Alliance Perspectives

Leaping Ahead: Courage or Discipline?
January 08, 2008

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.

Case categories include: Leadership   Strategy & Planning   

Indispensible Tech Tools for CEOs
January 06, 2008

Personal technology has revolutionized how CEOs stay organized, informed, and on top of their businesses. Several CEOs explain what works for them.

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Case categories include: Technology   

Business Temptation
November 24, 2007

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?

Case categories include: Entrepreneurship   Leadership   Strategy & Planning   

A Branding Lesson:  The Four Cornerstones
November 10, 2007

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.

Case categories include: Marketing   Strategy & Planning   

Get In Their Faces!
October 10, 2007

Summary: Face-to-face prospecting creates strong and profitable business relationships. Without cold-calling skills, a CEO forms strong client bonds by using persistence, discipline and focus. The advantages of this technique are examined and explained.

Case categories include: Sales   

Don’t Let Success Destroy your Culture
October 06, 2007

This firm's success brought in so much business that it wasn't as much fun as it used to, and that endangered the quality of the work being performed. The CEO identified a customer in particular that was causing most of the problems and resigned the account, allowing her culture of fun and originality to survive.

Case categories include: Human Resources   Leadership   

Board Benefits
August 21, 2007

An entrepreneurial couple brought in outside board members to help bring in key accounts and to aid in their decision making. They diluted ownership's vote to 50%, but the payoffs far outweigh the lack of freedom. Important pros and cons are discussed, as well as some guidelines for adding outside board members.

Case categories include: Leadership   Operations   

Selling through Education
June 23, 2007

If your prospects don't understand your value proposition, educate them. The company developed conferences to reinforce its solutions and position itself as a knowledge leader, which leads to higher sales. Learn the keys to creating a great educational setting.

Case categories include: Marketing   Operations   Sales   

The Overly Optimistic Entrepreneur
May 23, 2007

Optimism is a natural part of entrepreneurship, but it can go too far. A bad string of luck nearly sinks the CEO's dreams before persistence starts to pay off.

Case categories include: Entrepreneurship   Leadership   

Shifting Gears from Startup to Scaled Enterprise
April 12, 2007

Every successful startup goes from an entrepreneurial stage to a professional enterprise. Learn how the entrepreneur also successfully made the crossing point without hitting the wall.

Case categories include: Human Resources   Leadership   Operations   

Closing the Feedback Loop
February 10, 2007

Customer feedback is an important part of every successful company. After scaling up his business, a CEO struggles with his company's feedback system before closing the loop and improving response rates. Effective processes for handling feedback are examined.

Case categories include: Leadership   Operations   Sales   

A Door to High Caliber People
January 30, 2007

Getting involved in non-profits opens doors and is good for business. Multiple benefits are reached when the CEO joins the board of a local charity. The right ways to go about getting involved in charity work are examined.

Case categories include: Ethics   Leadership   

Recruiting through Mutual Respect
January 21, 2007

Sometimes the best teammates are the ones that worked before. A CEO digs through past connections to forge a "dream team" of talent. The challenges and benefits are examined.

Case categories include: Human Resources   

Synchronizing Brand Image with Deliverables
December 21, 2006

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.

Case categories include: Marketing   Strategy & Planning   

Brainstorm vs. Budget
December 12, 2006

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.

Case categories include: Leadership   Operations   Strategy & Planning   

Identifying New Business Ideas Take Discipline
December 10, 2006

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.

Case categories include: Strategy & Planning   

From Service to Process to Product
October 21, 2006

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.

Case categories include: Marketing   Sales   Strategy & Planning   

Learning from Pure Innovation
October 06, 2006

Innovation leads to powerful results. A CEO fosters a rich culture of innovation by getting the most out of his top team.

Case categories include: Human Resources   Leadership   

Vision Vector
August 06, 2006

CEOs of startups must work very differently than CEOs of firms that have made their place in the market. They must be hands-on with prospective customers and with all the key decisions, from sales to marketing to engineering/product development, in order to keep the business on a straight vector towards its vision.

Case categories include: Leadership   Operations   

Generalities about China
July 16, 2006

Summary: CEO travels to China for the first time and sees the richness and complexity in the business environment there. With an excellent guide and clear objectives, he came back with four key lessons.

Case categories include: International Business