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From Panic to Profit
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From Panic to Profit

Uncover Value, Boost Revenue, and Grow Your Business with the 80/20 Principle

Bill Canady
Wiley, 2025
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OTC Industrial Technologies CEO Bill Canady offers a transformation program for struggling small to medium-sized businesses. He calls for revamping your processes and practices to establish a “Profitable Growth Operating System” (PGOS) that optimizes those aspects of your business that drive results – based on the 80/20 principle. Canady provides a case history to show how this works, though anchoring the theoretical in the practical is always challenging. He explains that a successful PGOS requires a “visionary” leader, executives who can realize the leader’s vision, and managers to steer daily operations. Canady outlines steps to take in your PGOS initiative’s first 100 days to cut costs, increase revenue, and generate profits. His advice: you have to “earn the right to grow,” so start now.

Summary

Establish your organization’s need for action and set a goal. Base your strategic thinking on the 80/20 rule: 20% of action creates 80% of results.

If your business is in a downward spiral or stagnating and failing to meet growth expectations, don’t panic. If you want your company to grow quickly, you need to take prompt action and change the way you operate. Specifically, consider adopting a Profitable Growth Operating System (PGOS) that adheres to the 80/20 Pareto principle.

In general, this principle – named after 19th-century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto – asserts that 80% of consequences, in any field, such as business, politics, or engineering, come from 20% of causes. In short, 20% of your actions are critical to your overall results, and the rest of what you do matters less or not at all.

The 80/20 principle is, in effect, a natural law; however, human beings govern a company’s actions and probably don’t weigh their work and its results through that lens. With that in mind, try to redefine your organization’s current state and the impact of its activities according to the 80/20 principle. Then persuade your colleagues about the need for change, so...

About the Author

Bill Canady is CEO of OTC Industrial Technologies and Arrowhead Engineered Products. He is also the author of The 80/20 CEO and The Rule of Three: How Visionaries, Prophets, and Operators Make Your Business Unstoppable.

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