Suffering from Investile Dysfunction?

Investile Dysfunction (ID) occurs when a company has problems allocating its resources and expenses in a way that maximizes revenues, profits and performance. In my experience, suboptimal resource allocation is at the heart of many organizational challenges. And no type of organization is immune from Investile Dysfunction. It doesn't discriminate as everyone is faced with finite resources and too many opportunities - for-profit, non-profit, governmental organizations, etc.

This blog will talk about Investile Dysfunction, propose some solutions on occasion and talk about other topics of interest to businesspeople and finance professionals specifically. Ultimately, however, everything is fair game. If you agree with me or better yet, if you disagree with me, please drop me a line to let me know. I can be reached at asanwal@brilliont.com.

I look forward to future conversations with those of you stumble upon this blog, and in some small way, I hope the ideas I present will be of use as you battle Investile Dysfunction or at least good for a chuckle.

Before I sign off on this first post, let me close with some shameless self-promotion with my bio which is below. I promise to refrain from doing this in the future (unless absolutely necessary). I also promise to never ever again speak about myself in the third person.

My Bio

Anand Sanwal is the former Vice President, Investment Optimization and Strategic Business Analysis, at American Express where he built and led the company's corporate portfolio management effort managing several billion dollars per annum of discretionary investment spend. It is widely recognized as the most ambitious corporate portfolio management undertaking by a large- or mid-size corporation. He also oversaw the CFO's strategic planning group in addition to also leading the creation and management of the company’s inaugural $50MM Chairman’s Innovation Fund. For these efforts, American Express was recently recognized as the most innovative company in Banking & Credit Cards by Fortune Magazine.

He is the author of the book Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy and is currently a Managing Director with Brilliont. He speaks frequently to research organizations and companies on the topics of innovation, corporate portfolio management and cost optimization and has worked with leading pharma, high-tech, healthcare and public sector institutions. His work has been featured in Business Finance Magazine, BPM Magazine, The Journal of Accounting & Finance, Baseline Magazine and The Deal amongst others. He graduated from the Wharton School of Business with a degree in Finance and Accounting and also has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He can be reached at asanwal@brilliont.com.