Welcome to MAVERICK Ideas – Big Ideas from MAVERICK Technologies

As someone who’s built a career solving manufacturing challenges, I’ve seen a lot of successes and failures over the years. I’m sure you have, too, especially during the recent recession and the ongoing recovery. We’ve watched a lot of businesses fold and a lot of others reposition themselves to come out on top of their market. Just look at what happened to General Motors and Chrysler versus Google and McDonald’s.

And even though the stock market is doing better overall, capital investment has been slow to come back into the marketplace. Manufacturers in particular are a bit wary and uncertain how to move forward. It’s hard to pinpoint high-return, low-risk investments right now. So, here’s an idea to get this blog rolling: Invest in yourself.

If you’ve been part of the MAVERICK community for a while, you may remember us talking about this concept before in a white paper. Even so, it’s worth thinking about again. Because if you have a cash surplus in your business or even a little borrowing power, you should be investing. And your best opportunity ‘with lower risk and higher’ returns is to invest in your own interests in the fields of automation and enterprise integration. So, invest in yourself.

Investments in outside companies and markets are out of your control, but an investment in yourself is completely controllable. One of my favorite quotes is from GE’s former chairman and CEO, Jack Welch: “Control your own destiny or someone else will.” It’s so true. And now’s the time.

Have you invested in your business lately? If so, tell me in the comments – I’d like to hear about it, and I’m sure others would, too. Or if you’d like to talk to me about opportunities to invest in yourself, contact MAVERICK or e-mail me directly.

Next week I’ll give you some ideas for how to invest in yourself.