N2Growth Blog

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

As for me and my companies, we will remain dedicated to providing the physical security measures necessary to save lives in the future. Mello Here's a link to a post I run each year at this time to make sure that I never forget the tragedy and heroism that took place on September 11, 2001. I Think Not.

Blog 404

Blog Hotels Follow-up Brand 404

Strategy Driven

JUNE 19, 2015

I’ve recommended anniversary celebrations to client companies before. In 1978, I was advising Uniroyal Tire Company. My research revealed that their company had in fact founded LLB, which younger generations of management did not know. Change is innovative. Exxon (Humble Oil & Refining Company), 100th.

Case Study 50

Case Study Open-book Learning Curve Learning-by-Doing 50

Harvard Business Review

JULY 2, 2015

Many companies start their search for global growth in an alphabet soup of emerging-market groupings such as the BRIC , CIVETS , MINT , Next 11 , and so on. There are several flaws in using such acronyms as the basis for entering overseas markets. Steven Moore. Is that smart? Not really, suggests our analysis.

Marketing 8

Marketing Benchmarking Globalization Construction 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2016

You hear a lot about “agile innovation” these days. Toyota hired Deming to train hundreds of the company’s managers, eventually capitalizing on his expertise to develop the famous Toyota Production System — the primary source of today’s “lean” thinking. They keep customers happier.

Agility 8

Agility Nonaka Takeuchi Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 31, 2011

As Steve Jobs steps down as Apple's CEO — and Tim Cook takes over — many folks are wondering whether Apple can keep its innovation engine humming. He was first shown the door when John Scully and other marketing folks led the charge at Apple — a charge that quickly took a nosedive. Can he do it?

Innovation 13

Innovation Disruptive Innovation Restructuring Technology 13

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

What’s more critical to producing a breakthrough innovation – finding creative people or finding creative ideas? Bernard Arnault, for instance, the executive chairman of luxury goods maker LVMH, was clearly in the same frame of mind when we caught up with him in a 2001 HBR interview. This astonished Catmull.

Process 8

Process Innovation Brainstorming Creativity 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 8, 2015

This may sound as though we’ve got our facts backward, but your company can significantly increase its knowledge output by cutting R&D spending. The company’s R&D expenditures dropped by about $1.5 Over time, many of the best tech companies cycle between exploration and exploitation. Take Cisco, for example.

Innovation 8

Innovation Parcell Wireless Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2012

This practice, which is largely the evolution of database marketing, has become a critical driver of business strategy for global organizations in nearly every industry and vertical, because it supports decisions with data. In this way, CI's value extends well beyond the marketing organization. The ability to speak "IT."

Company 13

Company Business Intelligence CRM Marketing 13

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 5, 2012

With the Winter holiday shopping season, fashion apparel retailer Zara has been the focus of media attention — the New York Times recently profiled the innovative fast fashion business model pioneered by Zara, while Elizabeth Cline's book on the costs of fast fashion has climbed up the sales charts. Why wasn't it copied immediately?

Business Model 8

Business Model Innovation First-mover Advantage Apparel 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2016

A staggering 88% of companies listed in the 1955 Fortune 500 are nowhere to be found in the same list today. If we want our companies to last, we must excel at the “ Three Box Solution.” If we want our companies to last, we must excel at the “ Three Box Solution.” Now it’s less than 15 years.

Company 8

Company Welch Bureaucracy Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

In fact, by some measures, the best emerging-market firms are more competitive than firms in advanced economies including the United States and the United Kingdom. More large companies means the gains are distributed more broadly than would be the case with just a few—but that domestic competition can be ferocious.

Depreciation 8

Depreciation Long-term Short-term GDP 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 20, 2016

But if the purpose of the company is its long-term survival, then one could make the argument that he was a failure as CEO, as he optimized short-term gains by squandering long-term opportunities. These misses weren’t in some tangential markets – search, mobile, and the cloud were where Microsoft users were heading.

