First Friday Book Synopsis

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Bob''s blog entries De Beers Ford Motor Company Harvard Business Review Press How and why downstream [comma] customer-led activities and preferences will dominate the competitive landscape in the future Infosys Niraj Dawar the locus of activities that add value (those the customer is willing to pay for) the locus of competitive advantage the primary fixed costs in the business Tilt: Shifting Your Strategy from Products to Customers Toyota Motor Company Walmart

Fixed Costs 100

Fixed Costs Review Competitive Advantage Books 100

Women on Business

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

Corporate budgeting used to be simple: review fixed costs once a year, control variable expenses as much as possible, calculate the ROI on capital expenditures and relax until the end of the fiscal year. The goal was clear and easily quantified (though not so easily achieved): maximize profit. Smart organizations are adding three elements to

Budgeting 100

Budgeting ROI Fixed Costs Cost 100

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2017

Many leaders look at profit margin, which measures the total amount by which revenue from sales exceeds costs. Knight warns that it’s “a term that can be interpreted and used in many ways,” but the standard definition is this: When you make a product or deliver a service and deduct the variable cost of delivering that product, the leftover revenue is the contribution margin. You might think of this as the portion of sales that helps to offset fixed costs.

Fixed Costs 13

Fixed Costs Cost Productivity Products 13

Crossderry Blog

MAY 4, 2009

Recent Posts Sputnik and Delayed Gratification Grace under pressure Being accountable as a customer SAP SME Portfolio Précis Podcast Link — Enterprise IT: Inside an SAP customer Recent Comments Tweets that mention … on Grace under pressure Paul Ritchie on About Paul on About Bob Tarne on Waterfall, Agile, now … Bloggers Bug –… on Being responsible for our own… Google Page Rank Isn’t a “disbenefit&# really just a cost?

Cost 100

Cost PMBOK Blog Metrics 100

Harvard Business Review

JULY 2, 2014

It’s a simple calculation to determine how many units must be sold at a given price to cover one’s fixed costs. Assume she must incur a fixed cost of $25,500 to produce and sell a kite. These costs might cover the software needed to design the kite and be sure it is sufficiently aerodynamic, the fee paid to a graphic designer to design the look and feel of the kite, and the development of promotional materials used to advertise the kite.

Fixed Costs 12

Fixed Costs Cost Price Analysis 12

CO2

JANUARY 2, 2011

It is useful to distinction between three motivations for creating partnerships: Optimization and economy of scale, Reduction of risk and uncertainty, Acquisition of particular resources and activities) Cost Structure – The business model elements result in the cost structure. (It It is useful to to distinguish between two broad classes of business models Cost Structures: cost cost-driven and value-driven from the following categories Cost-driven, Value-driven.

Business Model 59

Business Model Executive Coaching Wiersema Execution 59

The Atman Group

MAY 5, 2012

As this float collapses, what used to take longer to figure out, costing a great deal, can now be determined faster and much cheaper. 4) Costs – what is your cost per sale/customer? Pro-rated fixed costs. Variable costs.

Business Model 67

Business Model Management Ries Agility 67

Harvard Business Review

MAY 2, 2013

for instance, even insured patients pay an average of 20% of drug prices out-of-pocket, meaning these drugs can cost a patient $20,000 a year. The key components that lead to a solution are as follows: Understand the dynamics of a high fixed cost/low variable cost industry.

Discount 16

Discount Price Pharmaceuticals Fixed Costs 16

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

The introduction of Amazon Prime , which provides two-day delivery on many Amazon orders for a fixed annual fee, represented a huge shift in Amazon’s early business model. The absence of fixed costs for customers attracted small and innovative web developers. jamie jones/Getty Images. It is clear from some of its recent moves that Amazon sees the 18% of U.S. GDP dedicated to health care as fertile ground for expansion.

Health Care 15

Health Care Retail GDP Insurance 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 16, 2017

remains home to a considerable number of “climate skeptics,” who clearly impact the politics around the issue, as they are unlikely to support costly actions such as carbon taxes intended to mitigate the challenge of climate change. A drug company must incur a large fixed cost to do the basic research, so it has strong incentives to predict what the demand for the drug will be if its research succeeds.

Aggregate Demand 13

Aggregate Demand Incentives Real Estate Simon 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2013

For example, a decade ago, it''s unlikely that small-business owners would have told you that they needed a flexible way to host data and applications, one that preferably turned the fixed cost of computer hardware into a variable cost of renting capacity. That''s not as exotic a bet as you''d imagine when you consider that just about every business owner is always looking for increased flexibility and opportunities to make fixed costs variable.

