Remove 2011 Remove Company Remove Information Technology Remove Retail
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When a Simple Rule of Thumb Beats a Fancy Algorithm

Harvard Business Review

For a retailer, it’s extremely useful to know whether a customer will be back or has abandoned you for good. Sure, human beings, with “their limited computational abilities and their incomplete information,” as the great social scientist Herbert Simon put it , need to rely on the mental shortcuts and rules of thumb known as heuristics.

Simon 13
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Good Management Predicts a Firm’s Success Better Than IT, R&D, or Even Employee Skills

Harvard Business Review

As Chad Syverson at the University of Chicago wryly noted in his 2011 round-up of the evidence on what drives productivity : “…no potential driver of productivity differences has seen a higher ratio of speculation to actual empirical study” than management. Census to collect data on a large number of companies.

Skills 14
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Midsized Firms Can’t Afford Bad Bets

Harvard Business Review

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
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The Comcast-Time Warner Merger Is Not a Sign of Strength

Harvard Business Review

For one thing, thanks to a long history of exclusive municipal franchising regulations that didn’t end until 1992, the two companies don’t overlap in any market—TWC customers will become Comcast customers (and get arguably better technology and service in the process), but no local market will see a decline in the number of competitors.

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Digital Transformation Is Racing Ahead and No Industry Is Immune - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM DXC TECHNOLOGY

Harvard Business Review

In 2011, the average tenure dropped to 18 years. While the Constellation study is careful to say that companies rise and fall for many reasons, digital disruption is clearly responsible for a large share. Industries dominated by information-rich assets (think publishing and music) were swept up in the early wave of internet innovation.

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How New Technologies Push Us Toward the Past

Harvard Business Review

In order to efficiently exchange the information necessary to buy and sell goods, produce things of value, learn, or be entertained, people had to gather in physical places. Thus, you can see our existing infrastructural assets, and the business processes supporting them, as information transfer proxies.

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The Coming Branded-Currency Revolution

Harvard Business Review

These tried-and-true tools of the retail trade might not be as sexy as other forms of marketing. These instruments share a common objective: to influence purchase decisions by equipping consumers with incremental spending power for specific brands and retailers. What does this mean for retailers and brands? Gift cards.

Brand 10