The Horizons Tracker

JULY 15, 2020

The airline industry has been one of the hardest hit, with roughly 100,000 fewer flights made per day. The production of computers is normally very energy intensive, and involves various rare earth elements in their production, and energy-intensive processes, such as cloud storage, for their operation.

Travel 87

Travel Energy Efficiency Airlines 87

Harvard Business Review

MAY 27, 2016

Why is the airline industry so terrible? Chasing the next-higher-margin consumer requires both new firms and incumbents to leverage their resources, processes, and priorities. Chasing the next-higher-margin consumer requires both new firms and incumbents to leverage their resources, processes, and priorities.

Airlines 10

Airlines Travel Industry Disruptive Innovation 10

Surviving Leadership

JUNE 29, 2017

Whether or not you personally like Southwest Airlines (and I love them, so there), you can’t argue with their success in a tough industry. And they attribute it to their “culture” – from how they operate, to how they hire, to how they make, spend, and save money. Because it’s the easiest process to change.

Human Resources 70

Human Resources Diversity Airlines Learning-by-Doing 70

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 11, 2017

When a CEO announces a major initiative to foster innovation, mark your calendar. Among those that have met that fate in recent months are initiatives at Target, Alaska Airlines, Coca-Cola, the New York Times, and Chubb. Are people moving from the innovation lab or pilot test team to help with the roll-out? So how to improve?

Project 11

Project Innovation Press Release Survey 11

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

I also argued in my last post that the CEO has a critical and unique role to play in process improvement, enabling a companys activities to be redesigned across functions and divisions. If the CEO doesnt play this role, process improvement stays comfortably within functional boundaries. He wasnt a process manager.

Process 15

Process CEO Insurance Banking 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

I recently argued that in industries such as distribution and logistics (Amazon, FedEx, UPS), process manufacturing (Exxon), insurance (Aetna), restaurants (McDonald's), and retail banking (Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo), continuous process improvement is essential. He wasn't a process manager.

Process 15

Process CEO Operations Banking 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 21, 2011

Putting executives in charge of improving cross-functional processes in large organizations is akin to asking them to paddle a boat upstream. Nevertheless, companies that live and die on operational excellence — such as Amazon.com, FedEx, Southwest Airlines, and Wal-Mart — must continually improve their key processes.

Process 15

Process Supply Chain Balanced Scorecard Engineering 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2014

Consider Southwest Airlines, which shook up the airline industry with its low-cost, high-customer service approach to air travel. From a pure business perspective, the greatest value in joining forces is that it makes the pie bigger for everyone and creates more value for consumers in the process.

Health Care 8

Health Care Innovation Airlines Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 31, 2014

Research by Hal Gregersen and Jeffrey Dyer in fact shows that questioning is one of the behaviors that successful innovators share. So I’ll pose a question now: What questions should corporate innovators use to increase their odds of success? It is the innovator’s job. What problem is the customer struggling to solve?

Innovation 11

Innovation Disruptive Innovation Learning-by-Doing Participative 11

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 16, 2011

Most executives, rightly, regard strategy creation and achieving operational effectiveness as two very different animals. Strategy, they believe, is about how to create value for customers; operational effectiveness is about how to do so at the lowest cost. In the 1990s, low-cost airlines such as Southwest Airlines in the U.S.

Airlines 11

Airlines Real Estate Operations Business Model 11

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2014

The developers then pass the releases to the operations group, where the software is tested for three weeks to make sure the complete system is stable, for a total cycle of nine weeks. But Amazon has a completely different architecture and management process, which Singleton calls a “matrix of services.”

Software 8

Software Industry Productivity Products 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 21, 2013

In order to see the future more clearly, it''s almost always helpful to look back — and this certainly goes for IT and its ever-increasing impact on operations, and ultimately on competitive advantage. It told how American Airlines and others had introduced systems to help their customers choose their products and services.

