Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Like almost every other major industry today, banking relies on hugely complex, enormously expensive technology. I discovered that only one bank had a board member with some direct experience in technology and in that case it was as a sales executive. The truth is that many industries today employ outdated technology.

Technology 8

Technology Zero Based Budgeting Banking CIO 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 17, 2017

Yet progress within organizations has been slow – there is still a lack of women and minorities in leadership positions, and certain industries like tech and finance are lacking diversity at all levels. About the Interviews I wanted to select a diverse group of CEOs from a range of companies that varied by size and industry.

Diversity 8

Diversity CEO Rogers Leadership Pipeline 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2017

Despite rapid innovations in data processing and machine learning, many businesses have yet to make the leap from the Industrial Age to the information age, and the gap between technological and organizational progress is widening. Closing this gap requires much more than short-term fixes, like adopting new technologies.

Industry 13

Industry Short-term Planning Long-term 13

Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2017

Doing digital M&A right means upending the way most companies approach financing, due diligence, and merger integration. Let’s start with financing the deal. Sponsored by DXC Technology. Meanwhile, because digital targets tend to be expensive, acquirers are limited in their ability to use stock to finance a deal.

Due Diligence 8

Due Diligence Company Learning Curve Finance 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 3, 2018

About 30 minutes prior to her weekly one-on-one with the CEO, the chief marketing officer at a multibillion global financial services firm received a cryptic email from him with the subject line “The Trouble with CMOs.” The CEO, grinning, agreed with her. Don Farrall/Getty Images. What came next was a pleasant surprise.

CFO 8

CFO CEO Agility Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2017

It’s been more than 25 years since Bill Gates dismissed retail banks as “dinosaurs,” but the statement may be as true today as it was then. Other sectors of retail lending have not fared much better. Banking for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been astonishingly unaffected by the rise of the Internet.

Banking 12

Banking Stage-Gate Credit Scoring Competitive Advantage 12

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

This seemingly banal transaction speaks volumes to the power of how established retail has pervaded our everyday experience in the United States. I am the cofounder and CEO of BioLite. Customers have myriad channels to discover new products and shop at outdoor gear retailers to explore, evaluate, and choose what they need.

Marketing 8

Marketing Microfinance Retail Development 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2017

Some companies that made the list were obvious choices; for example, the biggest online retailer now gets most of its profit from cloud services (Amazon). We see an interesting pattern across the professionally managed companies, those whose CEOs were hired by the board. These CEOs are what we call “insider outsiders.”

Franchising 15

Franchising CEO Business Model Strategy 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

An impatient marketing or finance manager would, on the sly, secure some extra budget money and hire a contractor to build a little database that tracked mailing addresses or top-line financials. Lines of business are now getting their own official technology budgets for non-standard software products.

Supply Chain 15

Supply Chain CIO Budgeting Project 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 27, 2017

Charismatic CEOs enjoy leading and inspiring people, so they don’t like delegating critical business decisions to smart algorithms. CEOs need to clarify when talented humans must defer to algorithmic judgment. ” asked one incredulous CEO of a multibillion euro business unit. Who wants clever code bossing them around?

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Software CAPEX Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2014

But they don’t think nearly enough about operational meltdowns – technological glitches and other problems that can put them out of business. Unlike much larger companies, midsized firms usually lack deep operational and technological talent who can quickly recognize, understand, and resolve huge systems glitches.

Operations 8

Operations Company Supply Chain Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 5, 2016

After yet another painful discussion about what to do, the late Andy Grove, then Intel’s president, turned to CEO Gordon Moore and asked , “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?” ” Moore answered without hesitation: “He would get us out of memories.”

Levitt 8

Levitt Disaggregation Kaizen Call Center 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 24, 2017

So four years ago, when I was CEO of GE Capital Retail Finance and tapped to lead a mega change initiative — splitting off our unit into a new, publicly traded company, Synchrony Financial — I’ll admit I viewed it as a huge challenge. A CEO is far removed from the day-to-day concerns of most workers.

Management 11

Management IPO Diversity Long-term 11

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

I talked to Georg Tacke(co-CEO of Simon-Kucher) and Madhavan Ramanujam (Partner at the Silicon Valley Office of Simon-Kucher) about what’s causing this high failure rate – and how some companies manage to improve their batting average. About two-thirds were in B2B businesses.). Our survey showed that 80% of companies fall into this trap.

Price 11

Price Productivity Products Simon 11

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 23, 2014

In January 2013, Chip Blankenship, CEO of GE Appliances issued a challenge to the newly formed team: “You’re going to change every part the customer sees. At their training center in Louisville, they bounced ideas and product prototypes off of retail salespeople who came to learn about GE’s products. You won’t have a lot of money.

Ries 10

Ries Waterman Finance Learning-by-Doing 10

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

They do this by building consumer P&Ls through cross-functional teams across marketing, sales, supply chain and finance, much like some companies have built account and product P&Ls. Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, was recently asked if Redbox was a competitive threat.

