Category Archives: Business Development

Eight Secret Weapons of the Modern Consultant

Although I’ve developed a number of blog posts addressing the practice of management consulting, I have spent little time tying things together into a framework of secret weapons of the modern consultant. Secret weapons are a spectrum of tactics and … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Improvisation, Management Consulting, Professional Services | Leave a comment

What To Do When Your Professional Services Organization Is Not Professional Enough

In helping companies develop, tune-up, or reboot their professional services organizations, here are some example of complaints I’ve heard that reflect the need for change: Customer: “Instead of providing consulting services, your organization is marketing its products to me and … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Management Consulting, Professional Services, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Special Discussion on Starting Consulting Services Organizations Within Product Companies

When people think about consultants, they often think about those that work for companies like McKinsey, Accenture, Deloitte, etc. These are companies that are essentially independent from product vendors. However, there are a number of companies that provide consulting or … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Intrapreneurship, Management Consulting, Sales And Marketing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Business Development Chronicles – The Story of Us (Doesn’t Have to End in Tragedy)

It’s a tale of Big Company and Small Company. Big Company likes Small Company’s: focus and style entrepreneurial attitude and skills. Small Company likes Big Company’s: scale of resources scope and number of customers. Big Company hates thing like: getting … Continue reading

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A Peek At The Difficulties of Incubating New Initiatives Within Large Companies

Entrepreneurial situations in large companies differ from that of startups, yet one thing that they seem to share is that they often represent “hope” in one way or another. In the case of large corporations, these new initiatives can not only … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Intrapreneurship, Management Consulting, Ventures & Entrepreneurship | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Perspectives on “The 24-Hour Customer” (Strategy, Marketing, and Innovation Book) in Context of Marketing Segmentation

Adrian C. Ott, CEO and founder of Exponential Edge Inc., included me on her distribution list for an advanced reading copy of her new book, The 24-Hour Customer. I cannot say enough good things about this book. In my mind, … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Management Consulting, Sales And Marketing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Book Review of “The New How” (Business Strategy Book)

It is atypical for me to write a book review for this blog, but Nilofer Merchant’s “The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy” is very respectable contribution to both audiences of this blog and the process of strategy … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, Business School, General Management, Management Consulting | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How To Help Ensure Strategy Scorecards Don’t Fail You

For many strategy engagements, a lot of attention is paid to the detailed analysis framework. For example, should a benchmarking framework be used? Or will that framework lead us down a path of mediocrity? Or perhaps value-chain or Blue Ocean-like … Continue reading

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The Business Plan Is Alive And Well But It May Not Be What You Think

As many times I have written a “business plan”, it seems the flavor of it can vary quite substantially. I think the notion of this catches a good number of people by surprise. And why shouldn’t that be the case? Many textbooks … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Intrapreneurship, Management Consulting, Sales And Marketing, Ventures & Entrepreneurship | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Using a “Frontier Chart” to Evaluate and Plan Project Portfolio Strategy

The introduction of new product or service lines into an existing customer base is a challenge that companies often face with new business development. Sometimes the opportunities can be readily quantified using traditional financial analysis (e.g., using net present value, scenario, … Continue reading

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Posted in Business Development, General Management, Intrapreneurship, Management Consulting, Sales And Marketing, Ventures & Entrepreneurship | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment