James Dorn, President

Drive Growth and Outmaneuver the Competition with a Holistic Go-to-Market Strategy

In the business world, “go-to-market strategy” is a bit of a buzzword. If you’ve been in the manufacturing industry for any length of time, you’ve no doubt heard it mentioned countless times. And pretty much all manufacturers accept that they should have a go-to-market strategy. Yet there still isn’t a common understanding of what that actually entails. The fact is, your go-to-market plan isn’t a comprehensive strategy if it only addresses your route to market or where you sell your products. Instead, your go-to-market strategy should act as a holistic blueprint [...]

Drive Growth and Outmaneuver the Competition with a Holistic Go-to-Market StrategyJames Dorn2021-11-15T11:38:47-06:00

Why Your Manufacturing Firm Needs a Market Cycle Analysis

As a manufacturing executive, keeping tabs on your firm’s performance is in your blood. It’s what motivates you — and what keeps you up at night. Because of this, you likely have a keen understanding of your organization’s year-over-year KPIs and current-state performance. Armed with that information, you may think you have everything you need to forecast next year’s numbers and make informed business decisions. But unless you intentionally correlate your historic revenue growth patterns to broader market cycles, your future-state projections will be of limited usefulness. If you want to [...]

Why Your Manufacturing Firm Needs a Market Cycle AnalysisJames Dorn2021-11-17T08:48:57-06:00

Want to Win Elusive Customer Loyalty? Enhance Your Customer Experience.

Today’s customers enjoy an unprecedented level of choice. For manufacturing companies, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. On the one hand, customer loyalty is increasingly elusive. Manufacturers can no longer skate by on incremental product innovation if they want to defend their existing market share. Manufacturing customers (including industrial buyers) now have a wealth of information at their fingertips — without the input of traditional gatekeepers like sales reps and distributors. This means they are no longer as likely to repeatedly buy from the same brand simply because it’s [...]

Want to Win Elusive Customer Loyalty? Enhance Your Customer Experience.James Dorn2021-11-17T08:50:27-06:00

The Changing Face of Competition: Why Manufacturers Should Offer Add-On Services and Enhancements

Today’s end-users have access to a larger quantity of product information and manufacturing brands than ever before. For manufacturers, this means operating in a landscape riddled with fierce competition, product commoditization and end-users who are no longer exclusively loyal to any one brand. One thing is certain: Incremental innovation at the product level simply isn’t enough to create and maintain a meaningful competitive advantage. In order to succeed, manufacturers must now find ways to enhance the value they deliver to end-users in the form of add-on services and enhancements. Why Add-On [...]

The Changing Face of Competition: Why Manufacturers Should Offer Add-On Services and EnhancementsJames Dorn2022-08-11T15:48:14-05:00

Need for Speed: How an Accelerated Growth Mindset Can Help Your Manufacturing Firm Achieve Aggressive Growth Goals

All manufacturing companies need to grow over time in order to remain competitive. But there’s growth and then there’s growth. Some firms — like PE-backed firms and emerging firms — have a mandate to figure out how to accelerate business growth more aggressively than the average manufacturing company. Firms with aggressive growth goals not only face pressure in delivering above-market performance, but they also struggle to develop the right internal processes and scale their talent along the way. The truth is you can’t reach more ambitious growth goals with a “business [...]

Need for Speed: How an Accelerated Growth Mindset Can Help Your Manufacturing Firm Achieve Aggressive Growth GoalsJames Dorn2021-11-17T09:02:33-06:00