What do you do to outpace the market and grow faster than your competitors?
Aligning the Dots provides a clear answer to that deceptively simple question. It introduces a new paradigm. It’s a universal, data-driven, and prescriptive methodology, called A4 Precision Alignment™, designed to accelerate any business.
Engaging, profound and thought-provoking, Philippe Bouissou is so passionate about relating strategy to growth to execution. Aligning the Dots illustrates the science he is bringing to these relationships.
BRACKEN DARRELL
CEO of Logitech
“A captivating read introducing new principles for successfully growing any company.”
GORDON SEGAL
Founder and former CEO of Crate and Barrel
Transformative and brilliantly constructed. Aligning the Dots is an extraordinary journey into the world of top-line growth. The stories are captivating, the methodology is insightful and the results impressive. I wish I had read this book decades ago. I highly recommend it.
SHELLYE ARCHAMBEAU
Board member at Verizon and Nordstrom, former CEO of MetricStream
“Philippe Bouissou provides a powerful and inspiring roadmap for accelerating the growth of your business. His alignment framework will help countless companies and leaders. Truly worth reading and applying!”
HUBERT JOLY
Executive Chairman and former CEO of Best Buy
”Bouissou is one of the smartest guys in the Valley. His groundbreaking framework to understand and drive GROWTH will produce supercharged results.
RANDY CHESLER
President and CEO of Glacier Bancorp
“The growth methodology introduced in Aligning the Dots is a concise yet powerful way to drive growth by aligning your business’ products and services to address customers’ pain points and delight them. Very insightful and pragmatic book by Dr. Bouissou.”
LIP-BU TAN
CEO of Cadence Design Systems, Chairman of Walden International
“Bouissou’s background as a successful entrepreneur, first-class investor and theoretical physicist enabled him to come up with a powerful methodology for growth. To be read and applied by any CEO, General Manager or business owner.”
PASCAL CAGNI
Founder and CEO of C4 Ventures, former General Manager of Apple Europe
“In Aligning the Dots, Philippe Bouissou reveals a data-driven approach to solving the revenue growth problem. The unconventional concepts in this book will show you how to align your company and achieve unprecedented growth.”
MAYNARD WEBB
Founder of Webb Investment Network, board member at Salesforce and Visa, former Chairman of Yahoo
“Aligning the Dots offers a new systematic methodology for optimizing resource allocation towards long-term profitable growth. Philippe Bouissou’s engaging style uses a combination of personal anecdotes, scientific analogies and relevant case studies to convey his message of alignment. While the target audience cuts across the broad business community, I find the methodology to be most directly relevant to young technology startups who have very little margin for error in their business model.”
ERIC BENHAMOU
Founder and General Partner, Benhamou Global Ventures, former Chairman and CEO of 3Com
“Every executive intuitively knows the importance of aligning what a company sells with what its customers want, but few executives actually know how to do it right. In his smart, new book—Aligning the Dots—business growth expert Philippe Bouissou presents a simple, but powerful framework for building alignment along four critical business axes. No matter what size your business or what industry you’re in, Aligning the Dots is the playbook you need to spark revenue growth right now—and well into the future.”
PETER ECONOMY
The Leadership Guy, Inc. Magazine
“Aligning the Dots offers a precise, logical way to understand how the fundamental drivers of business work, and how to align your company with them for long-term success. It’s the rare book that combines a comprehensive science of how business works with dozens of practical tips that any leader can apply.”
CHRIS YEH
Co-author of Blitzscaling
“I’ve seen so many businesses struggle as vision and expectations of entrepreneurs and company operators are out of sync with the customer or the marketplace. Aligning the Dots provides an articulate, pragmatic and innovative framework for solving these misalignments. It is a resource that can and should be referenced repeatedly to help pressure test strategy and plans for the competitive edge that derives from precision alignment.”
LORI BUSH
Former President and CEO, Rodan + Fields
“Genius often creates out-of-the-box thinking. Aligning the Dots makes you think differently and that makes it powerful. Any business should understand and use these concepts.”
NOLAN BUSHNELL
Former CEO of Atari and Chuck E Cheese
“Aligning the Dots is essential for CEOs to grow their business. It’s a brutal reminder to measure relative market share and align your business plans based on it, lest perish. Philippe offers compelling examples from which to learn.”
RAY LANE
Managing Partner, Greatpoint Ventures, former President, Oracle Corporation
“Aligning the Dots provides powerful rules and principles for growth: understand what market you want to go after, obsessively align your offering to that market and make sure your stakeholders are also aligned internally behind a purpose and a strong set of values. As a former CEO of a global brand, now backing startups in seed stage, I totally connected with the content of the book. It is truly an inspiring read for all who are motivated to grow their business.”