P&L 15

P&L Supply Chain Retail Price 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Technologies will change, distribution channels for content will change, usage environments will change. This is often the reason why thoughtful quantitative analysis that incorporates macro-economic trends, market share, competitive strategies, retail analysis and technological assessments so often misses the mark.

Benchmarking 14

Benchmarking Maslow Analysis Trends 14

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

In the past, disruption occurred at the level of discrete product and service technologies that competed to offer better value for customers (e.g., Told this way, the Kodak story is a comforting caricature of the traditional failure to adapt to disruptive technological change. The nature of disruption is changing. inch vs. 3.5-inch

Company 8

Company How To Technology Strategy 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 1, 2016

In retailing, leaders worry about customer retention and dollar per square foot. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, started off 2016 by saying : “We can’t be an industrial company anymore. Are you willing to understand and invest in the technology that supports new and more scalable business models?

Business Model 8

Business Model Industry Metrics Budgeting 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

When the company had 60 or 70 people working at its Palo Alto headquarters, founder and then CEO David Kelley (now Chairman) did a masterful job of orchestrating the “Monday morning,” a weekly 9:00 am gathering. BuildDirect was founded in 1999 by CEO Jeff Booth with his good friend Rob Banks.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Brainstorming Proposal CEO 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 20, 2016

I’m talking about the superconsumers who are inside your organization, working at every level: the fashionista who works in the mail room at the headquarters of an apparel company, or the finance manager who works for a pork brand and who eats three pounds of bacon in any given week. In fact, she literally wrote the book on it.

Airlines 8

Airlines Energy Self-aware Learning Curve 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

Then–Google CEO Eric Schmidt was appalled : "Sergey, among your many ideas, this is the worst." (The Acutely aware of the competitive edges timely data offers sophisticated investors, the company's ever-entrepreneurial cofounder once proposed that Google launch a hedge fund. What a pity.

Hedge 15

Hedge Core Competence CFO ROI 15

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2014

“We’ll spend a lot of time bringing product to market, but we need to plan for the fact that a launch gives us a six-month head start and no more,” says Gary Booker, CMO of Dixons Retail. Deborah DiSanzo, the CEO of Philips Healthcare, was once a CMO. All that has elevated – and complicated – the role of CMO.

P&L 11

P&L Banking Marketing Call Center 11

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 29, 2015

CEO Kenneth Samet, along with Wagner and the six other executives on the leadership team, set a long-term goal of building a major growth business from these new areas. That could involve targeting new geographies, developing new products, taking advantage of new technologies, or devising new business models. Sponsored by Accenture.

Strategy 8

Strategy Long-term Health Care Insurance 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2013

I refuse to dignify this attack with a response,” said Henry Guillart, the CEO, just hours after Hughes had given his initial negative presentation at an investor conference in New York. sensed a deep discomfort in the CEO, as if Henry was afraid to tangle publicly with Hughes. That decision turned out to have serious consequences.

Case Study 8

Case Study CFO Hedge PR 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2015

However, CEOs often don’t have the career background and education that would equip them to personally lead the process of new product development. So, to achieve higher performance, should company boards and investors choose CEOs with the expertise that would better qualify them to lead innovation?

CEO 8

CEO Innovation Pharmaceuticals Merchandising 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 15, 2016

Due to the drop in costs for solar technology and increases in electric utility rates , solar photovoltaic-generated electricity is now less expensive than grid electricity, and adoption is rising rapidly throughout the U.S. retailers with a new source of sales revenue. Economic benefits would also go to companies. –$71.7

Technology 8

Technology Energy System Cost 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 11, 2016

“This is not happening just in retail, or in IT-producing sectors,” said Chiara Criscuolo, an OECD economist and coauthor of the report. Second, researchers have documented at length why it matters and why everyone, not just CEOs, should care. The competition story revolves around digital technology.

McKinsey 8

McKinsey Document Engineering Outsourcing 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Frito-Lay has already made competition the cornerstone of its Super Bowl advertising , and Toyota , desperate to remind people what a wonderful corporate citizen it can be, invites aspiring innovators to suggest how the firm's technology can be used for good in unexpected ways. obscures the tectonic economic shift in global retail.

Innovation 16

Innovation Supply Chain Business Simulation Advertising 16

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Business units come and go, but finance, HR, IT, marketing, legal, and R&D are forever. Nonetheless, many CEOs and top executives struggle with their functional organizations, and some question whether the established functional model is still relevant.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Real Estate Short-term Merchandising 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

Hostility to the internet appeared the moment the Web became a commercial technology , threatening from the outset to upend traditional businesses and maybe even our deeply-embedded beliefs about family, society, and government. Of course, nobody thinks technology companies should be left unregulated. It isn’t.

Disruptive Innovation 8

Disruptive Innovation Technology Proposal Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 23, 2016

Both Republicans and Democrats say the most effective board committee is audit/finance. Interestingly, Republican directors think the compensation level of the CEO of their company is “too high.” Meanwhile, Democrats place greater importance on technology expertise and risk management.

Politics 8

Politics Committee Telecommunications Diversity 8