1341 Posts Found

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

Strategic Planning is to a business what a map is to a road rally driver. It is a tool that defines the routes that when taken will lead to the most likely probability of getting from where the business is to where the owners or stakeholders want it to go. The steps in this process are described in this series.

Content: Article | Author: John F. Dix | Source: Business Development Index Ltd. | Subject: Strategy

Strategic planning at many large companies is a sterile annual exercise that managers endure. They’re often asked to produce either a shining vision or financial certainty, or both. But with growth back on the agenda, a few leading companies are creating value through strategic managing, which connects strategy to the front lines and to market opportunities as they unfold.

Content: Article | Authors: Jag Duggal, Phyllis Rothschild, Richard Balaban | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subject: Strategy

More than ever before, Americans are talking about values. For marketers, it’s tempting to do the same. But will a values-driven campaign drive business — or drive it away?

Content: Article | Author: Alison Stein Wellner | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Strategy

It used to be easy to measure transaction costs especially when looking at economies of scale and speed. That’s what helped justify centralization in vertically integrated firms. In the more dynamic and decentralized world, the value shifts to economies of scope. The real problem that we have is we have no transaction-cost analysis like “build versus buy” for determining whether I should share an asset … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

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We’re undeniably living in the era of globalization, but too often the strategic motivations for going global aren’t matched by operational approaches to meet enterprise needs. Nowhere is this truer than in IT organizations that remain under all of the standard pressures to innovate, deliver value, and contain costs while facing demands to meet various local needs, comply with local regulations and tax codes, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Rowsell-Jones, Mark McDonald | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

In this paper, the authors advocate that a configuration perspective is needed to capture different kinds of project/programme governance approaches. The basic assumption being that different situations involve different environments and different characteristics and that project management governance cannot be taken out of context. Understanding these situations and contexts, and adapting decision-making and learning systems accordingly, is crucial. The underlying assumptions that have guided the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Christophe N. Bredillet | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subjects: Project Management, Strategy

Beyond earthquakes and currency fluctuations, there’s a broad array of strategic risks poised to disrupt or even destroy any business. But embracing risk is also part of the growth equation. Is your business prepared? And what are the risks you should be taking but aren’t?

Content: Article | Author: Adrian J. Slywotzky | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Risk Management, Strategy

This paper describes the changes to the definition of the Balanced Scorecard that have occurred since it became popular as a performance measurement framework during the early 1990s. The paper builds on earlier work by the authors that characterised such definitions into three distinct generations of Balanced Scorecard. The paper relates these developments to literature concerning strategic management within organisations, observing that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Gavin Lawrie, Ian Cobbold | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Extreme competition means more volatile earnings – something that worries equity markets obsessed by predictable earnings per share. Most businesses monitor and control operational risks but pay too little attention to the more complex range of strategic ones. Four in particular merit attention: the value proposition risk (will a cheaper product knock the company out of the water?), the cost curve risk (will a low-cost … [ Read more ]

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

This PowerPoint training tool shows you how to analyze your company’s competitive advantages and disadvantages. This tool explains the strategic group map technique of competitive analysis and includes a case study that illustrates how one company used this technique to plan an expansion of its facilities and services. This tool can help you improve your own understanding of competitive analysis or you can share it … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: BNET | Subjects: Competitive Intelligence, Strategy

Western companies think too narrowly about the emerging world. If they aren’t careful, they may end up as defenders, not attackers.

Content: Article | Authors: John Hagel III, John Seely Brown | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: International – Asia, Strategy

The world’s most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It’s where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world’s billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and help millions of the world’s poorest people escape poverty.

It is being done-profitably. Whether you’re a business leader or an anti-poverty activist, business guru Prahalad … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: C.K. Prahalad | Subjects: Social Responsibility (ESG), Strategy

Over the past 40 years, strategic thought has evolved through three distinct phases-bodies of thought that have built progressively on each other. The Internet takes us it into a fourth: a phase that is defined by the explicit rejection of central premises of each of its predecessors. But to understand where strategic planning is going, it is first necessary to review where it has been.
… [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Philip Evans | Source: Journal of Business Strategy | Subject: Strategy

Companies that enter into strategic alliances thus encounter many dilemmas. This article summarises the key issues into six categories of 10 dilemmas and discusses how Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance, has dealt with these 10 dilemmas.

Content: Case Study | Authors: Angela Andal-Ancion, George Yip | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subject: Strategy | Industry: Airlines | Company: Star Alliance

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Geopolitical uncertainty, rapid globalisation and faster business cycles mean that companies must be more flexible and responsive to changing conditions.
* But what does this mean for strategy?
* How should strategy be defined and, importantly, who should define it?
* What is the role of the CEO?
* How can leaders bridge the gulf between strategic thinking and implementation?
* How do operations influence … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subject: Strategy