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. But despite the challenges, the signs from the marketplace are auspicious.

Energy 8

Energy Transportation Software Price 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2015

health care system in ways big and small that would either build on or radically revamp the Affordable Care Act (ACA). All will claim to reduce costs and improve quality. These interventions are beneficial because they eliminate mostly waste in the system, avoiding the hard trade-offs among cost, quality, and access to care.

Health Care 8

Health Care Insurance Price Cost 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 22, 2011

It was in your home, had no shelf space limiting its inventory, and could beat Tower on price because of its lower fixed costs. But consumers switch nonetheless because the disruptor has a systemic advantage in at least one of these characteristics. As an online storefront it had a fundamental advantage.

Christensen 16

Christensen Disruptive Innovation Price Business Model 16

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

Working under a fixed-cost ceiling was, of course, difficult. We also developed an approach that put the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s “ Triple Aim ” (improving the quality of the health care experience, improving the health of a population, and reducing per capita costs) at the heart of Scotland’s universal system.

Health Care 8

Health Care Constraint Budgeting Quality 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 28, 2018

Directly influenced by investor input, Nikon developed a restructuring plan that would carry a onetime cost of ¥48 billion ($460 million) but generate ¥20 billion ($190 million) in annual savings. It also called for streamlining headquarters and cutting executive management’s compensation.

Company 8

Company ROIC CFO Restructuring 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2018

Health-plan payment systems also have to go beyond risk adjustment transfers for broadly-classified common chronic diseases (for which current risk-adjustment policies do quite well) and pay more attention to smaller diseases that are treated by personalized therapies. Problems may get worse.

Cost 8

Cost Insurance Incentives Policies 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

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 Meyer Innovation Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 29, 2013

A fascinating business dynamic will unfold as health care providers in the United States shift from a reimbursement system that has historically paid for procedures performed to one that rewards population health — providing the total care of a community at a fixed cost and improving its members overall health.

Health Care 8

Health Care Committee Cost Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 13, 2016

It has a central nervous system that alerts it to pain in the form of looming federal policy threats to tax exempt status and other core functions. Imagine eliminating all of the redundancies in fixed costs. It has blood pumping through its veins – 10 million people doing its good works day in and day out.

Budgeting 8

Budgeting NGO Diversity Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 19, 2011

Meanwhile, declines in revenue and escalating fixed costs for things like public employee pensions and health care are crippling our cities budgets. They need systemic and longer term improvements. Our large metro areas now house two thirds of America's total population. Cities can't focus on such short-sighted solutions.

Short-term 12

Short-term Budgeting Health Care Long-term 12

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

During an economic crisis, the exaggerated decline in orders can be especially damaging to upstream suppliers that have high fixed costs tied to production assets. To improve its operations, Staples, the office-supplies giant, made major changes to its IT systems by merging two IT networks.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Retail Crisis Operations 8

Ask Atma

MAY 5, 2012

In this way, the old system would produce a defined solution for a defined problem. 4) Costs – what is your cost per sale/customer? Pro-rated fixed costs. Variable costs. What are your economies of scale (how much less will produce more of your product cost). Turnover (i.e.

Business Model 93

Business Model Ries Agility Entrepreneur 93

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. But why is IT leading to winner-take-all competition? Bessen’s paper can’t answer that, however he raises two possibilities.

Document 8

Document Industry Software Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

My recent HBR article on information technology in health care highlights the magnitude of investments that hospitals are making in electronic medical records (EMRs) as well as the frustration that many providers are feeling due to the time they must devote to entering data into those systems. Turning itself inside out.

Health Care 10

Health Care Retail Operations Insurance 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2012

In response, the management team made a counterintuitive move: It outsourced network installation, maintenance, and service to Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens, and chose IBM to build and manage its IT systems. Bharti's innovative business model converted fixed costs in capital expenditure to a variable cost based on usage of capacity.

Outsourcing 10

Outsourcing Wireless Telecommunications Core Competence 10

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. Before, a big conglomerate like GE diversified its risks by mixing pro-cyclical and counter-cyclical businesses.

Engineering 8

Engineering Learning Curve Fixed Costs Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 31, 2018

By cutting the fixed costs of computing — avoiding the need to hire IT staff, servers, and hardware — even the smallest firm can satisfy large and unexpected computing needs. It also means you don’t need to analyze these data on your own machines, but you can “rent” them on demand.

Technology 10

Technology Agility Fixed Costs Software 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 9, 2013

When one person with a wireless connection can be an agency, a media company, or even a manufacturer, traditional advertising organizations have to change their culture, processes, structure, talent policies, resources, and even their business and revenue models in order to embrace the power of open systems being fueled by digital connectivity.

Advertising 9

Advertising Brand Innovation Creativity 9

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 8

Advertising Content Fixed Costs Software 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

As each of these companies expands its fixed-cost infrastructure, profits grow geometrically because the additional variable cost of adding each new user is near zero. Adding a profile on Facebook has little to no impact on Facebook's operating costs. Greater scale bestows greater competitive advantage.

CPA 15

CPA CPM Advertising Disintermediation 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

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. Like any fixed-cost asset, such as the Interstate highway system in the U.S., Here's why: Distributed computing systems work with unprecedented efficiency.

Fixed Costs 15

Fixed Costs Technology Efficiency Innovation 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

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. Like any fixed-cost asset, such as the Interstate highway system in the U.S., Here's why: Distributed computing systems work with unprecedented efficiency.

Fixed Costs 8

Fixed Costs Technology Efficiency Innovation 8