Competitive Advantage 8

Competitive Advantage Management Information Technology Airlines 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 2, 2016

By incorporating design thinking and design principles into their planning process, the hospital’s executives, supported by external designers, have turned the hospital into a showplace that has won a number of safety, quality, and design awards — including a nomination for the prestigious Dutch Design Award. Insight Center.

Health Care 8

Health Care Airlines CFO Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 9, 2018

But it’s particularly difficult for large, traditional firms , especially those which operate in consolidated, non-growth industries (think pulp and paper, steel, airlines) and which are often located away from the metropolitan areas where data scientists live. There were no processes in place to share the learning.

Bottom-up 9

Bottom-up Operations Training Efficiency 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 28, 2015

Organizations develop processes through repeated problem solving. Managers constantly try to fit new market needs to existing processes and routines. The Future of Operations. automakers took decades to adopt lean production methods despite the obvious benefits from increased productivity and lower work-in-process inventory.

Technology 8

Technology Depreciation Christensen Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 13, 2014

Under CEO Jack Welch in the 1980s and 1990s, they adopted operational efficiency approaches (“ Workout ,” “Six Sigma,” and “Lean”) that reinforced their success and that many companies emulated. You need to think like a portfolio manager, allocating resources both to innovate in your core and for the future.

Six Sigma 8

Six Sigma Incubator Payback Period Ries 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 19, 2018

Wal-Mart announced that it would pay out up to $1,000 per employee, depending on seniority, and that it would begin a process of boosting its minimum wage to $11 per hour. American Airlines said it would pay $1,000 to all 127,600 of its people, and Wells Fargo raised its base wage from $13.50 to $15 per hour.

Definition 8

Definition Company Succession Airlines 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

Often in the ideation process, ideas are focused exclusively on improving a specific service or product. Southwest Airlines consistently monitors customer feedback using Net Promoter, a tool that measures customer satisfaction by tracking whether a customer would recommend the airline to a family or friend.

Airlines 8

Airlines Banking Creativity Brand 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2016

It’s even become a noun of sorts — uberization — which people use to describe a disruptive change to a staid industry ripe for innovation (though, to be sure, the popularization of the word “disruptive” means that it is often used in ways that the concept’s author , Clay Christensen, didn’t intend).

Organization 8

Organization Airlines Constraint Power 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2017

How the most innovative providers are creating value. In response, hospitals are increasingly making analytics and new technologies an integral part of hospital operations. Algorithms — the foundation of encryption methods, privacy-preserving data processing, and intrusion- and fraud detection systems — could help.

Health Care 11

Health Care System Technology Airlines 11

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 29, 2016

We expect the drone market to surge to nearly $7 billion by 2020 globally, driven by regulatory clarification, continuously decreasing component costs, and – most important– ongoing innovation that connects drone capabilities to big-data analytics.

Competitive Advantage 10

Competitive Advantage Company Outsourcing Analysis 10

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 18, 2016

With this model, an investment can be defined as strategic, key operational, support, or high potential. Key operational investments sustain existing business operations, helping to avoid any disadvantage. Executives can sometimes struggle differentiating between key operational and support investments.

Tools 8

Tools Competitive Advantage Operations Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 4, 2013

Business leaders must establish robust processes not just for qualifying third party vendors, but for making sure that there is integration of those suppliers in a strong safety culture with close company oversight of safety management and processes. In this section (at p.181),

CEO 8

CEO Outsourcing Supply Chain Reputation 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 26, 2015

But this approach doesn’t produce the most productive, innovative work environment. We have found that most organizations’ entry, or “onboarding,” processes share a common goal: to inculcate the organizational culture and teach new employees the job requirements. Sponsored by Citrix GoToMeeting.

Power 8

Power Outsourcing Self-aware Airlines 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 7, 2015

I’d like to share the features of our innovative planning process, with an eye toward helping other institutions adopt the elements that will work for them. Restructuring the process. The hospital opened five months ahead of schedule and has won national recognition for quality and safety in its first year of operation.