CEO 8

CEO Supply Chain Long-term Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2012

In 2001, Peter Drucker wrote in The Economist that "businesspeople stand on the threshold of the knowledge society. In this society, a company's competitive advantage will come from an historically underdeveloped asset: the ability to capture and apply insights from diverse fields.". It's a compelling argument.

CEO 13

CEO Drucker Competitive Advantage Strategic Planning 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 16, 2013

What the naysayers are overlooking or ignoring is that one could have made a list for Steve Jobs that would look remarkably similar: Missed earnings: Apple posted a $247 million quarterly loss ( in 2001 , four years after Jobs took over — and the stock went UP in after-hours trading). Bad quality control: MobileMe, antenna-gate.

Marketing 9

Marketing Stage-Gate Advertising Price 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 4, 2018

In 2001, a new approach to technology development was created by a daring group of developers. While Agile began as a product development innovation, it sparked a corporate strategy and process revolution. .” ” Today, leading companies are embracing a new business process methodology. Insight Center.

Agility 8

Agility Development Organization Software 8

Ask Atma

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

Using the concept of controlled chaos it is possible to increase efficiency and innovation. Consider this statement of values from the original authors of the agile manifesto (Beedle, et al; 2001): I. We think clearly and adapt quickly to customer/market needs (aka reality). Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Agility 71

Agility Project Software Short-term 71

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2017

He radically transformed the company from a classic conglomerate that did everything to one that focused on its core industrial businesses. Andreessen’s article helped accelerate the company’s digital transformation. Innovation at GE was on a roll. Are lean innovation and the startup way a failure in large companies?

Ries 8

Ries Long-term Short-term Price 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2013

My consulting firm works with many successful market leaders with amazing market shares — 30%, 50%, 70% and even 90%. Since these companies already effectively own their existing categories, the only way to grow is to find the rising tide to grow or create a new category.

Price 8

Price Franchising Marketing CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

When I asked why the company had done something that caused so much damage, the reply was that it was expected by Wall Street and his CEO peers. A friend who has worked for decades at the Bank of America told me that the company fully understood the poor loans it was making. As former Procter & Gamble CEO A.

CEO 13

CEO Benchmarking Long-term Banking 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 17, 2013

With increasing industry disruption, efficiency is fast becoming of secondary importance to innovation and agility. As a recent WalMart staff proposal stated "We have cut costs too far, stores are understaffed, and associates cannot provide customers with the service that Sam Walton built the company on, and that we are proud to provide."

Agility 8

Agility Process Long-term Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 19, 2011

HP's sudden departure from a business model that has sustained the company since inception is symptomatic of the passing of an era. HP management conceded that the disruptive impact of the iPad forced their hand but that hand was already quite weak from a decade of over-serving the market. On October 23, 2001, Apple announced the iPod.

Software 9

Software Maturity Resistance Business Model 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 20, 2016

Perhaps your company has recently been acquired, changing the culture. ” In 2001 Schillinger landed a position in France at the vaccine maker. She moved to Boston in 2015 to focus on quality innovation. ” Schillinger’s story shows that you don’t have to quit your company to stay engaged.

Career 10

Career Short-term Human Resources Long-term 10

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 16, 2011

So it is with most breakthrough innovations and banner financial years. Investors grapple daily in an effort to figure out how to value companies whose accounting assets — things like land, capital, products, and licenses — don't adequately express their true market value. What are you doing to cultivate them?

Intangible Assets 14

Intangible Assets Analysis Pharmaceuticals Innovation 14

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2017

The companies that are most vocal about environmental and social issues tend to be big, mass-market brands — well-known retailers , consumer products giants , and tech firms that are telling a new story to consumers who increasingly care about sustainability. These companies can’t ignore sustainability.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Payback Period Brand Energy 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Unlike most rankings, it was based on a systematic analysis of stock-market performance among nearly 2,000 CEOs of the world's largest companies. companies is around six years. Market Capitalization increase during tenure: $341.5 Steve Jobs combined creativity with discipline, and innovation with scale.

