Group50® Insights

Jim Gitney joins our host, Diane Helbig, to share his thoughts around the importance of fully engaging all stakeholders in the implementation of strategy through the use of the Business Hierarchy of Needs framework as well as developing and implementing strategy based on one – Most Important Goal (MIG) …Read More

• Development of one Most Important Goal
• Creation of business strategies to support it
• Full engagement of stakeholders
• Application of Value Stream Mapping to close operating and strategic gaps
• Identification of an increase of $105M in Enterprise Value

…Read More

1. Identified $4.9M in process improvement savings, a 17% productivity improvement
2. Increased throughput between 25 and 100%
3. Increased First Pass Yields between 15 and 60%
4. Redesigned multiple workstations and processes …Read More

1. 1. Identified large growth opportunity in a downward market.
   2. Market study on how to differentiate in the market through supply chain.
   3. New business and supply chain strategies.
   4. Defined strategies for leveraging installed base.

…Read More

1. Business Growth Accelerator Podcast – Isar Meitis
   • Defining a cohesive business strategy is not easy, but implementing it is even harder. After successfully implementing business strategy in major companies, Jim Gitney perfected the process and wrote a book about it – “Strategy Realized – The Business Hierarchy of Needs – Turning Strategy Into Results”. In this fascinating interview, Jim shares a detailed blueprint on how to successfully implement business strategy. He developed a concept he calls the Business Hierarchy of Needs® (the business parallel to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs). This is a highly practical episode with a step-by-step process you can follow, with great examples and powerful business concepts.

About Jim Gitney:  Jim Gitney is the CEO and Founder of Group50^® Consulting, and the author of “Strategy Realized – The Business Hierarchy of Needs®” which summarizes a framework for creating a business that leverages topics in this article. (You can find out more about the book and acquire a copy by clicking on the image to the right).

Founded in 2004, Group50®consulting is focused on working with middle market companies to significantly improve their productivity by leveraging people, process and technology as part of a company’s strategic plan.  Group50® consists of consultants who have spent their careers in corporate America learning how to optimize businesses.  We specialize in working with senior leaders to develop and implement strategies that accelerate top line and bottom-line performance.

Strategic thinking, operational excellence, continuous improvement, and employee engagement have many things in common. They are all driven by a core set of inextricably linked operating principles. They: …Read More

Lean Deployment is the implementation of a prescribed set of Lean Principles throughout a business and the engagement of all stakeholders (employees, vendors, temps, contract workers, 3rd party providers and customers) in that deployment. Lean Principles are a set of guidelines and best practices for optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of processes in business and manufacturing. …Read More

Kaizen is a process improvement methodology where stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees and contract workers) at every level work together to implement process improvements at the business level and on the shop floor.  These improvements may be …Read More

As consultants and advisors our mission is to provide services to our clients that help them resolve issues in their business, positively impact their business performance and improve their corporate Culture. By taking a holistic view, we can increase the breadth of our services which will increase both short term and long-term revenues. Often, it isn’t obvious to us what the potential broader impact of our work is, or how our services can be broadened to have a greater impact. By considering the elements of the Business Hierarchy of Needs^®, we can optimize our efforts with laser sharp focus on fixing client issues, improving client performance, and increasing the scope of our work. The Business Hierarchy of Needs^®, a change management framework shown below,
…Read More

Question: Does your company have an opportunity to streamline business processes and staffing?

Answer: Every company has the opportunity to streamline business processes and staffing, regardless of what the economy is doing.

In every business we have worked with over the last 20 years, …Read More

This is a section from my book:  “Strategy Realized – The Business Hierarchy of Needs®” which was released on 1/9/2023 (Buy Now) and will be available as a hardcover on 2/9/2023. You may want to refresh your knowledge of the Business Hierarchy of Needs® before reading on or just take a moment to study the image below to better understand this framework that is designed to turn strategy into results by taking a close look at the image.

…Read More

Lean Supply Chains, while still important are not robust enough to meet the needs of today’s global supply chain requirements. Jim Gitney, the CEO of Group50 Consulting, discusses new requirements and methods for Lean Supply Chain Management and introduces the Supply Chain Hierarchy of Needs ™ as a guide to implementing Lean and Agile supply chain …Read More

Is picking the right manufacturing location purely an objective exercise or is it subjective as well? The answer is yes to both. The objective side clearly affects your P&L, while the subjective side effects the risk to your P&L. In choosing the right manufacturing location it is important to do the analysis with 4 key objectives in mind. They are as follows: …Read More

The economy is troubling everyone again.  It is unclear how deep the recession is going to be, but it is obvious that demand is declining and many of our clients are continuing to see supply chain issues. I expect to see another lead and lag between demand and supply over the next 8-12 months, so here we go again.

