article thumbnail

CEOs Don’t Care Enough About Capital Allocation

Harvard Business Review

Unless your company’s return on capital exceeds its cost of capital, no amount of revenue growth can create value. For the many firms whose cost of capital and return on capital are roughly equal, in fact, the only path to value creation is to increase return on capital.

CEO 8
article thumbnail

What’s Driving Superstar Companies, Industries, and Cities

Harvard Business Review

In our recent research at the McKinsey Global Institute, we examined the superstar phenomenon across firms, as well as sectors and cities. To analyze the superstar dynamics of firms, our metric was economic profit, a measure of a firm’s profit above and beyond opportunity cost. (To Wider dynamics may be at play.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

4 Ways Leaders Can Get More from Their Company’s Innovation Efforts

Harvard Business Review

A recent McKinsey report found that while 84% of corporate executives think innovation is key to achieving growth objectives, only 6% are satisfied with the innovation performance of their firm. For any business to succeed over the long term, it must earn a return that exceeds its cost of capital. That’s quite a mismatch.

article thumbnail

Finally, Proof That Managing for the Long Term Pays Off

Harvard Business Review

New research, led by a team from McKinsey Global Institute in cooperation with FCLT Global , found that companies that operate with a true long-term mindset have consistently outperformed their industry peers since 2001 across almost every financial measure that matters. In this case its capital charge is $800 times 8%, or $64.