Pre-Planning is a Critical Aspect of Effective Project Management
Pre-planning ensures time and budget constraints are not surpassed. Learn to maximize your project’s potential with better project management
Request for Proposals: How to Respond to the Right RFP
Procurement tenders are an extremely common way of soliciting proposals for a project. In addition to being one of the main ways of doing business with the government, many private companies also use a Request for Proposal (RFP) process to narrow their focus for vendors for a project. Request for Proposal response and bid submissions…
Project Management Strategies for Non-Project Managers
Project Management is a critical function in many businesses. Even in companies that aren’t projectized, it’s probable that you’ll deal with many projects throughout the year. In an ideal situation, you’ll have access to a full Project Management Office (PMO), dedicated resources, and all the tools needed to successfully deliver on a project. Realistically, it’s…
Canadian Business Merger and Acquisition (M&A) Strategies
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are increasingly common in today’s business landscape. According to the Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances (IMAA), M&A activity continues to rise, with over $3.8 trillion USD in deals completed in 2018 – and with nearly $1.8 trillion USD completed in 2019 so far, it doesn’t look like it’s going to…
How to Update a Strategic Plan and Perform Course Correction
How do you implement your company’s strategic plan? When was the last time you did a pulse check to see where strategic deliverables stand? How closely aligned are employees with the broader mandate of your company? Business leaders should ask themselves these questions regularly, but many are so caught up in the ongoing demands of…
Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB): Shifting Mentalities
Traditional approaches to business budgeting often rely on adding or subtracting from previous budgets according to anticipated changes over the coming period. While this approach can provide reasonable budgets, it can also instill the wrong mentality in employees. With the traditional approach to budgeting, people try to make sure they’ve spent their budget so next…
Product Life Cycle Management: Overcome Declining Competitiveness
Businesses rarely remain competitive with the same product offering they’ve always offered. In these rare cases, companies operate in a unique niche that presents high barriers to entry (capital, expertise, IP, etc.), and benefit from a low-to-no competition environment. No considerations need to be provided for the product life cycle since competitive forces are not…
Request for Proposal (RFP): How to Sell to the Government
The Request for Proposal (RFP) (also known as Request for Quotation) process is a very common way for the Canadian government to procure products and services from private suppliers. The federal government has recently increased procurement opportunities for Canadian businesses, and several funding programs have shifted towards gated applications and the procurement process to ensure…
Market Entry Strategies: A Four-Step Process for New Export Markets
In a previous article we explored the risks and rewards of getting into export markets. Now that you’ve decided that the rewards outweigh the risks and that there’s a positive return-on-investment (ROI) in your export market plan, you need to start planning export market entry strategies. In this article we’ll review some of the steps…
How to Mitigate the Risk of Export Expansion Projects
For many businesses, entering a new market is a risky, time consuming, costly, and stressful endeavor. While businesses that already export can benefit from previous experience, existing processes, and internal know-how when entering a new market, there are still many risks in export expansion. Risk is amplified for businesses entering their first export market. While…