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Entrepreneurs Take On Manufacturing

Harvard Business Review

But in my research, and in conversations with hardware entrepreneurs throughout the country, I have noticed several developments that have put manufacturing start-up activity on a faster, more commercial track. .” The rise of hardware startups still has the feel of an insurgency.

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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.” The technologies and trends shaping tomorrow’s businesses. Insight Center. The Future of Operations.

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CEOs Need to Get Serious About Sales

Harvard Business Review

When tracking trends for future growth opportunities, for example, invest real money (2 to 4 percent of the sales budget is good) to develop analytical tools and teams that monitor trends such as demographic shifts, regulations, and new technologies. Only the CEO can push this kind of coordination through.

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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. Trouble is, two recessions in 10 years have cut the capital fuel supply to the tech-company-creation engine.

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In Praise of Going it Alone

Harvard Business Review

The firm has developed a sensing system that captures light hitting the camera from a variety of angles, not just what strikes a plane set behind a small aperture. If the company were selling just one small piece of a camera, a manufacturer such as Nikon might swap out old technology for the new one.

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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. The technologies and processes that are transforming companies. Insight Center. Operations in a Connected World. Sponsored by Accenture.

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

Harvard Business Review

The resulting challenges may include new contract-manufacturing relationships, which can be a complicated and disorienting process for the uninitiated. HR has the job of developing the human capabilities needed to capture the IoT opportunity. Information & technology Operations Organizational culture Product development'