Keeping Your Team Focused on your Value-Creation Strategy
Summary: A high growth CEO builds value by being first to the market with hot new products and technologies. But that means moving faster than is comfortable for all his teams as his organization grows. The case talks about minimizing risk on new product introductions and managing the teams that must do the work. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Among many of today’s CEOs, there is growing uncertainty with the economy. Stocks are struggling, while gas prices and the U.S. home foreclosure rates are going through the roof. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Strategy & Planning
Choosing Relationships over Meteoric Growth
Summary: Two female business partners are offered a huge piece of business by a key client. Although initially excited, they think long and hard about the pros and cons of saying yes. Read how the decision went and what they ultimately decided. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Strategy & Planning
Creating and Owning a Category
Summary: This CEO has a system for finding new market categories and taking commanding market share leadership. He's done it over and over again, and he tells us how in this essay. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Leaping Ahead: Courage or Discipline?
Summary: Read how taking leaps with your business can pay huge dividends. By having the courage and discipline to put innovative business ideas into action, the owner gained huge competitive advantages. The concept is laid out, as well as important steps to get started. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Thriving business gets customer requests to jump into a new business. After resisting, they go for it with excellent success. When is it wise to start another business? ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
A Branding Lesson: The Four Cornerstones
Summary: Branding is about creating relationships. By building multiple relationships with a client, the CEO discovered new opportunities to grow his business. Four ideals behind successful branding are explained. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Marketing | Strategy & Planning
Synchronizing Brand Image with Deliverables
Summary: Successful companies do not survive on brand alone. A CEO comes into a struggling company and rebuilds its brand by rebuilding the value proposition, and then delivers. The importance of building and maintaining brand is examined. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Marketing | Strategy & Planning
Summary: A feature-rich product is designed, but after months of development work, it is discovered that it cannot be built. Key features are dropped so that it can finally go into production. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations | Strategy & Planning
Identifying New Business Ideas Take Discipline
Summary: Great business ideas don’t happen by accident. The CEO and his business partner spent months brainstorming, creating, and dismissing many ideas before connecting with one. The process of generating great ideas is explained. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Strategy & Planning
From Service to Process to Product
Summary: Sometimes we sell more than a product or service. By learning his clients’ businesses and modifying his own company’s offerings, the CEO creates more value for everybody. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Marketing | Sales | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Planning for succession is a difficult topic, but an essential one. Clarifying the line between dependency and leadership is critical, and much of the work of succession is reducing dependency on the CEO. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Exiting | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Betting on His Core Competency
Summary: Keeping its area of core competency strong is just what Sensory Inc. did, and sales have more than tripled as a result. Every company must pay rapt attention to how and when it invests in its core competency. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Strategy & Planning
Sharing the Dream of Success Brings Top Talent for Less
Summary: Engineer turned entrepreneur bootstraps his company, but can’t afford the talent he needs. Through careful sharing of equity, he builds a great team who bring results amazingly fast. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Great business ideas are often borne by finding the mainstream’s interest in little-known products and services and making them more popular. Serial entrepreneur Rob Wrubel has a track record of doing just that, although it didn’t happen overnight. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Marketing | Strategy & Planning
Sailing Beyond the Small Business Mindset
Summary: A small business struggles along staying small for many years. Its owners grow tired of the struggle and recommit to building a bigger and healthier business. Key signs of being stuck in the small business mindset are identified, and steps that can be taken to get your business to the next level. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Tom Engdahl is the pain doctor of business. He looks for pain in an industry then develops the cure. He’s done it over and over again, each time with a business success and a liquidation event. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Strategy & Planning
It’s No Longer Product vs. Service
Summary: A software developer is confident that he understands making products and selling them over and over again. But when customers ask him to start a new business -- providing a service of paperwork processing for clients, he hesitates because it’s a service. Can this product-driven firm succeed in low-tech services? ...Read More
Forum Categories: Strategy & Planning
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John Rule, CEOApplied Aerospace StructuresAlliance Member since 2000