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Startups Could Fundamentally Change the Way Big Investors Operate

Harvard Business Review

This disconnect is a major problem for the continuing development of efficient capital markets. Collectively, the world’s investment giants hold in excess of $70 trillion in assets, which represents the bulk of investable capital globally. How is this state of affairs possible?

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Do You Know What Your Company’s Data Is Worth?

Harvard Business Review

Data contributes not only to brand equity, but to what constitutes product and service delivery in globally connected and hyper-competitive markets. Using the same formula, Apple’s intangible assets in 2014 were $280 billion — or almost twice the value of its 2015 calculation.

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Why Financial Statements Don’t Work for Digital Companies

Harvard Business Review

In the 2016 book The End of Accounting , NYU Stern Professor Baruch Lev claimed that over the last 100 years or so, financial reports have become less useful in capital market decisions. In a previous HBR article , we argued that, in contrast to physical assets that depreciate with use, intangible assets might enhance with use.

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What’s Driving Superstar Companies, Industries, and Cities

Harvard Business Review

We focus on economic profit rather than revenue size, market share, or productivity growth because these other metrics risk including firms that are simply large and may not create economic value. Acquisitions, bold investment in intangible assets, and attracting talent can ultimately make the difference.

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What It Will Take to Fix HR

Harvard Business Review

Break up a strategic function in response to underperformance in the wake of severe market disruptions? What would the capital markets look like today if a similar tack had been taken when the CFO role was ripe for transformation? Lynanne Kunkle, VP-Global Talent Development and HR-Asia for Whirlpool, is a case in point.

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How to Navigate a Digital Transformation

Harvard Business Review

Manufacturers invest most of their capital into physical assets, while high-tech firms invest in R&D to create new intellectual capital. But all assets are not created equal, especially as the technological landscape changes.

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CVS’s Lesson: Carpe Diem

Harvard Business Review

And finally, highly reputed companies are more stable, which means they have higher market valuation and stock price over the long term and greater loyalty of their investors, which leads to less volatility. So why doesn’t every company do what CVS did?