Tools - TAB East Mid Manhattan

Proprietary Resources

At The Alternative Board, East Mid Manhattan, we use six resources to help members make progress toward the goal of creating companies in which a private investor would invest or buy within 5 years.

1. Business Vantage
This is an excellent way to highlight differences between the vision and the actual state of a given company. It is also a good tool to highlight the differences in vision and actual state of a company between owners of a company and between the owners and key employees of a company. Finally, this tool may be used in a business combination scenario to hasten and smooth the integration process.

The owner(s) of the company get a version of the tool which allows them to state his/her/their vision of the company. Later questions about how they actually operate highlight in a graphical way (see below) the differences between the vision and actual. Other participants are not provided the version that allows them to state the vision, but rather a version that lets them answer questions about the actual state of the business.

2. Strategic Business Advantage ("SBL")

Starting with the vision from Vantage, users of SBL identify their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats ("SWOT") and then prepare plans to address those areas identified in Vantage that need the most work (based on Critical Success Factors or "CSF" in the diagram below). These plans are itemized down to action plans that members of the entire organization will help execute.

A major benefit of this tool is the list of questions that guide the user toward developing the desired outcome at each state, whether it is the SWOT, the CSFs or the plan.

Of course, as plans are executed over a few or in some cases, many months, the plans are revised and the process starts anew (Turn the Wheel in the above diagram).

3. L7 Performance Management. (see www.L7PM.com)

Each Strategic Board in The Alternative Board East Mid Manhattan will receive 2 seats of L7 Performance Management ("L7PM") included in its dues.

Once the actions plans are developed in SBL, they are entered into the L7PM tool where each user is able to update at will and from anywhere the Internet is available progress on assigned tasks. The leader may see such progress by viewing intuitive gauges.

L7PM helps to reduce costly "coordination" meetings and allows geographically separated units to be more closely knit to the headquarters.

A member of the Salesforce.com Partner Program, L7PM has the following among its customer base:

4. Executive Core Strength profiles

Behavioral research suggests that the most effective people are those who understand themselves, both their strengths and weaknesses, so they can develop strategies to meet the demands of their environment.

A person's behavior is a necessary and integral part of who they are. In other words, much of one's behavior comes from "nature" (inherent), and much comes from "nurture" (our upbringing). It is the universal language of "how we act", or our observable human behavior.

In the report that is provided to each person that takes the assessment, there are four sections reported:

How the respondent responds to problems and challenges
How the respondent influences people
How the respondent responds to the pace of the environment
How the respondent responds to rules and procedures set by others

These resources are extraordinarily useful for team building, especially in the context of a business combination.

5. ProfitCents.

ProfitCents is used by thousands of financial professionals throughout North America, but board members have access to ProfitCents through their board chairman to convert hard-to-understand financial numbers into plain language in order to help understand financial information, perform sophisticated financial analysis, (including financial projections and analytical procedures), and compare their financial ratios with those of other private companies in the Northeastern part of the US in a size range that is comparable with their own.

6. HR.BLR.com

Through their board chairman, HR.BLR.com provides board members the advice and answers they need to complete their human resources tasks faster and easier. The resource features a

human resources library (up-to-date compliance and policy information pertaining to both national and New York State regulations),
time savers (sample job descriptions, calculators, sample policies, sample letters, checklists, and training meetings),
salary center (salary data on thousands of jobs features reliable, accurate pay scales and salary survey data for national, state, and metro areas).