Blog

  • April 20, 2021

    Customer Intimacy Overview

    In this Customer Intimacy Overview, M&R Partners, Mark Slotnik and Dean McMann, walk through the three primary business models – low cost, innovation, and customer intimacy. They discuss which lever can be used to create permanent differentiation and solve meaningful problems at the client.
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  • April 15, 2021

    Professional Services Talent

    A Professional Service (PS) group for a company can be viewed like the special forces in the military.  The special forces have a specialized and significantly different mission and therefore are organized, staffed, and deployed differently than the rest of the military. However, they must be integrated into the larger ...
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  • February 11, 2021

    Up Your Organization’s Annual Planning Game

    Using Segmentation as a Measuring Stick How does your organization do annual planning or establish its targets and goals for the next year? Is it a top-down percentage growth with a target margin threshold? Is it business unit specific and bottom-up using this year’s run-rate, current account opportunities, recurring revenue ...
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  • November 20, 2020

    Three Signs that Suggest It is Time for a Portfolio Review

    As we have discussed in the first two blogs in our series, a solutions portfolio is the embodiment of a company’s where to play and how to act strategies that involves cross-business initiatives and investments. Because a portfolio is dynamic and multifaceted, companies often overlook key indicators that tell them ...
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  • October 29, 2020

    Defining the Role of Portfolio Manager

    In the last blog in this series, we introduced three challenges companies face that are often symptomatic of poor solutions’ portfolio management. In this blog, we want to delve into the first challenge in more detail – a striking majority of organizations lack a dedicated resource who is responsible for ...
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  • October 20, 2020

    Maximizing the Value of The Solutions Portfolio

    What is a portfolio and why is it important? The definition of the word “portfolio” varies greatly based on context, but for this blog series, the word portfolio will not refer to a suite of technology offerings, a financial portfolio, or a static snapshot of a company’s products and services.  Rather, ...
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  • June 25, 2020

    The Future State Business Model: Managing Through Account Journeys

    As mentioned in earlier blogs, B2B companies in mature markets must manage complex businesses in order to grow and sustain reasonable margins. We believe the best way to view the business is through the lens of market segment needs and share of wallet. This is because of the “law of ...
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  • June 04, 2020

    Complex Business: The Future State Business Model

    Stop Chasing the Silver Bullet to Maintain Simplicity We have two conflicting pressures in business today.  The first is the need for companies to be successful managing a complex business model – products, software, services, and professional services – in different segments and markets. The second is leaders’ interest and comfort ...
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