Cynthia Montgomery
I’m trying to get people excited about being strategists and to see why it’s a distinctive way that they as leaders can add value to their businesses. I’m also trying to help them understand that strategy is far more than an idea. There’s a conundrum you sometimes hear in business school: “Would you rather have a brilliant, fully worked-out strategy and poor execution, or a … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Author: Cynthia A. Montgomery | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy
Managing the Unthinkable: Scenario-Based Enterprise Performance Management
The more unpredictable business becomes, the more companies could use a dependable way to identify opportunities, formulate scenarios and avoid pitfalls without relying disproportionately on hindsight. Scenario-based enterprise performance management, a forward-looking, analytics-based capability, is designed to help organizations build strategies, forecasts, plans and budgets.
Content: Article | Authors: David Axson, Natalia Timofeeva, Robert Bergström | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Management, Strategy
Your Strategy Needs a Strategy
Companies operating in dissimilar environments should be developing their strategies in markedly different ways. But all too often, they are not. Research featured in Harvard Business Review shows how companies can gain an edge by matching their strategic style to the conditions of their industry, business function, or geographic market.
Content: Article | Authors: Claire Love, Martin Reeves, Philipp Tillmanns | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy
David Teece
Unless you have truly fundamental inventions that no one else can copy, you need both [intellectual property rights and dynamic capabilities]. Strong intellectual property protection, in itself, will only help you on the first round of innovation. During that time, you can rent other people’s complementary capabilities. But sooner or later, you’re going to get copied, so you’ve got to move quickly to build the … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Author: David J. Teece | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Intellectual Property, Management, Strategy
4 “Umbrella Strategies” and Strategic Approaches
Beating the Odds in Market Entry
How to avoid the cognitive biases that undermine market entry decisions.
Content: Article | Authors: Dan P. Lovallo, John T. Horn, S. Patrick Viguerie | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Strategy
Seven Ways to Make Your Strategic Planning Relevant
Planning and performance management systems can be designed to reinforce your most distinctive capabilities—not undermine them.
Content: Article | Author: Matthew Siegel | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy
Thomas Kratzert, Michael Broquist
An effective strategy framework must include the level of industry predictability as a main dimension.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Michael Broquist, Thomas Kratzert | Source: Kearney | Subject: Strategy
Buyer Utility Map
Ira Gaberman and Marieke Witjes
Getting the right mix of strategy and culture creates a formula for business success. Pursuing a strategy of innovation in a dynamic market can only succeed within an inquisitive culture where the workforce pushes boundaries and management encourages new ideas and constructive risk-taking. Similarly, pursuing a strategy of high-volume, low-cost processes can only succeed within a disciplined culture where the workforce operates in an efficient, … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Ira Gaberman, Marieke Witjes | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Culture, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy
Hugo Sarrazin and Johnson Sikes
Success in the software industry has long been influenced, and often driven, by the ecosystem of developers, plug-ins, software-development kits and application-programming interfaces (APIs), and add-ons that drive added value and increase stickiness for products. Similarly, companies in other industries need to think expansively and include upstream suppliers as well as downstream vendors or consumers, and focus on how each part of the value chain … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Hugo Sarrazin, Johnson Sikes | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Business Rules, Strategy
How Strategists Lead
A Harvard Business School professor reflects on what she has learned from senior executives about the unique value that strategic leaders can bring to their companies.
Content: Article | Author: Cynthia A. Montgomery | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy
Michael E. Raynor, Heather A. Gray
Strategy is defined by the trade-offs you exploit, while innovation is defined by the trade-offs you break.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Heather A. Gray, Michael E. Raynor | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy
Hyundai’s Capabilities Play
The Korean automaker’s explosive growth in the last few years—achieved through better quality, stylish design, and clever marketing—has made it a dynamic player in the U.S. auto industry.
Content: Case Study | Author: William J. Holstein | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy | Industry: Automotive | Company: Hyundai
Michael Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed
Changes in absolute performance can be misleading: Declines might not signal that anything needs fixing, just as increases might not mean you’re doing anything right. Instead, the key to long-term survival seems to lie in knowing when material change is required in order to preserve one’s relative performance position.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Michael E. Raynor, Mumtaz Ahmed | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Management, Strategy
Henry Chesbrough
Professor Michael Porter’s work was very powerful and influential in the ‘80s and the ‘90s about strategy. It was really a model, you could say, of closed innovation where you figure out what your key strategic assets were and you either went low cost or went for differentiation or you found a niche. You were constantly looking for ways to compete against the other guy. … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Author: Henry Chesbrough | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy
Metacompetition: Competing Over the Game to be Played
Stanford’s William Barnett says “people and companies often lose by playing the wrong game.”
Content: Article | Author: William Barnett | Subject: Strategy
Fit for Growth: 3 Keys to Sustainable High Performance
How Ready Are You for Growth?
A Booz & Company study reveals that only 17 percent of companies are poised for a profitable future.
Content: Article | Authors: Aswath Damodaran, Vinay Couto | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy
Choosing Between Acquisition or Joint Venture
Both international joint ventures (IJVs) and acquisitions facilitate the entry of companies into new markets and business domains. They also expose firms to significant risk. How do executives weigh decisions about which governance approach is best, particularly in emerging markets like China where information may be limited? A team of professors led a study to better understand how to make these strategic decisions.
Content: Article | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: International, Mergers & Acquisitions, Strategy
