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101 Things I Learned in Business School

Leading Blog

B USINESS is not a discipline, but an endeavor made up of disciplines such as accounting, communications, economics, finance, leadership, management, marketing, operations, psychology, sociology, and strategy. A moral hazard exists when organizations and individuals are not required to bear the negative consequences of their failures.

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Walmart Broadens ROI for Green Power

Harvard Business Review

But amidst a seemingly scripted set of responses on Walmart's supply chain and operational greening efforts, the discussion took an interesting turn. For example] the longer term payback on solar helps us get to scale down the road.". We worship internal rates of return (IRR) to our detriment.

ROI 14
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An Experiment in India Shows How Much Companies Have to Gain by Investing in Their Employees

Harvard Business Review

In July 2013 we implemented a randomized controlled trial in five factory units in Bangalore operated by Shahi Exports Pvt. Treated workers were also more valuable employees: They were more productive by seven percentage points post-training, and the average complexity of the sewing operations to which they were assigned rose considerably.

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The Most Common Mistake People Make In Calculating ROI

Harvard Business Review

For example, “revenue” isn’t a cash-based number: A company can record revenue whenever it ships a good or delivers a service to a customer, whether or not the customer has paid the bill. Let’s look at an example: A midsize manufacturing company wants to know whether to invest in a new $10 million facility.

ROI 8
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Most Industries Are Nowhere Close to Realizing the Potential of Analytics

Harvard Business Review

An examination of the telecom industry , for example, shows that the analytics leaders have posted three to five times higher returns on their big data investment than the typical telecom company. Lower returns cannot be simply chalked up to the fact that companies are not investing at scale.

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The Comprehensive Business Case for Sustainability

Harvard Business Review

Hoping to alleviate their concerns, this article also provides concrete examples of how sustainability benefits the bottom line. This can disrupt a firm’s ability to operate on schedule and budget. ” Improving risk management.

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The Case for Stock Buybacks

Harvard Business Review

But these claims are very rarely backed up by large-scale evidence, and often driven by a misunderstanding of how buybacks actually operate. Such a nefarious use of corporate funds makes for great headlines. The claim that the need to buy back stock forces firms to cut investment puts the cart before the horse.