1338 Posts Found

ABC/M can’t tell you in which direction to point your company, but it can show you where waste exists and where more resources are required. Those facts are the basis for developing strategic plans.

Content: Quotation | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Finance, Strategy

From DeLorean Motors to Webvan, the shortcomings of a bad strategy are usually painfully obvious — at least in retrospect. But good strategies fail too, and when that happens, it’s often harder to pinpoint the causes. Yet despite the obvious importance of execution, relatively few management thinkers have focused on what kind of processes and leadership are best for turning a strategy into results. Experts … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Examining strategy through the lens of leadership focuses the topic on the critical tasks that a leader must undertake to create and execute strategy. In choosing this focal point, managers may find that some strategic activities such as industry analysis, competitive analysis, and internal analysis become their second priority because it is not as important for the leader to do them as it is to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jack C. Green, Ph.D., James N. Fuller | Source: Graziadio Business Report | Subjects: Leadership, Strategy

The most powerful force subverting conventional value chains, partly because it acts as a catalyst and accelerator for all the others, is a revolution in the economics of information. Information has always been the glue that held value chains together. The cost of getting sufficiently rich information to suppliers, channels, and customers made proprietary information systems and dedicated assets a necessity, and gave vertical integration … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Information, Strategy

In a deconstructed value chain, one of the surest paths to dominance is to establish a standard in a key business layer…The existence of standards benefits consumers in two fundamental ways. In the layer itself, a single standard greatly expands value for consumers by allowing them to take advantage of powerful network effects…Standards also have an enormous second-order economic impact. The adoption of a standard … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

Your new vision statement sounds nice, but what’s next? Here are useful definitions to help you decide if you’ve set a direction that can truly get traction.

Content: Article | Author: Stever Robbins | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Strategy

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The task of the strategist has gotten more difficult. Opportunities are more dynamic and shorter-lived. The palette of strategic options has grown more complex. And the traditional pillars of strategy, such as scale and market share, have lost their ability to reliably support long-term value growth.

In this world of shifting profit zones, Wall Street’s expectation of sustained growth represents one of the few constants. Yet, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Hanna Moukanas, Ted Moser | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Management, Strategy

An accurate understanding of an organization’s value logic (which can also be thought of as its business model) is critical. Accenture’s research into distinctive capabilities, one of the building blocks of high-performance business, shows that a company’s ability to create a customer-centric “value algorithm” is central to the business’s success. At the highest level, a company’s value logic can provide important insights that enable a … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jeanne G. Harris, Roland Burgman | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

Any dimension of performance that is the basis of competition must be a dimension on which existing offerings are not yet “good enough” to meet customers’ needs. That is why they are willing to pay more in order to get more of it. On other dimensions, where performance is already more than good enough or simply not as important, still greater levels of performance will … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Deloitte | Subjects: Competition, Strategy

In the outsourcing realm, core competence thinking typically manifests itself as a prescription for firms to outsource IT-intensive processes because the IT elements that drive process capabilities rarely qualify as a firm’s core competence. But outsourcing vendors make running IT infrastructures the focus of their business. For them, these activities are their core competence. This reasoning is encapsulated in marketing slogans such as “make your … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Deloitte | Subjects: Competition, Outsourcing / BPO

For all the insight it offers, core competence thinking can be limiting. Specifically, for a firm’s core competence to be a source of competitive advantage, it must contribute to a firm’s ability to deliver improvements that relate the current basis of competition in an industry. In other words, it is not much use being good at something if no one wants to pay you to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Deloitte | Subject: Strategy

In today’s stock-market environment, companies need to take advantage of the full range of levers available to generate shareholder value. In particular, they must identify and manage the key tradeoffs across the three chief components of a comprehensive value-creation strategy: improving fundamental value, exploiting differences in industry valuation multiples, and setting priorities for the use of free cash flow. The report, the sixth in BCG’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Daniel Stelter, Eric E. Olsen, Pascal Xhonneux | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Finance, Strategy

Generating great performance requires a more dynamic approach to building and adapting a company’s capabilities than merely squeezing its operations.

Content: Article | Authors: Lowell Bryan, Ron Hulme | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Strategy

During an economic downturn, Cemex, the world’s second-largest cement maker, decided to try to sell more products to Mexico’s poor. Almost by accident, the company discovered a global model for developing previously overlooked markets.

Content: Case Study | Author: Ricardo Sandoval | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Social Responsibility (ESG), Strategy | Industry: Construction | Company: Cemex

High levels of technical and market uncertainties, rapidly declining prices, collapsing markets, and shortening product life cycles characterize High Tech Marketing. Conventional strategic analysis tools are inadequate for effective analysis in developing high tech marketing strategy. This paper reviews a portfolio of cotemporary strategic analysis tools that have been used effectively in developing high tech marketing strategies and case analyses. These include the Boston Consulting … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Carmo A. D’Cruz | Source: Xodus Business and Technology Solutions | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

There is value in careful planning and thoughtful preparation. However, until there is execution, no plan is flawed; no preparation inadequate. Execution spotlights all. Cultures can get enamored with the preliminaries since there are no consequences.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Execution, Planning

When the shouting is over, one fact is clear: what differentiates perennially great companies from others is the products they sell. Some companies generate a never-ending stream of products that are appealing to customers and profitable to produce. Other companies achieve product innovation in fits and starts. Yet others launch many failed products, unprofitable products, or “me too” products. This article examines the opportunities to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jean-Philippe Deschamps, P. Ranganath Nayak | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy

Companies face numerous types of risk, and they hedge or insure against them in a variety of ways. However, the largest potential risk to a corporation–strategic risk–must be borne directly by managers and shareholders. They face the consequences if a company’s shareholder value collapses, stagnates, or becomes dwarfed by a competitor’s. Pattern thinking can help managers both foresee risk and identify new profit opportunities … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Adrian J. Slywotzky, David J. Morrison, James A. Quella | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subject: Strategy

The prize from closing the strategy-to-performance gap is huge – an increase in performance of anywhere from 60% to 100% for most companies. But this almost certainly understates the true benefits of creating a strategy-to-performance loop. Companies that achieve tight linkage between their strategies, their plans and ultimately their performance often experience a cultural “multiplier effect.” Over time, as strategies are successfully turned into performance, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Michael C. Mankins, Richard Steele | Source: Marakon Associates | Subject: Strategy