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Entrepreneurs Take On Manufacturing

Harvard Business Review

Likewise, companies like PCH International and Dragon Innovation are now available to manage contract manufacturing and otherwise “make manufacturing feel easy” to entrepreneurs or small companies, as noted by The Wall Street Journal’s Chris Mims last year.

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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

In writing the book Sales Growth , we've found that CEOs who put sales management at the heart of their agenda have captured astonishing growth — outstripping their peers by 50 to 80 percent in terms of revenue and profitability. With many companies trying to shake off the drag of a global recession, CEOs are eager to find growth.

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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. As Kern put it, “We always manage costs so closely, but we weren’t really measuring energy — we didn’t know how much we spent!

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

Harvard Business Review

Here are some of the challenges that I’ve observed: Product management. Weekly e-mails with detailed reports can also be set up, creating a comprehensive system of medication management. Sales operations must consider changes to market segmentation, territory management, and resource allocation. Operations. Engineering.

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When It Comes to Digital Innovation, Less Action, More Thought

Harvard Business Review

So, like good innovators, we began working on a solution to our colleague’s problem by building an automatic liquor inventory-management system. The integration between the tags, the storage unit, and the software was technologically tough to pull off.

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The Limits of 3D Printing

Harvard Business Review

The technologies and trends shaping tomorrow’s businesses. Therefore, contract manufacturers that perform 3D printing such as Shapeways generally wait to fill a batch that uses the entire build room. 3D printing technology undoubtedly has great potential. However, it is unlikely to replace traditional manufacturing.