News & Communication Resources

  The Wass Consulting Group, Inc. (WCG) endeavors to maintain effective communications with our clients and other interested parties. In addition to news releases (index), WCG periodically issues articles titled "Management Insights" (index), and also provides e-mail delivery of relevant executive summaries (to Subscribe).

Recent News Releases:

9/23/2004
Wass Consulting Group Joins with Trenkle and Associates
Following a number of high profile cases in both industry and government where culture was identified as a root cause of a variety of problems, the need to reconsider the impact that a company/organization's culture has on its performance has never been greater. To address and help resolve this important issue, the Wass Consulting Group has teamed with Trenkle and Associates of Farmington Hills, MIchigan to help our clients "improve business results through cultural change".

8/19/2003
Managing Backlash to Blackout 2003
Blackout 2003 will no doubt generate healthy debate leading to important capital investments and attendant system reliability and casualty response improvements. However, the opportunity is ripe for knee-jerk over reactions on the part of government, regulators, and customer advocates, as well as the transmission companies and utilities themselves.

Recent Management Insight Articles:

Breakthrough Performance Results^SM
Achieving Strategic Leverage Through Six Sigma & Lean
First in a series of articles on the application of Six Sigma and Lean in service organizations
PDF Format
Announcing a unique, results driven approach to the strategic deployment of Six Sigma and Lean for service companies and their business processes. This article will help you know where and how to get started. Critical elements to achieving Breakthrough Performance Results^SM include the effective selection, pace and alignment of Six Sigma and Lean programs with your organization's vision, business strategy, culture, history and business priorities.

Strategy Based Budgeting
A focused approach to allocating resources
PDF Format
Traditionally, both operating and capital budgets have been established in a number of different ways - top-down, bottom-up, historical or even zero-based. The impact of these efforts is often chaotic and even counter-productive, as the business seems to stand still as managers wrestle with their numbers. Stratgey Based Budgeting enables companies to focus and refine budgeting, and also provides a sound foundation for streamlining costs and operations.

Reevaluating Your Business Management Model
Are all of its gears meshing? (First in a series of articles on this topic)
PDF Format
Is your Business Management Model hitting on all cylinders, or is it a clunker that could use a tune-up or perhaps even a complete overhaul? This article, the first in a series, will help you conceptually frame your own existing management model, evaluate its thoroughness and applicability to your current challenges, gain insights into why your business may be struggling, and see how an effective management model can help chart a course for markedly improved performance.

Hands-On Management is Making a Comeback
PDF Format
Executive management teams are evolving from a hands-off laissez faire approach to a much more hands-on, proactive and involved style to survive and prosper. Recent experience shows that in today's increasingly hostile business environment, giving a subordinate enough rope for him to hang himself only ensures that you will hang alongside him when things go wrong.

Securing Business Continuity is more than Disaster Recovery and Emergency Preparedness
PDF Format
In light of recent events, executive management and Boards of Directors should take a more complete, end-to-end look at ensuring business continuity. Experience shows that business continuity involves much more than emergency preparedness and disaster recovery planning, and that typical enterprises are not well prepared to meet a wide range of threats to their business survival.

Finding Top Executive Talent in the Energy Industry Requires Special Search Skills
PDF Format
Increased competition and the accelerated pace of change demand that companies attract, hire and retain the very best executive management talent. Hiring decisions are often the most important decisions an executive makes, and may impact their own success or failure. Search consultants have an obligation to deliver top talent through a disciplined and thorough process.

Continuous Improvement, an Elusive Goal for Many Companies
PDF Format
Answers the question of what separates those companies who successfully achieve cultural transformations from the "also rans". Our analysis and experience point to two critical factors - the quality of executive leadership, and the activiation of a conceptual management model we term "The Culture Loop".

Outsourcing - A Panacea, or a Path to Customer Dissatisfaction?
PDF Format
Outsourcing can be a sound business move, but it can also become a CEO's personal nightmare. While the principal reasons for outsourcing remain relatively stable, none of them excuse the abdication of customer service responsibility. Senior management should not expect to be relieved of the business responsibility to monitor, evaluate and control subcontractor performance for both internal and external customers.