Four Steps to Growing a Middle-Market B2B Company

  By Robb Lippitt, CEO of Revolution Dancewear Success in a business-to-business environment, where products and services are provided to other businesses, is not merely achieved by offering superior products and reasonable price points. It’s about enabling your customers to improve their performance. In my years as an entrepreneur, I’ve found that there are 4 [...]

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PwC Says Ambitious Growth Objectives Became Innovation Trigger for Middle-Market Firms

  As more privately held companies escalate their investments in sales and marketing, new innovative initiatives are beginning to mushroom across the lower middle market. Middle-Market Executive recently spoke to Ken Esch, a partner with PwC’s Private Company Services practice, who shared some recent insights from PwC’s Trendsetter Barometer — a quarterly study that tracks [...]

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When It Comes to Middle-Market Growth, Grant Thornton’s CEO Has China on His Mind

  Nearly 4 years ago, when Stephen Chipman was named CEO of Grant Thornton LLP, his global credentials certainly appeared impressive — but perhaps not necessarily essential for a leader tasked with overseeing the U.S.-based operations of a professional services firm. After all, what would an executive most recently charged with building the accounting house’s [...]

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Bring Us Your Sandaled Masses: How Lifestyle is Energizing a Franchisor’s Formula

  When Flip Flop Shops president Brian Curin describes his top business challenge, he doesn’t talk about mall locations or franchise fees or any of the things that you might expect a fast-growing franchisor to dwell upon. Instead, he brings up talent. “We’ve had over 13,000 people apply to be a franchisee, but we [...]

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How Local Ownership Gave Rise to Guardian Pharmacy

  At the beginning, there was just a business model in search of an industry niche. Or at least that’s how Fred Burke likes to begin telling the story of Guardian Pharmacy, LLC — the third largest long-term-care pharmacy company in the U.S., with revenues of more than $210 million. As founder, CEO, and president [...]

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Growth Monitor: Mike Damiani, CEO, Radco, Batavia, Illinois

    As a manufacturer of high-performance specialty fluids, Radco Industries is not the type of company that comes to mind when you think of green industry. However, as more solar energy enterprises around the globe turn to Radco for heat transfer fluids, the stature of the company’s green credentials — along with its revenues [...]

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For BlackLine, SaaS Ambitions Became Precursor to Middle-Market Growth

  It was the kind of strategy decision that can throw even the most well-managed middle-market businesses into complete chaos. After years of developing, incenting, and motivating its world-class sales team to enlighten customers to the virtues of owning its financial close software, BlackLine Systems of Los Angeles scrapped its enterprise licensing model for one [...]

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As Functional Knowledge Trumps IT Knowledge in the Age of the Cloud, Middle-Market Firms Behold a Flattened World

  What was once best left up to the IT department to procure and deploy is now “embedded” in the business, according to Harry Wallaesa, a seasoned business leader whose varied career includes tours of duty as CIO of Campbell Soup Company, president and COO of Safeguard Scientific, and chairman of technology firm Compucom. Middle [...]

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At Flexjet, the Objective of Achieving Sustainable Growth Draws Ever Closer

  When U.S. companies released a wave of cost extraction exercises in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, few executive perks appeared riper for the plucking than the private jet. The charter aircraft and private jet services industries have been trying to return to pre-downturn growth levels ever since, and while growth remains the [...]

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Capital Markets Survey Predicts Slow Growth for 2013 IPOs, Although Seeds of Optimism Linger Inside Lower Middle Market

  As the year begins to unfold, capital market watchers appear to be cautiously optimistic when it comes to 2013’s IPO landscape, including IPO activities at lower-middle-market companies. Brian Eccleston, Middle Market IPO watcher and a partner in the Capital Markets Practice of BDO USA, recently shared with Middle Market Executive some of the findings [...]

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