1338 Posts Found

In this narrated animation—one in a series of interactive presentations—a former leader of McKinsey’s strategy practice explains the thinking behind the GE–McKinsey nine-box matrix, a framework that helps multibusiness corporations allocate resources across divisions. Developed in the early 1970s, the matrix rates the prospects of each unit by two factors: its competitive strength within an industry (the horizontal axis) and the attractiveness of the industry … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Kevin Coyne | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy

An organization’s capacity to improve existing skills and learn new ones is the most defensible competitive advantage of all.

Content: Quotation | Authors: C.K. Prahalad, Gary Hamel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Competition, Management, Strategy

There is an important distinction between barriers to entry and barriers to imitation.

Content: Quotation | Authors: C.K. Prahalad, Gary Hamel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

Competitive innovation works on the premise that a successful competitor is likely to be wedded to a recipe for success. That’s why the most effective weapon new competitors possess is probably a clean sheet of paper. And why an incumbent’s greatest vulnerability is its belief in accepted practice.

Content: Quotation | Authors: C.K. Prahalad, Gary Hamel | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

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A study of interactions reveals how pervasive they are. As they increase in number, answers to fundamental questions about integration, scale, and scope will change. But what will happen when workers can carry out their jobs in half the time?

Editor’s Note: written in 1997 and it shows in a few spots, but still a good read…

Content: Article | Authors: Ali Hanna, Anupam Sahay, Byron Auguste, James Manyika, Pat Butler, Ted Hall | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

HBR interviews Clayton Christensen about how disruptive innovation and business model reinvention are linked.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Clayton M. Christensen | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

“Fishbowl” economics once provided the basis of corporate strategy, but no longer. New theories show that markets are “complex adaptive systems.” Can managers be more than blind players in an evolutionary business game?

Content: Article | Author: Eric Beinhocker | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

Charlie Rose interviews strategy Guru Michael Porter of Harvard Business School on his PBS show.

Editor’s Note: The Porter interview comes after an interview with Henry Kissinger…

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Charlie Rose, Michael E. Porter | Source: PBS | Subjects: People, Strategy

When Fortune magazine once attempted to diagram alliances in the IT industry, it ended up looking as intricate as a map of the London Underground. That was 15 years ago, and if anything, that diagram will have only grown more complex. What’s more, half of all such alliances fail, leaving broken trails in their wake. IESE Prof. Lluís Renart suggests five tools, ranging from the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Lluís Renart | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: Management, Strategy

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In these volatile times, achieving consistently outstanding performance in business has never been more important. IESE’s Federico Marinelli looks for – and finds – a clear pattern behind sustained performance among diversified companies. His fresh approach to the diversification issue also distinguishes between successful companies that consistently outperform their industry and beat the market indices – and their less fortunate brethren.

Content: Article | Author: Federico Marinelli | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

Scenarios serve two purposes, both of which are essential to connecting the strategy and knowledge challenges. First, scenarios foster preparedness. That is, they allow managers to anticipate a range of potential futures, and to get ready for them before they occur. Second, scenarios afford managers a forum in which to consider and determine what they would do were each future to materialize. [Hat Tip to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Liam Fahey | Subject: Strategy

What are the sources of corporate growth? If you take a middle-of-the- road view of markets, as many executives do, the answers may surprise you: averaging out the different growth rates in an industry’s segments and sub-segments can produce a misleading view of its growth prospects.

Most so-called growth industries include sub-industries or segments that are not growing at all, while relatively mature industries often have … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Mehrdad Baghai, Patrick Viguerie, Sven Smit | Sources: Chief Executive, McKinsey & Company Inc. | Subject: Strategy

Alliances, whether in business or politics, require a foundation of trust. The great military historian Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, said, “We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.” Today, companies are being forced to consider alliances as a key component of their business strategy. As trade barriers disappear and new playing fields open up, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Daniel Dadoun, Luca Rossi, Sebastien Declercq | Source: Kearney | Subject: Strategy

A study of the performance of more than 400 companies over 30 years reveals that firms find it difficult to maintain higher performance levels than do their competitors for more than about five years at a time. Long-term superior performance is achieved not through sustainable competitive advantage but by continuously developing and adapting new sources of temporary advantage and thus being the fastest runner in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Eric Beinhocker | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

I don’t like scenario planning, because people don’t think out of the box. So scenario planning may focus on four, five, or six scenarios that you can envision, at the expense of others you can’t. Instead of looking at scenarios and forecasts, you should be looking to see how fragile your portfolio is. How vulnerable are you to model error? How vulnerable is your cash … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Future, Risk Management, Strategy

As globalization continues to play out over the next 30 years, geographic and regulatory barriers will fall, electronic distribution will start to parallel and even overtake physical distribution, installed capacity will become obsolete before it is depreciated, and focused competitors will attack like piranhas. Companies must restructure or die.

Editor’s Note: a bit topical in places (written in 1999) but still a good read

Content: Article | Authors: Jane Fraser, Lowell Bryan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: International, Management, Strategy

The pressure to perform is familiar to most CEOs these days. Nobody gets much time to show what he or she can do, and achieving performance targets becomes even harder when economic turbulence hits. Despite the intensity of these pressures, the high expectations and the shorter time frames, a number of CEOs turn in truly exceptional results. Leaders of performance breakthroughs start by systematically determining … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Ashish Singh, Mark Gottfredson | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Management, Strategy

The sky is falling! Batten down the hatches! Cut back on everything. The economy is coming to a complete stop! HOLD IT! Do you really want to throw all of the good things you have been doing out the window because conditions have changed and the economy is slowing down?

Content: Article | Author: Dana Baldwin | Source: Center for Simplified Strategic Planning | Subjects: Management, Strategy