CEO Succession 2003: The Perils of “Good” Governance

Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of CEO succession aims to identify patterns in the relationship between chief executive officer tenure and corporate performance that can provide insights for managers, board members, and their advisors. Following the methodology used in previous years, we identified chief executives at the 2,500 largest publicly traded companies in the world (based on market capitalization as of January 1, 2003) who … [ Read more ]

From Solutions to Symbiosis: Blending with Your Customers

It’s not enough to know your customers. You have to integrate them into your company.

Why CEOs Fall: The Causes and Consequences of Turnover at the Top

Despite the many well-researched articles about individual chief executive officers, there have been no systematic studies of the impact on CEOs’ careers of the tectonic shifts in global business, such as rising shareholder activism and changing corporate governance. Although the performance of chief executives has been the subject of extensive research, much of that research has focused on performance relative to compensation. Little if anything … [ Read more ]

Steal This Idea!

Knowledge remains the strongest force for business-building – if you’re willing to link it to the bottom line and borrow inspiration from everywhere.

Why Knowledge Programs Fail: A C.E.O.’s Guide to Managing Learning

Senior executives at many of the largest corporations around the world have embraced knowledge or learning as part of their long-term vision. A focus on knowledge and learning makes sense: knowledge is increasingly an important source of competitive advantage. However, the business impact of most knowledge management or learning organization programs is modest at best. We estimate that about one-sixth of these programs … [ Read more ]

10X Value: The Engine Powering Long-term Shareholder Returns

What does it take to grow shareholder value at world-class rates? For many years companies have successfully focused their efforts on cost reduction through increased labor and asset productivity and have achieved short-term increases in shareholder value as a reward. Today, with their businesses re-engineered and running efficiently, these companies have refocused their energies into developing long-term growth strategies. Aggressive revenue-oriented strategies are the most … [ Read more ]

Toward a New Theory of Growth

Dismissing the conventional wisdom linking revenue growth and shareholder value as only partially accurate and potentially misleading, the authors advance preliminary ideas on a new theory of growth – part of an ongoing research effort at Booz-Allen & Hamilton. In fact, they identify two fundamentally different paradigms, calling them Managed-Growth and Innovative-Growth.

The Trillion-Dollar Race to “E”

The valuation of New Economy players represents a bet by the world’s financial markets that a few companies will leverage the Internet to fundamentally change the competitive game in their industries. It is a gamble that powerful, low-cost business models will emerge; that new businesses will rise from disintermediated value chains, and that some companies will exert such influence that they will generate extraordinary long-term … [ Read more ]

How to Change the World

Authors talk about need for today’s CEOs to be extraordinary leaders who can change the world. The companies that successfully changed the world according to authors’ study of 55 industries, excelled in strategic learning. Companies can learn faster by employing three strategic learning disciplines: knowing where you are, sensing opportunities, and analyzing bets.