1338 Posts Found

Although good execution is essential for defending market share in fiercely contested markets, and thus for capitalizing on the corporate portfolio’s full-market-growth potential, it is usually not the key differentiator between companies that are growing quickly and those that are growing slowly. These findings suggest that executives ought to complement the traditional focus on execution and market share with more attention to where a company … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Mehrdad Baghai, S. Patrick Viguerie, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

In a disruptive age, established business models are under attack. Here’s how incumbent companies can reframe them.

Content: Article | Authors: Marc de Jong, Menno van Dijk | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

A company’s strategy should consist of a portfolio of initiatives that consciously embraces different time horizons. Companies do, of course, have different business units with distinct strategies. But few strategies direct a company in a way that will enable it to adapt to events and capitalize on opportunities as they arise. Some initiatives in the portfolio will influence short-term performance. Others will create options for … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ian Davis | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

Six months ago, we published “A Guide to Marketplaces.” Marketplace companies comprise an important part of our portfolio and investment thesis and we recognized the shortage of content out there specifically geared toward marketplace startups. We compiled a lot of the insights we learned from working with great marketplace companies and wrote a handbook. Today, we’re announcing the release of the Guide to Marketplace deck, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Angela Kingyens, Boris Wertz | Source: Version One | Subject: Strategy

You and your rivals have access to virtually all the same resources. Only by constantly thinking of new ways to reorganize these factors can you differentiate yourself. It’s like poker. Everyone has the same number of cards. It’s how you play your hand that matters.

Content: Quotation | Author: Zhang Ruimin | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Competition

The operationally-driven leader may excel at trekking a marked path but does not wield a machete to create a new one.

Content: Quotation | Author: Mark Leslie | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

Understanding the distinctive “footprints” of four different types of synergy can help improve the way you value and implement corporate strategies.

Content: Article | Author: Phanish Puranam | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

If some goals tell you little or nothing about what strategies to pursue, other goals effectively tell you too much. This happens when goals are expressed in terms of metrics, for example, to achieve a certain size, market share, growth rate, margin, or rate of return. Where do such goals come from? In the end, they are arbitrary, no matter how much they might be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ken Favaro | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

What [is] an “adjacency” to one company [is] the “core” to someone else and companies consistently underestimated how hard competitors [will] fight to defend their core.

Content: Quotation | Author: Chris Zook | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy

There are not a lot of resources to help you build analytics marketplaces and other kind of networks. At daphni, we deeply believe in the platformization of the economy and look closely at these models. Several founders have asked us tips to structure their data-driven approach, so we’ve decided to publish a guide to help founders do it. We divided the guide in 2 parts: … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Willy Braun | Source: Medium | Subjects: Economics, Management, Strategy

Are … these modern forms of vertical integration good strategies? Yes, if two special conditions are met. The first is a “market failure” that is hurting your business; the most common are supply risk, demand risk, and profit gouging. The second is that you have the power or capabilities to fix and even exploit that market failure. Without market failure, vertical integration is just plain … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ken Favaro | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

Do a little test of your strategy before committing to it. Ask: Is the opposite stupid on its face? Have most of my competitors made the same choice as me? If the answers are “yes,” you have more work to do to have a smart strategy rather than just a non-stupid one.

Content: Quotation | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

Anyone taking the time to delve into the literature of strategy quickly realizes that there are two fiercely opposed camps.

In the red corner we have the “positioning school” (TPS) and in the white we have the “resource-based view of the firm” (RBV). Michael Porter is credited with (or more often accused of) creating TPS in 1980—positing that a firm should think about positioning itself in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

A global survey of business leaders shows how the smartest companies develop and wield their technology strategy.

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Curran, Chrisie Wendin, Tom Puthiyamadam | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

Hackers and hipsters may be behind the innovative success of today’s startups, but established companies require a different skillset.

Content: Article | Authors: Ken Gray, Nathan Furr | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy | Company: Caterpillar Inc.

The most farsighted enterprises have mastered five unconventional practices for building and using distinctive capabilities.

Editor’s Note: Perhaps it’s just me, but these capabilities don’t seem particularly unconventional. They are also like many secrets-to-success studies in that they look good on paper, but offer little in the way of practical recommendations for realizing them. And, you have the ever-present correlation-causation problem. At the least, it … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

I disagree with the notion that the world is changing and that this has somehow made our established strategy tools obsolete. Most changes in the business environment have been in degree rather than kind: the speedier diffusion of technology, the growing intensity of competition as a result of internationalization, increased concern over business’s social and environmental responsibilities. Most of the core concepts and frameworks of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

Much of the song and dance called strategy in companies is really a resource-allocation process laced with pride. I have yet to see anybody say, “I understand my business is on the way down. I will give you $50 million cash back this year and the same again next year. I can see lots of good opportunities in the company for us to better use … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

I think we don’t pay enough attention to the difference between strategy as resource allocation and strategy as insight generation. There is a yearly strategy process, which focuses on resource allocation. We should acknowledge it as such and better understand its pathologies. But we also need to take a fresh look at how we identify ways to improve a firm’s positioning and performance, by explicitly … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael G. Jacobides | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

Many of today’s business leaders, when planning for growth, admit to lacking a clear view of how to achieve their aspirations, and they say they are distracted by a wealth of potential opportunities.

Content: Article | Authors: Gerald Adolph, Paul Leinwand | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Management, Strategy