PRTM Management Consultants Form Academic Affiliation with Henry Chesbrough

Business Wire, April 12, 2007

Operational Strategy Firm Joins Innovation Thought Leader to Help Deliver Breakthrough Results for Clients

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- PRTM Management Consultants, a global operational strategy consulting firm, has selected Henry Chesbrough, executive director, Center for Open Innovation, University of California at Berkeley, as an academic affiliate. Chesbrough, an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, is the author of two of the leading business books about innovation and is a major thought leader in the area of Open Innovation, focusing on how corporations leverage external partners to extend their ability to create and deliver new products and services.

BusinessWeek named Chesbrough's latest book, Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), one of the Best Innovation and Design Books of 2006. National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" named his previous book, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), one of the best business books of 2003. A practitioner as well as an educator, Chesbrough spent 10 years in senior product planning and strategic marketing positions in the Silicon Valley.

As the newest member of PRTM's academic affiliate program, Dr. Chesbrough will partner with PRTM to help the firm's clients drive growth through innovation. This affiliation represents an exclusive partnership involving joint speaking sessions, intellectual property development, and support for client engagements.

"To innovate openly, companies must do more than search externally for new ideas or license out more of their own ideas," Chesbrough said. "I look forward to collaborating with PRTM to help clients innovate their business models--the way that they create value--and capture a portion of that value for themselves."

"Henry Chesbrough's expertise is ideally suited to PRTM's operational strategy work," said Director Kevin Schwartz, of PRTM's Product Innovation practice area. "Over the past 20 years, PRTM has been the leader in helping companies to achieve transformational results in how they develop new products and services. This relationship adds a major thought leader in open innovation and business model innovation to PRTM's existing team, dramatically increasing the value we can offer to clients," added Schwartz, who recently presented at The Management Roundtable's Co-Development Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., where Chesbrough served as the keynote speaker.

As part of the academic affiliation, Chesbrough and PRTM will discuss the concepts of boundary-less innovation--reaching out to external entities and encompassing innovations in a corporation's business model--in a seminar series kicking off Friday, April 20, 7:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Additional speaking sessions will be held from May through July at academic venues in Orange County, Calif., New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. For more information, visit: www.prtm.com/chesbroughseminars.> About PRTM Management Consultants

Since 1976, PRTM has created a competitive advantage for its clients by changing the way companies operate. PRTM management consultants work with senior executives to develop and implement innovative operational strategies that deliver breakthrough results. The firm is a leader in operational strategy, supply chain, product development, and customer management. PRTM has 16 offices worldwide and serves major industry and government sectors. Visit us at www.prtm.com