1338 Posts Found

The leader’s first job is to be a missionary, to remind people what is special about them and their institutions. Second it is to set up the infrastructure for that to happen—not the superstructure, not to take the actual decisions, but to set the support systems, the people in place. The two go together; it’s no good having a brilliant strategy and structure and great … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Charles Handy | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Too often companies launch capital-intensive change programs—whether related to technology implementations, supply chain transformations, product innovations or some other initiatives—and fail to capture the value originally targeted after the initial burst of attention and enthusiasm has faded. Accenture outlines the process for tracking and realizing shareholder value. This paper identifies methodologies that let organizations identify, measure and manage shareholder value in corporate initiatives—especially complex, long-term … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Boernke, Rob Rutledge | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Change Management, Strategy

Advantage is neither transitory nor immortal. Hence, strategy is not an either-or exercise about seeking flexibility OR sustainability. It is about both: seeking sustainable competitive advantage in a world full of far-reaching and tumultuous change.

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

So how do you know when to make the first move? I would say, when four conditions are present simultaneously. No. 1, when your bet requires a big investment, in terms of both dollars and time to market. No. 2, when it will provide customers with new and substantial value. No. 3, when the cost for customers to switch away from you will be high. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Warren McFarlan | Source: Context Magazine | Subject: Strategy

The fundamental task of organization design is, as it always has been, helping a leader move from defining strategy to putting in place an organization that enables the strategy to be executed predictably. An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.

Content: Article | Author: John Beeson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Real competitive advantage is enormously long-lived. …To be sure, first mover advantages can vaporize quickly, but not all first mover advantages are backed by a real competitive advantage. So if I hear the demise of MySpace cited once more as evidence that competitive advantage has become more transient, I will puke. All it proves is the basic rule of business: that which can be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Roger L. Martin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

The fundamental task of organization design is, as it always has been, helping a leader move from defining strategy to putting in place an organization that enables the strategy to be executed predictably. An effective organization design model guides a manager in answering five fundamental questions in a thoughtful and well-integrated way.
1. What is the business’s value proposition and it sources of competitive advantage?
2. Which … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John Beeson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

A Harvard Business School professor observes that leaders become better strategists by engaging in conversations about the purpose of a company.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Art Kleiner, Cynthia A. Montgomery, Ken Favaro | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

Software is becoming critical for almost every company’s performance. Executives should ask what they can learn from business models employed by software providers themselves—and consider the implications for their IT function.

Content: Article | Authors: Hugo Sarrazin, Johnson Sikes | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Business Model, Strategy

To pull away from the pack one needs to break performance tradeoffs by getting better in several ways at once. The struggle for greatness, however, is far more complex and subtle. Prevailing over capable adversaries requires accepting and exploiting tradeoffs and very often seeking an advantage in only a very small number of very carefully identified ways, while frequently accepting a performance disadvantage along other … [ Read more ]

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

Companies that align their operations to their strategy unleash superior performance.

Content: Article | Authors: Adam Michaels, Curt Mueller, Richard Kauffeld | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Operations, Strategy

Most of the executives we talk with at global multinational companies (MNCs) spend a lot of time scrutinizing the developing world. They know about the growth potential. If they’re not already operating in Indonesia or Poland or Nigeria, they’re making plans to do so. What they’re not seeing, often, are the obstacles to success. Building a large-scale business in the developing world—capitalizing on that world’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Dunigan O’Keeffe, James Allen | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: International, Management, Strategy

With so many markets around the world simultaneously approaching critical mass, how do companies decide where and when to invest their scarce resources? Consumption curves—an old idea imbued with new power—can provide those answers and more, including how to shape markets to their advantage.

Content: Article | Authors: Armen Ovanessoff, Athena Peppes, Mark Purdy, Matthew Robinson | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Economics, International, Strategy

How can a company sustain profitable growth?

It’s no easy feat. As a benchmark, consider an annual growth rate in revenue and earnings of 5.5%. Most companies say they expect to attain that level or better— at least that’s what their strategic plans call for. But a Bain & Company study of more than 2,000 companies indicates that only about one in 10 actually … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Zook, James Allen | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Leading companies use war games to focus better on their competitors, while improving the way they identify, shape, and seize opportunities to innovate.

Content: Article | Authors: Ari Kellen, John Horn, Marla M. Capozzi | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

Case-based analysis suggests that although each of three types of strategic change—Position, Market and Competency—can succeed, changing Position brings with it the greatest risks, while changing Markets and Competencies are typically more successful paths to enduring performance. These observations can help managers see more clearly both the risks and rewards of the different types of strategic change available to them, and to assess their options … [ Read more ]

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

To U.C. Berkeley’s long-standing strategy thinker, companies gain an edge only when they evolve in ways no one else can match.

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Art Kleiner, David J. Teece | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

In an effort to cover all the bases in an uncertain, changing world companies are trying to give themselves as many strategic and organizational options as possible. In doing so, however, they are making themselves unconsciously more complex organizations. It is a trend that’s slowly and silently killing them. Complexity turns people inward and distorts information flow, slowing the pace of decision-making down and making … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Chris Zook | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Strategy

For many leaders, there’s an immense gap between intellectually understanding the theory of strategy and being able to apply it in their own businesses. It’s only by directly engaging in strategy themselves that most leaders internalize the important questions and get a clear sense of what’s involved—the trade-offs, choices, commitments, and actions—in bringing a strategy to life.

Content: Quotation | Author: Cynthia A. Montgomery | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

Certainly the commander in chief will keep his great objective continuously in mind, undisturbed by the vicissitudes of events. But the path on which he hopes to reach it can never be firmly established in advance. Throughout the campaign he must make a series of decisions on the basis of situations that cannot be foreseen… Everything depends on penetrating the uncertainty of veiled situations to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy