Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

These executives have responsibilities we might expect to reside within marketing. That leaves Chief Marketing Officers with a decision — do you see the rise of these roles as an opportunity or a threat? Marketing faces a particular challenge since customer engagement has traditionally been considered its domain.

CEO 8

CEO Marketing Span of Control Sports 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 17, 2015

In a recent, high-profile example, HP announced in July that it will power all of its Texas data centers with wind energy for 12 years while lowering its operating costs. Here’s why now is the time right to invest in renewable energy sources for the internet: Renewable energy can help reduce a cost center.

Energy 8

Energy Globalization Hedge Cost 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 4, 2018

The ABU was set up as a centralized profit center with ambitious targets and with direct reporting to the chief operations officer; most often, similar units are organized as cost centers with no specific targets. Targets and accountability. Support from the top. Communicating with strategic goals in mind.

Company 8

Company Chief Operating Officer Incentives Project 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 30, 2017

But while the largest US firms have seen their domestic revenues grow more than twice as fast as the sector average even in the domestic market, their smaller suppliers—the firms that provide them with the materials and components they depend on—have experienced negative growth. manufacturers are taking notice.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain McKinsey Incentives Bottom-up 8

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. Slowly but surely, as the little database grew bigger and bigger, the manager would wedge the cost into her operating budget.

Supply Chain 15

Supply Chain CIO Budgeting Project 15

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

You’ll often find customer relationship management within marketing, budgeting within finance, supply-chain management within operations, outsourcing within procurement, training within HR, and new product development within R&D. Some of the first business functionaries were railroad telegraph operators who managed schedules.

Development 8

Development Supply Chain Incentives Outsourcing 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 2, 2011

Yet most organizations still operate much as they did in the industrial age. We manage the measurable, rather than the things that create meaning that fuels creativity, that enables innovative thinking and that helps any company to outpace the market. Am I revealing a certain naïveté in even writing this? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Hamel 16

Hamel Customer Loyalty Creativity Cost Center 16