Angela Poulson, Author at Modern Distribution Management - Page 7 of 7

Posts By Angela Poulson

In the recent MDM Webcast, Managing for Profit: Five Building Blocks of Success, Jonathan Byrnes, senior MIT lecturer and author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink, offers strategies in five key areas that can, when applied together, help managers lead companies to a better bottom line. The webcast, the final in a four-part series on managing for profitability, is available on DVD at www.mdm.com/islands.

Even in leading companies, 30 percent to 40 percent of the business is unprofitable. At the same time, 20 percent to 30 percent is highly profitable, enough to subsidize the loss, according to Jonathan Byrnes, senior MIT lecturer and author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink. While many business leaders tend to focus on the unprofitable aspects of their businesses in an attempt to fix what’s broken, Byrnes says companies would do well to focus more on those products and initiatives that contribute to the bottom line.

“If you don’t secure that business, you’re really in trouble,” he says.

In the recent MDM Webcast, Managing for Profit, Byrnes recommends leaders focus on five building blocks that, when executed effectively and simultaneously, can …

In MDM's 2012 Wholesale Distribution M&A Update webcast, three industry experts, including representatives from investment banking, private equity and distribution, shed light on current trends in the industry. Merger and acquisition activity in distribution has bounced back, led by increasing middle-market transactions with predominantly strategic buyers.

Despite lower overall spending on transactions, merger and acquisition activity in the U.S. has made a comeback, according to Jason Kliewer, director of the distribution group for investment banking firm Robert W. Baird & Co. The U.S. M&A deal count has returned to near-2007 levels, driven in part by increasing middle-market transactions since 2009.

In distribution, activity has followed suit. M&A in 2010 reached “record levels, with deal count doubling from …

Executives of manufacturing firms expect growth to continue in 2012, and they expect that growth to enable new investments in innovation, according to two recent industry surveys.

More than half of the respondents to ThomasNet.com’s newest Industry Market Barometer survey reported company growth in 2011. And three out of four of the more than 3,700 industrial manufacturing and supply professionals surveyed expect …

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