Strategy Driven

MAY 4, 2020

Every startup requires funding, even if the versatility of the modern business world does reduce the costs. Financing the venture from your personal savings is an option, but won’t be open to many. Moreover, it will cause serious problems if you misjudge the costs involved. Financial backing can come from private investors.

Outsourcing 67

Outsourcing ROI Entrepreneur Banking 67

Skip Prichard

JUNE 16, 2020

As an example of how to save face, I often share the story of Jeff, the finance director of a multinational company. As Finance Director, Jeff had designed and deployed the entire cash flow process that allowed this employee to commit the fraud undetected. Jeff returned to his job with renewed energy. Being kind and firm.

COO 106

COO Self-aware How To Long-term 106

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2016

Big companies have been buying a lot of clean energy lately – 3.5 Under this financing structure, the company contracts to buy kilowatts, not the turbines and panels. They put up almost no capital and usually lower their day-to-day energy costs. Is it a liability, an asset, or something else?). Get early buy-in.

Energy 8

Energy Industry Finance CFO 8

Strategy Driven

MARCH 21, 2019

Every startup requires funding, even if the versatility of the modern business world does reduce the costs. Financing the venture from your personal savings is an option, but won’t be open to many. Moreover, it will cause serious problems if you misjudge the costs involved. Financial backing can come from private investors.

Outsourcing 51

Outsourcing ROI Entrepreneur Banking 51

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 14, 2016

Last year, networking giant Cisco Systems worked with one of its contract manufacturers in Malaysia to deploy 1,500 energy and temperature sensors on its manufacturing equipment. As Kern put it, “We always manage costs so closely, but we weren’t really measuring energy — we didn’t know how much we spent!

Energy 8

Energy Company Supply Chain Operations 8

Women on Business

DECEMBER 24, 2010

No, I bring this up because as we watch the shows that close out the year, as face after face of the celebrities who passed away are projected on our television screens, as tributes and speeches are made about the talent, beauty, genius and uniqueness of a particular dead celebrity or entrepreneur—I am thinking about their estates.

Press Release 202

Press Release Discount PR Magazine 202

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2016

Few people realize the important role water plays in our daily energy use, or the energy required to heat, treat, and supply water. Meanwhile, the electricity used for water treatment can be as much as one-third of a city’s energy bill. Most companies’ value chains are heavily dependent on water and energy resources.

Energy 8

Energy Price Telecommunications Industry 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2016

But few governments appear to have the money or the political will to foot the up-front costs to prevent or fight fragmentation. Rather than a funding gap, there is a bankable projects gap : the projects themselves are not attractive to investors. Pay-for-success could be an appropriate generator of enthusiasm, too.

Finance 8

Finance Innovation Bond Incentives 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 13, 2012

energy industries, from oil and gas to ethanol, wind, and solar, have long enjoyed lavish government subsidies and other support. One reason that clean energy tends to be more expensive than fossil fuel is that it can be. But those days are coming to an end. As long as it's subsidized, there is little pressure to compete on price.

Energy 10

Energy Price Long-term Banking 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Most companies are unprepared for the emerging revolution in predictive energy analytics. In fact, many readers’ eyes will have already glazed over at the preceding sentence, with the natural initial reaction that energy-related data isn’t relevant to their jobs. Cost Savings. alone, according to the US.

Energy 8

Energy Resources Information Technology Cost Center 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Most companies are unprepared for the emerging revolution in predictive energy analytics. In fact, many readers’ eyes will have already glazed over at the preceding sentence, with the natural initial reaction that energy-related data isn’t relevant to their jobs. Cost Savings. alone, according to the US.

Energy 8

Energy Resources Cost Center Budgeting 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

It removes a major source of cost/effort to both supplier and customer and relies on simply being smart with what you already have. Escalating healthcare costs — due in part to the explosion of chronic diseases among Americans — are expected to account for 20% of U.S. GDP by 2020. housing sector.