CEO 12

CEO Collins Long-term Analysis 12

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

This despite Wall Street’s uncertainty since the death of the company’s founder and visionary, Steve Jobs. Consider the recent history of Apple and Microsoft, two tech companies no longer run by their visionary founders, and how each has competed in red or blue oceans.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Blue Ocean Strategy Price 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2016

No matter how you look at it, there have been terrible, unintended outcomes from the introduction and marketing of next-generation prescription opioids. Meanwhile, the amount of prescription opioids sold by pharmaceutical companies has quadrupled, despite no proliferation in the amount of reported pain. And what can we learn from it?

Incentives 8

Incentives Pharmaceuticals Crisis P&L 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

For many companies, a shrinking middle class means a shrinking top line, as their traditional consumer base migrates to the lower end of the market. Smucker Company. That's right — the outfit best known for selling peanut butter and those iconic jars of jam that haven't changed much since the company was founded in 1897.

Brand 12

Brand Strategic Fit Retail McKinsey 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2011

Ned Barnholt is the former CEO of Agilent Technologies, the measurement company, and these days he's one of the more respected executives in Silicon Valley. To launch HP's big new businesses, the company's managers took rigorously logical steps. But they only looked at opportunities in what were already billion dollar markets.

Ries 10

Ries Agility Market Segmentation Christensen 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2012

The speech resonated with me, so while serving as his lead researcher in 2001 and 2002, I returned to his classroom to hear it again. When I first met Christensen he was certainly well known due to the 1997 publication of The Innovator's Dilemma , which won the Global Best Business Book award.

Christensen 10

Christensen Succession Storytelling McKinsey 10

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

Entrepreneurs and innovators are supposed to be happily self-directed. Although they're no longer wage slaves, they still feel captive to the fortunes and whims of big companies. Artisans' cooperatives help market products from diverse artists. Instead, the same sad story is popping up in many parts of the world.

Entrepreneur 15

Entrepreneur Cooper Apparel Bureaucracy 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 21, 2011

Amid the financial crisis in Greece and threats of double-dip recessions, the last thing on the minds of Western companies right now might be recruitment. But, as the story of Samsung demonstrates, recruitment is very much on the minds of emerging-market companies.

Banking 11

Banking Crisis Restructuring Reputation 11

Harvard Business Review

JULY 15, 2016

Today, the term increasingly serves as a corporate bogeyman that warns executives of the need to stand up and respond when disruptive developments encroach on their market. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, exited legacy businesses and sold off its patents before re-emerging as a sharply smaller company in 2013.

Technology 8

Technology Film Gilbert Business Model 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 28, 2015

She, and two others, then brought suit against the company. As expected, Uber filed its rebuttal on July 9, bolstered with written statements from more than 400 drivers supporting the company. As expected, Uber filed its rebuttal on July 9, bolstered with written statements from more than 400 drivers supporting the company.

Restructuring 8

Restructuring Diversity Hotels Drucker 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 8, 2010

And unfortunately, it's also one of the most in need of radical institutional innovation. Why, for example, can't we have continuously updated earnings releases — that let us see what companies are earning in real-time — for a continuously connected world? But to the newcomers, let me explain what I mean.

GDP 15

GDP Hypercompetition IPO Information 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

Between 2001 and the end of 2008, for example, no less than 15 U.S. In the past few years, profits have become positive across the industry, and market caps are soaring from prior lows. For many airlines, this simple innovation was the difference between survival and insolvency. airlines filed for bankruptcy. So what happened?

Airlines 8

Airlines Industry Transportation Travel 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 12, 2012

In my four decades as a senior manager, CEO, and corporate director of American high-tech companies, I have never seen the state of innovation in the U.S. Yet at no time in American history has it been so important to come up with innovative solutions. Innovation is the use of creativity to solve real customer problems.

Senge 8

Senge Engineering Innovation Learning-by-Doing 8