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Entrepreneurs Take On Manufacturing

Harvard Business Review

However, in recent years a parallel explosion of digital tools and services has taken place in the manufacturing realm as well, drawing in computer-assisted design and 3D printing equipment to open-source operating systems, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Second, a number of important inputs have gotten cheaper.

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It’s OK to Move Down (Yes, Down) the Value Chain

Harvard Business Review

Leaders of many companies — in industries ranging from contract manufacturing, and software services to consulting and health care — tell us the same thing: “We want to move up the value chain.” make your own operations more efficient. create the opportunity to invent new operations.

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CEOs Need to Get Serious About Sales

Harvard Business Review

But winning CEOs demand analytics from their sales organization (much as they do from operations or strategy) to help understand everything from the effectiveness of sales campaigns to opportunity analysis to performance reviews. CEOs generally don't want changes to how their sales force operates for fear of killing the golden goose.

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It’s Time for Companies to Be Strategic About Energy

Harvard Business Review

Last year, networking giant Cisco Systems worked with one of its contract manufacturers in Malaysia to deploy 1,500 energy and temperature sensors on its manufacturing equipment. It’s time to move energy into the C-suite so executives can manage this critical component of operational performance in a more strategic way.

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Community Financing Breathes Life into a New U.S. Manufacturing Firm

Harvard Business Review

But it is realistic to envision the growth of high-value-add, high-skill, high-wage manufacturing industries like the microprocessor and computer-networking businesses that Intel and Cisco launched in the 1980s. Testing in these cases was not previously possible due to the cost of an on-site operator.

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The Internet of Things Will Change Your Company, Not Just Your Products

Harvard Business Review

Operations. When product-based companies add services and connectivity, operational requirements increase. The resulting challenges may include new contract-manufacturing relationships, which can be a complicated and disorienting process for the uninitiated. Human resources. and design and user experience.

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The Trade War with China Could Accelerate 3-D Printing in the U.S.

Harvard Business Review

As companies rethink their supply chains, they ought to seriously consider embracing a new manufacturing technology that’s now ready for prime time: 3-D printing. No longer relegated to trinkets and prototyping, 3-D printing, which is also called additive manufacturing , is now moving into mass production.