Itron Raises Stakes in Acquisition Spree

Business research indicates that most acquisitions fail to create value, but a rare few firms are capable of acquiring new businesses and increasing shareholder value. Itron’s most recent acquisition of SEM for $255 M, their largest acquisition to date, meets three critical criteria necessary for success, but fails one. For investors, employees, and customer, the…

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Utilitizing Executive Search – When Does it Make Sense?

With so many high-quality executives out of work, one can wonder what circumstances, if any, call for a company to partner with a retained executive search consultant to fill key positions. With budget cut-backs, the hefty fees that executive search firms charge can make it seem even harder to justify. Nonetheless, there are times when…

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The Full Contact Sport of Creating Business Customers

Janice & Mike’s Quandary at XYZ Corp. Janice, Salesperson at XYZ Corp: “I have been cold-calling these prospects, but they don’t want to talk to me. When we do talk, they always say ‘XYZ who?’ Can we try a different method?” Mike, Sales Manager at XYZ Corp: “That’s the nature of the game. It’s a…

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Performance Based Contracting: Performance Pitfalls and Structural Solutions in Outsourcing

In the last article, we described how outsourcing has spawned an industry aimed at making it more complicated, time/resource intensive, and disposed to failure than necessary. We also observed that the practices leading to these difficulties were contrary to principles in contemporary quality management theory. In this article, we’ll review in more detail the issues…

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Business As Usual

In recent days we’ve been inundated with media coverage and information regarding The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) National Do Not Call Registry. President Bush signed the Do Not Call Implementation Act on March 11, 2003. As consumers we can now block interruptive telemarketing calls at our homes. As marketers of products or services to businesses,…

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Market Access Denied

Having access to customers and markets are a key ingredient to healthy businesses and economies. Nohria, Joyce, and Roberson, authors of “What Really Works”, report the key strategic reasons for mergers and acquisitions are (1) to gain access to customers and (2) to leverage existing access to customers. Building new routes to markets or leveraging…

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Bad Labor Market Could Get Worse

Despite the expectant rebound in our economy, unemployment is on the rise. The May release of employment data led House Democratic Leader Representative Pelosi to state: “…and that brings the total number of private sector jobs lost since President Bush took office to 3.1 million, the worst record of job creation of any President since…

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