How We Help You

Strategic Planning

Our work often starts with a highly disciplined, customized approach to assessing our clients’ particular situations. We typically meet with your team to define your vision, values and competitive advantages; anticipate opportunities as well as obstacles in the marketplace; identify and prioritize major goals; hone in on the most effective strategies to reach your objectives; and establish action plans with tangible next steps, accountability and milestones.

You walk away from these sessions with a well-defined succinct strategy, that you can clearly communicate to your entire organization. More importantly, we give you the tools and training required for successful implementation. We check in regularly to help you track progress, move toward profitable growth, and keep your plan active and relevant.

Export Strategy

Do you believe your product has international sales potential, but don’t know how to get started?  Would you like to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to expanding international sales?

Approximately 95% of the world’s consumers live outside of the U.S. Increasing sales is a top priority for many manufacturers, and exporting helps businesses become more competitive and successful. Diversifying globally also protects firms from slowdowns in any one country, and international networking can lead to the development of new processes, technologies, skills, and product applications.

ExporTech™ is a program co-developed by MEP and the U.S. Commercial Service to help SMEs create or expand their presence in global markets. The intensive three-session program combines peer group learning (4-8 companies at a time) with individual coaching for a compressed learning curve. By the end, participants have not only formulated an export plan, but they have also had the extraordinary opportunity of having their plan vetted by a panel of experienced international businesspeople.

Sales Planning

How well defined are your sales goals?  Are you regularly missing your quotas, and forecasting revenue inaccurately? A well though-out, adaptable sales plan is a roadmap that will help you convert strategic priorities into sales deliverables, gain new clients, and generate additional business from existing ones.

We address the strategic and organizational issues that impact selling performance to help you positively transform your sales organization and improve sales productivity, performance and profitability. Starting with a data-driven approach to analyze your current sales channels and achieve deep understanding of the competitive landscape, we segment your customer base, identify the most promising opportunities, develop sales analytics, train/recruit your staff, and then review the effectiveness of the sales process.

Strategic Marketing

What markets should you be in and which ones should you exit? What are your most profitable opportunities? With limited budgets, time and resources, how do you prioritize your various initiatives for maximum Return on Investment?

We work with your team to develop a tangible marketing plan that captures strategic growth opportunities, prioritizes marketing initiatives, optimizes product, pricing and distribution decisions, sets deadlines and accountability, and attaches the appropriate metrics to measure results.

Succession Planning

Who is capable of managing your business once you decide to move on, or retire? How will ownership be transferred?  Is selling the best option?  With the goals of increasing success, trust and productivity within your organization, ITAC’s succession planning program seeks to help you manage these and many related issues, and set up a smooth transition between you and the future owners.

More specifically, ITAC works with you to:

• Frame succession planning within the context of overall company growth
• Identify succession targets and analyze talent pool
• Ensure buy-in and organizational alignment
• Design sustainable succession planning initiatives based on strategic requirements and identified gaps
• Implement and evaluate succession management plan

Succession planning issues can often be complex and difficult to address yet implementing a succession plan is always preferable to simply letting events unfold. The resulting financial benefits and emotional satisfaction will be invigorating on both the individual and the organizational levels.

Market Research / New Market Growth Opportunities

ITAC is proud to be part of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s nationwide system of centers. Our diverse network has over 1,300 field staff serving as trusted business advisors and technical experts. We use qualitative and quantitative methodologies to help you objectively understand where you are, where you need to be, and how to get you there.

Whether through in-depth interviews, focus groups, online surveys, access to business and academic intelligence, or sophisticated data analytics and modeling, we bring you actionable insights. We regularly perform studies around market size and opportunity, industry analysis, competitive landscape, product development research, voice of the customer (perception, decision factors, unmet needs, usability) and communication effectiveness. We then determine what gaps you need to fill to fully capture specific market opportunities and establish a clear pathway to help you reach your objectives.

Website and Search Engine Optimization

First impressions matter, especially online. A professional website can help you grow your business, reinforce your brand, provide valuable information to existing and prospective customers, and distinguish you from competitors. ITAC works with creative designers and developers that help you engage your audience, tell your story in a thoughtful way, and ensure that your content is optimized for discoverability.

Benchmarking

Integrating benchmarking into your business allows you to compare performance, strategy, costs and quality levels against your peers. It provides you with a “health check” as well as valuable insights to help support your strategic decisions. Benchmarking analyses can also encourage enthusiasm throughout the organization to outperform the competition, and promote objective decision-making based on hard data.

ITAC provides a range of benchmarking services to its clients. We use structured comparisons and proven techniques to gain an independent perspective about your performance compared to other companies, identify key changes to improve your business, prioritize improvement opportunities, set performance expectations, and manage change.

Expansion and Relocation Planning

Running out of space? Lease expiring? Planning a new layout? Considering a move?

Many New York City businesses regularly struggle with these issues, given the particularly high real estate costs. ITAC’s planning specialists can help you reconfigure your space for maximum output and efficiency, based on your unique situation, time frame, square footage, space constraints, location and operating costs.

• Produce more with less: increase your output while using your space more efficiently
• Reduce costs – given the high cost per square foot, contractions in industrial space can result in significant savings
• Avoid a move that you thought necessary
• Create rental space and a new revenue stream thanks to freed-up space

If you have any concerns about your plant, its layout or moving, the sooner you identify your options, the better it will be for your business.  Planning ahead can save you both time and money and increases your chances of finding the most beneficial solution to your current situation.

Change Management

ITAC helps it clients achieve transformational agendas by focusing on people, structure and strategy, while predicting and managing the associated risks. Embedded in the strategy to prepare for, manage and reinforce change, are powerful solutions that can help your business sustain lasting results. They include focus around readiness assessment, executive sponsorship, buy-in and ownership, structural transformations / organizational design, workforce transition programs, communication planning, resistance management, corrective action and success recognition.

Grants & Incentives

ITAC understands incentives, grants and other assistance programs, and can help you locate, apply for and receive funding for a variety of projects, including:

• Technical and non-technical training
• Energy cost reduction
• Lean manufacturing
• Relocation planning
• Developing sustainable products
• Waste reduction
• Pollution prevention
• High-tech innovation for small businesses