ODILE ROUJOL
Founder of Fab Ventures, former CEO and President, Lancôme International (L’Oréal)
“Philippe Bouissou’s methodology of external alignment on four axes, coupled with internal alignment, for me, is unique, transformative and consequential. It will be recognized as such in the world of business literature similarly to Michael Porter’s book, Competitive Strategy. I would advise any business leader, CEO, entrepreneur, business owner, board member or investor to read it and learn from it.”
JOHN DEAN
President and CEO of Central Pacific Bank, former Chairman and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank
“While Aligning the Dots won’t make it magically easy, Bouissou’s A4 Precision Alignment™ methodology and compelling case studies will help you avoid the critical misalignments that keep many companies from achieving their full growth potential.”
DRUE FREEMAN
CEO of ACG (Association for Corporate Growth) Silicon Valley
“An insightful and valuable read. Leaders from the boardroom right down who are committed to growth will benefit immensely from the powerful approach and pragmatic suggestions made throughout this book.”
ANITA SANDS, PH.D.
Board member at ServiceNow, Symantec, Pure Storage and ThoughtWorks
Philippe Bouissou, Ph.D. has spent three decades in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, CEO, venture capitalist and management consultant. He is co-founder and Managing Partner at Blue Dots Partners LLC, a management consulting firm focused on top-line revenue acceleration for companies or business units with revenues between $10 million and $1 billion.
Philippe Bouissou, Ph.D. has spent three decades in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, a CEO, a venture capitalist and a management consultant. He is Managing Partner at Blue Dots Partners LLC, a firm he co-founded focused on top-line acceleration. He started his career as the founder and CEO of G2i, Inc. a Unix software company that was acquired by Matra. He then was Senior Vice President at Matra Hachette Multimedia, Inc., where he led US business development for electronic publishing for the $12 billion, high-tech and diversified media company before joining Apple as Director of the Worldwide Internet Commerce group, where he founded and managed the online Apple Store and grew its revenue from zero to $350 million.
After Apple, Bouissou became a venture capitalist and successfully invested $43 million and generated double-digit cash-on-cash IRR. For over half a decade, Bouissou co-managed the Milestone Group, a management consulting firm serving over 220 clients. During his career, Bouissou led over 120 management-consulting projects with companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, SAP and Verisign and served on the board of directors of 20 companies, including ACG (Association for Corporate Growth) Silicon Valley, where he currently serves.
Bouissou graduated from École Normale Supérieure in Paris and holds a BS in Mathematics, an MS in Physics and a Ph.D. in non-linear physics and chaos theory.
Business Alignment Score™
How well is your business aligned for growth?
You need to know, because growth is the imperative for business success and achieving alignment is the key to accelerating growth.
There is a simple, fast way to find out how well your business is aligned. If you are a CEO, a GM of a Business Unit or responsible for a P&L, take ten minutes to answer twelve simple questions.
You will receive a free, customized and confidential report via email that will show your Business Alignment Score™ and identify areas you should likely focus on, to start growing your business faster.
An extraordinary "Claim" for a very challenging "Pain"
February 15, 2024
The magic of expectation
September 01, 2023
Why knowing the “Market Truth” is so critical?
December 12, 2022
Growing revenue is like drinking: it must be done responsibly!
September 01, 2022
Want to know why most B2B companies are not making their numbers?
August 01, 2021
There is ONE clear way to grow your revenue and value…
May 01, 2021
Growing your revenue by 10X
Ben Lee, the CEO of mCube has a developed a powerful approach to grow revenue by 10X...
September 01, 2020
The six models of growth
In the business world where markets are rapidly changing, top-line growth is critical for survival…
March 31, 2020
Why you have to be crazy to start a company…
Startups, in the early-stage of their lives, are very dynamic, nimble and aggressive. It is not uncommon in Silicon Valley to witness...
January 01, 2020
Three lessons I learned from Steve Jobs...
Steve is by far the most fascinating person I have ever worked with. He taught me some valuable lessons I still use today…
June 30, 2019
Growing the topline: a puzzling puzzle
Achieving business alignment is a complex puzzle that often eludes even the most experienced management teams.
May 31, 2019
Newton – A perfect A2 misalignment for Apple
Apple does not always get it right. Here is an illustration of a disastrous...
March 31, 2019
How companies lose alignment
Companies lose their alignment along two different scenarios: unforced and forced...
February 28, 2019
Trust at the core of our second axis of alignment
Without trust, there can’t be a transaction. In essence, trust is the key ingredient that triggers...
January 31, 2019
What role does innovation play on growth?
I often hear that “Innovation”, with a capital “I” is the secret to growth.
December 31, 2018
The “Reverse Movement”: A quiet revolution unfolding now
In his wonderful book “Seven brief lessons on physics”, Carlo Rovelli details the relationship between time and heat.
