1338 Posts Found

Think fast. Think under pressure. That’s how you win in business — and in chess. Here is a master class from Bruce Pandolfini, one of the world’s great chess teachers, on how to think like a champion.

Content: Article | Author: Anna Muoio | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Strategy

The information revolution has blurred the line between supply and demand chains. Because of this marketing is no longer about activity-based tools kept in a backroom and operations are no longer protected from customers by silo walls. This has created turmoil for the unprepared, but new tools are available to help combine marketing and operating perspectives, while at the same time understanding how customer and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Martin Anderson | Source: Babson Insight | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

External environment factors such as down turns in the economy, and a lack of investment in innovation can have a significant impact on a firm’s strategic options. To obtain a better glance of how these factors will affect the planning process, analysts can utilize the STEEP analysis tool. When used correctly, the tool will furnish decision makers with information which should be used to improve … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: James Kyler | Sources: CEO Refresher, Competia | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Putting a slow-growth company on the track to double-digit growth requires senior executives to reckon with new ideas about serving customers and deploying assets. It also requires them to set aside old ideas about growth that no longer apply. One such outmoded idea is the notion that new growth invariably comes at the expense of the core business. In fact, just the opposite is true: … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Management, Strategy

A decade ago, James Gleick helped popularize the concept of chaos theory with Chaos: The Making of a New Science (1987). Prior to that, the concept had largely been the province of mathematicians, but Gleick showed broader applications for the idea that systems behave in orderly ways in spite of seemingly random–and chaotic–individual events. And, indeed, investors, meteorologists, economists, astronomers, and biologists have all incorporated … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: T. Irene Sanders | Subject: Strategy

Once you have your own market space and imitators follow, you go into classical competitive strategy mode, where you focus on milking it, getting your best market share, blocking other imitations and dramatically ramping up and refining your offering. But, as other companies’ strategies converge on your market, history shows you need to create new market space again and break away.

Content: Quotation | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy

The war analogy we have used for strategy so far is the wrong one: It is based on an assumption that there’s only so much territory that exists. So it’s been about dividing up that territory. There’s been a winner and a loser. But our research shows it’s not a zero-sum game. You can create new land. Business history shows us that, contrary to perceived … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Chief Executive | Subject: Strategy

A number of factors, ranging from outside forces such as excessive competition to internal issues including the way the company adapts its business processes to take advantage of “e,” will determine whether a company’s investment in a net market pays off. But there’s good news here. Our client work shows that internal, controllable factors play a huge role in the end result. And of all … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

Making a break with conventional processes can free businesses from the ties that bind their management flexibility, product creativity, supply-chain collaboration–and profits.

Content: Article | Authors: John Hagel III, John Seely Brown | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: Management, Strategy

The most common cause of failed objectives – a lack of structure, discipline, and follow-up – can be corrected through frequent review. That is the simple message of On Target. Based on the author’s 20 years of experience consulting with companies worldwide, the book presents a proven structured review process that encourages critical thinking, evaluation, and appropriate action to achieve rapid, dramatic results for meeting … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Michele L. Bechtell | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Companies are increasingly looking to external sources to ramp up their levels of innovation in new products and services, but most lack a strategy for innovation sourcing. Research by the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change pinpoints how leading companies have been successful in creating a diverse set of innovation “channels” and managing an entire innovation-sourcing network to drive profitable growth through innovation.

Content: Article | Authors: Jane C. Linder, Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, Thomas H. Davenport | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy

Five important lessons in planning for the future.

Content: Article | Author: Thomas W. McKee | Subject: Strategy

This content is restricted to site members. Please log in or register

Drawing on his 20 years of pioneering research and work with some 400 top companies, Robert offers today’s executives guidance in strategy formulation, implementation, and deployment. Filled with examples drawn from the experiences of today’s commercial leaders and interviews with CEOs of companies in a variety of industries, this updated edition of a revolutionary and inspiring best seller offers a sure-fire process of strategic thinking … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Michel Robert | Subject: Strategy

The president and chairman emeritus of consulting firm Kepner-Tregoe team up to describe the firm’s integrated approach to corporate strategy. The five-phase system includes: intelligence gathering and analysis; strategy formulation; master project planning; implementation; and, monitoring, review and correction.

Content: Book | Authors: Benjamin B. Tregoe, Mike Freedman | Subject: Strategy

A structured, disciplined and facilitated process designed to make the development and execution of a plan more effective by helping an organization to understand a situation much better than it could through other approaches.

Content: Article | Author: Jay Kurtz | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Despite widespread optimism among their leaders, many companies were unable to turn the last recession to their advantage. What separated the winners from the losers? Research by the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change found that innovative perspectives on existing knowledge, tools and relationships drove sustained post-recession competitive advantage. Read about what actions the winners took to strengthen their positions.

Content: Article | Authors: Brian McCarthy, Jane C. Linder | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy

Managers can do a far better job if they understand how each process they manage adds value. SVA is a tool for gaining that understanding.

Editor’s Note: this article will be most interesting to those who care about the oil & gas industry but the SVA concept seemed to me to be poorly elaborated and more useful as a hindsight analytical tool rather than a … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alfred Escher, Eric A. Spiegel, John K. Shank | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Industry Specific, Strategy | Industry: Petro / Chemical

If you don’t analyze your value chain first, you may outsource IT functions that are core to your business or base decisions on the wrong metrics.

Content: Article | Authors: Daniel Littmann, Michael E. Raynor | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

In this intriguing, clearly reasoned book, McKinsey consultant Courtney argues convincingly that managers can approach uncertainty systematically. Most managers, he says, either ignore potential problems or try to map out them out in painful detail. The better approach, Courtney contends, is to classify risk (e.g., a relatively clear future, a range of possibilities or true ambiguity) and hone a strategy based on a checklist he … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Hugh Courtney | Subjects: Risk Management, Strategy