1338 Posts Found

Back in the early 1960s, the great Boston Consulting Group founder and strategy theorist Bruce Henderson asserted that there was only one way to successfully compete: gain a relative market share advantage over all competitors so as to have lower costs than all of them. The payoff is that it puts the firm in a position to drive those relative costs even lower as competition … [ Read more ]

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

For the 20th anniversary of strategy+business, we, the editors and staff of this magazine thought we’d celebrate this grand story of management thinking by holding, in effect, a grand party. We’d invite all the luminaries of management thought, from antiquity to today, to join us in spirit. Or at least to have their ideas in the room. And you’re invited too.

This catalog will give … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Art Kleiner, Nancy A. Nichols | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Recent research by BCG and Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg investigated the motivations and success factors for business portfolio restructurings. By analyzing the characteristics and patterns of the underlying transformation processes, we developed practical insights on issues relating to the magnitude, speed, and sequencing of restructurings.

Editor’s Note: I was really intrigued by this research.

Content: Article | Authors: Michael Nippa, Sebastian Schönhaar, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Miscellaneous, Strategy

The growth share matrix—first put forth by BCG founder Bruce Henderson in 1970—helped companies allocate resources based on two factors: company competitiveness and market attractiveness. More than four decades later, the matrix remains a powerful tool that helps companies manage strategic experimentation amid greater, and more unpredictable, change.

Content: Article | Authors: Martin Reeves, Sandy Moose, Thijs Venema | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Thinking strategically is what separates managers and leaders. Learn the fundamentals about how to create winning strategy and lead your team to deliver it. From understanding what strategy can do for you, through to creating a strategy and engaging others with strategy, this book offers practical guidance and expert tips. It is peppered with punchy, memorable examples from real leaders winning (and losing) with real … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Max McKeown | Subject: Strategy

Growth is hard to achieve—and creating value through growth is even harder. Embracing comprehensive business-model innovation can give a company a crucial edge over those rivals that try to drive growth by pulling individual levers such as pricing or product extension.

Content: Article | Authors: Charles Hendren, Zhenya Lindgardt | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

Careful planning for an independent future can maximize value when companies liberate assets.

Content: Article | Authors: Kyle Long, Thomas J. Flaherty | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

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David Yoffie and Michael Cusumano find common leadership lessons from the tech titans of Microsoft, Intel, and Apple in the new book, Strategy Rules.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Blanding | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

Firms trying to tap into new markets for growth often fall into the traps of putting resources into wooing existing customers and investing heavily in value-added offerings. But this won’t get them to blue oceans.

Editor’s Note: I generally think Blue Ocean is well-marketed strategy hype more than real, practical strategic insight and many of the examples and points made in this article reinforce that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Renée Mauborgne, W. Chan Kim | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

Are you one of those strategic planners who rely on Excel spreadsheets? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Excel is and remains fairly popular in strategic planning. However, there is no denying – Excel is not the perfect solution for this purpose. There are some significant risks and downsides.

In this article, I discuss the pros and cons as well as the alternatives, and share my … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Dagmar Recklies | Source: TheManager.org | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

These five rules will help bulletproof your growth strategy.

Content: Article | Authors: Laurence Capron, Will Mitchell | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Most companies don’t pass the coherence test because they pay too much attention to external positioning and not enough to internal capabilities. They succumb to intense pressure for top-line growth and chase business in markets where they don’t have the capabilities to sustain success. Their growth emanates not from the core but from the acquisition of apparent “adjacencies” that are often anything but and the … [ Read more ]

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

If agility is chasing opportunities presented to you by a chaotic market, then agility is not a recipe for success. It’s a guarantee of incoherence and volatile performance. But if you stay true to your identity, aware of your unique strengths and where your capabilities add the most value over time, then you won’t just be agile. You’ll be “smart agile.” Yours will be a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Cesare R. Mainardi | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

When it comes to corporate financial performance, we typically think in absolute terms, measuring ROA in percentage points. We are less accustomed to thinking of corporate performance in relative terms, but knowing a company’s relative performance is essential to setting and achieving performance improvement targets and, eventually, exceptional performance.

Editor’s Note: another excellent entry in Deloitte’s Three Rules research series; this one offers fairly intuitive … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed, Rob Del Vicario | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

Industry is a very traditional concept in corporate strategy. Industrial organization economics says that the structure of the industry determines the profitability of the firms within it, and those firms with favorable positions within an industry will outperform those with less favorable positions. I would argue that is a dangerous idea because in many sectors, the most significant competition you’re going to face will come … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Rita Gunther McGrath | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

The trouble with innovation is that it’s unpredictable. New businesses tend to be small and failure rates are high. They don’t operate with the same rhythm as core businesses, and their size and scope are insignificant relative to core businesses. That’s problematic if you’re running a P&L, and that’s why resource allocation should not be wedded to a particular line of business. It should be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Rita Gunther McGrath | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Finance, Innovation, Management, Strategy

How does a capable strategist choose the best adjacencies strategy for his or her company? I say focus intently on answering this question: What adjacency moves would best enable you to bolster the value proposition of your current business or exploit and scale the distinctive capabilities you already have? Gird yourself to resist the alluring temptation to pursue adjacencies to compensate for slowing growth in … [ Read more ]

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

Whereas making strategy about competitors can be highly destructive, making it about the customer encourages leaders to find ways to win without having to pay the price for their victories. Does this mean that competitors can be safely ignored when it comes to strategy? No. Understanding competitors’ value propositions is one effective way to generate new thinking on how to improve your own value propositions. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ken Favaro | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Customer Related, Strategy

The real question isn’t how well you’re doing today against your own history, but how you’re doing against your competitors.

Content: Quotation | Subjects: Competition, Management