The phrase “Internet of Things (IoT)” or “Internet of Everything (IoE)” and its application to manufacturing and distribution does not bring to mind a concrete set of images or business approach to most senior executives.  In fact, the opposite is true, (more…)

Companies today increasingly recognize Digital Technology and IT infrastructure as a strategic asset that provides companies with the ability to effectively compete in its’ marketplace – an observation underscored by the Nash KPMG 2017 CIO Survey finding that CIOs sit on 62% of executive boards as opposed to 38% in 2005.  While their relative importance varies slightly from year to year, the C-Suite charter for Digital Technology consistently features the following items: (more…)

Most companies are struggling to identify the value of IoT (Internet of Things) and Blockchain in their business. That is partly due to the relationship between Strategy and IoT. While there is a need to have an IoT strategy, it needs to be a subset of the ultimate business strategy. IoT is an enabling technology that allows the business to rethink it strategy, how it goes to market and the product road (goods and services) that IoT enables.  As a result, (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 (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). (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…)

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…)

On Friday 6/25, we awoke to the screaming headlines about the citizens of the UK voting to leave the EU.  Brexit was a reality.  All the experts and the polls were wrong!  Leading up to this there was tremendous volatility in financial markets and uncertainty about the impact of Brexit on global financial markets and business.  Business executives that we have been working with have displayed the “deer in the headlights” look: strategically frozen in place while waiting to see what happens.  Now what?  (more…)

Executives are faced with a conundrum when they are trying to decide on when and how to hire a consultant. There are typically 5 issues that nag an executive during this decision making process.  Those issues typically go along these lines:

• Consultants are too expensive; especially the top tier consulting firms and they don’t get real, measureable value
• Every professional who is unemployed or underemployed is a consultant until their next job and they don’t have the appropriate bandwidth; but they are cheap
• Finding a consultant or consulting firm who is a cultural fit with the organization
• Finding a consulting firm who has all the functional resources required for an entire project.
• When to admit that we really can’t solve the problem ourselves

(more…)