Restructuring Baseline has catalyzed our newest high level I.T. and Energy Consulting Services. Building on the synergy of 30+ years of Energy, Business and I.T. experience, Baseline now provides broad-based Green-centric Executive Consulting Services. Baseline's growing team of consultants offers clients a level of comprehensive design & implementation planning services that ensure their clients are positioned ahead of competition so as to realize the myriad cost benefits that derive from Smart Grid-ready facilities and converging IP, including IPv6 network Infrastructures. These new infrastructures enable clients to benefit from emerging Smart Grid Communication initiatives from Transmission through Distribution culminating at the End-user. The Challenge
It’s a rare business whose products, services, or markets are not touched in some way by the prices of oil, natural gas and coal. Almost every link in the value-chain or supply-chain of most businesses has evolved around the assumption of a steady supply of cheap fossil fuel-derived energy - gasoline, diesel, heating oil or electricity. Every link has a critical dependency on a steady supply of some fossil fuel-derived feedstock - plastics, organic polymers, fertilizers, to name a few - either through direct use, or indirectly through their use by customers or suppliers.
The ultimate expression of these assumptions is the emergence of highly-centralized production complexes within a global economy. Without cheap energy and feedstock, the economics of shipping raw materials around the globe for manufacture, then back again as finished goods become questionable. The viability of shipping agricultural inputs to the American west coast then around the globe as processed foods, with 10 calories of embedded fossil-fuel energy for every one calorie of food value, is undermined. A throwaway economy based on sending valuable resources and embedded energy into the landfill becomes impractical.
These assumptions have been baked into our business models, and most companies have no ‘Plan B’. America is not so much “addicted to oil” as the interdependent economies of industrialized countries have a critical dependency on a predictable supply of cheap energy and fossil-fuel derived feedstock. As $147 dollar/barrel oil amply demonstrated, when these assumptions are challenged, markets falter, unemployment rises, and financial systems unravel. We are still experiencing its impact: extreme volatility in the marketplace and uncertainty in the timing and nature of a recovery.
A Solution
At Baseline, we see opportunity for our clients. Thoughtfully crafted tactics and strategy, an updated roadmap, and timely execution can help insulate a business from changes in the operating environment, reduce costs, and identify new market opportunities.
The history of business is a history of disruptive events and how companies elect to respond. Office automation, inexpensive communications, integrated supply chains, Internet-enabled disintermediation of those supply chains, deregulation of industries, and a global economy are examples of highly-disruptive events that changed the rulebook, cannibalized and reallocated existing market share, and penalized passive companies while rewarding others.
About Baseline
Baseline is an orchestrated alliance of experts that help clients assess their exposure, craft contingent tactics and strategy, and execute strategy in a timely fashion. Our areas of expertise include:
- Energy including energy efficiency, energy conservation and alternative energy technology and business strategy, and preparation for a Smart Grid rollout
- Business Model Analyses including value-chain and supply chain stress analyses and contingency planning
- Information Technology to capture critical management metrics and empower company leadership through actionable data
For more information on how Baseline can help your company, contact:
John Monroe | Baseline Technologies, LLC
828.698.7000 | jkmonroe@baseline-tech.com