Portola Operations

These services are for you if you have you ever thought:

“My profits are declining YoY”

“How can I grow profitably?”

“Can somebody please make sense of these numbers for me?”

When you ask an individual what pricing is, they will invariably answer: “how you set prices” or something similar.

Portola Operations believes there is much more to pricing than just the “price setting” part, because every sale—even at the same price—may differ dramatically in profitability and in the value being delivered to the customer.

We can help you analyze Gigabytes of data and discover what drives high margin sales: which products, which channels, which customers and which terms?. We can help you set prices that fully reflect the value you’re delivering to the customer, and optimize service levels for maximum profitability.

Need help with Pricing & Profit Management?

CLIENT / PRODUCT PROFITABILITY

“What drives value?”

“We have these myths about seasonality or profitable clients,

but I haven’t yet seen financial data to prove that”

Typically an off-shoot of the Profit Management work, is to perform deep-dives to better understand client profitability or product/ family profitability

Portola Operations will work together with your financial team to better understand the hard-numbers, and we will work together with your sales & marketing teams or product management teams to enhance these analyses and this “raw data” with qualitative information.

Need help to improve your Client or Product Profitability?

“I need help… somebody to come in and just get this done”

“I would love to chat with an experienced leader who has done this before”

Need a part-time COO?

Even the best operating model can weaken over time as an organization grows, production requirements change, supply chains evolve, new regulations emerge and innovation occurs.

Portola Operations can help your company understand areas that need improvement, and help you prioritize and implement initiatives that enhance operations and improve the bottom line.

We perform like your COO for a defined period of time, working side-by-side with the leadership team to implement these initiatives.

“I need help describing my business model”

“Can somebody build my 5-year financial projections?”

“What are the components of a great pitch deck?”

Founders are very passionate about their product or service, and have worked extremely hard to launch a concept or idea. As they look to take the next steps and acquire funding, some founders need help with the financials, or the business model or even just putting together a good story that will captivate investors.

Portola Operations can help in the following areas:

• Define the business model (i.e. how will you make money?)
• Create 3-5 year financial projections
• Write a great pitch deck

Need help fundraising?

ARTICLES

Increase your bottom-line, without necessarily raising prices

WEBCASTS

Components and Story for a Great “Pitch Deck”

ARTICLES

Why Your Strategy May be Wrong

See older articles

We serve a broad spectrum of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, both private and also public, and spanning most industries.

We respect the privacy of our clients and would be happy to provide you with names and references if needed.

Need references?

Patricio Simpson is a partner based out of San Francisco. He has deep expertise in pricing, profit management, finance, fund-raising, marketing, sales and operations, and has been running Portola Operations for almost five years now.

He has served clients in manufacturing, food and beverage, high technology, retail and higher education on topics that range from customer segmentation and valuation, marketing analytics, pricing strategy, revenue management to the execution of profit improvement programs. He has strong experience managing internal projects, including working with international business units and global Fortune 500 companies.

Previously he spent 18 years working for Price Waterhouse Coopers and then Deloitte, where ultimately he launched Deloitte’s Pricing practice on the west coast and in Latin America.

Lately Patricio has been involved in WEConnect Recovery (a startup with a focus on helping patients in long-term recovery from alcohol or drugs) where he was named to the Board of Advisors. He also serves on the SF Bay Club Advisory Board and participates in Squash-Drive (a sports and tutoring program for inner-city kids)

Patricio has an MBA from Stanford University, and a BA (Licenciado) with dual degrees in Accounting and Business Administration from the Universidad Católica Argentina

Patricio has been a speaker at both the Stanford Graduate School of Business and UC Berkeley Haas, and is the creator and moderator of a Friendly Advisory Board (FAB) for Silicon Valley executives

Imtiaz Patel is a seasoned executive and strategy professional with a proven track record of driving significant growth and profit improvement in both consulting and operational roles. Imtiaz has extensive experience in a variety of industries, including retail, consumer goods, media, cybersecurity and financial services. As a consultant, he has led engagements for some of the best-known brands in the US and Europe and as an operator, he has conceived and launched businesses that have generated hundreds of millions in revenue.

Prior to launching his own consulting firm, Imtiaz was the Head of Strategy & Business Development for The Children’s Place, where he was also the interim Chief Marketing Officer, led the international business and eCommerce. His work there was focused on developing new growth avenues, including international, digital, new product categories and new channels. He also held a number of operational roles at Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. His tenure there was focused on driving a number of major transformation initiatives. He has also spent 12 years in management consulting with Kurt Salmon Associates, Deloitte Consulting, and Scient.

Imtiaz graduated from The London School of Economics with a B.Sc in Economics, Accounting, and Finance and earned his MBA from Columbia Business School.