team, Financial, Accountability, Team Management, Financial Accounting, Management, Finance, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-07-21
Seven Secrets of Networking
For most managers, there is little that can be achieved solely with the resources at their direct control. You must be able to influence others to get anything worthwhile achieved, and that influence is based on strong and trusted relationships. Throughout my corporate career I shunned relationship...
Tags: Network, Relationship, Corporate Communications, Professional Development, Team Management, Marketing, Career, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-07-28
Lessons from BA and Royal Mail: Strike Now, or Strikes Later
BA and Royal Mail's current disputes prove one thing: leadership inertia will end badly. Here are four ways to tackle business procrastination. by Stuart Cross
Tags: Leadership, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-10-28
Jenson Button: The Persistence Principle
I was delighted to see that Jenson Button won the F1 Grand Prix world championship this weekend. Not only is it great to have another British winner, but it is also another brilliant example of the power of persistence. Button, 29, won his first race three years ago...
Tags: Season, Tesco, Persistence, Professional Development, Career, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-10-20
George at Asda: From Rags To Riches
Asda's clothing brand, George, is now the UK's leading fashion retailer . This may not sound so momentous today but, back at the brand's launch in 1990, the idea that a supermarket chain, and particularly Asda, could beat M&S at its own game would have seemed incredible. ...
Tags: Supermarket, Brand, Retail Company, Asda, Archie Norman, Branding, Retail, Mainframes, Marketing, Servers, Hardware, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-10-13
It's Time To Redefine Your Market
The ongoing stream of news about the gradual economic recovery may be tempting business leaders to start to breathe a sigh of relief. That would be a mistake. As markets improve, the level of competition tends to increase, not reduce. In any market, being number one or...
Tags: Apple Inc., Market, Retail, Desktops, Food & Beverage, Hardware, Manufacturing, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-10-06
Kerching! Let's Hear It For Our Retailers
Britain may no longer be a nation of shopkeepers, but we are still a nation with some bloody good retailers. The recession has driven down consumer confidence and spending, and the economy has shrunk by over 5%. The retail sector is at the...
Tags: Retail Company, Discount Sector, Retail, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-09-22
Five Tips on Compelling Business Proposals
In two separate meetings last week, senior executives told me of their frustration at not being able to gain traction with new business proposals aimed at their target customers. "I don't know why they don't get it," one of the executives said to me, "our ideas will really help them...
Tags: Proposal, Retail, Team Management, Advertising & Promotion, Management, Marketing, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-09-15
Is Your Strategy Lost In Translation?
Many managers believe that strategies fail in development, while others argue that they fail in implementation. They are both wrong. The most common cause of ineffective strategies is through the mismanagement of the gap between development and implementation, an area I call "strategy translation". Let me give...
Tags: Performance, Performance Management, Strategy, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Management, Stuart Cross
Blog posts 2009-09-08
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