上一篇文被PMI退件如附word檔後, 我們重寫的文章, 請智囊團Comment喔
roger Chou
周龍鴻 Roger Chou, PgMP
長宏專案管理顧問有限公司 總經理
Advanced Business Consulting, Inc General Manager
http://www.pm-abc.com.tw
社團法人台灣國際專案管理師協會 創會理事長
Institute of Taiwan Project Management (ITPM) Founding President
http://www.itpm.org.tw
寄件者： Rita Raphael <ritarap...@gmail.com>
日期： 2011年12月10日上午12:00
主旨： Re: Voices: Post revision
收件者： roger Chou <pmsu...@gmail.com>
The Application of Portfolio Management as a Business Map
Roger Chou
It’s the end of the year and many companies are reviewing how they performed over the last 12 months.
Portfolio management can help senior managers check how their products or services are performing — and maximize benefits and opportunities to plan for next year.
PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management defines a portfolio as “a collection of projects or programs and other work that are grouped together to facilitate effective management of that work to meet strategic business objectives.”
And “portfolio management is the coordinated management of portfolio components to achieve specific organizational objectives.” When we use a portfolio approach, senior managers coordinate how projects and programs are managed and gain deeper understanding of what they mean to the organization.
Where I have worked, a portfolio is organized as a collection of business operations that share the same purpose. Portfolio management serves as our business map, where different business packages are laid out according to risk, profit and time.
In companies, portfolio managers address products or services according to risk and profit factors. Products or services are divided into four types:
· High-risk high-profit
· Low-risk high-profit
· High-risk low-profit
· Low-risk low-profit
Taking their payback period into consideration, benefits can be maximized by reasonably allocating resources and financial investment for each of the four types of products/business.
For example, products that are “high-risk high-profit” require time to generate high revenue.
As for businesses or products that are already generating long-term and stable profits — those in the “low-risk low-profit” category or basic business — careful resource allocation should lead to eventual increased revenue.
“High-risk low-profit” products should also be given appropriate resources, as long as they bring in certain benefits, such as expanding or maintaining market share, keeping up with potential competitors.
Take Acer as an example. Acer had been making large profits on its PC products, which belong to the “low-risk high profit” category. In the past, Acer’s PC market share was mainly gained by selling huge quantity of products with low cost. This had been a strategy placed by its former-CEO, Gianfranco Lanci. Therefore, the company’s resources had been largely maneuvered to expand or maintain the company’s long-term gained advantage. By 2008, Acer was about to beat its major, apparent and sole opponent, HP, replacing its first place in PC market share. While with too much emphasis being placed on the “low-risk high profit” category products for over a decade, the “low-risk high profit” category products had been ignored. The products in the category are usually those which require innovation, research and develop or new technology, but the profits they can generate are not so much guaranteed because of unknown market acceptance, such as, tablet PC. However, this was exactly where Acer’s potential competitor was arising from: Apple’s iPad.
Why Acer lost this time was not because its former CEO failed to plan up a business map, but because he didn’t manage the risks rising from their strategy planning, and only focused on pursuing the market share by selling and making cheap PC products. Accordingly, he failed to allocate appropriate resources to all of its four category products, especially those bears “high risk low profit”.
The lesson is, even when your current business is generating high revenues, you should never ignore those business plans/ products that are still under development. You should always allocate reasonable resources to these business components, and never over-exploit your successful products or services. The Standard For Portfolio Management (p.10) reminds every strategic manager, when plotting a business strategy, except for sorting out the business components and allocating financial and human resources according their business goals, one should also give some thoughts to managing the strategic risks.
On Dec 07th, 2011, Acer’s new CEO, J.T. Wang, has settled on a turnaround strategy for the company, one that will return it to profitability by stopping peddling affordable but poorly made hardware, and one that will accounts for more innovation. The new strategy has been strengthened by placing more emphasis on its “high-risk low profit” product, the Ultrabook. Once this product becomes popular, creating more market share, it may be shifted into the category of high profit; and the risk can also be lowered as long as the future strategy planning is correct.
Therefore, when planning up your company’s products or services for the next year, be sure to check up if your strategic plan is well- balanced, no component is being over exploited and no component is being ignored, no matter how little profit they currently are generating.
Dear Rachel,Rita and I will try our best to rework this issue. Thanks for your feedback.
周龍鴻 Roger Chou, PgMP
長宏專案管理顧問有限公司 總經理
Advanced Business Consulting, Inc General Manager
http://www.pm-abc.com.tw
社團法人台灣國際專案管理師協會 創會理事長
Institute of Taiwan Project Management (ITPM) Founding President
http://www.itpm.org.tw
Recipient of 2010 PMI Community Advancement AwardRecipient of 2009 PMI Distinguished Contribution AwardSpiderman I: With great power, comes great responsibility.
2011/12/9 Rachel Farrell <rfar...@imaginepub.com>
Hi Roger,
Sorry for the delayed feedback. As you know, I was out of town for a couple of weeks and am still catching up.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I got some feedback from your post. Unfortunately, PMI feels that this topic is a little too much of a marketing lesson. I know you intend the marketing to illustrate portfolio-business map connection, but the execution of that idea isn’t really there, and the illustration isn’t really suggestive of project or programs.
There a couple of comments inside here. If you want to try to rework this, no problem, otherwise, I might suggest finding a new topic :(
Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions.
Rachel
--
rachel farrell
editor
imagination publishing.
600 w. fulton st., suite 600
chicago, il 60661
p: 312.887.1000, ext. 182
f: 312.887.1003
rfar...@imaginepub.com
International Marketing Manager
PM ABC. Ltd., R.O.C