Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 30, 2016

One applications outsourcing team, for example, proposed a clever UX tweak to help optimize a global fulfillment process their company managed for its biggest client. Surely this cheap, customer-centric, and data-driven innovation would impress the client. Their optimization strengths had become innovation weakness.

Process 13

Process Competitive Advantage Outsourcing Supply Chain 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 31, 2012

Plenty of people — including here on Harvard's blog — espouse the theory that big companies can't innovate. A look at any performance measure shows that innovation can come from either size, and that both arguments are oversimplifications. And the CEO sees enabling a culture of collaborative innovation as key.

Operations 17

Operations Innovation Industry CEO 17

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 26, 2012

In the game of innovation, there is next to no time to rest. In the worst cases, it only takes months to move from profitable differentiation to commodity competition. Huge retailers such as Walmart and Target also use scale to keep their purchasing costs down and their prices competitive. Consider Porter's value chain.

Porter 13

Porter Competitive Advantage Safe Harbor Efficiency 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 27, 2017

Even better, they would respond 10 times faster to market moves than existing processes while requiring minimal human intervention. The bad news: Petabytes of new data and algorithmic innovation assure that “autonomy creep” will relentlessly challenge human oversight from within. The Autonomous Outsourcer.

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Software CAPEX Competitive Advantage 8

Strategy Driven

MARCH 18, 2011

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.”

Resources 51

Resources Industry System Strategy 51

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2013

In my eyes, the work Steve Blank, Eric Ries, and others have done to provide a cogent, accessible frame around the academic concepts of emergent strategy is one of the most important contributions to the innovation movement over the past few years. Corporate leaders can take steps to encourage this kind of market-based learning.

Ries 8

Ries Telecommunications Business Model Competitive Advantage 8

N2Growth Blog

APRIL 21, 2011

There is also a great opportunity for adding talent leverage via outsourcing, crowdsourcing, and other contract opportunities that provide cost savings and scale. or informal efforts produced via someone else’s R&D or innovation efforts, companies often start projects that they don’t finish.

Real Estate 353

Real Estate Company Brand Operations 353

Harvard Business Review

JULY 19, 2013

However, most companies require considerable planning and need both a competitive advantage and a solid business plan in order to succeed. For my company, I focused on a big market and found a profitable and attractive niche. Will customers be able to identify and discuss your competitive advantage? We built a U.S.-based

Entrepreneur 9

Entrepreneur Hotels Travel Call Center 9

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 18, 2012

When Palmisano retired this month, the media chronicled his success by focusing on IBM's 21% annual growth in earnings per share and its increase in market capitalization to $218 billion. These relationships were essential in gaining the confidence of customers who had qualms about outsourcing to IBM. Patience and a long-term view.

Globalization 16

Globalization Golden Parachute Short-term Long-term 16

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2015

Can you think of any business topic that’s been hotter for longer than innovation? In a McKinsey poll , 94% of the managers surveyed said they were dissatisfied with their company’s innovation performance. And yet when it comes to innovation, the gap between aspiration and accomplishment seems as big as ever.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Engineering Supply Chain 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 24, 2015

Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win — or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether?

Strategy 8

Strategy Competitive Advantage Environment Execution 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2016

” Rather, this approach recognizes a fundamental shift in the sources of value creation and competitive advantage toward software. When modular in design, they adapt easily for different markets and can evolve over time. Perhaps most importantly, it demands a leadership structure that can drive digital innovation.

Software 8

Software Company Airlines Business Model 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 19, 2015

3D printing offers even more advantages to these groups. Most of their sales are now overseas, but the individual businesses aren’t big enough to justify dedicated factories in Europe and Asia to better serve these markets. In some contexts, they add competitive advantage. In others, they weaken it.

Engineering 8

Engineering Learning Curve Fixed Costs Competitive Advantage 8