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We Can’t Study Short-Termism Without the Right Metrics

Harvard Business Review

The McKinsey Global Institute, in conjunction with FCLT Global, recently released research stating that long-term-oriented companies perform better than those that focus on short-term results. As I said earlier, measuring a company’s short-term orientation is incredibly tricky. What would better measures be?

EPS 8
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Should Companies Retain "Strategic" Cash?

Harvard Business Review

As long as the CFO can stipulate that the company does not intend to repatriate the cash, it avoids the incremental tax that will be levied due to the territorial system of U.S. high technology or pharmaceutical) that are investing in projects with uncertain long-range payoffs. It can: Save Taxes.

Company 14
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When "Creative Destruction" Destroys More than It Creates

Harvard Business Review

Would shareholders of Kodak — which had some of the earliest digital photography technology — agree that its destruction made evolutionary sense, or would they echo Harvard Professor John Kotter's remark that it was the result of "complacency"? real revenue and profit growth and earning their cost of capital has steadily declined.

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4 Ways Leaders Can Get More from Their Company’s Innovation Efforts

Harvard Business Review

Even if executives try to prioritize it, innovation often gets crowded out by more “urgent” short-term pressures. For any business to succeed over the long term, it must earn a return that exceeds its cost of capital. That’s why successful innovators prepare for irrelevance long in advance.

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How Banks Can Compete Against an Army of Fintech Startups

Harvard Business Review

banks are going to survive the coming wave in financial technology (fintech), they’ll need to finally take digital transformation seriously. Small businesses are starting to demand banking services that have engaging web and mobile user experiences, on par with the technologies they use in their personal lives.

Banking 12
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Why Europe's Carbon Woes Matter to the Whole World

Harvard Business Review

Here''s a very strange thing: Europe''s decades-long effort to reduce carbon emissions has been thrown into a shambles because utilities and manufacturers are exceeding their carbon-reduction targets. Markets fundamentally don''t work when they are "long" — that is, flooded with things no one wants. That''s right. Exceeding them.

Price 8
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The Comprehensive Business Case for Sustainability

Harvard Business Review

Today’s executives are dealing with a complex and unprecedented brew of social, environmental, market, and technological trends. Yet executives are often reluctant to place sustainability core to their company’s business strategy in the mistaken belief that the costs outweigh the benefits.