363 Posts Found

Managers want to have their instincts validated before they act, such as waiting until all the data have been gathered before they launch a product. But relying on the tried and true doesn’t always serve managers well, especially when it comes to organic growth. The question of “Will it fly?” can be answered only by letting it fly – by launching the particular product and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bob Rosen, Jeanne Liedtka, Rob Wiltbank | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Organizational Behavior

A recent McKinsey Global Survey shows that companies are satisfied, overall, with their use of metrics to assess innovation portfolios – though many findings suggest that they shouldn’t be. The companies that get the highest returns from innovation do use metrics well; these organizations tend to assess innovation more comprehensively than the others.

Content: Article | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation

Irrational thinking doesn’t just affect individual economic decisions; it affects corporate strategic planning as well. These results highlight the practices of companies that have made successful strategic decisions—and also reveal what the same companies have gotten wrong.

Content: Article | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

Studying even the right tail of a distribution doesn’t tell you how to break free of the distribution. In short, if you want to use inferential methods to get outside the box, you have to look at someone who is outside the box!

To see the importance of this step in the analysis, ask yourself this question: If two firms in the same industry had differences … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Andrew D. Henderson, Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Best Practices, Statistics

Most organizations have discrete formal groups and processes that use different lenses for evaluating ideas: Marketing represents the customers, finance evaluates the economics, and engineering determines feasibility for launch. They answer the questions in series, and then “throw the problem over the wall” to the next team. They may not even be aware of one another’s findings.

The principles of focused accountability or clear decision rights … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Jon R. Katzenbach, Zia Khan | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

Ever since Netflix’s awesome vacation policy was revealed to the public (basically, there is no policy, it’s take the time you think you need), the company’s work policies have been of interest to people. A new 128-page presentation called “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” was recently sent around the company, and then put on SlideShare, where the blog Hacking Netflix found it.

The … [ Read more ]

Content: Multimedia Content | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Plenty of lessons can be learned from the glut of businesses that have fallen under the swift sword of a merciless recession. Yet according to authors Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui, executives continue to make the same mistakes that defeated their predecessors. In Billion-Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years, Carroll and Mui draw … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Paul B. Carroll | Source: Knowledge@Emory | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

The 7 secrets of really, really lucky companies.

Content: Article | Author: Drake Bennett | Source: The Boston Globe | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

A recent McKinsey Global Survey shows that companies are satisfied, overall, with their use of metrics to assess innovation portfolios—though many findings suggest that they shouldn’t be. The companies that get the highest returns from innovation do use metrics well; these organizations tend to assess innovation more comprehensively than the others.

Content: Article | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation

In the days of old: circa 2007, social-media marketing meant monitoring the blogosphere and managing forums, but today marketers are jumping in by actively creating and managing brand communities. Dave Balter is the founder and CEO of BzzAgent, a word-of-mouth media network headquartered in Boston. His company recently launched BzzScapes, a network of brand-centric communities, created by advocates and dedicated to the collection and ranking … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Guy Kawasaki | Source: OPEN Forum (American Express) | Subjects: Best Practices, Customer Related, IT / Technology / E-Business

A survey shows a strong correlation between financial performance and best practices for managing talent globally.

Content: Article | Authors: Asmus B. Komm, Matthew Guthridge | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources, Management

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A minor but pervasive frustration that seems to be unique to management as a profession is the rapid obsolescence of its jargon. As soon as a new management concept emerges, it becomes popularized as a buzzword, generalized, overused, and misused until its underlying substance has been blunted past recognition.

Content: Quotation | Authors: A. Steven Walleck, Frederick W. Gluck, Stephen P. Kaufman | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Business Rules

Harnessing your untapped potential can counteract the recession: 3 simple, low-cost actions to quickly boost revenue.

Content: Member-Contributed Content | Author: Drew Morris | Source: Great Numbers! LLC | Subjects: Best Practices, Management

In today’s environment win/loss analysis is something any company can do to bolster revenue efforts; yet many companies fail to do this work. When done properly win/loss analysis provides clarity and insights into customers’ perceptions of your product, experience throughout the sales cycle, and expectations created by your company messaging. Institutionalizing win/loss analysis will create requirements to product development, feedback about messaging to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Laura Patterson | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Marketing / Sales

Five years ago, after the bursting of the previous stock market bubble, the Prism article “Back to Basics” took a close look at the rules of the game followed by companies that have achieved long-term success. In this article the authors take a second look at the companies they analyzed back then – and draw some fresh conclusions about how long-term commercial success is built. … [ Read more ]

Content: Related Content | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Best Practices

In these volatile times, achieving consistently outstanding performance in business has never been more important. IESE’s Federico Marinelli looks for – and finds – a clear pattern behind sustained performance among diversified companies. His fresh approach to the diversification issue also distinguishes between successful companies that consistently outperform their industry and beat the market indices – and their less fortunate brethren.

Content: Article | Author: Federico Marinelli | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

Procurement mastery—significantly outpacing competitors in areas such as sourcing, category management and supplier relationship management—can be immensely profitable and yet a surprising number of companies never implement a procurement-optimization effort. Accenture can help companies understand the nature of procurement mastery—how and why to achieve it, and how it contributes to high performance.

Content: Article | Authors: Kevin Potts, Rob Woodstock | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations

When it comes to appraising performance-appraisal systems, why do so many companies score so low?

Content: Article | Author: Dick Grote | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources, Management

Rather than guaranteeing employment security, many firms now claim to provide opportunities for employees to accumulate skills and experiences that both improve company performance and enhance employees’ employability in the labor market. This “employability approach” encourages and often expects individuals to take greater personal responsibility for their careers.

Since many believe that the employability approach allows, and even invites, the loss of talent, organizations are often … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Chi T. Pham, Elizabeth Craig, Sarah Bobulsky | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources, Management