Business Insight for MBAs and Managers

Quotations

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Most Recent Business Quotations

Sometimes (often, actually) in business, you do know where you’re going, and when you do, you can be efficient. Put in place a plan and execute. In contrast, wandering in business is not efficient … but it’s also not random. It’s guided – by hunch, gut, intuition, curiosity, and powered by a deep conviction that the prize for customers is big enough that it’s worth … [ Read more ]
— Jeff Bezos

Author: Jeff Bezos | Subjects: Innovation, Management | Company: Amazon.com Inc.

Goals are great — as long as you have thought in advance about what would make it so that you wouldn’t pursue that goal anymore.
— Annie Duke

Author: Annie Duke | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Goals, Management

One of the things that give startups an advantage is that they're exploring in a way that established companies aren’t able to. Enterprises have an innovation problem. Startups are exploratory. But what we have to realize is that the very act of setting a goal makes you become more and more enterprise-like. You stop exploring other avenues, strategies, products, and motions that you could be … [ Read more ]
— Annie Duke

Author: Annie Duke | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation

For the past three decades, the business mantra has been “customer first.” Yet focusing on retaining and expanding an existing customer base often results in finer segmentation and the greater tailoring of offerings to better meet customer preferences, which will likely lead companies into too-small target markets of an existing industry.

The blue ocean strategist’s mantra is “noncustomers first.” By looking to noncustomers and building on … [ Read more ]
— W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne, Mi Ji

Authors: Mi Ji, Renée Mauborgne, W. Chan Kim | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales, Strategy

When you’re trying to balance the hiring opinions of so many different interviewers, you don’t always wind up with the best candidate. You end up hiring the candidate that skates through by getting a more neutral opinion from most interviewers.
— Liz Kofman-Burns

Author: Liz Kofman-Burns | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Most Popular Business Quotations

In principle, patents open up innovations in two ways. First, they confer only temporary rights; once patents expire or are abandoned, the intellectual property they are designed to protect passes into the public domain. Second, they require the details of the invention to be disclosed so they can be replicated. This permits follow-on innovation, which is essential for industrial progress. More recently, as the patent system … [ Read more ]
— The Economist

As for the genius of innovation, clearly the one percent spark of inspiration is nurtured by a positive culture. But the 99 percent perspiration ingredient comes from employees who love what they do, as well as where they do it, and who invest in that Holy Grail of productivity called “discretionary … [ Read more ]
— Stephanie Quappe, David Samso Aparici, Jon Warshawsky

Money never comes first in self-expression of any kind.
— William J. Reilly

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no … [ Read more ]
— Theodore Roosevelt

The uncomfortable fact for many green marketers--and targets of that marketing--is that genuinely going green would mean giving up most of the products and services that clutter our consumer culture. It would mean simplifying, valuing time and people over stuff. How can most products avoid the sin of the hidden trade-off? With a simple label: "You don't really need this."
— David Roberts

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Accounting   [16 posts]
Best Practices   [39 posts]
Career   [155 posts]   → Networking [2 posts]   → Work [47 posts]
Change Management   [142 posts]
Competitive Intelligence   [10 posts]
Consulting / Analytical Tools   [4 posts]
Corporate Governance   [97 posts]   → Succession Planning [4 posts]
Customer Related   [168 posts]
Economics   [285 posts]   → Capitalism [71 posts]
Education   [35 posts]
Entrepreneurship   [171 posts]   → Venture Capital [30 posts]
Finance   [119 posts]   → Investing [9 posts]   → Market/Investment [5 posts]   → Money [9 posts]   → Taxation [1 posts]
General   [6 posts]
History   [19 posts]
Human Resources   [494 posts]   → Coaching [9 posts]   → Compensation [35 posts]   → Diversity [36 posts]   → Motivation [84 posts]   → Training & Development [58 posts]   → Hiring [28 posts]
Innovation   [301 posts]   → Creativity [66 posts]
International   [52 posts]   → International - Americas [1 posts]   → Trade [2 posts]
IT / Technology / E-Business   [71 posts]
Leadership   [506 posts]
Legal   [23 posts]   → Intellectual Property [10 posts]
Management   [1461 posts]   → Business Plans [12 posts]   → Business Rules [43 posts]   → Delegation [7 posts]   → Execution [24 posts]   → Goals [23 posts]   → Growth [7 posts]   → Knowledge Management [8 posts]   → Measurement [44 posts]   → Mission [26 posts]   → Process [16 posts]   → Project Management [11 posts]   → Success / Failure [171 posts]   → Trends / Analysis [52 posts]   → Values [27 posts]   → Vision [37 posts]
Marketing / Sales   [279 posts]   → Advertising [9 posts]   → Brand [22 posts]   → Business Development [2 posts]   → Market Research [25 posts]   → Pricing [6 posts]
MBA Related   [38 posts]
Mergers & Acquisitions   [26 posts]
Miscellaneous   [82 posts]
Negotiation   [19 posts]
Nonprofit   [4 posts]
Operations   [41 posts]   → Outsourcing / BPO [14 posts]   → Quality [5 posts]
Organizational Behavior   [1578 posts]   → Accountability [20 posts]   → Bureaucracy [14 posts]   → Communication [156 posts]   → Culture [95 posts]   → Decision Making [174 posts]   → Ethics [56 posts]   → Personality / Behavior [239 posts]   → Politics [10 posts]   → Power / Authority [47 posts]   → Reengineering [3 posts]   → Reorganization [4 posts]   → Storytelling [27 posts]   → Teamwork [53 posts]   → Trust [31 posts]   → Women in Business [20 posts]
People   [7 posts]
Personal Development   [527 posts]   → Ability [23 posts]   → Achievement [85 posts]   → Attitude [21 posts]   → Challenge [11 posts]   → Character [20 posts]   → Commitment [13 posts]   → Competence [12 posts]   → Experience [25 posts]   → Expertise [12 posts]   → Judgement [7 posts]   → Learning [71 posts]
Productivity / Work Tips   [30 posts]   → Products & Services [1 posts]
Public Relations   [14 posts]   → Crisis Management [6 posts]
Quote   [642 posts]   → Action [23 posts]   → Adversity [11 posts]   → Ambition [10 posts]   → Attention [20 posts]   → Confidence [8 posts]   → Design [8 posts]   → Fear / Doubt [8 posts]   → Future [35 posts]   → Government [17 posts]   → Information [47 posts]   → Integrity [16 posts]   → