Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2016

Early last year, our company, Duarte Inc., We had turned our org chart on its side, so that nearly every person in the company either had a new boss or was a new boss. Remember how Howard Schultz launched his renewed vision for Starbucks when he returned to the company as CEO in 2008? We had moved to a different building.

Company 8

Company Mission Statement Bond Retail 8

Strategy Driven

MARCH 21, 2011

Michael Hammer and Lisa Hershman provide the tools for focusing on work that creates real value for customers, including: How to get people to move from ‘worm’s-eye view’ of thier jobs to a ‘bird’s-eye view’ – to understand what the company really does and the role they have in achieving results.

Hammer 50

Hammer Chief Executive Officer Metrics Process 50

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 17, 2015

In this article adapted from their new book, Jerry Davis and Chris White explore what makes some companies more fertile for social innovation — that is, the ongoing (rather than one-off) initiatives that have positive social impact while promoting the core mission of a business. Changing Your Company from the Inside Out.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Supply Chain Open-book 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 12, 2017

million people who work as retail salespeople and cashiers and in food prep and service — the three largest occupations in the United States — earn poverty-level wages and have unpredictable schedules, few opportunities for success and growth, and little meaning and dignity in their jobs. Here’s why.

Merchandising 8

Merchandising Retail Competitive Advantage Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2016

Companies that grow face a predictable problem: over time, the business becomes way too complex for its own good. I see this a lot in companies that have moved heavily into what I call the “exploitation” phase of a competitive advantage , or the phase that comes after the initial launch and successful ramp-up.

Company 8

Company Competitive Advantage Bureaucracy Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

While the contractions in business activity along global supply chains will cause companies to cut capital investments and inventories, we should remember that this is only the first leg of the phenomenon. Consequently, although companies should cut costs now, they should be on the lookout for the quick rebound that is likely to follow.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Retail Crisis Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2014

Many midsized companies dream of joining the Fortune 500 someday or of becoming the next General Electric, Microsoft, or Amazon. This lack of adaptability is not a problem in most small companies. This lack of adaptability is not a problem in most small companies. Take Instagram, the San Francisco-based social media company.

Operations 8

Operations Company Supply Chain Short-term 8

Roundtable Talk

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

Know your values… as an individual and as a company. On December 8 th , we’ll be meeting with Christine Magee of Sleep Country Canada to talk about her leadership lessons from close to two decades of building Canada’s best known mattress retailer. It pays for leaders to be a little bit paranoid. Hope to see you then. Happy leading!

COO 34

COO Crisis Management Crisis Blog 34

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2014

For a retailer, it’s extremely useful to know whether a customer will be back or has abandoned you for good. Starting in the late 1980s , academic researchers began to develop sophisticated predictive techniques to answer that question. This resistance to state-of-the-art statistical models has frustrated the academics.

Simon 10

Simon Retail Uncertainty Apparel 10

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 5, 2018

” Technological developments are often interesting to discuss in relation to relevance. For instance, numerous smartphone apps have been developed that do not solve any actual problems. How to make your company more nimble and responsive. Therefore, the retail market is actually several markets.

Stress 10

Stress Insourcing Retail Uncertainty 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

Meanwhile several industries are caught smack in the middle of major disruptions — media, retail, and automotive, just to name a few. Gregor replied that policies developed in a time when energy inputs got cheaper every year were not very useful these days, because the effect of more expensive energy inputs was basically unthinkable.

Management 15

Management GDP Retail Automotive 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2014

For a retailer, it’s extremely useful to know whether a customer will be back or has abandoned you for good. Starting in the late 1980s , academic researchers began to develop sophisticated predictive techniques to answer that question. What they found surprised them.

Simon 8

Simon Retail Uncertainty Apparel 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 29, 2013

Companies seeking to create scalable social businesses need a measurement system that monitors their progress in delivering social benefits and economic value. Develop a solid business case based on how social improvement will directly improve business performance. The problem is there is not yet a universal system for doing this.

System 8

System Merchandising Retail Class 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 2, 2018

The store he founded, with its iconic blue and yellow logo and functional, minimalist furniture, is the largest furniture retailer in the world. When we focus on the puzzle of the man, we overlook important, hidden elements of the company: the paradox of its history, its processes and routines, and its shared, embedded culture of innovation.

Succession 8

Succession Humphrey Business Model Real Estate 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 6, 2010

Companies that don't go rural, we believe, are making a major mistake. Getting around these retailing hurdles will require flexibility and creativity. One, companies should use franchising to scale up quickly. Four, companies can piggyback off established sales and after-sales service networks such as Haier's.

Marketing 12

Marketing Franchising Retail Budgeting 12

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 5, 2018

For example, in 2009 professors Brian Becker, Mark Huselid, and Richard Beatty estimated that in most companies less than 15% of jobs are what they call strategic positions and said management should focus “disproportionate investments” on finding A players for those jobs. Connectors in the middle. Customer experience creators.

McKinsey 8

McKinsey Human Resources Reputation Brand 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2012

You might think that the corporate human resources function doesn't have much of a role in improving business processes, such as product development, operations, customer service, or distribution. HR can propel or inhibit process improvement because it has an outsized influence on people: how they are recruited, rewarded, and developed.

Human Resources 14

Human Resources Operations Compliance Maturity 14

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

According to research presented at the 2012 Audio Branding Congress , congruent sound cues can increase the speed of a visual search for products (a key for success in both online and retail settings), as well as improve the perceived taste of food and wine (PDF). SNCF’s Audio Logo, 2008. SNCF’s Audio Logo, 2012.

