Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2017

Doing digital M&A right means upending the way most companies approach financing, due diligence, and merger integration. Let’s start with financing the deal. Meanwhile, because digital targets tend to be expensive, acquirers are limited in their ability to use stock to finance a deal. Sponsored by DXC Technology.

Due Diligence 8

Due Diligence Company Learning Curve Finance 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 23, 2014

Having the team hear customer feedback firsthand was a big change, especially for the engineers. At their training center in Louisville, they bounced ideas and product prototypes off of retail salespeople who came to learn about GE’s products. The feedback was hard for the engineers to hear, but it made a huge impact on them.

Ries 10

Ries Waterman Finance Competitive Advantage 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2014

The team transformed Gap’s products and stores and helped the company grow faster than any other retail brand at the time. Its engineers worked long hours, probably longer than their NASA counterparts would have. over the past 20 years: until 2006, its finances were shaky, and it was losing about a point of market share every year.

Team 8

Team Human Capital CEO Efficiency 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

The world's biggest and fastest search engine can't help but generate terabytes and petabytes of actionable investment intelligence. In fact, Google chief economist Hal Varian (and other economists and forecasters) already use the search engine's data and analytics to predict economic futures.

Hedge 15

Hedge Core Competence CFO ROI 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2017

Some companies that made the list were obvious choices; for example, the biggest online retailer now gets most of its profit from cloud services (Amazon). On a separate track, he launched the device and content ecosystem, starting with iPod and iTunes, that would become the company’s new growth engine.

Franchising 15

Franchising CEO Business Model Strategy 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 23, 2013

You not only had to be able to come up with great winning ideas, you also had to deal with the complexities of financing, engineering, distribution, recruiting staff, and legal liability — to name just a few. And by "market" we mean 188 retail partners. And, of course, this slowed innovation and restrained market outcomes.

Productivity 9

Productivity Products Disaggregation Innovation 9

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

The men and women who choose this path have diverse expertise and job responsibilities: marketing, leadership development, communications, operations, new business development, purchasing. James is using his expertise as a chemical engineer to develop new business models for base-of-the-pyramid consumers. Some are recent graduates.

Real Estate 8

Real Estate Constraint Entrepreneur Restructuring 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 27, 2017

At one American retailer, an autonomous ensemble of algorithms replaced the entire merchandising department. “The machine learning model is not a static piece of code  —  you’re constantly feeding it data,” says one Google engineer. It’s a different kind of engineering.”

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Software CAPEX Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 1, 2016

Real digital transformation requires transformation at a deeper level—transformation of the leadership team’s core beliefs. In retailing, leaders worry about customer retention and dollar per square foot. Changes at the surface create small, local differences. Changes of belief percolate throughout an organization.

Business Model 8

Business Model Industry Metrics Budgeting 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2015

We’ve found that CEOs of big pharmaceutical companies, for example, are more likely to have a background as company lawyers, salespeople, or finance managers, than one in medicine or pharmaceutical R&D. There was no strong association between CEO background and firm performance in high-tech and fashion retail.

CEO 8

CEO Innovation Pharmaceuticals Merchandising 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 14, 2016

Similarly, Apoorva Mehta, a former Amazon engineer and founder of Instacart, now valued at $2 billion, tried up to 20 different business models that failed before hitting the right one. Financed by VC firms. billion in a single round of equity financing, the largest private fundraising round for a VC-backed startup ever.

Company 8

Company Succession Analysis Entrepreneur 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Theyve been finely engineered, instead, to do. Theyve been finely engineered, instead, to do. Reflection items are what Mycroft was to Sherlock: the smarter — but largely invisible — big brother. The catch is that most companies dont know how to reflect. So heres how to craft your own reflection items.

Short-term 15

Short-term Guidelines Mass Marketing Telecommunications 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 12, 2017

Retail e-commerce sales worldwide are expected to hit $4 trillion by 2020 , about double of where it is now. In this category, we primarily looked at three subcategories: inputs (financing options, talent retention, startup capacity), process (how sophisticated are firms’ business processes, and what’s the level of R&D?),

Innovation 8

Innovation Policies Technology Politics 8