article thumbnail

What’s Driving Superstar Companies, Industries, and Cities

Harvard Business Review

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 To do this, we take the firm’s returns, deduct the cost of capital, and multiply by the firm’s total invested capital.)

article thumbnail

How to Quantify Sustainability’s Impact on Your Bottom Line

Harvard Business Review

For slaughterhouses and retailers (Brazilian operations), we also projected positive benefits: $20 million to $120 million (0.01% to 0.1% The industry makes up approximately 6% of Brazil’s GDP. These values can be estimated credibly and cost-effectively, and we set about applying them to the Brazilian beef sector.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

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

article thumbnail

The Case for Investing More in People

Harvard Business Review

In the decade between 2005 and 2015, labor productivity in the US as measured by GDP per labor hour was less than 1% for 7 of the 10 years, according to the OECD. Unfortunately, this virtuous cycle appears to be broken. Productivity in most developed economies has been anemic. And wages are stagnant.

article thumbnail

Why the 21st Century Will Belong to Family Businesses

Harvard Business Review

In this brave new world, public companies are losing their dominance : their share of America’s GDP, workforce, and assets has fallen by 50% over the last quarter of the 20th century. ” There is often a personal connection between the family and the communities in which it operates; reputations matter to families.

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.

article thumbnail

What If Companies Managed People as Carefully as They Manage Money?

Harvard Business Review

Financial capital is relatively abundant and cheap. According to Bain’s Macro Trends Group, the global supply of capital stands at nearly 10 times global GDP. Invest human capital just like you invest financial capital. We run Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate various returns under uncertainty.