Cost 8

Cost Globalization Innovation Banking 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 26, 2012

When we talk about natural resource constraints on business — such as shortages in water or increases in the cost of energy or agricultural products — we tend to forget how deeply intertwined these commodities are.

Energy 12

Energy Supply Chain Constraint Long-term 12

Strategy Driven

OCTOBER 6, 2019

Even if your documents are in good shape and you can easily be qualified for the bigger finance, still you should not transgress the amount you need. That being said, you should also not apply for an amount so small that you become cash-strapped in the middle of a project. Just because it saves them time and energy.

Finance 10

Finance How To Document Follow-up 10

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 23, 2010

A special gift for StrategyDriven readers… We are pleased to announce that Rick has made his ebook, Introduction to Change without Migraines TM , available for download at no cost to our readers. Simply click on the link above to download your copy of this remarkable ebook on effective change management.

Resistance 56

Resistance Download eBook Newsletter 56

Chris Brady

JULY 11, 2010

Light is the load of a leader who understands that almost anything can be accomplished if enough focus of energy, desire, concentration, talent, effort, perseverance, time, and toil is applied. How Mr. Covey pointed out low trust leads to high cost and slow speed, but high trust leads to low cost and quick speeds.

Travel 118

Travel Hotels Commitment Blog 118

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 8, 2011

For those of us not in operations, supply chain, or logistics, it's a vaguely familiar line item we learned about in finance class. If we could permanently reduce the amount of product sitting idle, we'd save money, energy, and material. The repercussions of all this uncertainty are dramatic in terms of cost and material use.

Energy 11

Energy Supply Chain Operations Benchmarking 11

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 16, 2016

John Macomber, a senior lecturer in the finance unit at Harvard Business School, has studied infrastructure financing around the world. Further, thousands of municipalities and agencies still issue municipal bonds to finance water, power, road, and other projects that are largely self-funding or “bankable” projects.

Banking 8

Banking Objective Finance Proposal 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 21, 2016

In the United States, buildings consume 41 percent of the nation’s total energy use, through lighting, heating, air conditioning, elevators, and the thousands of items plugged into their sockets. However, we cannot take the resource-intensive path of simply building our way to a more energy-efficient future.

NPV 8

NPV Energy Efficiency Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

The key argument for fossil fuel divestment is that the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants are not being accurately priced by the market. Divestment can theoretically address this market failure by limiting investment by the fossil fuel industry by depressing company valuations and thereby increasing the cost of capital.

Finance 8

Finance Cost of Capital Constraint Price 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

The key argument for fossil fuel divestment is that the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants are not being accurately priced by the market. Divestment can theoretically address this market failure by limiting investment by the fossil fuel industry by depressing company valuations and thereby increasing the cost of capital.

Finance 8

Finance Cost of Capital Constraint Price 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 1, 2017

The global financial crisis prompted many companies to pull in their horns, hoard cash, trim costs, and take a wary view of large investments. Capital superabundance, combined with tepid economic growth, has produced historically low capital costs for most large companies. So, in real terms, debt financing is essentially free.

ROE 14

ROE Long-term GDP Six Sigma 14

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 24, 2015

In general, managing energy bills has traditionally been a pretty low priority for most corporations. For all but a few process-focused companies or those with energy-intensive facilities such as data centers, the utility bill is generally filed under the list of uncontrollable, take-it-or-leave-it costs of doing business.

Management 8

Management Payback Period Energy Supply Chain 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

ZF had dozens of departments filled with potentially high-impact data-related projects. Although we were tempted to tackle many projects across the entire company, we realized that to create visibility within a 146,000-employee firm, we had to focus on the most promising departments and projects first.

Company 10

Company Automotive Project Chief Information Officer 10

Strategy Driven

OCTOBER 29, 2010

The Relational Leader : A Revolutionary Framework to Engage Your Team (Course Technology PTR, Cengage Learning 2010) by Frank McIntosh The Relational Leader presents a framework to use as a compass point so that you can project a consistent message and methodology to your people. New hires must reflect the company’s core beliefs.

