Harvard Business Review

JULY 18, 2017

Many large companies yearn to rekindle the innovative magic of entrepreneurship, but very few actually succeed. The reasons have been well documented and include: Large, established companies answer to investors who value predictable, consistent financial results, and so are intolerant of the risks inherent in bold innovation.

Innovation 8

Innovation Early Adopters Marketing Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 17, 2016

The ability to make thousands of changes a day to its online retail service has been a key reason Amazon is expanding its online lead over Walmart and other historically “bricks and mortar” retailers. Operations in a Connected World. times faster in percentage terms. But when a product is delivered online (e.g.,

Innovation 10

Innovation Company Software Engineering 10

The Horizons Tracker

JULY 20, 2020

Many businesses have shut down, with many more having to drastically alter their operations to support social distancing or new patterns of consumer behavior. Tuck Business School’s Vijay Govindarajan underlines how important our ability to forget is to innovation. Other sectors have seen more radical change. Learning to forget.

Innovation 97

Innovation Govindarajan Short-term Banking 97

Deming Institute

JANUARY 5, 2017

I don’t think I learned anything about Deming or his work as an undergraduate Industrial Engineering student from 1991 to 1995. I was fortunate that my father had an opportunity to be a student in the famed four-day seminar, while working as an engineer at the Cadillac division of General Motors, in the late 1980s. Edwards Deming.

Deming 46

Deming TQM Kaizen Crisis 46

Strategy Driven

MARCH 21, 2011

Suddenly it hit Bob: he hadn’t checked to make sure engineering had included the new wiring diagram in the customer’s shipment that was due to go out first thing in the morning. Getting a 50,000-foot picture of our operations illustrates outdated, cumbersome, inefficient processes. Without the diagram the equipment would be useless.

Hammer 50

Hammer Chief Executive Officer Metrics Process 50

Harvard Business Review

MAY 22, 2018

Believe it or not, bureaucracy was once a progressive innovation. Its hierarchical authority, specialized division of labor, and standard operating procedures enabled companies to grow far larger than they had ever been. I first encountered agile teams a decade ago in the IT departments of some retailers. I hated the jargon.

Bureaucracy 11

Bureaucracy Agility Energy Constraint 11

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2014

It’s used to design and develop just about any product you can think of, from consumer goods to industrial equipment – or any service or experience ranging from retail customer service interactions to luxury hotel stays. This represents a truly disruptive management and operating model. Software is an almost-pure form of innovation.

Software 8

Software Industry Productivity Products 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 20, 2015

In the past, an abundant and growing labor pool was a powerful engine of the world economy; today, the number of workers is starting to decline in many countries. In retail, for instance, productivity could increase by another one-third in developed economies and double in emerging economies between 2012 and 2025. We disagree.

Globalization 8

Globalization Productivity Products GDP 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

In her underappreciated book, The Innovation Killer , Cynthia Barton Rabe, a former innovation strategist at Intel, explains how "what we know limits what we can imagine." They looked to "power retailers" such as Starbucks, Target, and Best Buy. We copy the great retailers." billion — not a bad decade.

Banking 18

Banking Retail Open-book Creativity 18

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 9, 2018

supply chain economy, quantified the number and quality of jobs it contains, or assessed how much it matters for innovation. economy that reveals new ways to drive American growth and innovation. These jobs have significantly higher than average wages, and account for much of the innovative activity in the economy.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain B2C Policies Industry 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Coca-Cola recently reshuffled its leadership team to focus on growth, innovation, and digital. Fast-growing consumer products companies such as Warby Parker, Glossier, and Dollar Shave Club are upending the traditional retail model, which depends on a manufacturer selling to a retailer that then sells to the end consumer.

P&L 12

P&L Agility Fashion Media 12

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 17, 2016

They do so by building powerful growth engines. If you build a robust growth engine on a strong foundation, rather than seeking individual opportunities, you can be confident knowing that sustainable expansion will follow. Other companies known for their capabilities are similarly focused on building growth engines.

Company 8

Company Engineering Apparel Survey 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2017

After repurposing many of the original structures and facades, the district is now evolving into a retail, restaurant, arts, and culture destination, a forum for local events, a flexible work space for businesses, and a residential area, all while evolving its manufacturing with 21 st century operations.

Real Estate 13

Real Estate Development Long-term Short-term 13

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 14, 2018

Google is reentering China by setting up new offices and an AI center, signing new deals with retail heavyweights JD.com and Tencent, rolling out new products (including a controversial local mobile search app that would strictly censor results), and investing in promising local startups. ineffective innovation strategies.

Competitive Advantage 11

Competitive Advantage Business Model Technology Marketing 11

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

For example, same-store sales or sales per square foot measure success in the retail industry, and various volume measures do it in commodity industries. “In-store experience” has long been a core metric for retailers, and for good reason. For decades aircraft engine manufacturers focused on unit sales.

Metrics 8

Metrics Business Model Retail Automotive 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 6, 2014

One that is exemplified by efforts like GE’s Ecomagination project, which involves developing alternative-fuel engines and other products that address today’s environmental crisis and drive economic growth. For great brands, CSV doesn’t simply draw upon the company’s innovation capabilities. Branding Corporate social responsibility'

Brand 12

Brand Supply Chain Price Operations 12

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

The first is operational, or doing what you are currently doing, better, faster, or cheaper. The next category of usage focuses on the operational model. Executed successfully, strategic transformation reinvigorates a company’s growth engine. Often, the word confuses three fundamentally different categories of effort.