October 31, 2018
The one and only one…
What is the difference among Boeing, McDonald’s, Farmers Insurance Group, Pixar Animation Studios and Ford Motor?
September 30, 2018
The two types of businesses
In the 1950’s, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman came up with two personality behavior traits, called Type A and Type B.
August 31, 2018
The zabulous story of Zappos
In 1998, Nick Swinmurn was frustrated because he could not put his hands on a pair of brown Airwalks that fit him.
June 30, 2018
How to execute a solid internal alignment?
The four axes of external alignment in our A4 Precision Alignment™ methodology are the keys of the growth puzzle, but...
May 31, 2018
The three laws of business
Like thermodynamics that is governed by three main laws, most businesses have to follow three laws as well.
March 31, 2018
The anatomy of growth
A few weeks ago, a woman in park was asking me: how old is your dog? I answered tongue-in-cheek “35 years."
February 28, 2018
So, tell me: why I should buy?
Over the past three decades, I have met over 2,600 CEOs. For a long time, I used to ask them the same question...
January 31, 2018
Sometimes, there is no there there.
There is a company, you probably have never heard of called JNJ Mobile. It's the parent of MocoSpace.
December 31, 2017
The 40-year quest for the perfect alignment
Here is the impossible challenge that has been around for over 100 years and posed by Einstein...
November 30, 2017
Is Macy’s becoming an extinct species?
Are bricks and mortar becoming irrelevant during a time with Amazon Prime?
September 30, 2017
The impedance mismatch of delight
I recently came across an article, which is an interview of Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.
August 15, 2017
Why external alignment is mission critical…
Before being in the management consulting business, I was a Partner at Allegis Capital, a Palo Alto-based early-stage VC firm...
July 15, 2017
Growth is the master. Success is its slave.
At Blue Dots, we use our top-line revenue growth using our data-driven perspective A4 Precision Alignment™ Methodology.
June 15, 2017
What happened to Nasty Gal?
Nasty Gal was an online fashion store with its own collection and other brand items of edgy, stylish clothing, accessories and shoes.
October 01, 2016
The death of misalignment
Meticulous planning and perfect alignment made the difference between success and a tragic outcome.
April 30, 2016
Every company is in the business of manufacturing delight
On Thursday, March 31st 2016 in LA at SpaceX, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla introduced the Model 3 to the world...
December 01, 2015
Why entrepreneurs and VCs are not always aligned
Entrepreneurs and VCs live on different planets and sometimes seem to be subject to different laws of physics.
November 01, 2015
The life and death of alignment
In July of this year, something pretty special happened in Ottawa, Illinois...
October 15, 2015
Why alignment works — and the story behind our company name
There’s a beginning to everything, and this post is the beginning of our Blue Dots blog. Welcome.
Speaking | Events
I regularly give industry keynotes for global organizations, both publicly and privately on the topics of business alignment or growth transformation. To inquire about speaking, do coaching sessions or a workshop on the topic of growth and our alignment methodology, please drop me an email.
Calendar
TED talk
March 12, 2025
Check out my TED talk, that has been viewed over a million times… 👉 Don’t miss the last 30 seconds, they are truly jaw-dropping!
Exclusive Lunch & Learn
March 6, 2025
Keynote speaker at the Exclusive Lunch & Learn hosted by Insperity at The City Club of San Francisco
Member of the jury for the “Startup of the Year”FABA competition at SAP in San Francisco to select the best startup to be recognized at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on May 30, 2024.
Keynote at the V2MOM annual Moxio conference in Atlanta.
In conversation with Bill Vick, Vistage Chair
January 10, 2024
Upbeat live conversation about my best-selling book, Aligning the Dots, and the topic of growth with Vistage’s Chair Bill Vick.
Keynote at Plug and Play
November 14, 2023
Keynote at Plug and Play kicking off the Dream Challenge K-Startup Demo Day, in Sunnyvale, California.
CEO WORLD Magazine article
October 23, 2023
CEO WORLD Magazine article about business growth, is one of the greatest and most vexing challenges all businesses face.
Arete Coach
August 28, 2023
Host Severin Sorensen described Philippe as “a man whose multifaceted journey through Silicon Valley is filled with invaluable insights” on his Arete Coach podcast series. Listen to the episode here.
The Silicon Valley Podcast
July 9, 2023
Great discussion on The Silicon Valley podcast hosted by Shawn Flynn, about what’s happening in Silicon Valley and my 33 years there, as an entrepreneur, a CEO, a VC, and a board member.
Grow your business podcast
June 28, 2023
Great discussion with Gary Held. host of the Grow Your Business and Grow Your Wealth podcast series about the critical importance of alignment to generate real growth. Listen to the episode here.
The Business Ownership Group
May 18, 2023
Insightful questions from Michelle Nedelec, host of The 7 to 8 Figure Series. We talked about my book and the four universal axes of alignment. Enjoy our discussion here.
