Group50® Insights

We consistently hear from middle market CIO’s that the three items at the top of their strategic charter are:

1. Taking cost out the business,
2. Greater agility to meet changing market conditions
3. Improving and sustaining a close Business-IT alignment. 

Where and how your IT infrastructure is housed significantly impacts …Read More

In an earlier blog we saw that a well-crafted IT transformation strategy (a.k.a. cost takeout strategy) is so much more than a once and done cost reduction exercise.  A cost takeout strategy orchestrates …Read More

Continuous improvement has a long history in the business world and after over 50 years, many leadership teams we talk to believe that it can be done quickly and implemented throughout the organization in 6-12 months.  How wrong they are. This article is about not overdoing continuous improvement at the outset.

It is important to understand the base you are operating from. Most organizations …Read More

As cloud services have proliferated in the last decade, companies are increasingly asking themselves if they really need to have their own in-house datacenter. The digital footprint and budget for small companies often does not warrant the cost …Read More

The first blog in this series identified the phenomenon of Anti-Strategy as well-intentioned decisions made by senior leaders that are functionally focused because of a lack of a clear business strategy. With digital and information technology (IT) getting firmly established as a strategic corporate asset for middle market companies, we turn our attention to …Read More

In the introduction, I identified 5 things you need to do to drive continuous improvement.  They are:

1. Align continuous improvement with strategic objectives
2. Don’t overdo process excellence at outset; this is an evolutionary process
3. Integrate continuous improvement into a culture of strategic execution
4. Blend the best practices from the different methodologies
5. Focus on data, not emotions

In this article, we show how business strategy should drive continuous improvement programs and not the other way around. Continuous improvement …Read More

An earlier blog talked about the building blocks for aligning and integrating IT with the business.  As IT becomes increasingly intertwined with the core operations of the company it’s time to take a fresh look at traditional middle market approaches to IT related Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR). …Read More

We have often heard middle market client executives say, ‘We continue to spend a lot of money on our IT Infrastructure, but how do we know that we are getting our money’s worth?  Are our existing technology and software investments effectively meeting our current needs?  Are our IT/IS platforms serving the company’s current life cycle needs and are they …Read More

Offshoring, onshoring, nearshoring, are business solutions that international and multinational companies have used for years. However, only a very small percentage of these companies have in-house tools that are effective at supply chain modeling and can help senior leaders …Read More

In an earlier blog, we examined why having a process in place to capture Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is important for middle market companies, and even more so for Digital Technology organizations.  We saw how any plan for taking out cost, driving revenue, or maximizing asset utilization, can be fraught with risk, without …Read More

For better or worse, business and IT are inextricably linked and IT alignment and integration into the business and its marketplace is of critical importance.  Middle market companies face numerous challenges such as mounting competition from global markets with cheap labor pools, a patchwork quilt of business systems and dealing with clients that expect companies to engage them  when, where and how it suits them.  Leveraging technology to meet these and many other business challenges requires that a business: …Read More

Everyone has been through “Cost Savings Programs” and “Cost Reduction Programs”, but what is the organizational impact of a true Cost Takeout process and what does change management have to do with it?

Key objectives for cost takeout programs are dependent on their time frame and may include: …Read More

Digital Technology organizations are recognized as business enablers and an effective Total Cost of Ownership process is one of the critical tools they should bring to a business. Digital Technology professionals who understand and can articulate the complete business impact of technology products or services become indispensable strategic partners and are sought after by management boards. Revenue growth and increased profits are …Read More

Historically, IT Infrastructure has been viewed as a “cost center” and IT Operations “a necessary evil” because significant human and financial capital expenditures have been required to maintain a functional system.  Over the last few years, middle market companies are beginning to realize that IT infrastructure can be used as a competitive advantage. It needs to be …Read More

McKinsey predicted in its 2016 IT-as-a-Service Cloud and Enterprise Cloud survey that enterprises are rapidly adopting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud for their primary workloads. It predicted that the adoption of multi-cloud strategies will jump from …Read More

Most leadership teams believe they have a pretty good handle on how well the company is doing from a cost and productivity standpoint. They probably do know the people side fairly well being that it is relatively easy to measure:  $Revenue/$ of labor cost or $Revenue/person is a standard measure, while time standards for all sorts of activities are very common.

Attempting to understand how efficient their business processes are is …Read More

‘Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.’ – Thomas Alva Edison

Not only did Edison distinguish himself through his technical acumen and limitless perseverance, but as this quote suggests he also possessed rare common sense and a willingness to step into his customer’s shoes.  Many of his contemporaries …Read More

“With the addition of its Digital Technology Practice, Group 50 is fast becoming the only Consulting Partner needed by middle market companies” …Read More

Middle market leadership teams are faced with the challenge to maintain their competitiveness in the marketplace and keep up with the fast-paced changes in technology.  They are on the threshold of a new world of operational efficiency, productivity and customer engagement.  When speaking with senior leaders of middle market companies, we routinely hear the following questions: …Read More

Every leadership team should be asking questions about their social networking strategy. They wonder how Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus, CRM, Sales Force, Customer Portals, Websites, Blogs and other platforms can be utilized for business development purposes. We have been developing those thoughts at Group50 for the last 14+ years.  We have spoken with hundreds of companies, and have found a wide disparity between their efforts and the type of business they are in. Although not a formal study, our general findings are as follows: …Read More

I read a blog posting from our strategic execution partner Cascade about the reasons strategic execution fails.   To summarize, they are:

1. Lack of buy-in from the team
2. Unclear objectives
3. Failure to account for business as usual
4. Loss of momentum
5. Unwillingness to iterate
6. Lack of alignment
7. Failure to celebrate success

 More importantly, …Read More

Successful enterprises across the globe have leveraged on the vast experience, in-depth knowledge and understanding of a strategic planning consultant that is capable of working with senior leadership on strategic execution: been there, done that.  This effort is a cornerstone of gaining competitive advantage and thriving in highly competitive marketplaces. An effective strategic execution program facilitated by an experience strategic planning consultant helps …Read More

There have been many articles written about continuous improvement in manufacturing processes, but there isn’t a lot of information and understanding about the use of continuous improvement tools at the business level: including the ones that purportedly have continuous improvement or Six Sigma programs in place.  In many of the organizations that we work in, when you speak to business process leaders about continuous improvement they …Read More

One of Group50’s specialties is helping business owners and professionals create an exit strategy.  As we talk with business owners, we remind them that there are two strategies that need to be developed for a successful exit or transition

1. Your personal exit strategy
2. A business strategy that supports it

All business owners and professionals like yourself recognize that there is another life after they exit and what that looks like needs to be considered carefully.   All of us plan on retiring, but what does retirement mean in today’s world?  The answer to that question will …Read More

Mexico’s legal system is a result of the 1910 revolution and the subsequent promulgation of its Federal Constitution on February 5, 1917. Although historically influenced by the legal systems of Spain, France, and the United States, Mexico has been able to structure and maintain a distinct legal system that incorporates truly unique Mexican components. Mexico’s legal system is a civil law system but not as it exists in other civil law countries.

Patterned after the United States, …Read More