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The Missing Strategic Imperative

The Missing Strategic Imperative

What is the strategic imperative for your integration business?   In the first two parts of this blog series, Joel Harris talked about how strategic planning is essential for your integration business, and it is an activity that integrators should engage in every year. Today, we continue this conversation with

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Integrators should conduct strategic planning every year

Integrators Should Conduct Strategic Planning Every Year

In Part I of this blog series, we talked about how strategic planning is essential for your integration business. Today, we take that discussion a step further to explain why integrators should conduct strategic planning every year. Many times, we don’t start planning for adverse events until they appear, or

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strategic planning is essential for your integration business

Strategic Planning Is Essential for Your Integration Business

What is your excuse for not having a living, actionable, updated strategic plan?    We accept the wisdom of the ages that planning for the future is important, yet many of us are reluctant to invest the time, energy and resources into planning for our business success. Strategic planning is

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Forecasting Sales from New Order History

Forecasting Sales from Your New Order History

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series on forecasting, Joel Harris details three critical KPIs to help integrators predict future results, followed by how to forecast revenue from your monthly backlog. In this final installment we unlock the predictive value of your new order history.   Does your project

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Forecast Revenue from Your Monthly Backlog

Forecast Revenue from Your Monthly Backlog

As someone who values business decisions based on hard data, I have long mined my backlog data to determine how I can use it to predict profit in a period.   In a project-driven integration business, if you can accurately forecast revenue, you can also accurately predict that period’s net

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critical key performance indicators

3 Critical Key Performance Indicators for Systems Integrators

While there are many Key Performance Indicators that are useful in managing your systems integration business, Navigate finds three that are critical and not valued highly enough.   These three critical Key Performance Indicators help us predict future results: Monthly P&L, specifically recognized revenue for the period Monthly new orders

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integrators should hire subcontractors

So, All I Have to Do to Be Profitable is Hire Subcontractors?

Welcome back to the final installment in our blog series from Joel Harris, Understanding Variable Costs is Wildly Important for Your Integration Business.   How do you handle routine seasonal variability, peak demand, and one-time opportunities in your integration business? Most integration businesses I work with have a hired permanent

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Integrators can address seasonality using labor as a variable cost

Address Seasonality Using Labor As a Variable Cost

What is the best way for integrators to address seasonality? This is Part 3 of our blog series from Joel Harris, Understanding Variable Costs is Wildly Important for Your Integration Business.   In the first two installments, Harris shared his experience of using a variable cost structure to transform an

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understanding variable costs and profits hiding in plain sight

Profits Hiding in Plain Sight

Are there profits hiding in plain sight in your integration business? Remeber, every dollar saved goes directly to profits.   Welcome to Part 1 of our new blog series from Joel Harris, Understanding Variable Costs is Wildly Important for Your Integration Business.   More than 20 years ago, I discovered

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