1338 Posts Found

Why do organizations get blindsided by market transformations that could have been anticipated? After all, scenario planning has been a widely used strategic management tool for decades and most managers are familiar with the process of considering how they would operate in alternative futures. The reason most organizations get surprised by game-changing events, in my experience, is not that their planning methods are bad. The … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Doug Randall | Source: Monitor Group | Subject: Strategy

The fundamental success of a strategy depends on three critical factors: a firm’s alignment with the external environment, a realistic internal view of its core competencies and sustainable competitive advantages, and careful implementation and monitoring. This article discusses the role of finance in strategic planning, decision making, formulation, implementation, and monitoring.

Editor’s Note: I don’t think this article really adds any new learning value or even … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Barry Barnes PhD, Pedro M. Kono | Source: Graziadio Business Report | Subjects: Finance, Strategy

Given today’s volatile environment, the overall focus for planning must move away from precise forecasting and toward more strategic, top-down ambition-setting that is validated with bottom-up business insight. This approach should be tied to contingency plans in case the targets cannot be met—and complemented by more frequent short-term forecasts of key metrics. However, embracing unpredictability and encouraging entrepreneurship within reasonable limits entails a significant shift … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Planning

Companies are increasingly finding themselves part of—or competing against—highly networked systems of partners, customers, and suppliers. These systems are able to innovate rapidly, leapfrog the experience curve, and quickly attain market leadership. They require a different kind of management—one that allows some decisions to emerge from interactions among players.

Content: Article | Authors: Alex Bernhardt, Martin Reeves | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Strategy

Corporations should have early warning systems to detect emerging competitive threats that have long-term potential to affect their business. Strategists can look back at past transformations to inform their own analyses and they need to understand how tomorrow’s industry could be structured. The work of two of the most important scholars in the field, Clayton Christensen and Richard N. Foster, suggests considering five questions.

Content: Article | Author: Scott Anthony | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

Thinking “outside the box” is neither as desirable nor as liberating as it sounds, because the space outside the box is infinite. Faced with limitless possibilities, the human mind feels adrift and tends to fall back into the familiarity of “the box.” People cannot help using mental models, frameworks, and theories—or, as we called them, boxes—to organize their thinking. Thus, a far more powerful approach … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Alan Iny, Luc de Brabandere | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Strategy, Thought

The granddaddy of all mistakes is competing to be the best, going down the same path as everybody else and thinking that somehow you can achieve better results. This is a hard race to win. So many managers confuse operational effectiveness with strategy. Another common mistake is confusing marketing with strategy. It’s natural for strategy to arise from a focus on customers and their needs. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael E. Porter | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

In a new book, Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy, Joan Magretta distills Porter’s core concepts and frameworks into a concise guide for business practitioners. In this excerpt, Porter discusses common strategy mistakes.

Content: Article | Authors: Joan Magretta, Michael E. Porter | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Strategy

Hundreds of schools of thought exist on strategy, but none is universally applicable. The Strategy Chessboard helps articulate clear choices in strategic approaches so you can make the right moves at the right times in the right situations.

Content: Article | Authors: Michael Broquist, Thomas Kratzert | Source: Kearney | Subject: Strategy

Bad strategy abounds, says UCLA management professor Richard Rumelt. Senior executives who can spot it stand a much better chance of creating good strategies.

Content: Article | Author: Richard Rumelt | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

In a new market, you need to secure a foothold. World domination can come later.

Content: Case Study | Author: Stephen Wunker | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subjects: International – Africa, Management, Strategy | Industries: Finance / Banking, Telecommunications | Company: Celpay

Indirect competition is a kind of competition that is easy to miss. Here are five types of indirect competition to consider.

Content: Article | Author: Rajesh Setty | Source: OPEN Forum (American Express) | Subjects: Management, Strategy

War is war—and very different from business. In war, your enemy is hidden on the other side of the hill and is waiting there to surprise and destroy you. Your enemy is an army or air force or navy, like you, and the match is like chess.

But in business, the enemy is more like the old comic-strip character Pogo once said: “We have met the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Joel Kurtzman | Source: The Conference Board Review | Subject: Competition

In times of great uncertainty, strategic planning must shift from a bureaucratic, linear process to a more targeted approach that is both analytic and creative.

Content: Article | Authors: Richard Verity, Simon Mills | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

Badly judged centralization can stifle initiative, constrain the ability to tailor products and services locally, and burden business divisions with high costs and poor service. Insufficient centralization can deny business units the economies of scale or coordinated strategies needed to win global customers or outperform rivals.

Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Companies have been feverishly pursuing growth and global expansion—and in the process setting themselves up for failure.

Content: Article | Author: William E. Rothschild | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Ten timeless tests can help you kick the tires on your strategy, and kick up the level of strategic dialogue throughout your company.

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

Growing turbulence in the global economy is forcing many companies to revisit their corporate strategy. But unless they also redesign their corporate strategy process to focus it more explicitly on value creation, they are unlikely to generate superior shareholder value. This report (the tenth in BCG’s Value Creators series) introduces a comprehensive approach to corporate strategy that supplements the traditional focus on business and portfolio … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Strategy

80 percent of the variance in revenue growth is explained by choices about where to compete, leaving only 20 percent explained by choices about how to compete. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of the allocation of time and effort in a typical strategy-development process. Companies should be shifting their attention greatly toward the “where” and should strive to outposition competitors by regularly reallocating resources … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

Celebrating a “must-read” concept, based on data from thousands of companies: Information flow and decision rights are integral parts of the strategic process.

Content: Article | Author: Thomas A. Stewart | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy