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 (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 (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: (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: (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 (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 (more…)

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