Are you facing challenges with reorganizing your business, energizing your
sales force or maximizing ROI on your IT dollars?
Do you need a new Web strategy? Is turnover killing your workforce? Are you
dying to increase productivity?
How will you develop new business or launch your global marketing strategy
before your competitors? How will you align employees and stockholders behind
your new strategy?
These are typical business challenges your competitors are now working on.
These are challenges that impact your bottom line. And these are challenges which
each of our members has encountered, and solved.
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Technology - Your Roadmap for Success
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Are any of these ten technologies important to your business?
- Advanced materials
- Signal processing in electronics and optical systems
- Computer sciences
- Sensing, optical and electromechanical devices
- Environmental sciences
- Genomics and proteomics
- Disease-related research and drug discovery
- Biomedical device technologies
- Renewable energy
- Nanotechnology fabrication
It shouldn’t be surprising if your answer is “yes”.
A new study on Massachusetts’ position in the race for national R&D leadership and new economy jobs highlights the strength of the Massachusetts research establishment and points toward collaboration as a key success factor in more effectively translating university-based research into the marketplace. Leaders can take some straightforward steps to take advantage of this rich environment of innovation.
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Michael Greis
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Information Technology Centralization Is Back
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Companies are “re-centralizing” their IT organizations. After years of decentralizing IT to align it with business units, companies are re-centralizing IT organizations to reduce costs and re-assert corporate control. The challenge has been to come up with a centralized IT structure that does not lose touch with the requirements of individual business units while gaining cost reductions and better alignment with corporate objectives.
The approach to IT centralization can be broken into two types:
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Vincent J. Ferravanti
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Are You Ready for eLearning?
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Are you thinking about launching online learning, but don't know where to begin?
With Learning & Development budgets increasing again, prudent and cost-effective investment in training is critical. Whether yours is a small-business, a large corporation, or a non-profit entity, online learning tools – ranging from online job aids, to web-based seminars, to full-blown graduate level coursework -- can positively impact your bottom line.
Startup investment in eLearning may appear high, but cost over time can significantly decrease training expenditures. Careful planning and implementation of an effective eLearning strategy is key to meeting and exceeding bottom line goals.
Here are the Top 5 questions to ask:
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Joan Goloboy
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Developing and Managing Your Channel Partners for High Performance
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When you decide to develop a channel strategy, you are seeking to extend market reach, drive productivity, lower sales costs, create incremental revenue and provide customers with total solutions. By developing sales through channel partners and strategic alliances, you can reach more customers and sell more products.
However, as you grow your company, you need to clearly think through your
goals for a channel strategy and understand the impact on your company
before moving forward.
Strategic alliances can be very powerful growth engines.
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Raymond L. Mascola
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Global IT Outsourcing – Is It Right For You?
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Have you heard quotes like these?
"A 25% cost savings on an outsourcing contract is a realistic goal when working with an offshore provider." (Forrester analyst)
"I knew we were in trouble when I asked to see their documentation." (a displaced IT manager)
As a business executive, you know that IT support is your biggest expense. Infact, most companies spend between 4 and 10% of their annual expense budget on IT support. Is it any wonder that many executives report that they are feeling pressured by the financial community and their shareholders to seriously consider global IT outsourcing?
And why not?
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Beth Cohen
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Cost Containment Strategies - Harvest the “Low Hanging Fruit”
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You need to be at the top of your game at the workplace - - the economy is
in a continued downspin, unemployment is at it’s highest, and business
resources are at an all time low, and every business has a soft spot –
its wallet. One way of reaching fiscal stability is to examine your company’s
spending habits. Through effective materials and supply chain management, cost
savings can be achieved.
Go first for the “low hanging fruit.”.
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James M. Cohen
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What do companies need now?
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Quick! What are your answers to this question?
Here’s what I hear most often:
1. Increased sales (the faster the better, the more the better)
2. Profit margin erosion (due to increased competition, usually based on price,
even thought costs have been cut)
3. Customer satisfaction and retention levels are on the decline. Why?
4. I installed my CRM software. Why don’t I have CRM?
Sound familiar?
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Elizabeth Rech
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Don’t Let Identity Theft Ruin Your Day
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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Nowhere is that old saying more true than in protecting your personal information. According to the FBI, reported cases of identity theft more than doubled in 2002. In addition to real monetary loss, the aggravation of having to deal with local and federal authorities, credit bureaus, credit card companies, banks, and other financial services companies is a MAJOR headache.
Here’s a rundown of critical information that is worth protecting:
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Robert C. Lonadier
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The Analyst in the Gym ...... and other hazards of business conferences
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Intelligence gathering is an important part of any professional meeting. Companies invest significant resources to send their people to conferences, to walk the exhibit floor to size up the competition, spot trends and new business opportunities and serve as corporate ambassadors at receptions. Make sure your company reaps more than it sows at the next conference.
Not long ago, on my way to a conference, the gentleman next to me on the plane was working hard on his laptop.
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Martha Welsh
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Prices: To Raise or Lower?
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When your sales organization cannot close a deal, do they immediately look to cut the price? Do your customers wait until the very end of the quarter to place an order?
Price often seems to be the most flexible element of your marketing program, but it's not included as one the four 'P's for nothing.
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Tracy L. Vachon
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Project Management – Create a Project Plan that Works
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Are your projects getting delivered late? Over budget? Short on full QA? In these tight times, you cannot afford to miss the market window. However, projects don’t just happen to come in on time and on budget. Accomplishing these goals requires skill, training, thorough planning, and project execution experience.
As you plan and execute your next projects, consider these elements:
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Lisa M. Zimmermann
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Managing IT for Continuous Change
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What e-business is and how it will be look will be radically different in two years, and barely recognizable in five. The platforms, the applications, virtually everything is in a state of flux. How does a manager stay competitive with all the marketplace innovation? The answer is to assume that business will change, and build processes and mechanisms into the business model to manage for continuous and constant change.
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Beth Cohen
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Keep Your Sales Force Happy- - A Finance Win!
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As a finance leader, you spend your day managing millions of dollars of debt, ensuring cash flow to cover liabilities, balancing the books and keeping the auditors at bay. Need to eliminate a headache? Need an easy win? Then think of your customers - - employees in your company depending on your reimbursements to balance their own books.
You can save dollars, cut paperwork, eliminate bureaucracy, and improve customer service with a simple procedural change...
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Linda M. Atlas
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Is Your PC Ready for an Uncertain World?
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What better time to spend a few minutes locking down your PC against known and unknown threats now you've put plastic and duct tape on your windows (if nothing else, at least you will keep warm in subfreezing weather!)
You don’t need to spend big bucks to secure your PC against virus threats and other malicious code; a few simple steps can dramatically reduce your risk of infection.
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Robert C. Lonadier
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Incentive Marketing – Why Now? What Can IT do for you?
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Extensive surveys of corporate executives charged with tracking results of incentive marketing programs show an average return on program investment of 23% over the last 5 years. But consider this: While the average sales increase per program was 16%, an astounding 13% of those responding saw an average sales increase of 30% or more per program. So, what can incentive marketing do for you? The short answer...
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Daniel R. Sharry
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Got CRM? Here’s how to succeed, by really trying!
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After watching hundreds of companies trying to develop and deploy CRM strategies, it is clear to see why so many have failed, or given up altogether! The problem? They haven't put the effort where it counts - - in their own people
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Elizabeth Rech
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