Advice for CEOs

One of the first management processes that many emerging growth companies try to institutionalize is budgeting. Budgeting is an essential building block of good management. It serves to control spending in line with a company’s operating and capital plans. It provides a framework to compare actual revenue, expense, and profit with the plan. Budgeting forces accommodation and agreement between top-down management goals and bottom-up feedback from managers and staff about what is actually feasible for the company to achieve. And lastly, it imparts a sense of discipline and order to the company’s operations.

In our last article in this series, highlighting our firm’s Four Ms framework to get growing companies out of No Man’s Land, we focused on the “Model” issues confronting a growing electronics company in Austin. Today we move to the Market issues confronting a footwear company in northern New York State that I worked with closely. The company is 100 years old, making it anything but a start up. It is at the boundaries of middle market size, having become misaligned with its market. As a result, it is generating considerable losses. How did this once successful company become misaligned with the market place that it exists to serve?

Many companies put a lot of effort into developing their strategy. But many of them lack a template to define the skills and resources they need to set and execute strategy.

Small and medium-sized businesses across the United States are increasingly relying on new technology solutions to strengthen their product development, marketing, and customer engagement activities. Technology adoption is often the best way to drive relative advantage over competitors, even among small businesses. This is especially true with regard to computer and Internet technologies. Your business might be basically “technology enabled” but you may be missing out on new, fast-evolving technologies that could supercharge your business, regardless of its size.

In my last article in this series about ecommerce, I discussed some of the key online trends that you should take into consideration as you invest in ecommerce systems. I said that you not only need to understand changing consumer behavior, but you must align your technology with marketplace demands. I will now explore a few of the emerging business models that are disrupting traditional supply chains.

For many entrepreneurs, getting back on the path to success is as simple as looking hard in the mirror.