Invited by Christina Rivera on her Savy Broadcasting podcast series. Great discussion about The Fallacy of Traditional Business Growth Methods. Listen to the episode here.
FrenchFounders event
February 2, 2023
Philippe’s interview of Nicolas Stehlé, Founder and CEO of Scalefast about his amazing journey and discussion about Philippe’s role as an independent Board Member at a FrenchFounder event in Palo Alto, CA.
Leadership Re-Imagined
October 13, 2022
Guest on the Leadership Re-Imagined podcast hosted by Dr.Jane Lovas. Discussed the imperative of alignment to generate success and growth. Listen to the episode here.
The Coffee Break Show
September 9, 2022
Invite on The Coffee Break Show hosted by Vickie Helm. High-paced discussion on the only way to grow any business. Listen to the episode here or on any of your favorite podcast channels.
The Tony DUrso show
August 18, 2022
I am honored and humbled to have been on the Tony DUrso show, #1 talk show on VoiceAmerica with 30 million listens, to discuss the challenge of growth and my book, Aligning the Dots. Thank you so much Tony for the great opportunity! It was such a delight! Listen to the show here.
Captivating discussion with Greg Voisen, host of the Inside Personal Growth podcast about how to grow personally and professionally. Listen to the episode here.
Super Power Experts
February 22, 2022
Hosted by Justin Recla on his podcast Super Power Experts. The show features people willing to rip apart the veil and dismantle old-school business to prepare for what comes next. Listen to the episode here.
Profit with a plan
February 15, 2022
Great discussion with Marcia Riner, Business Growth Strategist and the host of Profit With a Plan podcast series. Listed to the upbeat conversation with Marcia here.
Millionaire by Morning
February 10, 2022
Engaging discussion with Rashad Thirlkill, host of the popular podcast Millionaire by Morning. Watch the show here.
BVTV
January 10, 2022
Thank you Malcolm Gallagher for inviting me on BVTV and for the trilogy on the secret to grow any business. Watch the three episodes here.
10X CEO conference
September 21, 2021
Invited to keynote at the biennial 10X CEO conference in Park City about the Secret to Grow…
Mastering Leadership podcast
July 12, 2021
Guest of the popular Master Leadership podcast series hosted by Lily Sanabria. Listen to the full episode here.
Jessee Tee Show
May 28, 2021
Guest on the Jessee Tee Show with a fireside discussion with Jessee on life, the military and of course how to build and grow successful businesses.
The C.Q.P. podcast
May 19, 2021
Guest of the C.Q.P. podcast in a conversation with LeShonda Belton about growth, alignment and success and their interdependencies.
Demystifying Silicon Valley Expert Webinar Series
April 7, 2021
Demystifying Silicon Valley Expert Webinar Series hosted by David Frazee. Dr. Bouissou discusses how business leaders can grow their enterprises faster and outpace their competition.
Harvesting Happiness
April 5, 2021
Guest on Lisa Cypers Kamen’s podcast series Harvesting Happiness, Philippe discusses the effect of alignment on ROI and why any business leader should forcefully drive market alignment.
Success made to last
January 12, 2021
An upbeat conversation with Rick Tocquigny, who founded the popular Success Made to Last podcast series. You will learn. among other things, that Rick and Philippe have one thing in common: they both play drums.
C-Suite Radio – Specified Growth Podcast
September 1, 2020
Invited by Tats Nakagawa as a guest on his C-Suite Radio Specified Growth Podcast for a conversation on how alignment is the secret to cut the Gordian growth knot and deliver sustained growth for any business.
Mitchell Levy’s show
June 14, 2020
Special guest on Mitchell Levy’s show, “Special Credibility Episode of Thought Leader Life.”
Discussion on the new paradigm to grow any business based on the four alignment principles described in my book, Aligning the Dots.
Synergy Startup Forum
June 12, 2020
Upcoming → Speaking on the topic of “How Consulting works in the Silicon Valley” at the Synergy Startup Forum at the Computer Museum History in Mountain View, CA.
The New P&L – Principles & Leadership in Business Podcast Series
Invited to speak on the topic of my new book, Aligning the Dots, at Chapman University. It was a great pleasure to share my new paradigm to grow any business with such an attentive audience.
RERadioLive
December 12, 2019
Los Gatos, California
Podcast hosted by Joe Cucchiara about top-line growth and Aligning the Dots. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
C-Circle
November 14, 2019
Palo Alto, California
ACG C-Suite Circle on the topic “Developing and Maintaining Corporate Culture – What Every Business Leader Needs to Know”
Corporate presentation
October 18, 2019
Palo Alto, California
Presentation on the topic of growth to a team of executives.
If you are interested in writing about Aligning the Dots, doing an interview or a podcast, feel free to download any of the following PDF documents or JPG images:
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