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Constraints on Health Care Budgets Can Drive Quality

Harvard Business Review

From my experience heading Scotland’s National Health Service from 2010 until last August (and before as its director of health care policy and strategy), I know that such constraints can unleash innovations that will lead to better care — and better health — for communities. Working under a fixed-cost ceiling was, of course, difficult.

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The Company Outsmarting Big Pharma in Africa

Harvard Business Review

That may be true, but then the firms that do carry out the R&D are also dominant in their developed domestic markets, where their margins can absorb the fixed costs of R&D and there's nothing to stop them from competing on a cost basis in Africa, particularly given the low production costs of most drugs.

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How to Know If a Spin-Off Will Succeed

Harvard Business Review

A 2010 meta-analysis detailed many of the different issues that make divestiture so hard to evaluate consistently. In parallel, it reduced its fixed costs by restructuring its industrial footprint and overhead structure; increasing sales, marketing, and R&D expenditures in targeted areas; and dramatically reducing working capital.

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What BMW’s Corporate VC Offers That Regular Investors Can’t

Harvard Business Review

Among the 30 top companies in seven of the largest industries, almost half had a VC-fueled accelerator in 2015, up from just 2% in 2010. And the fixed cost from “touchpoint-to-pilot” are immense. In essence, the venture client, instead of equity, buys the technology of a startup when it is still a venture to do so.

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Telecom's Competitive Solution: Outsourcing?

Harvard Business Review

Bharti's innovative business model converted fixed costs in capital expenditure to a variable cost based on usage of capacity. Through the outsourcing arrangements, Bharti dramatically lowered its costs while ensuring high quality for customers, since vendors had world-class competencies in their domains.

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Research: Cloud Computing Is Helping Smaller, Newer Firms Compete

Harvard Business Review

By cutting the fixed costs of computing — avoiding the need to hire IT staff, servers, and hardware — even the smallest firm can satisfy large and unexpected computing needs. of firms had adopted it in 2010, whereas 7% had by 2016, which is an annualized growth rate of almost 50%. firms since the 1980s.

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The U.S. Media’s Problems Are Much Bigger than Fake News and Filter Bubbles

Harvard Business Review

” During the volcanic ash crisis of 2010, what it offered wasn’t prize-winning stories about the roots of the eruption or its health implications, but an app (Hitchhiker’s Central) that allowed readers to share travel plans and offer rides to each other. Fixed costs have always been central to the economics of media.

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