Insights Into the PE World
THE MAINSHEETOP BLOG
Making the Case for – or Against – IoT for Mid-Market Manufacturing
The rapidly falling costs of sensors and cloud-based storage have more than a few B2B industrial companies wondering if it’s time to add sensors to their products, thereby opening new data (and revenue) streams. IoT is, of course, big business. Discrete Manufacturing, Transportation and Logistics, and Utilities will lead all industries in IoT spending by 2020, averaging $40B each and Bain predicts B2B IoT segments will generate more than $300B annually by 2020, including about $85B in the industrial sector. Which may be why I’m sensing a growing level of uneasiness over IoT strategies [...]
How to Solve CEO Turnover in PE Companies
A majority of the CEOs tasked with transforming PE portfolio companies into lucrative exits are instead being replaced within the first two years of the investment, thereby putting both the reality of those plans and their timetables in real jeopardy. Meaning that solving CEO turnover in PE companies is critical to industry success. That is the consensus of a recent PE industry survey, which also suggests that much of this executive churn could be avoided through a more intelligent approach to due diligence, planning and managing the relationship between the CEO and ownership. To those [...]
Michael Hejtmanek Joins Mainsheet OP as Partner
Mainsheet OP, which provides operating partner services, announced today that Michael Hejtmanek has joined the company as Partner. Hejtmanek, formerly of Hasselblad Inc., is a highly experienced chief executive with a track record of identifying and delivering value at privately-owned mid-market companies. “I am delighted that Michael is joining Mainsheet OP and enabling growth in our fractional Operating Partner model,” said Simon Jones, founder and CEO of Mainsheet OP. “Michael has a proven track record as CEO of a privately owned international enterprise but, just as important, he clearly has the social intelligence skills [...]
Using Customer Focus to Simplify Operations
Spend a few hours picking the brain of virtually any senior executive today and I can almost guarantee two of the topics that will come up: simplification and customer focus. What you are far less likely to hear, however, is the inherent synchronicity linking these two concepts. To most executives, simplification is specific to an internal activity practiced by a project team. Conversely, customer focus is deemed an externally focused activity and usually the domain of marketing or sales. Why the missing link between these two all-important practices? From my experience, it’s usually a [...]
The Additive Manufacturing Revolution: Ready or Not
My professional life began in earnest in the 1980s at the very same time that the Just-in-Time (JIT) revolution emanating out of Japan was really beginning to hit its stride. Borne out of the vaunted Toyota Production System, JIT rocked manufacturing industries large and small and gave rise to new modes of competition that remain as potent today as they were 30 years ago. A cornerstone of JIT was ‘batch of one’ production, an innovation that resulted in low inventories, faster factory throughput, and for obvious reasons, stronger business results. Alliteratively speaking, JIT was [...]
The 7 Lessons to a Successful Product Launch
Given just how important new product launches are to the value creation process, I thought it worth sharing seven of the most important lessons learned during my years in the trenches, as a CEO, and as a consultant. To make things easier, I’ll use a recent success story to help illustrate these lessons – each of which played a significant role in the launch of a new platform. Some background: the company in question already enjoyed broad-based adoption of its sophisticated electronics. But the rapid evolution of technology being what it is, a market [...]