You and your team are probably trying …Read More

Supply chains are the heart and arteries that drive a company’s strategic success.  From raw materials through the full life cycle of the product or service, lean supply chains have constantly changing requirements and have been significantly challenged with the frequency of massive disruptions.  The Supply Chain Hierarchy of Needs™ provides a framework for …Read More

These statistic from Boardview.io should cause pause to all senior leaders:

“80% of leaders feel their company is good at crafting strategy but only 44% at its implementation”

To make matters worse, they also report:

10% of organizations achieve at least two-thirds of their strategy objectives, with 36% achieving between 50%-67% and 54% achieving less than 50%

I have no reason to doubt these statistics based on what we see in our consulting work. The primary reasons for this are: …Read More

Whether we want to call this a recession or just unfortunate circumstances, I think that we can all agree that business is being disrupted yet again by external factors beyond management’s control.  Interest rates are up, sales are down and inflation is above 8%. Amazon, Tesla, Wells Fargo, Coinbase, Salesforce, Meta and Netflix are a few of the more well-known companies announcing layoffs.  Financial indicators …Read More

90% of companies do a poor job executing their strategy 

The Business Hierarchy of Needs® and and Strategy 5.0™ are part of Group50’s suite of strategic planning and execution tools.  In this 20 minute video, Jim Gitney, the Founder and CEO of Group50, summarizes how the Business Hierarchy of Needs®, a change management framework, can be used by Boards of Directors and senior leadership teams …Read More

“𝑰𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒈𝒎 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒇𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆.”

I just published an article on LinkedIn on the Appropriate Design for a Digital Future.  You can read it here.  For those of you who want a Schaum’s outline version, here we go.

Today’s functional organization structure is no longer appropriate for serving the digital future.  Business processes are horizontal, not vertical.  So, as part of Group50’s approach to Strategy 5.0™, we are proposing that companies be organized in the following …Read More

How many different strategic frameworks are there? Probably as many as there are consultants. Most are difficult to explain to leadership, and they are impossible to explain to everyone else. While the development of a business strategy can be complex, the focus of the Group50® Where to Play and How to Win strategic planning framework provides a solution to this problem by keeping it simple: …Read More

There is a significant difference between Cost Reduction and Cost Takeout. All companies should have cost reduction as part of their business strategies. It only makes good sense. At one time or another, just about every C-suite and boardroom has had the discussion regarding Cost Takeout as a Strategy.   Continuous Improvement and Lean Business concepts tell us that there are always ways to take out cost and those tools do a good job of reducing cost gradually.  Cost takeout as a strategy is a completely different approach. The first thing is to make sure that everyone is clear on what a cost takeout strategy really is.  Let’s start with what it isn’t.

It is not: …Read More

In Group50’s early days, we were working with the model shown in the picture to the left when we were doing strategic planning work.  It was simple, to the point and easy to talk about.  None of our clients were totally convinced that this image told the entire story.  It was missing a lot of information and only told the story of getting prepared to implement a company’s strategy.  This graphic didn’t include two key elements: …Read More

Change happens. Every business environment requires continuously changing strategies, processes, tools and skills. Implementing a Continuous Improvement program is one way a company can harness their response to change and create competitive advantage. As companies launch Continuous Improvement programs, they need to have a plan. Effective programs require the following 5 elements leading to successful and sustainable …Read More

Focusing on one methodology for continuous improvement can limit progress, diminish innovation and restrain the organization’s ability to realize its full continuous improvement potential. In Part IV of this series, we talk about using the best practices and best tools for your Continuous Improvement program. Continuous improvement best practices include: …Read More

At Group50®, we have brought back to life an old form of Value Stream Mapping called the Brown Paper Exercise. Long before computers were invented, the only way to do Value Stream Mapping was on paper.  Utilizing paper allows you to be produce maps that are not limited to the size of a computer monitor or projection screen. It is interactive, fun and can be done via a hybrid model of in-person and virtual. 

Group50’s Brown Paper Exercise is an important tool that we use every day in process reengineering. It is part of our Value Stream Mapping process.  It provides an engaging, non-threatening way for …Read More