Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

One option, of course, is to drive up the stock price by buying back shares, and some CEOs may choose that course. The cost of capital is at historic lows, averaging below 6% for most large U.S. Indeed, for most companies, the value of accelerating growth greatly exceeds the value of returning capital to shareholders.

Supply Chain 9

Supply Chain CEO Discount Retail 9

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 27, 2012

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.

Creativity 14

Creativity Long-term Kotter Cost of Capital 14

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 15, 2013

At many companies the total cash investment in acquisitions, R&D, and fixed assets has not earned back its cost of capital after adjusting for the time lag in realizing incremental benefits. Such decisions might be unpopular and break a lot of traditions, yet they set the future course of the company.

P&L 8

P&L Fixed Assets Charan Delegation 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

Of course, low productivity can depress wages, but in recent decades, wages haven’t grown as much as expected even during periods of robust economic productivity growth. This is why we believe that human capital, not financial capital, is often your scarcest resource. And wages are stagnant.

Human Capital 15

Human Capital Kaizen Agility Energy 15

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 27, 2015

Companies in the top one-fifth of profitability earn, in aggregate, about 70 times more economic profit (accounting profit less cost of capital) than those in the middle three-fifths combined, according to McKinsey’s database of 3,000 large, publicly listed, nonfinancial U.S. Consider what’s happening among corporations.

ROIC 8

ROIC McKinsey GDP Company 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2013

But of course Hughes’s presentation was a tipping point. With the company’s share price sinking and its cost of capital rising, those deals might have to be put on hold. ExSolv claimed to have a technology for extracting oil from sand. This will blow over.” wanted to believe him. A week later A.J. spoke up. “We

Case Study 8

Case Study CFO Hedge PR 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 25, 2018

Of course, we can already hear the objections coming from the grizzled veterans of traditional M&A. Best-in-class players, such as Intel (through technology partnerships) and Tyson (through new-product incubators), have developed the tools to incorporate many different flavors of deal making.

Incubator 8

Incubator Insurance Cost of Capital Competitive Advantage 8