Richard Dobbs, Bill Huyett, and Tim Koller

No business has an inherent value in and of itself; it has a different value to different owners or potential owners—a value based on how they manage it and what strategy they pursue.

William Cohen

The opportunities and threats existing in any situation always exceed the resources needed to exploit the opportunities and avoid the threats. Thus, strategy is essentially a problem of allocating resources. If a strategy is to be successful, it must allocate superior resources against a decisive opportunity.

Sun Tzu

Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack.

The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution

The article details the latest insights on what changes organizations can take to have the greatest impact on executing their strategies to achieve results. The HBR article demonstrates the importance of decision rights and information flow in driving effectiveness and how enterprises succeed or fail at execution depending on whether they focus on these power drivers or, instead, focus solely on “structural reorganization.”

How To Create A Disruptive Business Model

There are two things you can do to mitigate the element of surprise when it comes to your business model being disrupted, in addition to keeping a constant vigil on the external social, economic and market forces out of your control that can potentially disrupt your business.

First, you can assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your current business model. Go through each of … [ Read more ]

The Fit Between Business Strategy and R&D Organisation

Corporations constantly struggle to get the right fit in their R&D organization. It should neither be too global nor too focused, and at the same time it must fit into the company’s overall strategy. It’s a combination that can be hard for managers to come to grips with. This article shares the insights from a study undertaken by Arthur D. Little of the link between … [ Read more ]

Mark W. Johnson

Rather than think of white space as external — as some indistinct but desirable land outside your company’s walls — I suggest that it’s more productive to view it as an internal signpost — as a way to map your company’s ability to address new opportunities or threats. So by white space, I mean “market opportunities your company may wish — or need — to … [ Read more ]

The 9 Elements of an Ironclad Business Model

It took 9 years of research and practice 4,000-plus writing hours, 28,456 Post-it notes, 77 forum discussions, 287 Skype calls, 1360 comments, and 137,757 online views for over 470 contributors from nearly 50 countries to arrive at these nine elements of any business model and arrange them into the visual “Business Model Canvas”

Twelve Ways to Create Barriers to Competitors

The firms that have enjoyed years or even decades of life with no or weak competitors have created barriers that inhibit or prevent competitors from entering and becoming serious customer options. Here are some twelve routes to real barriers the last six of which involve the brand.

A New Framework for Business Models

Your business model has to specify not just how your company intends to make money but also why a customer would want to give it any, says Mark W. Johnson.

Maximizing the Returns from Research

To profit from technology, companies need to change their strategy and begin selling the embodiment of that technology at the ever-shifting point of modular decoupling.

Clayton M. Christensen and Mark Johnson

The term “business model” often describes the profit formula used by the company to generate its income. However, we have seen fit to increase the scope of the term business model beyond profit model to include how the company delivers value to the customer and, subsequently, how the company organizes resources and processes to support both its profit model and customer value propositions. External interactions … [ Read more ]

Want Better Answers? Try Better Questions

Answers to the future growth of your business depend on your ability to ask the right questions. These are the fundamental questions that underlie the core of your intention.

Frederick Funston, Stephen Wagner

The idea of holding open a portfolio of strategic options runs counter to conventional strategy-setting approach, in which leaders try to select a single “maximizing” strategy that drives the greatest returns. However, a maximizing strategy is usually highly tailored to current circumstances – and thus, no matter how well it may work in the short term, is apt to fail when circumstances inevitably change. … [ Read more ]

The Right to Win

Business strategy is at an evolutionary crossroads. It’s time to resolve the long-standing tension between the inherent identity of your organization and the fleeting nature of your competitive advantage.

Principles of Business War

War can be any conflict or competition founded on divergent interests in which two or more opponents contest for achieving own objectives. This contest for conflicting interests can be as violent as a nuclear holocaust between two nuclear states or as benign as a contest between two street hawkers for getting more customers. While the military contest is traditionally known as a War, the business … [ Read more ]