Health Care 8

Health Care Construction Planning Restructuring 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 28, 2016

Innovation vs. Regulation. Many organizations, particularly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, are saddled with trying to do business, let along innovate, under increasingly crushing regulatory environments. This might include capital improvements, process improvements, and building new talent capabilities.

Succession 8

Succession Agility Globalization Learning-by-Doing 8

Women on Business

JANUARY 24, 2011

But many businesswomen are so overwhelmed with running day-to-day operations, there is little or no time to do a good job at casting the net of promotional effort out—whether through community activities, donations, networking events, promotional campaigns, public relations initiatives, or advertising—it is NEVER enough!

Press Release 100

Press Release Discount Sharpe Advertising 100

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 17, 2016

airline industry in the early 1990s highlights this distinction. The choice of the price position affects the overall business model, the product quality, branding, and how to innovate. They operate with extreme cost and process efficiency, which enables them to enjoy good margins and profits even while charging low prices.

Price 8

Price Airlines Govindarajan Advertising 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

When Avon Products CEO Sheri McCoy took the helm in April 2012, she acknowledged that resolving a bribery crisis in China would be a slow process, but she had no idea how slow — it’s proving to take longer and cost more, she told analysts, while also mounting multiple initiatives. For airlines, it is on-time performance.

How To 9

How To Airlines Open-book CEO 9

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 20, 2016

I also know all too well that, like all strategies, superconsumer strategies can be hard to implement, because of internal processes, misaligned incentives, and organizational structures that are difficult to navigate. “The learning curve in any industry is steep, but it is particularly so in the airline industry. Adapted from.

Airlines 8

Airlines Energy Self-aware Learning Curve 8

CO2

JUNE 29, 2010

The 9/11 terrorist attacks; the Mumbai, Bali, and London Tube bombings; the attempted bombing of a Delta airlines flight in December 2009; and suicide bomber attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of the personal magnetism of Oussama Bin-Laden and the Al-Qaeda cause.

Executive Coaching 129

Executive Coaching Execution Blog Self-aware 129

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 27, 2012

A similar pattern hold for airlines. Or, as happens all too often, they can pursue complex strategies that beget complex organizations and complex processes until they grind to a halt like a Rube Goldberg machine. Stock markets might seem capricious, but in the long term, shareholder returns closely track operational performance. "We

Creativity 14

Creativity Long-term Kotter Cost of Capital 14

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2017

More companies have pledged to open their data, giving innovators everywhere the chance to mine that data and use it to drive better care. We don’t expect airlines to build their own planes. Manufacturers have been slow to embrace interoperability, which would allow health care technologies to share data with one another.

Technology 8

Technology Health Care Wireless System 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 22, 2016

Airline JetBlue has turned its Twitter account into a highly responsive, 24/7 customer service line. For most organizations, this is the least risky option, and a good middle road, despite the fact that many traditional organizations often see digital network operators as threats rather than allies.

Real Estate 8

Real Estate Business Model Incubator Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 23, 2016

” Members from each partner organization rate the alliance in areas related to strategic fit, operational fit, and cultural fit. Heat degrades the substrate of innovation, while light catalyzes it.” Similar failures among cockpit crews can lead to airline crashes.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Survey Strategic Fit 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2014

But the real power of the partnership comes from their ability to bring the best of each of their departments—as well as pricing, operations, and other groups—to bear in exploiting those micromarket opportunities. In addition, the two leaders need to identify disconnection points between the two groups and develop processes to bridge them.

Marketing 11

Marketing Guidelines B2C Analysis 11

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 21, 2013

Your company probably has a hierarchical process for deciding the proper course of action, and that process probably doesn''t put you at the center of the matter. But you probably don''t work at Menlo Innovations, where there are no bosses (at least in the traditional sense). BONUS BITS: Getting Around.

Advertising 8

Advertising Video Ethics PR 8