Metrics 8

Metrics Retail Content Advertising 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 31, 2017

While some have invested significantly in technology, operational, and cultural changes, others are lagging behind. billion, including most major firms in the manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, financial services, and retail industries. Other financial and operating indicators showed similar disparities.

Company 8

Company Operations Human Capital Business Model 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 14, 2015

But the truth is that, for the most part, they redefine minimum requirements for operating in a given industry — not advantages. Take the large retailer Nordstrom. Most retailers will struggle to do this because they haven’t architected their product or customer data for easy access by the new digital capabilities.

Strategy 8

Strategy Competitive Advantage Business Model Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Second, innovators in social media and services like Uber have shown that businesses can be differentiated based on their ability to act on data instantly. One major retailer is seeking to engage with customers in real time while they are online, but is hampered by traditional systems and batch processing environments.

Operations 8

Operations System Retail Report 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 29, 2012

A 2011 IBM study of over 3,000 CIOs revealed that CIO-CEO alignment is stronger than ever, with traditional companies aggressively investing in technology innovation. Big-box retailers, like Best Buy, now have large, fast growing e-commerce businesses. Universities are rapidly growing their engineering courses.

Technology 14

Technology Venture Capitalist CIO ROI 14

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

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

HBR: Is new products’ high rate of failure really a pricing problem, or does it reflect a more fundamental innovation problem? Of course, the pricing is always what signals the problem, but behind that it is how the innovation process is set up. They let evidence and facts drive innovation processes.

Price 11

Price Productivity Products Simon 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2016

Despite the Wall Street-engineered financial avalanche, investors lost money in African equities largely because some audited statements were revealed to be patently deceptive. From Nigeria to South Africa , retail investors are still below pre-Great Recession levels.

Insurance 8

Insurance Incentives Quality Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Challenge , asking how could technology inform and enable management innovation. There is so much to learn, borrow, and build upon in these winning entries when it comes to how we can use the principles, and tools of the Web to make our organizations more adaptable, innovative, inspiring, and accountable. But don't take it from me.

Management 11

Management McKinsey Letter Retail 11

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 18, 2016

A retailer’s point of sale (POS) system falls into that category. With this model, an investment can be defined as strategic, key operational, support, or high potential. Key operational investments sustain existing business operations, helping to avoid any disadvantage.

Tools 8

Tools Competitive Advantage Operations Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 14, 2014

One of Buffer’s practices is to default to transparency — it is relentlessly forthcoming about its operations, its learning, and its performance. Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods, uses similarly generative practices in its day-to-day engineering work.

Company 9

Company Business Model Workshop Metrics 9

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Some innovative and determined professionals working in world's largest and most complex corporations are choosing to stay put and use their corporate platforms to lead change. 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

The bad news: Petabytes of new data and algorithmic innovation assure that “autonomy creep” will relentlessly challenge human oversight from within. In reality, “handoffs” and transitions prove to be significant operational problems. It’s a different kind of engineering.”

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Software CAPEX Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 29, 2012

Bersofsky wants to give consumers a better way to decide what wine to buy — a recommendation engine that can match people's various tastes to the myriad attributes of various wines. Wine consumers will be pleased to know that the first generation of the engine is now complete. The second challenge was to decide what tools to use.

Engineering 12

Engineering Retail Tools Marketing 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2014

But the real power of the partnership comes from their ability to bring the best of each of their departments—as well as pricing, operations, and other groups—to bear in exploiting those micromarket opportunities. One European retail bank, for example, set up “opportunity labs” in its branches and agencies—i.e.,

Marketing 11

Marketing Guidelines B2C Analysis 11

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 8, 2012

It's a reflection of what's happening in the domestic retail space more broadly. Infibeam's founder projects growth of the retail economy from $400 billion today to $1 trillion by the end of the decade. Consumer demand for innovative digital services, when executed ably, seems unquenchable; and that demand is stimulating capital flows.

Venture Capitalist 13

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Conference Wireless 13

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2017

Whereas most business lists analyze companies by traditional metrics such as revenue or by subjective assessments such as “innovativeness,” our ranking evaluates the ability of leaders to strategically reposition the firm. Matthew Eyring , Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer of Vivint Inc.

Franchising 15

Franchising CEO Business Model Strategy 15

Strategy Driven

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Innovation. The boss must act as the ‘external force’ for continuous, systematic change and innovation in an organization. To achieve true innovation, you can’t lead like an iron-fisted dictator, where your word and only your word is final. But being too quick to dismiss their ideas will only discourage innovation.

Innovation 50

Innovation How To Retail Motivation 50

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2017

Is it more imagination or innovation? Like many retailers, Macy’s has traditionally spent 85% of its marketing budget on driving sales. Today, creative marketers need to operate more like entrepreneurs, continuously adjusting to sustain “ product/market fit.” What makes marketing creative? These members are 2.6

Creativity 14

Creativity Marketing Agility Budgeting 14

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 30, 2011

But all of us can look at his body of work, and the reaction to that body of work, and use it as an opportunity to ask more of ourselves as leaders and innovators with a chance to make a small positive difference for our industry, our customers, and our colleagues. Few of us have the chance to achieve 1/100th of what Steve Jobs has achieved.

Industry 15

Industry Retail Learning-by-Doing Project 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

A five-year-old online clothing retailer, its success in this area reveals how AI and people can work together, with each side focused on its unique strengths. And third, various machine-learning techniques should be combined to effectively identify insights and foster innovation.

Company 8

Company Fashion Apparel Trends 8