Fixed Costs 12

Fixed Costs Trends Health Care Banking 12

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 5, 2017

The media’s bias toward big events stems from three features of its economics: Fixed costs. The cost of covering a golf tournament doesn’t depend on whether Tiger Woods plays. Fixed costs have always been central to the economics of media. A combination of fixed costs, an advertising-reliant model, and spillovers produced a staggering difference in earned media coverage during the primaries: $2 billion for Trump and $300 million for Sanders.

Advertising 13

Advertising Franchising Fixed Costs Content 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 5, 2017

It could be because “software development typically requires large upfront fixed costs,” meaning that firms that are already pretty large are the ones who can afford to invest in it.

Article 13

Article Industry Document Software 13

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 16, 2017

Video programming, after all, is produced at high fixed costs, with increasingly small marginal costs to duplicate and distribute widely. Britta Knappmann/EyeEm/Getty Images. Recent leaked reports suggest trouble for the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner, an $85 billion deal first announced over a year ago.

Media 11

Media Stephenson Article Guidelines 11

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Colin was sure his revenues would exceed costs within a year, but the large clients he expected never materialized. So not only were the current fees too weak to support his fixed costs, but future clients were turned off by his apparently excessive tastes. To address those cost overruns, Colin subleased some space, cancelled a redundant and very expensive trading service, and let one person go. The costs soon proved much greater than expected.

Finance 11

Finance Article Hedge Core Competence 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 12, 2015

Placing ads next to content helps websites recover the sizeable fixed costs of creating content. But ad blockers cut off this revenue stream and make it difficult to offset even the running cost of storing and delivering content to visitors.

Advertising 16

Advertising Content Fixed Costs Guidelines 16

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 4, 2015

Since theme parks are high fixed cost/low variable cost entities, revenue from discount-enticed new customers is virtually all profit… free money. The Walt Disney Company is reportedly considering implementing surge pricing at its various theme parks.

Discount 16

Discount Fixed Costs Hotels Price 16

Harvard Business Review

MAY 21, 2015

The costly and complex operations of transporting energy have made utilities natural monopolies, while regulatory barriers and the high fixed costs of building and maintaining regional electrical grid infrastructure have also kept much competition at bay.

Transportation 16

Transportation Software Real Estate Price 16

Harvard Business Review

MAY 19, 2015

That gave it a steadier cash flow to cover the costs of its large fixed cost investments, but did not eliminate the unused capacity of plants dedicated to one kind of product. Conglomerates, at least in the United States, have a checkered history.

Outsourcing 16

Outsourcing Learning Curve Engineering Fixed Costs 16

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 21, 2011

Within the first year of our effort net sales increased 27 percent while fixed costs were reduced by 40 percent. Not all fixed cost reductions were people. In light of today's economic volatility and uncertainty every aspect of business is being re-examined for its value in creating and sustaining profitable growth. I've worked in human resources for over 25 years, the past six with Newell Rubbermaid, and this is not a new endeavor for me.

Offshoring 12

Offshoring Outsourcing Fixed Costs Construction 12

Harvard Business Review

MAY 13, 2016

Imagine eliminating all of the redundancies in fixed costs. The nonprofit sector has limbs.

NGO 16

NGO Budgeting Diversity Fixed Costs 16

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 16, 2011

ACSOI essentially measures Groupon's profits before subtracting its subscriber-acquisition costs and stock option-based compensation. Secondly, expecting a business to be profitable quickly forces it to keep its fixed costs low. Because a business's cost structure determines which customers it finds profitable, keeping these fixed costs low preserves strategic options for the company when it is choosing which customers to target. "Alright, you caught us.

Christensen 12

Christensen Metrics IPO Fixed Costs 12

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 11, 2011

However many big projects become inflexible, travelling on rails to a fixed destination. Management has made promises to senior executives about what a project will achieve, and fixed costs have built up because they looked prudent in comparison to planned revenues. Some new products under this umbrella, like the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, were breakthrough hits, but they probably cost a good deal to develop.

Airlines 12

Airlines Fixed Costs Hedge Travel 12

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

By making the fixed cost of payroll inherently more variable under differing business conditions, you can make your company more resilient and agile, while also treating your employees exceptionally well. In a recent blog post , we cited some alarming numbers: 40% of workers are planning to look for a new job within the next six months, and 69% say they're already passively looking. As employers, those figures are frightening.

Long-term 12

Long-term Fixed Costs Agility Commitment 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2011

The other is the persistent feeling that supply chains represent a cost. Most companies focus on minimizing costs rather than maximizing flexibility, which would entail making large investments in supply chains. What would happen to their costs if the renminbi's value rises overnight from RMB 6.5 Companies keep costs down by building supply chains that generate economies of scale. It discovered that although costs did fall, the delivered price to customers rose.

Supply Chain 12

Supply Chain Fixed Costs Cost Price 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

However, the model separates subscriber revenue from the cost of the network. Congestion, rather than raw usage, is the key driver of this phenomenon; given that the Internet Service Provider network is largely a fixed-cost asset.

