Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy

If where an organization allocates its resources determines its strategy, why is it that so few companies actively manage the resource allocation process? "Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management: Aligning Investment Proposals with Organizational Strategy" goes beyond platitudes about why you should use corporate portfolio management (CPM) by offering a practical methodology to bring this powerful discipline to your organization.

"Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management" takes an expansive view of where CPM can be utilized by demonstrating that it can be used across any business line, product group or functional area, e.g., IT, R&D, innovation, marketing, salesforce, capital expenditure, etc. CPM is appropriate anywhere discretionary investments are being selected and executed. As a result, other terms used to describe portfolio management such as IT portfolio management, enterprise portfolio management, and project portfolio management are all merely subsets or slices of CPM.

The book is written by Anand Sanwal, an expert on CPM, who has led American Express' CPM discipline (referred to as American Express Investment Optimization). American Express' CPM efforts are widely recognized as the most extensive, substantial and progressive deployment of CPM across any organization. Sanwal avoids academic theories and consultant jargon to ultimately deliver pragmatic and proven recommendations on how to make CPM a reality. The book features a foreword by Gary Crittenden, former CFO and EVP of American Express, and several case studies from leading financial services, technology, and government organizations utilizing CPM. Additionally, the book has received significant praise from thought leaders at Google, HP, American Express, The CFO Executive Board, Gartner, Accenture Marketing Sciences, The Wharton School of Business and many others.

Anand Sanwal is Vice President, Investment Optimization and Strategic Business Analysis, at American Express. Within this role, he is responsible for managing billions of dollars of per annum discretionary investment spent as part of American Express's CPM initiative, and also overseeing the CFO's strategy and analysis group. Sanwal holds a degree in finance and accounting from the Wharton School of Business and is a recognized thought leader on corporate portfolio management, speaking frequently to companies and research organizations including the CFO Executive Board, Beyond Budgeting Roundtable, Enterprise Portfolio Management Council, and Gartner, among others. He welcomes your feedback, insights, and comments and can be reached at asanwal@corporateportfoliomanagement.org