The Corporate Life Cycle with Aswath Damodaran
In The Corporate Life Cycle: Business, Investment, and Management Implications, Aswath Damodaran presents the corporate life cycle as a universal key for demystifying business finance, strategy and company valuation. He outlines how corporations age, describes the characteristics of each stage of their life cycle, and discusses implications for managers and investors.
In his conversation with Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Damodaran outlines how … [ Read more ]
Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Aswath Damodaran, Martin Reeves | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: General
Ulrich Pidun, Martin Reeves, Maximilian Schüssler
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
Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt
Ronald Coase argued that corporations exist to avoid the transaction costs of the free market. Yet with transaction costs plummeting (spurred by rising connectivity) this rationale no longer holds up. Why, then, do companies exist?
The answer is identity. People long to belong, and they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Companies that fixate only on profits will lose ground to organizations that … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth Mygatt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: General, History
Solving the Riddle of How Companies Grow Over Time
Can company growth rates persist over long periods of time? A new study of long-lasting enterprises might make CEOs rethink their strategies.
Content: Article | Authors: Gary Pisano, Michael Blanding | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: General
Steven Sinofsky
Business is a social science which leads to lots of crazy advice that arises from doing whatever seems to be working at a given moment for a visible and successful company. […] Conversely, if something isn’t going well then it won’t be long before the collective wisdom concludes that you need to go with the other end-point of the pendulum.
Content: Quotation | Author: Steven Sinofsky | Source: Medium | Subjects: Best Practices, General
Julia Mitelman
To put it simply, both product and strategy aim to fulfill a company’s why.
Product begins with the what.
Strategy begins with the how.
Content: Quotation | Author: Julia Mitelman | Source: Medium | Subjects: General, Strategy
Yuval Atsmon, Sven Smit
A consistent finding in our research is that about 75 percent of all growth is a function of the markets in which businesses compete—portfolio momentum—and the acquisitions they initiate. In other words, just 25 percent of a company’s growth typically comes at the expense of competitors. We highlighted this analysis before the market downturn in 2008, and it has continued to hold true since then. … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Sven Smit, Yuval Atsmon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: General, Management, Strategy
Management in the Second Machine Age
Future leaders will succeed by being entrepreneurial and by rethinking the balance between financial and social goals.
Content: Article | Author: Tim Laseter | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: General, History
Business Lifecycle
Video Summary of Awesomely Simple
A ten-minute video summary of John Spence’s Awesomely Simple. It’s provides a good overview of the six core principles that determine a company’s fate. [Hat tip to Guy Kawasaki]
Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Steve Cunningham | Subject: General
Visionary, Salesman and Pragmatist Model of Business Success
Josh Kaufman has posted an article, Are You an Implementor or an Enabler? where he posits that businesses revolve around two complementary skill sets. Here I offer an alternative, hopefully more complete model of what roles are necessary for business success.
Content: Member-Contributed Content | Author: Jeff Blum | Source: MBA Depot | Subjects: General, Innovation
Not Just for Profit
Emerging alternatives to the shareholder-centric model could help companies avoid ethical mishaps and contribute more to the world at large.
Content: Article | Author: Marjorie Kelly | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: General, Social Responsibility (ESG)
The Experience Curve Reviewed – V. Price Stability
Whenever real (deflated) prices fail to parallel real (deflated) cost trends, then market shares will shift. When market share shifts, then relative costs of competitors will shift also.
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Experience Curve Reviewed – IV. The Growth Share Matrix
The use of cash is proportional to the rate of growth of any product. The generation of cash is sa function of market share because of the experience curve effect. The BCG growth share matrix is a diagram of the normal relationship of cash use and cash generation.
Editor’s Note: written in 1973…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Experience Curve Reviewed – III. Why Does It Work?
The whole history of increased productivity and industrialization is based on specialization of effort and investment in tools. So is the experience curve. It is a measure of the potential effect of specialization and investment.
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The Experience Curve Reviewed – II. History
Experience curve is the name applied in 1966 to overall cost behavior by The Boston Consulting Group. The name was selected to distinguish this phenomenon from the well known and well documented learning curve effect. The two are related, but quite different. Read on for background on the development of this concept.
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
The experience Curve Reviewed – I. The Concept
A short introduction to the concepts involved in the BCG experience curve which holds that the cost of value added declines approximately 20-30 percent each time accumulated experience is doubled..
Editor’s Note: written in 1974…
Content: Article | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Management
Rules of Response
Corporate operations – their value-delivery systems – are subject to a challenging set of rules. These are the rules of response.
Content: Article | Author: George Stalk Jr. | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: General, Operations
The Business Idea Loop
“Revenues are Good, Costs are Bad” and Other Business Myths
Precise thinking and business discipline are essential for business success. Yet, for too many managers in too many companies, “self-evident truths,” that really are vague generalities, get in the way. Jonathan Byrnes calls these “business myths” and exposes ten of the worst offenders in this article.
Content: Article | Author: Jonathan Byrnes | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: General, Management