Michael Stone founded Stone & Associates 26 years ago after 9 years at Telesis, the strategic consulting arm of Towers Perrin. His work with clients has focused on strategy development projects that involve in depth external research and analysis to understand customer needs, generate market insights, or devise successful competitive strategies in global markets. His client experience includes government/non-profit economic development organizations that serve manufacturing companies, Fortune 500 companies and small- and mid-market industrial firms. His engagements have required an understanding of global markets throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and have involved a wide range of industries.
Mr. Stone is one of the principal architects of the MEP National Network’s ExporTech™ program, an innovative, structured export growth program that has been highly successful in assisting over one thousand small and mid-size manufacturers (SMMs) to expand in global markets. As one of the program’s leaders, master facilitators and content developers, he has assisted hundreds of companies and collaborated with export assistance organizations across dozens of states. He is well known in the export assistance community nationwide, and because of his ExporTech experience and previous studies on successful export strategies, Mr. Stone was commissioned to write an extensively cited report on federal and state export promotion strategies, and has been invited to present at numerous export-related conferences, workshops and webinars.
Mr. Stone has also developed extensive insight into small- to mid-sized manufacturers (SMMs), based on over one hundred projects for the US Department of Commerce, mostly for the NIST* Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST MEP) and the International Trade Administration (ITA). His breadth of experience encompasses major research efforts on the service needs and behavior of SMMs, and successful export and competitive strategies in global markets.
Mr. Stone also provides support for individual manufacturers – ranging from Fortune 500 to small- and mid-market companies – through in-depth consulting projects, often with global scope. Typical engagements have involved research and assessment of market and growth opportunities, competitive threats, customer needs and market trends.
Much of Mr. Stone’s work leverages private sector business experience for non-profit and government clients. As an example, he was instrumental in major initiatives for The Clinton Foundation. By leading a team that developed product cost models, he helped the Foundation forge a landmark agreement with leading generic pharmaceutical companies in India to reduce the price of HIV/AIDs drugs for developing nations. He also helped the Foundation’s Climate Change Initiative to develop partnerships with suppliers of energy-efficient/green technologies to advance adoption of green products in a consortium of 40 large global cities.
* National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce
Read more about Mike Stone and Stone & Associates on the web HERE
Considering going global? Read “Expand Your Borders: An Expert Guide” published by Fed Ex It’s an interview of Mike Stone regarding the 5 crucial questions a business that is thinking about global markets needs to consider first.
See Mike in an REDC (Rutland Economic Development Corp.) newsletter dated June 22, 2017:
