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Artisans Must Balance the Books

Harvard Business Review

The Conversation Blogs The Conversation Artisans Must Balance the Books 8:12 AM Tuesday November 23, 2010 by Ndubuisi Ekekwe | Comments () Email Tweet This Post to Facebook Share on LinkedIn Print The boy was 11 years old when his father took him to live with a kinsman, a businessman with many shops in Lagos, Nigeria.

Books 13
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Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator's Dilemma

Harvard Business Review

As a business researcher, I was particularly interested in this recent article that referenced from his biography a list of Jobs's favorite books. There's one business book on this list, and it "deeply influenced" Jobs. That book is The Innovator's Dilemma by HBS Professor Clay Christensen. They're freaks." And he did.

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Recommended Resources – An Interview with Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi, authors of The Essential Advantage

Strategy Driven

In The Essential Advantage : How to Win with a Capabilities-Driven Strategy , Booz & Company’s Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with a coherence premium – a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique. Let’s go after it.”

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Why Preventing Disruption in 2017 Is Harder Than It Was When Christensen Coined the Term

Harvard Business Review

Yet, despite the fact that all of our guests across our 18 sessions (and counting) have embraced these truths, the average result of such commitments to innovation seems to have been tenuous. But the corporate innovators we’ve talked to all know that. They’ve read Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Dilemma.

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Creating Michelin-star Quality for the Masses

Harvard Business Review

But it's this set of beliefs that explains why Western companies fail to succeed in emerging markets where middle class consumers demand good quality at low prices, and why these companies struggle to develop value-for-money products for their home markets during slow growth times like these. Operating such restaurants is expensive.

Quality 13
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Your Whole Company Needs to Be Distinctive, Not Just Your Product

Harvard Business Review

Back in the 1980s, a company could set itself apart through scale, being the largest company in a category provided leverage over costs, back office processes, distribution, and marketing effectiveness. It became easier and easier for small enterprises to gain customer reach and awareness (along with working capital).

IAM 11
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How One CEO Grows Her Business with Feeling

Harvard Business Review

Because the "unmentionable" subject of menstruation is taboo, the market failure — supplying cheaper pads — had never received the attention it deserved. As product is sold, some of the initial working capital that SHE puts up is paid back, with the entrepreneurs eventually owning their local franchises.