Case Study On Protecting A Company’s Intellectual Property

You are the CEO of a small company that has a retail product with patent rights. A very large department store chain sends one of your company’s products to China and begins buying a knock off from a Chinese manufacturer. When confronted by the company, the buyer tells you: “Your problem is with the Chinese manufacturer, not me, sue them”. How do you protect your rights, against customers or manufacturers who have very deep pockets, without losing all of their business and spending a huge sum of money? (more…)

In the “new normal” organizations have to do with the resources they have or trade them out. As companies have slimmed down to the best performers, they are still faced with the prospect of growing them to become the future leaders of the company. Learning Maps and Knowledge Management are critical elements of successfully management companies. Growth is a basic imperative for companies today. One is to grow sales. That one is easy to identify and requires a concerted effort by an organization to focus and communicate effectively, while keeping their eye on the marketplace. If you don’t have 100% market share, growth is very possible, but every function must have the skills to support that objective through more highly skilled teams in sales, engineering, customer service, supply chain and marketing. But how do you grow organizations and create its new leaders? Learning Maps provide and Individual Development Plans (IDP) are another key element in the development of an organization. With the addition of online education and a carefully crafted learning and development map, it is possible to identify and grow near term leaders. (more…)

Over the last few years, cutbacks have significantly reduced the level of expertise in many areas. Most companies are using more and more temporary resources for their business needs in all areas of their business. This is more cost effective and provides a company the ability to strategically acquire special resources when needed. But, how do you effectively manage that process? You need to find a consulting company that has the ability to become your service provider across multiple disciplines and be with you through the entire project. All companies have outside CPA/audit firms, legal firms, insurance firms, etc. who have broad expertise in their functional disciplines. In manufacturing, operations and distribution, your company should also have (more…)

Group50 Consulting, formed in 2004 announced today that it has added an Intellectual Property audit to its Company Physical^®, a series of cross functional audits that companies should use to complement their financial audits as further validation of the company’s health.  This audit is focused on the business wide practices for protecting Intellectual Property.

Most senior executives believe that Intellectual Property protection is a function of patents and trademarks. This is farthest from the truth according to Jim Gitney, Group50’s CEO. “Patents and trademarks are only a part of protecting a company’s IP. Your Intellectual Property is only as good as your willingness to protect it, and after the fact is a very costly proposition. A proactive approach to protecting IP includes the way outsiders are handled, how employees are trained and communicated with and the approach a business takes in its documentation. The more serious a company is about protecting its IP up front, the harder outsiders will think about stealing it. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a cost analysis often dictates whether or not another company will copy the hard work done by others. This topic is often not thought about or given enough credance as highlighted in a recent Group50 Case Study on Protecting a Company’s Intellectual Property Rights. “

Group50 has designed this Intellectual Property audit to be able to quickly check how proactive a company is in its protection efforts. The audit provides a detailed report on how a company can be proactive and continue to protect it competitive position.  

To find out more, call Jim Gitney, Group50’s CEO at +1 (909)-949-9083, email him at jgitney@group50.com or request more information here.

About Group50^®: Group50 was founded in 2004 with the vision of providing clients with seasoned professionals who have spent their careers in business. The company has developed unique consulting products such as the Company Physical^® and various workshops that are focused on helping companies effectively understand their strategic and operating gaps, create roadmaps to fix them and work side by side with them to implement those changes. Group50 provides clients with consultants who have the specific knowledge they require for a project. More information about the company can be found at www.Group50.com or by calling 909-949-9083.

During a keynote address at IIR’s Balanced Scorecard Forum, Robert Kaplan, a leading international business management guru, revealed “that less than 10% of formulated strategies are executed effectively” and an international survey indicated that consistently executing strategic objectives were in the top three concerns of CEO’s and corporate boards. Kaplan also added “that it is a well know fact that organizations who have a formal strategy execution process dramatically outperform the rest”. Effectively and consistently implementing corporate strategy requires all stakeholders to be aligned to those objectives, understand their role in achieving them and be accountable for effective implementation. If your company doesn’t have a formal process, then the hard work is figuring out what one looks like. A strategic execution process must (more…)