7/23/2019 Equity Firms Should Leverage Innovation

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Equity Firms Should Leverage Innovation

On the strategy side of our business, we work with many private equity-baked ompanies!

"e get alled in when the growth tra#etory and investment thesis aren$t being reali%ed as

pro#eted!

"e omplete a diagnosis, based on a holisti evaluation of the market, ompetition, ulture,

marketing and operations of the firm! &pplying a variety of in-depth primary and seondary

forms of researh and analysis, we develop a roadmap of real, organi growth!

'iven the left-brain methods, a le(ion used by the best business shools and the )arvard

*usiness +eview, the analyti rigor and aurate modeling of probable growth, down to the

into(iating bar graphs and spreadsheets filed with the right pro(ies, we earn the trust of the

ompany$s board usually omprised of their biggest investors, assoiates in a private equity

firm founders and leaders!

hey know these idioms, share a level of omfort with the form of the presentation, and find

solae in the fat that we use our mastery of this business shool approah to management

onsulting! "ithout fail, those who follow our advie perform better in the market!

hen, we mention the .I/ word and it is as if we are insulted their mothers0 the onversation

is over! Innovation, too often misunderstood, is not a disease, nor is it an airy-fairy notion! In

fat, private equity firms should plae an imperative of genuine innovation on the ompanies

into whih they invest, as it is a real, repeatable and ost-effiient lever of top-line revenue

generation!

1aybe it is beause innovation started in the design and engineering fields, rather than part

of the ore *-shool business management or finane traks that imprinted their thinking

about business2

1aybe it is a shared sense of risk-aversion that wards off anything outside of an industrial-

revolution era sense of business praties that people prone to 3E work may e(emplify2 1aybe

they #ust haven$t seen the real and tangible benefits of a disiplined innovation program and

its bounty firsthand2

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"hatever the reasons for the blank stares and lak of interest in innovation by many 3E firms

we have met around the globe, we predit that one one ma#or 3E firm retains an innovation

firm for its portfolio and sees the inremental, breakthrough and disruptive and massive

growth, that innovation will beome a ore engine of growth in this setor!

3E firms are slow to hange behavior, given their autious worldview and the gravity of their

investment0 however, one they find something that works, the whole industry hanges

ourse!

'iven that several established innovation methodologies are now being taught in leading

business shools from 1I to Stanford to +otman and others and that book after book about

market leaders who use these tehniques are being digested, it is #ust a matter of time! One

private equity groups understand how innovation works and how it an be used to inspire

transformative growth, innovation will be one of the foremost toolkits in a segment that

ignores its power!

Michael Graber, managing partner of the Southern Growth Studio, can be reached

at southerngrowthstudio.com.

http://www.memphisdailynews.com/Search/Search.aspx?redir=1&fn=Michael&ln=Graberhttp://southerngrowthstudio.com/http://southerngrowthstudio.com/http://www.memphisdailynews.com/Search/Search.aspx?redir=1&fn=Michael&ln=Graber