303 Posts found for Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

BCG has developed a unified pricing theory, manifested in a tool they call the Strategic Pricing Hexagon, by bringing all the disparate pricing ideas, and the drivers and forces behind them, into one master structure. This article shows how the Strategic Pricing Hexagon allows leaders to look beyond the numbers and develop a pricing strategy that can change the entire trajectory of their business and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Arnab Sinha, Jean-Manuel Izaret | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Pricing

Companies have reinvented their business models, IT architecture, and ways of working. So why are they taking an outdated—and largely unsuccessful—approach to ERP?

Content: Article | Authors: Albéric Noël, David Bishop, Johan Sadie, Kasem Asghar, Marc Schuuring, Remco Mol, Sherif Choudhry | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

Instead of asking [executive leadership team (ELT)] members to summarize how they are doing (which usually only yields positive reports), one CEO we know focuses the conversation on “What keeps you up at night?” At executive team meetings, she asks her direct reports to share their biggest challenges. Then as a team ELT members help one another by sharing ways they have successfully overcome such … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Deborah Lovich, Henning Streubel, Joseph Halverson, Robert Werner | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Leadership, Management

How CEOs spend their time has an outsized influence on performance, engagement, and company culture.

Content: Article | Authors: Jeff Hill, Xavier Mosquet | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Management, Productivity / Work Tips, Time Management

The initial 100 days are a time for boldness and clarity—a time when CEOs can express the purest form of their vision for the company.

• CEOs should create an integrated narrative that lays out their ambition as well as their plans for transformation, stakeholder management, talent assessment, and communications.
• In addition to laying out their ambition and plans, they also have an opportunity to step outside their

… [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Christine Barton, Jim Hemerling, Mrin Nayak, Tuukka Seppä | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Leadership, Management

When an organization embarks on a change of any magnitude, its leaders tend to think that they are facing a series of operational tasks that will, if executed successfully, result in a new state of being. They don’t realize that they will also have to face an onslaught of emotions and human dynamics. I have come to understand that emotions truly are data and have … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeanie Duck | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

This article presents some practical guidelines for executives seeking to design a high-impact innovation culture. It also outlines four areas of focus that offer a clear path for change, drawing on examples from leading innovators.

Content: Article | Authors: David Blanchard, Deborah Lovich, Hannah Lu Schmitt, Johann D. Harnoss, Justin Manly, Robert Werner | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Culture, Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Organizations tend to neglect or downplay the ingenuity component in change initiatives. Leaders often prefer instead a simpler, mechanistic view of the world, which assumes they can easily specify and control actions using project management techniques. Moreover, organizations are often averse to change. Ideas like “breaking the rules” or “reinventing the organization” are less accepted in typical projects—and a departure from the norm will often … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Adam Job, Arthur Boulenger, Martin Reeves | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Change Management, Management, Project Management

BCG has conducted in-depth research to understand the barriers impeding widespread customer adoption of sustainable offerings and behaviors and to discover how companies in different consumer categories can lower those barriers. We identified eight common barriers and found that these barriers and the most effective ways to overcome them can vary by industry. Although no one-size-fits-all approach will yield optimum results, a company can develop … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Fadi Makki, Julia Dhar, Kanika Sanghi, Lauren Taylor, Léa Turquier, Sarah Lichtblau | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)

Reducing investments in brand marketing during downturns backfires in many ways. Such budget cuts are sound bites that may play well on earnings calls, but their effectiveness is dubious at best—and destructive at worst. CMOs and CFOs should instead see times of economic uncertainty as a marketing and sales opportunity to double down on the right customers, gain share, enhance the value of their customer … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alex Almeida, Chris Murphy, David Ratajczak, Emily Kruger, Leonardo Fascione, Mario Simon | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Brand, Marketing / Sales

Strong deductive capabilities allow companies to go deep, applying insights from a single source across the enterprise. And strong inductive capabilities allow them to go wide and ask, “What might this outlying piece of data foreshadow?”

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Iny, Alison Sander, Hans Kuipers | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Today’s more uncertain environment calls for newer, more dynamic approaches to risk management and strategic planning. Successful companies foster a culture of strategic humility, anticipatory preparedness, and a willingness to act to own the future as it unfolds. And they have four critical characteristics:

• They see risk as a two-sided coin with challenge on one side and opportunity on the other.
• They explore the strategic implications of

… [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alan Iny, Elton Parker, Jeanne Kwong Bickford, Nick D'Intino | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Risk Management, Strategy

A company’s culture is frequently at the heart of mismanaged planning, with management often rewarding the wrong behavior. Because financial incentives are still frequently tied to the achievement of short-term plans, employees can feel pressured to negotiate financial goals and to sandbag. Consequently, planning begins to feel like a bazaar instead of the organized, top-down process it should be. Employees may be motivated to reach … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alexander Roos, Fabrice Roghé, James Tucker, Marc Rodt, Sebastian Stange | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Culture, Management, Organizational Behavior

Companies clearly need a better way to manage complexity. In our work with clients and in our research, we believe, we’ve found a different and far more effective approach. It does not involve attempting to impose formal guidelines and processes on frontline employees; rather, it entails creating an environment in which employees can work with one another to develop creative solutions to complex challenges. This … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Yves Morieux | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

While post-completion audits for large projects are common in many companies, the feedback into decision making typically happens only sporadically. Advanced companies review not only projects but also past decisions. The head of corporate strategy at a large industrial conglomerate puts it this way: “We made our biggest losses from moves not made. So we also explicitly review opportunity cost mistakes.”

Content: Quotation | Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Management, Project Management

In most firms, incentives are tied to company or business unit performance. The consequences of large investment decisions typically take too long to materialize to have an impact on an executive’s bonus or promotion. This can lead to moral hazard, especially when managers expect to move on after a couple of years in a position.

We recommend tying personal targets and incentives to the success of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Accountability, Compensation, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Understanding the underlying risks should be a particular focus in project selection. Research has shown time and again that human beings are weak at risk assessment, but some techniques can help. A good starting point can be to frame the discussion in terms of a base question: What do we need to believe in to make this an attractive investment? This framing can help uncover … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Management, Project Management, Risk Management

A business ecosystem is a dynamic group of largely independent economic players that create products or services that together constitute a coherent solution.

This definition implies that each ecosystem can be characterized by a specific value proposition (the desired solution) and by a clearly defined, albeit changing, group of actors with different roles (such as producer, supplier, orchestrator, complementor). The definition excludes some of the more … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Martin Reeves, Maximilian Schüssler, Ulrich Pidun | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Business Model, General, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Brand marketing is an easy target when CMOs face pressure to shrink budgets in times of uncertainty. CMOs often struggle to resist such cuts because most companies lack an unequivocal answer to this long-lingering question: Can brand-marketing spending be dialed down as needed to shore up financials, or is it an essential, always-on investment that must be safeguarded to avoid devastating long-term impacts on the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alex Almeida, Chris Murphy, David Ratajczak, Emily Kruger, Leonardo Fascione, Mario Simon | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Brand, Marketing / Sales

Improving employees’ experience of inclusion in the workplace is one of the most actionable levers companies have to attract and retain talent. When done right, inclusion can slash attrition risk in half.

In today’s fiercely competitive environment, inclusion is akin to a hidden superpower, so why do so few companies view it as a business necessity? The answer is simple: workplace inclusion is hard to define, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alex Zborowski, Ashley Dartnell, Gabrielle Novacek, Gretchen May, Mario Farsky, Nadjia Yousif, Seema Bansal | Source: “Boston Consulting Group (BCG)” | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior