N2Growth Blog

AUGUST 1, 2016

In the text that follows you’ll hear Sam’s views on leadership, the state of the market, and you’ll be introduced to his retirement ambitions and the future challenges for the boardroom, following his return to Perth, Australia. On with the interview. I have been extremely fortunate to have had a very varied career.

Gordon 150

Gordon Restructuring Leadership CEO 150

Innovation Excellence

JULY 16, 2020

Marketing needs to adjust to this behavioral shift. Brick & Mortar operations will slim down, reducing the latitude for Marketing experimentation in B&M vs. today. On the other hand, the caveat is that Online will continue to operate with minimum working capital & continental reach, to maximize ROI.

Supply Chain 62

Supply Chain ROI Working Capital Media 62

Strategy Driven

JANUARY 20, 2020

They checked out the market, discussed the business idea with friends and family and feels they can come up with enough capital to set themselves up for success. Unfortunately, often the amount of working capital needed to fund the project is simply not enough to account for all the expenses that arise with a new business.

Due Diligence 65

Due Diligence Real Estate Succession Working Capital 65

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 14, 2020

The businesses that succeed today are all meeting the needs of the customers in the market. It is great if you know what makes you work on your idea. If your why is focused on a need in the market Z, your business will be larger than the business that is designed to meet a personal need. Is it worth it? About the Author.

Exit Strategy 70

Exit Strategy Finance Short-term Licensing 70

Strategy Driven

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

When choosing a location, you should ask yourself these two questions: is the market already saturated and is there a potential for growth. Invest in Marketing. Spending too much on high-end frames can overload your inventory and deplete your working capital. Invest in an Electronic Health Record System.

Directory 83

Directory Handbook Policies Tips 83

Strategy Driven

AUGUST 4, 2016

They checked out the market, discussed the business idea with friends and family and feels they can come up with enough capital to set themselves up for success. Unfortunately, often the amount of working capital needed to fund the project is simply not enough to account for all the expenses that arise with a new business.

Due Diligence 50

Due Diligence Succession Real Estate Working Capital 50

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 6, 2023

Managers tend to think about liquidity as a finance issue, but in face the behaviors of the sales and operations team — and how they communicate and work together — can have a direct affect on a company’s cash position. Following these steps can reduce a company’s working capital needs and increase earnings and cash flow.

Supply Chain 28

Supply Chain Crisis Marketing Working Capital 28

Strategy Driven

MARCH 18, 2011

In The Essential Advantage : How to Win with a Capabilities-Driven Strategy , Booz & Company’s Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with a coherence premium – a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique. Let’s go after it.”

Resources 51

Resources Industry System Strategy 51

Rajesh Setty

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

Once the $1 million revenue milestone is crossed, entrepreneurs find it easier to find additional customers, manage working capital, and access funding, whether it is credit or equity. In my roundtables, the vast majority of entrepreneurs I work with are in this rather vulnerable pre $1 million revenue stage.

Entrepreneur 54

Entrepreneur Stage-Gate Finance Incubator 54

Harvard Business Review

JULY 23, 2024

An analysis from The Conference Board suggests that in the next two years, more than $1 trillion in CRE loans will come due, and an increasing number of banks, mostly regional and community banks, risk having insufficient capital cushions.

Real Estate 29

Real Estate Crisis Banking Maturity 29

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

As more people depended on him, he spent his working capital, and the business failed. When I founded the nonprofit African Institution of Technology , I initially focused on helping African entrepreneurs or artisans, especially those with only primary education, develop new skills and market opportunities.

Books 15

Books Banking Working Capital Finance 15

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 7, 2010

But it's this set of beliefs that explains why Western companies fail to succeed in emerging markets where middle class consumers demand good quality at low prices, and why these companies struggle to develop value-for-money products for their home markets during slow growth times like these. Operating such restaurants is expensive.

Quality 15

Quality Working Capital Price Open-book 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 22, 2016

They enable both the buyer and supplier to improve their working capital by making it possible for the former to extend its payables and at the same time accelerate payment to the latter. The use of FinTechs allows suppliers to access funding at the multinationals firm’s lower cost of capital.).

Supply Chain 14

Supply Chain Cost of Capital Transportation Finance 14

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

As more people depended on him, he spent his working capital, and the business failed. When I founded the nonprofit African Institution of Technology , I initially focused on helping African entrepreneurs or artisans, especially those with only primary education, develop new skills and market opportunities.

Books 15

Books Guidelines Banking Telecommunications 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 17, 2013

They have virtually no access to capital markets and little flexibility to experiment at various stages of growth. Compare that to the world of venture capital. We believe we are on the threshold of a major change not unlike the early days of the modern venture capital industry. But the problem is not money, per se.

Venture Capitalist 15

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Bond Finance 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2012

Google has its own contender in the market, Google Voice. Due to huge capital requirements, these investments could exert considerable pressure on the working capital of the carrier company. The vendors for telecom network management were paid only for the capacity utilized by Bharti Airtel, not for the equipment.

Outsourcing 13

Outsourcing Wireless Telecommunications Core Competence 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

Hence, the customer-selection criteria of sales managers, and call patterns of sales reps, directly impact the first value-creation lever: which projects the firm invests in. Smartly reducing assets devoted to activities that earn less than their cost of capital requires good links with evolving market realities. (

Debt to Equity Ratio 14

Debt to Equity Ratio Cost of Capital Strategy Incentives 14

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 10, 2013

With most high-potential ventures, however, founders must mobilize more resources than they control personally: the venture eventually will require production facilities, distribution channels, working capital, and so forth. Entrepreneurs face a Catch-22. On the one hand, it can be difficult to reduce risk without resources.

