"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."
- Peter Drucker

The Rockland Group provides ACTIONABLE expertise in the following areas:

* Extensive Global Expertise *
* International Projects Welcome *

To better understand how we can help you achieve your corporate and personal goals try to honestly and objectively answer the following questions.

• Business Strategy
  
  
• What is your current business strategy? Is it achieving the goals you set for the quarter? For the year? How about over the past three years?
• When was the last time you reviewed and modified your business strategy based on changing economic, market, or competitive conditions?
• Can your employees, stakeholder's, and key customer's accurately explain your strategy?
• Does your strategic plan contain enough detailed information to allow its successful execution?
• How do you monitor and measure its success? Setting growth targets is the easy part. Achieving growth targets is harder. Achieving growth targets while maintaining or improving profitability requires the optimization and alignment of all your company's strategies followed by crisp execution.
• What is your growth strategy? Is it driven by internal development, strategic partnership, licensing, or a combination?
• What is your company's strategic core competence? Are you maximizing it as part of your growth strategy? Failure to adequately plan for and execute a growth strategy can result in profit erosion and severe cash flow issues, which for early to mid-stage companies can be fatal.
• There are two types of growth strategy - reactive and proactive. Which one are you employing?
  
  
• Market Strategy
  
  
• Your market strategy is the foundation of your growth strategy. A growth strategy based on an inaccurate or incorrect market analysis is doomed to failure. Your market strategy will focus and drive your technology commercialization, product development, and operations strategies.
• Do you really understand your market? Most markets are constantly evolving due to changing global and economic conditions. Are you keeping up with these?
• Are there any new developments on the competitive front?
• Do you have a comprehensive market strategy to successfully launch your next product?
• Does your market strategy drive maximum profit margins?
  
  
• Product Development/Technology Commercialization
  
  
• Is it a science project or a product?
• Is there a market? More importantly, is there demand?
• Can this technology be scaled into production quantities?
• Can it be reliably manufactured?
• Can it be priced to achieve acceptable margins?
• What is the competition for this technology? One of the toughest competitors for new technology is the customers decision to maintain the status quo.
• Do you have the right team in place to develop this technology?
• Are there more efficient and effective methods to enter this market other than internal development?
• Is this development aligned with your growth and market strategies?
  
  
• Operations Strategy
  
  
• How will you manufacture and distribute this product?
• Do you plan to outsource any or all of the manufacturing steps? How do you decide which steps to accomplish internally versus outsourced?
• What skill sets will you need to develop to manufacture this product?
• Will the manufacture of this product require specialized assembly or testing equipment?
• Is it more effective to license this technology versus attempting to develop it internally?
• Will this product be introduced into a cyclical market? What is the best strategy to minimize the effects of these cycles on my business model?
• What is the most cost effective process to manufacture this product?
  
  
• Profitability Improvement/Cost Reduction
  
  
• How do I set achievable profit goals for my company?
• How can I monitor and maintain profitability during the product development process?
• What is the relationship between market strategy and profitability?
• What steps can I take to maintain or improve profitability?
• What is the cost of continuing to do nothing?
• What steps can I take to mitigate profit erosion?
• What are the major risks to achieving profitable growth?
• What are the most effective ways to minimize operating costs without impacting quality or customer service?
  
  
• Exit Planning and Preparation
  
  
• You are at the point where you would like to achieve some liquidity for your all your years of effort. Perhaps you have been given this advice by a trusted advisor such as an attorney, CPA, or wealth manager. The problem is these advisors have expertise that is critical at the time of sale and after, but who can help you actually prepare you and the business for sale?
• Who can help you maximize business valuation and minimize the time and complexity of the due diligence process? You need an advisor with the strategic and operational expertise who can perform a pre-due diligence and then work with you to address the critical issues that are identified before the sell process begins.
  
  

Contact: Bill Gately
Tel: (781)-982-1327
E-mail: bill.gately@rockland-group.com