Decentralization 16

Decentralization Fixed Costs Efficiency GDP 16

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

However, the model separates subscriber revenue from the cost of the network. Congestion, rather than raw usage, is the key driver of this phenomenon; given that the Internet Service Provider network is largely a fixed-cost asset.

Decentralization 16

Decentralization Fixed Costs Efficiency GDP 16

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 27, 2016

A full-time job provided the steady income needed to support our traditional version of the American Dream: the highly leveraged, high-fixed-cost house; the cars; the latest consumer goods. The winners and losers in the U.S. economy have traditionally been easy to identify. If you had a full-time job, you won.

Disaggregation 12

Disaggregation Insurance Outsourcing Retail 12

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 25, 2013

Almost 80 years ago, Ronald Coase won the Nobel Prize in Economics for an essay that suggested that we do this for the sake of scalable efficiency — it costs less to coordinate activity within a firm than across independent entities.

Drucker 16

Drucker Decentralization Outsourcing Globalization 16

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 24, 2013

If you are inside a big company, profit-draining ventures are typically early sacrifices in corporate cost-cutting exercises. How will you generate enough transactions to cover the fixed costs involved in running your business?

Venture Capitalist 16

Venture Capitalist Supply Chain Christensen Fixed Costs 16

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

In parallel, it reduced its fixed costs by restructuring its industrial footprint and overhead structure; increasing sales, marketing, and R&D expenditures in targeted areas; and dramatically reducing working capital.

Chemicals 16

Chemicals Kahneman IPO Restructuring 16

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 18, 2013

We didn't want to burden the organization with fixed costs. Almost everything had to be free, and the few things we paid for had to be scalable so that the unit costs would eventually approach zero.

Budgeting 16

Budgeting Software Fixed Costs Entrepreneur 16

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2018

A growing body of research says that insurers raise out-of-pocket costs in part to avoid sick enrollees. This problem is likely to get worse as personalized medicine becomes more common, more patients get to choose between competing private health plans, and employers shrink the coverage they offer employees in order to reduce their labor costs. Policy Pricing Costs Healthcare Digital Articlelaura schneider for hbr.

Price 8

Price Policies Insurance Article 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 17, 2014

Eden McCallum, thus, manages to keep its overhead and other fixed costs at a minimum. Do you work for a firm where managers think employees really have to work (what is called) “full time”? That forty hours per week (or whatever is considered “full time” in your profession) is really a necessity? Perhaps you are one of those people with that conviction yourself — that in your job it is really not possible to work “part time.”

McCallum 12

McCallum Competitive Advantage McKinsey Consultative 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 6, 2014

The “ accelerated recognition of commercial income and delayed accrual of costs” undoubtedly flatters short-term results, but it soon catches up with you, as four suspended senior executives have found out. Troubles at Tesco, the UK’s leading retailer, are mounting.

Merchandising 16

Merchandising Discount Price Trends 16

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2017

However, firms can efficiently increase margin growth without much revenue growth by managing to squeeze out their fixed costs to service the same level of output. Repaying such profits to shareholders through share repurchases is better than misinvesting that cash to diversify into unrelated businesses in which management has no expertise or overinvesting in projects that may not return cost of capital.

EPS 13

EPS Depreciation EBITDA McKinsey 13

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

Third, corporate VCs and accelerators are costly and complex to operate, turning them into a slow and expensive innovation tool. And the fixed cost from “touchpoint-to-pilot” are immense. For example, in the case of a $100 million CVC fund, which can close five to 10 investments a year, these costs typically range from $1 to $2 million per startup — not including the administrative and variable costs of the pilot itself.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Article Meyer CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 8, 2014

So to cover his monthly fixed costs of student loan payments (on more than $100k in debt), rent, and health care he was driving for Uber. I couldn’t agree more; they’re absolutely necessary to fix what ails us. Every once in a while you have one of those “microcosm experiences” that perfectly encapsulates the trends shaping our world. My most recent one came last week during an Uber ride.

Fixed Costs 12

Fixed Costs Policies Trends Health Care 12

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 6, 2016

For instance, the cost of building and equipping a leading-edge semiconductor fab has climbed to $7 billion, as the technology required to make more advanced chips is getting more complex. Another risk is the opportunity cost of not benefiting from lower investment costs.

Co-Opetition 16

Co-Opetition Cost Telecommunications Cooper 16

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2014

The theory of disruption explains why incumbent businesses – with high fixed cost infrastructures and embedded beliefs about what the market wants – fail to adopt business models that lower the cost of their services and drive product accessibility to entirely new sets of users. “Over the next 10 years, virtual reality will become ubiquitous, affordable, and transformative.”.

Automotive 12

Automotive Industry Software Fixed Costs 12