Harvard Business Review

MAY 9, 2012

The innovator's quest has been to find the win-win proposition: a great new product that can create differentiated value for consumers while supporting differentiated profits for the producer. The innovator's job is now to create wins across the board. MORE ON KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS TO INNOVATION.

Innovation 13

Innovation Supply Chain Telecommunications Core Competence 13

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

Before the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, Nokia was the dominant mobile phone maker with a clearly stated purpose — “Connecting people” — and an aggressive strategy for sustaining market dominance. Nokia was so immersed in executing its strategy that it lost sight of its purpose. Insight Center.

Strategy 14

Strategy Company How To Supply Chain 14

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

In the January issue of HBR, Roger Martin sets out some rules for avoiding common mistakes in strategy making. As he writes in “ The Big Lie of Strategic Planning ”, the first rule is “keep the strategy statement simple.” The 15-word constraint is a test that often reveals a profound lack of alignment among managers.

Strategy 13

Strategy Document Comparison Retail 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 18, 2014

You sometimes hear managers complain that their organization has no strategy. Every organization has a strategy: its strategy is what it does. But unless it is reflected in the actions of an organization, it is not the organization’s strategy. This isn’t true. Think about it.

Strategy 9

Strategy Bottom-up Organization Report 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 4, 2014

And they love to pursue them, deadline commitments or old strategies be damned. They forget that the strategy which took them from small to midsize has already proven itself a winner. So they begin tinkering with their core strategy, burning up resources while their companies wander off their tried-and-true growth path.

Strategy 8

Strategy Wireless Company Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

My last post talked about how a little-known company , Grace Manufacturing, took a flexible and opportunistic approach to its strategy when its core business faltered. As Kawashima recalled, "We had no strategy other than the idea of seeing if we could sell something in the United States." Don't over-plan when doing the unheard-of.

Strategy 15

Strategy Automotive Short-term Marketing 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 6, 2017

The strategic underpinnings of most companies’ workforce plans should change dramatically as a result of technological innovation. Digital transformation, the industrial internet, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, and a plethora of other innovations are fundamentally changing the nature of work.

Company 12

Company Insurance Engineering Software 12

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 21, 2013

Similar waves of innovative applications of technology (e.g., ERP systems, RFID , knowledge management, business intelligence) have washed over organizations. This trend toward ever more critical reliance on IT is not only transforming the idea and practice of corporate IT, but has disruptive operational implications for every manager.

Competitive Advantage 8

Competitive Advantage Management Information Technology Airlines 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 17, 2011

Unfortunately, many managers misunderstand their competitive set, and that leads to strategic mistakes. We believe that in business as in basketball, understanding what bracket you're competing in is key to shaping your competitive strategy and tactics. Braun simplified its merchandising and brand strategy.

Management 15

Management Retail Brand Merchandising 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 16, 2016

Strategic alignment, for us, means that all elements of a business — including the market strategy and the way the company itself is organized — are arranged in such a way as to best support the fulfillment of its long-term purpose. How well does your business strategy support the fulfillment of your company’s purpose?

Banking 14

Banking Strategy Film Operations 14

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 2, 2014

But as Steve Blank, Henry Chesbrough, and others have pointed out , that advantage is offset by the daunting fact that corporate innovators have to fight a war on two fronts. This is where the concept of stealth innovation can help you. To some extent, you can secure the necessary flexibility by negotiating it up front.

Innovation 11

Innovation Conflict of Interest Strategy System 11

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

Indeed, the company eventually announced its strategy to venture massively into cloud computing. We researched changes in a firm’s entrepreneurial strategy after CEO successions. These letters from firms’ top executives signal the major themes to which the top management attends. Insight Center. The 21st-Century CEO.

CEO 8

CEO Letter Retail Strategy 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Over a period of years, every GE senior manager would learn the lean startup methodology, and GE would be the showcase for how modern companies use entrepreneurial management to transform culture and drive long-term growth. Innovation at GE was on a roll. Are lean innovation and the startup way a failure in large companies?

Ries 8

Ries Long-term Short-term Price 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2014

Southwest Airlines’ decades-long strategy of “short-haul, high-frequency, point-to-point, low-fare service” produced what was not only one of the best-performing airlines in the U.S. For over 50 years, Wal-Mart has pursued essentially the same strategy of “offering the lowest price so its customer can live better.” Or consider U.S.

Company 8

Company Supply Chain Airlines Health Care 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 3, 2011

Today's CIOs are under pressure to deliver on requests for innovation, cost reduction, connectivity, and a growing demand for business intelligence. As overall business strategy planning ties closer to IT strategy, four personas of the next-generation CIO will emerge: 1. Consequently, the role of the CIO will evolve.

CIO 15

CIO Chief Information Officer Budgeting Technology 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

A company that creates a sustainable competitive advantage, executes well and reinvests to solidify its strategy will find that its share price accurately reflects its value. Lose an owner’s mindset and leaders turn into managers, then custodians and, ultimately, bureaucrats. And boards can monitor them.

Company 8

Company Bureaucracy Long-term Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 6, 2013

Economic performance for organizations whose CIOs were part of the overall development of strategy outpaced that of other organizations by a scale of two to one as discovered in our Economist and HBR studies. Define Your Strategy. However, time and time again, statistics show that CIO and C-suite alignment drives financial success.

CIO 8

CIO Hamel Technology Tactics 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Precision made it easy for managers to oversee their employees. Every spot on every line was visible to managers. But Bernstein and his team observed that when managers were not watching, employees secretly developed and shared better ways of doing the work. These stats were reviewed by managers every week.

Organization 13

Organization Tactics Call Center Metrics 13

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 27, 2017

A new study from the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) found that, according to the 2015 US government’s definition of disability , a significant portion of the white-collar workforce has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity: 30% of a nationally representative survey of 3,570 white-collar employees.