Leadership 50

Leadership Newsletter Learning-by-Doing Belief Systems 50

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 16, 2012

This raises the question of whether retaining strategic cash makes economic sense and should be viewed as a legitimate corporate finance tool in today's environment. Strategic cash also can be used to finance long-term reinvestment programs in the business—which is especially valuable to companies in capital-intensive industries (e.g.,

Company 13

Company Cost of Capital Finance Long-term 13

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Pioneers of new business models, such as Alibaba and Amazon, are launching innovations in rapid succession, such as voice ordering and real-time pricing, while simultaneously building scale and driving down costs. By streamlining store complexity, the team was also able to slash the retailer’s supply chain costs by 20 percent.

Retail 10

Retail Chief Executive Officer Supply Chain Operations 10

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 14, 2011

Cost-conscious consumers can access incredibly affordable, often inventive solutions. A recent OECD study projected that spending by Asian middle class consumers will have grown from $4.9 But the overarching trend is a shift in the world's innovation energy. But the middle class remains overlooked. Have you heard of Tencent?

Trends 15

Trends Innovation Govindarajan Class 15

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 2, 2017

In the same way, investments in landmark digital projects that significantly enhance customer experience can help launch wider digital transformations. Even with the project’s delays and costs , city planners confronted the fact that the old infrastructure just wouldn’t fit the area’s transportation demands.

Planning 8

Planning Agility System Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

The logic, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) and banks like HSBC, is this: as the world migrates away from carbon-based fuels, trillions of barrels of oil and billions of tons of coal — the assets sitting on the books of energy companies — will become “stranded,” or worthless. Let’s quickly look at each.

NGO 9

NGO Energy Morale Price 9

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2012

When an entrepreneur decides to start a business, there are typically several important tasks at the top of his or her To-Do list, such as writing a business plan, choosing a name, and obtaining financing. Too often, there's a task that's far down this list of priorities that deserves to be much higher: Making the company's first sale.

Entrepreneur 15

Entrepreneur Discount B2B Long-term 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2012

When an entrepreneur decides to start a business, there are typically several important tasks at the top of his or her To-Do list, such as writing a business plan, choosing a name, and obtaining financing. Too often, there's a task that's far down this list of priorities that deserves to be much higher: Making the company's first sale.

Entrepreneur 15

Entrepreneur Discount B2B Long-term 15

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

I heard it in the opening remarks of WEF founder Klaus Schwab who talked about a growing phenomenon of "burn-out" among world leaders with finite energy and time to put against seemingly bottomless complexity. The presentation to 50 people was followed by a discussion of antidotes to the dangerous trends they showed.

Competitive Advantage 14

Competitive Advantage Porter Goleman Emotional Intelligence 14

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 7, 2011

Yet a fundamental tenet of our project and the blog series about it is that slums present complex challenges that can't be fixed with a clever shack alone. From the start we asked: What are the complexities of financing these homes? How do you get energy and infrastructure into such dwellings? Triple the U.S.

Suri 13

Suri Godin Real Estate Construction 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 27, 2014

Our audacious challenge was followed by a spirited effort, in a series of HBR blog posts by experts in design, energy, finance and urban planning, to answer the following questions: How can organic, self-built slums be turned into livable housing? What reverse innovation lessons might be learned by the participants in such a project?

Govindarajan 8

Govindarajan Construction Workshop Project 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 18, 2011

Numbers give you this precision, making you feel more secure about where you are going — higher revenues, lower costs. For example, we need nuclear reactors to solve some of our energy needs and to mitigate global warming. Any system that involves human behavior, like economics or finance, is inherently self-referential.

Uncertainty 15

Uncertainty Finance System Learning-by-Doing 15

Women on Business

JANUARY 24, 2011

We need to decide how to best divide energies—whom to feed first. Do what has to be done and don’t waste energy on fear that undermines performance— unless the doubt is a nagging hunch of a wrong direction! Many career-enhancing activities can develop from carefully chosen volunteer-based projects.

Press Release 100

Press Release Discount Sharpe Advertising 100