Definition 14

Definition Entrepreneur Business Model Tactics 14

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Heffington, working with Steve Curnutte, a restructuring advisor, realized that as new orders poured in, it became difficult to establish the true cost of fulfilling them. And, because credit was readily available to cover the growing need for working capital, it was easy to ignore the sizable number of unprofitable and late paying customers.

Metrics 9

Metrics Working Capital Restructuring Banking 9

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 9, 2013

For-profit companies in the same situation can turn to a robust venture capital community that is focused on providing the management, financing and strategy that innovative companies need to scale up quickly. Yet those resources don't exist in the social enterprise market—even though the need is essentially the same.

Finance 11

Finance Franchising Business Model Analysis 11

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation and resist pressure from analysts and investors to focus excessively on meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations. public market capitalization over this period. This has long seemed intuitively true to us.

Long-term 8

Long-term EPS Short-term Management 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 12, 2017

This income volatility is the result of broad shifts in the labor market. As employment in the service and retail sectors has grown, and dynamic staffing policies have spread, more workers depend on income from commissions, tips, and hourly work with fluctuating schedules. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Health Care 15

Health Care Insurance Video Transportation 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 22, 2013

Financial markets are not working for charities and social enterprises today. As a result, charities and social enterprises do not have the cushion of external financing to manage their various capital requirements. Sometimes they need bridging capital to pay for projects that are being grant-funded upon completion.

Banking 10

Banking Finance Due Diligence Short-term 10

Harvard Business Review

JULY 10, 2013

Unless you are willing to bootstrap yourself to some degree of validation of your concept, and can convince investors that there is real demand for what you offer, and a really large market, no one will write a check. Let''s suppose your idea is a good, viable business idea, but not a billion dollar market opportunity. And play he did.

Incubator 9

Incubator Finance Entrepreneur Case Study 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2017

However, higher accruals can reflect either innocuous aspects of certain business models, such as in the construction industry, where the time lag between earning income and realizing cash is long, or that growing firms retain higher working capital to meet greater current and future customer demand. Are all share repurchases myopic?

EPS 11

EPS Metrics Short-term Depreciation 11

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Because the "unmentionable" subject of menstruation is taboo, the market failure — supplying cheaper pads — had never received the attention it deserved. As product is sold, some of the initial working capital that SHE puts up is paid back, with the entrepreneurs eventually owning their local franchises.

Franchising 17

Franchising CEO GDP Entrepreneur 17

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

The first category is exogenous factors over which the business has little control: the growth of the markets into which it sells; the competitive intensity and thus the average profitability of the industry in which it operates; or the fragmentation of its industry and thus the scope for a growth-by-acquisition approach.

Chemicals 8

Chemicals How To Kahneman Reputation 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 4, 2016

And while two years of shrinking GDP growth , sanctions , and a volatile ruble have led some companies like GM to leave the market, there has not been a large-scale exodus of MNCs from Russia. For multinational firms, Russia’s attractiveness lies primarily in the size and sophistication of its market.

Depreciation 8

Depreciation B2B Price Crisis 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 15, 2015

When formulating a strategy, markets and segments are important categories to consider. But a market never buys anything. This is ineffective deal management, and it eventually leads to loss of positioning with customers, and, over time, the nurturing of “commodity competencies.” Only customers buy.

Strategy 8

Strategy Team Discount Price 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 9, 2013

Revenues have stagnated over the last few years, in part because Adam has no ambition to expand into other countries despite the relatively small size of his current market. Should he plow cash into increasing the pay of the disadvantaged people he employs, or build his working capital? Or keep margins healthy? What We Learned.

Entrepreneur 12

Entrepreneur Business Model Long-term Goal 12

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 5, 2016

Finally, some companies have struggled to finance their activities without payment while they work on delivering the results, limiting their ability to innovate too. As a result, some governments and private foundations have introduced social impact bonds to provide the necessary working capital. Making PbR Work.

Incentives 8

Incentives Health Care Education Insurance 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 22, 2015

For instance, a 25% reduction in the time needed to deliver a product or service can double the productivity of labor and of working capital. Such tactics and strategies for improving supply-chain performance can increase market share, reduce costs, and dramatically improve profitability.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Crisis Transportation Tactics 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 21, 2011

And because my husband and I were the providers of working capital, I had the luxury of being cavalier. When we came to loggerheads with our partners, which we often did, because of the management and deal structure I had freely agreed to, my husband and I had little say in the critical decisions. No, no, no , I cried.

Due Diligence 15

Due Diligence Magazine SWOT Hammer 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 24, 2011

The best professional managers — doing all the right things and following all the best advice — lead their companies all the way to the top of their markets in that pursuit. A string of professional managers had led the company straight off the edge of that cliff. Which is exactly what had happened to Apple.

Innovation 16

Innovation Christensen CFO Productivity 16

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

The answer may be that the innovator’s dilemma is no longer the only paradox at play in innovation management. For managers of industrial-era organizations, the economics of investing in disruptive opportunities were vexing. So naturally, as a manager, you left such innovations to new entrants. The Old Dilemma.

Christensen 8

Christensen Finance Innovation B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

Both associations managed their brands and ran the clearing and settlement systems for banks that issued cards or helped merchants accept cards. These card networks were allowed to charge their members just enough to cover cost and provide working capital.

IPO 8

IPO Succession Technology Software 8