Compliance 8

Compliance Chief Operating Officer Innovation Survey 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 12, 2014

However, by the middle of the decade, Google was growing, YouTube was forming, and “operational excellence” wasn’t a differentiating strategy in technology. In the late 1990’s, Home Depot’s rapid growth had outpaced its corporate infrastructure and was hiding serious cost management challenges.

Strategic Fit 8

Strategic Fit Rogers CEO Strategy 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 14, 2014

Imagine you are the CEO of one of Britain’s oldest and possibly least innovative insurance companies, The Prudential. One of your better managers comes to you with the idea of setting up an internet bank. Do you invest in the exciting new opportunity even though it does not fit with your existing strategy? Who’s right?

Licensing 8

Licensing Competitive Advantage Proposal Banking 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

Success in this environment will depend on more than just creating better digital-enabled products; it will depend on building ecosystem-level strategies that encompass the many moving pieces that come together to create the new value proposition. A misunderstood story. “How could they not have seen it coming? .

Company 8

Company How To Technology Strategy 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 13, 2016

Managers, consultants, and academics around the world have long wrestled with this question. But simultaneously managing today’s business while creating tomorrow’s goes beyond being ambidextrous. Managers exploiting current businesses develop mindsets based on what they have experienced in the past.

Company 8

Company Licensing Incentives Construction 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 13, 2015

Rather than relying on potentially impracticable targets such as “Take last year’s performance and add 10%,” you can use an assessment of the probability of success to anchor evaluation of performance-improvement strategies.

Goal 8

Goal Strategic Planning Strategy Objective 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2013

Stay secure and boost innovation. Many CIOs have buckled under the CIO paradox, while others have managed to be effective despite it. Today, however, technology innovation is creating a drastic change — across all major industries — in the way customers want to interact with their suppliers. Grow blended executives.

CIO 8

CIO Technology Storytelling Strategic Planning 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 26, 2015

How do they match a shift in strategy (which is called for in times of change) with a shift in culture? I suspect that many organizations get into trouble not because of a failed strategy but because of a frozen culture. For an organization to endeavor to change its culture, it needs to take its cue from what changes in its strategy.

Welch 8

Welch Six Sigma Agility Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 27, 2014

Today’s corporations are directing more and more of their budgets toward a complex web of global specialist providers and suppliers to help deliver on their businesses’ core strategies. And too often, savings just represent corrections of past failures in managing supplier relationships. Deep expertise is critical in each area.

Budgeting 8

Budgeting Objective Cost Globalization 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 8, 2015

Their innovation efforts tend to be focused wholly on the creation of new value; meanwhile, the question of how exactly they will be compensated for it usually goes unexamined. One typical reason is that top executives haven’t managed to clarify something even more fundamental: how much priority they place on increasing profit margins.

Balanced Scorecard 8

Balanced Scorecard Company Price KPI 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 7, 2014

This month he’s publishing his second book based on the interviews: “Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation.” He talked with HBR about why a company’s culture is more important than its strategy — and some of the innovative tactics that CEOs have used to help create a high-performing culture.

CEO 12

CEO FAQ Restructuring Performance Review 12

Harvard Business Review

JULY 2, 2015

However, the sources of demand in each country differ, which will affect your strategy. Business growth can also depend on factors such as the availability of talent or scarce raw materials that influence, say, a company’s innovation capabilities or its ability to manufacture cost-effectively.

Marketing 8

Marketing Benchmarking Globalization Construction 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

Everyone thinks they have a digital strategy these days. But while your company may have a business or IT strategy that incorporates digital technology, an IT strategy does not equal a digital strategy. Because most IT strategies treat technology in isolation. Does your strategy capitalize on that?

IT Strategy 9

IT Strategy Strategy Class Offshoring 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 17, 2013

We don''t often think about the way we usually operate at work, whether we''re performing an informal five-step process for evaluating a new proposal, or setting priorities for managing our time. Managers think that they should find out what the best practice is and then roll it out. Change management Managing people Operations'

Efficiency 8

Efficiency Organization Bureaucracy Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 17, 2017

For decades, we’ve often thought of leadership profiles in unique buckets—two popular varieties were the “visionaries”, who embrace strategy and think about amazing things to do, and the “operators”, who get stuff done. The Gap Between Strategy and Execution. Insight center.

Execution 15

Execution Strategy How To Budgeting 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 18, 2012

Executing this strategy required seamless integration of IBM's product capabilities with its geographic reach. The three principles that emerged from that event guided decision-making throughout the organization, giving IBM's huge, globally dispersed workforce the discipline necessary to execute the company's new strategy.

Globalization 15

Globalization Golden Parachute Short-term Long-term 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 18, 2013

The public and private sectors need to work together to protect critical assets with confidence and trust — helping manage the risks we know, and getting ahead of those we don''t. A comprehensive corporate cybersecurity strategy is required. Government Information & technology Risk management'

Cooper 8

Cooper CIO Risk Management Telecommunications 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

It may seem counterintuitive, but smart companies need to routinely rid themselves of less profitable customers, the same way an asset manager or rebalances an investment portfolio or a Major League Baseball general manager trades a declining player. So how does one take full advantage of a 'window to winnow'?

P&L 14

P&L Supply Chain Retail Price 14

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 9, 2013

No Hierarchy, No Management, No Nothing. How Medium is Building a New Kind of Company with No Managers First Round Capital. Medium isn''t merely a digital publishing platform; it''s also a fierce adopter of Holacracy, a style of management that is entirely management-free. So does it work? Stirman says yes.

Report 8

Report Film Loyalty Business Model 8