Archive for January, 2012

As the CEO of your business you want to grow a profitable, sustainable business, built to last. You start with sales which are flat, declining or at best in single digit growth. So you start with a sales trainer to boost sales. Doesn’t work. The symptom of weak sales you assume is caused by a weak sales team. Not true or at least you can’t say that until you have an Operational Blueprint in place.

In 2011, The Portfolio Partnership worked ...

During last year at The Portfolio Partnership we embedded our operational blueprint across many sectors. The most common symptom across all clients? Handing operational problems correctly to get them solved. Yes key operational blueprints regarding marketing and sales, metrics and talent nurturing were needed but fundamentally the culture to solve problems needed to change.

I’ve noted below a simple solution with examples that I hope will help. Execution seems theoretically simple but that’s where the problems start. Stuff only gets done ...

The world’s information is doubling every two years according to a survey by EMC and IDC. The number is 1.8 zettabytes. Or as the mashable social media blog stated last year that’s 57.5 Billion iPads (32GB) worth of stored data. Or in dollars, that’s $34 trillion or the combined GDP of US, Japan, UK, Germany, France, Italy and China!

You see the problem with this environment is that we start to look at the wrong stuff, too much stuff, ...

During the last 10 years I’ve faced the challenge of stimulating new product innovation in many different industries. I’d like to review two in detail, software tools and precision engineering manufacturing to illustrate a solution to innovation. Where do you look for inspiration? I’ve found the most productive method that consistently works is to understand how your products are actually used in your customer’s business.

Process Maps

Ask yourself: how does my product or service fit into my customer’s process map, technology stack, and workflow? In ...