1338 Posts Found

Private labels have come a long way since the low-quality, low-priced, generic canned goods of the 1970s. Today, the world’s largest retailer is taking on its biggest customers at their own game, developing an ever-increasing number of private-label goods. Who will emerge victorious from this clash of retail titans?

Content: Article | Author: Tim Condon | Source: STERNbusiness (NYU) | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

We estimate from our research that, far from being worth more than the sum of their parts, well over half the world’s multibusiness companies are actually worth less than this. They are value destroyers. The lack of clear corporate-level strategies shows up in the portfolios of unhappy bedfellows, well-intentioned but damaging corporate initiatives, and strings of acquisitions that create more wealth for bankers, lawyers and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Campbell, Marcus Alexander, Michael Goold | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Strategy

As functional effectiveness increases, the greatest opportunity for corporate performance improvement will come from cross-functional integration. Organizations worldwide are recognizing how departments that strive for their own optimal performance can combine to produce sub-optimal results for the business.

Interestingly enough, the focus of management improvement trends in this century follows a similar pattern, from task efficiency to functional excellence to cross-functional integration. The logical next step … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

CEOs are more than frustrated by marketing’s inability to deliver results. Has the profession lost its relevance?

Nirmalya Kumar argues that, while the function of marketing has lost ground, the importance of marketing as a mind-set-geared toward customer focus and market orientation-has gained momentum across the entire organization.

This book challenges marketers to change their role from implementers of traditional marketing functions to strategic coordinators … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Nirmalya Kumar | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

Companies can earn higher margins or increased revenues by selling integrated offerings-if they don’t merely bundle their products.

Content: Article | Authors: Chandru Krishnamurthy, Henry E. Schlissberg, Juliet E. Johansson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

Over the last decade, and even since the bursting of the technology bubble, pundits, consultants, and thought leaders have argued that information technology provides the edge necessary for business success.

IT expert Nicholas G. Carr offers a radically different view in this eloquent and explosive book. As IT’s power and presence have grown, he argues, its strategic relevance has actually decreased. IT has been transformed … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Nicholas G. Carr | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

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The 2003 PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Shareholder Value Award was held in partnership with EBF and Financial News. The competition, on the topic ‘Is there a conflict between the pursuit of shareholder value and sustainable economic growth?’ attracted submissions from more than 120 academics, consultants, business executives and students from 40 countries. Here are the top three entries.

Editor’s Note: interested in what the judges themselves and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Amit Varma, Robert Phelps, Rupert Evenett | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Strategy

Why are joint ventures losing favor with transnational companies? Professor Mihir A. Desai discusses research that suggests globalization makes go-it-alone strategies pay off.

Content: Article | Author: Cynthia D. Churchwell | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: International, Strategy

Semler, the Brazil-based CEO of Semco, believes corporations and employees can become successful by bucking tradition and thinking wildly outside the box. He attempts to explain Semco’s success (a company with $212 million in annual revenue and “no official structure… no organizational chart… no business plan or company strategy”) and how its principles can be applied in other companies to make working environments more appealing … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Ricardo Semler | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

The best professional services companies understand that their people are their only products, and that strong performance requires getting top talent to act instinctively in ways that always promote the company’s strategy, according to a new study by Bain & Company.

Content: Article | Authors: Paul Rogers, Sarabjit Singh Baveja, Tom Tierney | Sources: Bain & Company, European Business Journal | Subject: Strategy

Acquisitions are all the rage, but when it comes to creating value, big is not always better. What matters is how a company’s pieces work together.

Editor’s Note: this article offers one of the most controversial and counter-intuitive prescriptions I have ever read (up there with the “IT adds no value” argument). Specifically, it says that corporate centers typically subtract value in multi-business entities rather … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Campbell, David Sadtler | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

Companies habitually charge less than they could for new offerings. It’s a terrible habit.

Content: Article | Authors: Craig C. Zawada, Eric V. Roegner, Michael V. Marn | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Pricing, Strategy

Does it pay to be first with a product or service? Is being an innovator worth the risk? Is it better to wait and learn from the experiences of the first entrant to the market? What is the proper balance between the risks and rewards? If you are a pioneer, what can you do to prevent share erosion when a new player enters the market? … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Gurumurthy Kalyanaram, Ragu Gurumurthy | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

To compete, companies are forming alliances as never before. But quantity does not equal quality. Succeeding in an alliance requires creating the right structures for the right situations.

Content: Article | Authors: John R. Harbison, Peter Pekar, Jr., Ph.D. | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

Too often there are serious missed signals between a company’s stated goals and the methods employed to try to reach them. Translating Strategy into Shareholder Value is a unique look at how the planning process relates to the achievement of shareholder value, and ways to ensure that the two directly complement each other. Using tools and a special case study to analyze past, present, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Raymond J. Trotta | Subject: Strategy

[Sticking to “core competencies” is] dangerously inward-looking. Competitiveness is more about doing what customers value than doing what you think you’re good at.

Content: Quotation | Source: Business 2.0 | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Strategy is all about creating value for your shareholders. A strategy map is your guide to getting there. A Q&A with Robert Kaplan And David Norton.

Content: Article | Author: Christopher Koch | Source: CIO Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

Best practice doesn’t always equal best strategy. Best-practice benchmarking, rightly viewed as one of the most important tools for improving operational efficiency, can be a double-edged sword. Managers must guard against transforming what is a purely process-related technique into the overriding goal of strategic decision making. When industry competitors begin to herd around a single strategy, declining margins are bound to follow.

Content: Article | Sources: CFO Publishing, McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

In commodity-goods markets, price is usually the only differentiator. But if you can brand those goods and bundle them with services, even bricks and sand can command premium prices. Here is how to turn commodities into branded goods.

Editor’s Note: see a related European Business Forum (EBF) article, “Marketing through collaboration: how seller and buyer can benefit” by Kamran Kashani at:
Content: Article | Authors: Jack McGrath, Sam I. Hill, Sandeep Dayal | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy