Today’s good to great: Next-generation operational excellence
Is tech accelerating your business operations—or getting in the way? To get lasting value from their tech investments, business leaders need a renewed understanding of operational excellence.
Content: Article | Authors: Erik Schaefer, Ian Colotla, Joris Wijpkema, Richard Sellschop, Ted Iverson, William Fookes | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Operations
The smart moves your supply chain needs now
To navigate global supply shocks, companies must build resiliency while repositioning for growth.
Content: Article | Authors: Brian Houck, Harald Dutzler, John Livingstone | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Operations
Time—The Next Source of Competitive Advantage
The ways leading companies manage time—in production, in new product development and introduction, in sales and distribution—represent the most powerful new sources of competitive advantage.
Editor’s Note: This is a classic HBR article that was assigned reading when I was a student. It has held up pretty well 35 years on.
Content: Article | Author: George Stalk Jr. | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Operations, Strategy
A better way to drive your business
Integrated business planning is a well-known process, particularly among supply chain leaders. But in most companies, P&L owners are missing out.
Content: Article | Authors: Ali Sankur, Elena Dumitrescu, Ketan Shah, Matt Jochim | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Operations
Margin management in inflationary times: the importance of end-to-end visibility
The leading companies are harnessing the power of data to lessen the impact of inflation on their business and maintain profit margins.
Content: Article | Authors: Cristobal Lowery, Jean-Paul Savelkoul, Remko de Bruijn, Roger van Engelen | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Finance, Operations
Designing Omni-Channel Retailing to Align Financial Performance with Strategy
Sunil Chopra describes how looking at combinations of product and channel through the lens of return on invested capital (ROIC) allows retailers to design omni-channel portfolios that align their products, service offerings, and pricing. By using each channel to improve invested capital turns or broaden profit margin, these portfolios increase the company’s value.Â
Content: Article | Author: Sunil Chopra | Source: Management and Business Review (MBR) | Subjects: Industry Specific, Management, Marketing / Sales, Operations
How to Win Against Counterfeiters
Online fakers are coming after everybody—but even the small and scrappy can fight back.
Content: Article | Author: Jennifer Alsever | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Intellectual Property, Legal, Operations
Building an R&D Strategy for Modern Times
The age of the insular R&D organization is over. To serve as a company’s innovation engine, R&D strategy needs to be equipped for today’s fast-moving world.
Content: Article | Authors: Erik Roth, Joshua Katz, Philipp Ernst, Tom Brennan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Operations
An End-to-End Perspective on Field Service Optimization
Optimizing service after the sale in the world of physical goods can have a significant impact on reducing field service costs.
Content: Article | Authors: Ben Henkes, Colin Glasgow, Jim Pearce, Sumeet Ladsaongikar | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Customer Related, Operations
Make vs. Buy Revisited
Make or buy? To answer this classic manufacturing question, leading companies avoid the temptation to “feed the beast.” Instead, they focus on their core competencies and keep their long-term strategies in mind.
Content: Article | Authors: Fidel Tamayo, Patrick Van den Bossche | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Operations, Strategy
Making Supplier Relationships Work
Kearney offers nine ways to interact with suppliers, identifying formulas that characterize true supplier relationship management.
Content: Article | Authors: Michael F. Strohmer, Mike Hales | Source: Kearney | Subject: Operations
5 Steps to Get a Handle on Operations in Times of Crisis
Jaume Ribera breaks down the life cycle of a crisis into five stages and explores the challenges and opportunities each stage presents.
Content: Article | Author: Jaume Ribera | Source: IESE Insight | Subjects: Management, Operations
Technology + Operations: A Flywheel for Performance Improvement
New automation techniques can provide the first step toward continuous, tech-enabled redesign of critical operations—forming an intuitive ops-to-tech cycle in which tech improves ops, and vice versa.
Content: Article | Authors: Allen Weinberg, David Taylor, Federico Berruti | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Operations
Performance Management: Why Keeping Score Is So Important, and So Hard
The elements of a good performance-management system are simple, but integrating them into a business’s fundamental operating system is more difficult than it seems.
Content: Article | Authors: Frédéric Gascon, John Douglas, Raffaele Carpi | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Operations
Seven Rules for Spinning Analytics Straw into Golden Results
While IoT-enabled advanced analytics could be worth trillions to manufacturers, turning insights into outcomes requires more than just the right technology.
Content: Article | Authors: Mark Patel, Richard Kelly, Subu Narayanan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Operations
Ops 4.0: Fueling the Next 20 Percent Productivity Rise with Digital Analytics
Business needs to raise productivity more than ever. Thanks to innovations in digitization and analytics, four new methodologies can yield the productivity breakthroughs organizations need.
Content: Article | Authors: Kevin Speicher, Mercedes Goenaga, Philipp Radtke, Rafael Westinner | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Operations
Rethinking Resilience in Global Supply Chains
Attempts to diversify may make supply chain disruptions more damaging when they occur.
Content: Article | Author: Karan Girotra | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Operations
More from Less: Making Resources More Productive
For industrial manufacturers, resources remain a huge financial and managerial cost. A change in perspective can lead to real breakthroughs in reducing resource consumption.
Content: Article | Authors: Ken Somers, Markus Hammer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Operations
Weak Links in the Chain
Flexible, adaptive supply chain management is an overlooked but vital component of a company’s overall innovation strategy.
Content: Article | Author: Matt Palmquist | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Operations
What Really Happens When Companies Nix Performance Ratings
An ever-growing number of companies continue to discover that de-emphasizing ratings in favor of ongoing quality conversations that support employee development is showing itself to be a viable option. At the NeuroLeadership Institute, we’ve conducted in-depth research with 33 of these 52 companies to find out what really happens when companies remove performance ratings. Here are some of our high-level findings.
Content: Article | Author: David Rock | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Operations