Brand 10

Brand Advertising B2C B2B 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2016

We term these product launches “minivations” and they are the result of product developers who don’t realize just how much value their offerings would provide to customers. But in 2003, the company didn’t realize the mega hit it was about to have with the Noah’s Ark play set. How could they not have?

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Price Arkes 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2014

CEOs of midsized companies who make big bets can lose the farm. The executives of Fortune 500 companies might be able to lose the same bet with impunity, and the founders of venture capital-funded startups are only renting the farm (with the VC’s money) anyway. The malfunction caused major delays shipping toys to retailers.

CFO 8

CFO Venture Funding IPO Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 22, 2013

When we surveyed over 300 global executives between 2008 and 2009, one of the primary concerns they expressed was their inability to compete long term without a solid innovation engine that can grow their top line. But in today’s ever-connected world, finding radical ideas seems to be getting tougher for companies.

Skills 8

Skills Power Six Sigma Disruptive Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 21, 2011

And I'd also want team members who knew how to get people to adopt new skills and attitudes — experts in incentives, training and development, culture, communication, stakeholder management, and redeployment. I have rarely seen companies do this. These are "people skills.". But it's also unusual.

Six Sigma 14

Six Sigma Skills Team Compliance 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 20, 2013

Another team developed a plan to reuse and optimize networking systems in offices, which cut energy costs by $22 million. But just as valuable is the company''s ability to energize and empower front-line employees. They also want to be involved in developing sustainability strategy.

Metrics 9

Metrics Chemicals Simon Energy 9

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 28, 2017

Mugabe’s ouster and replacement with his one-time deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was the most significant development in the Southern African nation since it gained independence from Britain in 1980. Tobacco production, the country’s main foreign exchange earner, slumped dramatically between 2000 and 2008.)

Banking 8

Banking First-mover Advantage Politics Finance 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 18, 2015

It’s never been easier to start a company , and as a result new entrants are unbundling incumbents’ businesses and chipping away at their advantage. There are companies attempting to redefine customer experiences in almost every industry including education, healthcare, and financial services.

Succession 8

Succession Brand Productivity Products 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

When networks develop into communities, the results can be powerful. Look at the accomplishments of Wikipedia contributors, open-source software developers who find and fix bugs in Linux, or doctors who help each another with difficult diagnoses as part of the Sermo social network.

Gilbert 9

Gilbert Participative Cooper Network Economy 9

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 4, 2014

Declaring he’d cull up to 100 brands — many of which he’d acquired and developed — P&G CEO A.G. Lafley launches a “game changer” profoundly different than what he championed in his eponymous 2008 bestseller. As devotees of Vilfredo Pareto and Richard Koch well know, 80/20 rules and ratios are relevant beyond retail.

Brand 8

Brand DCF IRR NPV 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 12, 2018

Robo-advisors, which were introduced in 2008 , are steadily eating up market share from their human counterparts much the way that Amazon and Netflix have taken share from Walmart and Regal Cinemas. This would represent between 10% and 15% of total retail financial assets under management. Companies are both operators and investors.

Consultative 8

Consultative Strategy Advice McKinsey 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 24, 2013

Why do relatively few companies prove resilient and withstand stress? If lucky, a start-up grows and develops a success formula. retailer, spent the last three decades improving its supply chain processes, and designing and launching a series of services, including smaller local convenience stores and online shopping.

Organization 8

Organization Supply Chain Customer Intimacy Stress 8

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

NOVEMBER 29, 2013

It boasts 85 companies in the Global Fortune 500 list of the world’s largest corporations. In fact, China is already experiencing a labor shortage: Wages are rising and it is losing its labor-cost advantage to other developing countries. Since China opened up, the nation has travelled through different stages of development.

GDP 12

GDP Supply Chain Globalization Technology 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 20, 2015

Since its refurbishment in 2008, for example, The Heineken Experience in Amsterdam has become one of the city’s top attractions. This popularity has enabled Heineken to raise admission prices by more than 60 percent since 2009 and increase retail sales per capita by 100 percent from 2009 to 2014. They are inherently social.

Brand 8

Brand Storytelling Trout Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 2, 2010

In March 2008, Lula convened his political marketeer João Santana and Dilma to present his overall plan of making Dilma his successor. Brazil has evolved as a major agricultural power, gathering highly competitive agribusiness companies and becoming an important center of resource and development.

Politics 14

Politics Bureaucracy Globalization Compliance 14

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2011

Launched with much fanfare in 2008, Green Works quickly became the biggest player in the niche green cleaning space, hitting $100 million in sales before falling to $60 million in the recession (which is still a very respectable number in this market space). Here's the story. Why ask people to pay more?

Supply Chain 15

Supply Chain Price Bottom-up Productivity 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2016

Despite the fact that Niantic, the American software development company that developed Pokémon Go, has failed to maintain high levels of engagement on the game (its current user base is now 30 million users), the phenomenon demonstrated AR’s potential to be adopted by mainstream culture.

Tourism 9

Tourism Technology Content Fashion 9

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 16, 2011

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. So, the question is: What are the most critical intangible assets in your company? What are you doing to cultivate them?

Intangible Assets 15

Intangible Assets Analysis Pharmaceuticals Innovation 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 23, 2014

After all, India’s growth has slowed to a crawl, with GDP expanding by less than 5% in the last two years compared to 9% per annum in the five years before 2008. That should come as a relief for multinational companies that can cope with unhelpful policies, but not with policy reversals.

Bureaucracy 9

Bureaucracy Policies Globalization Politics 9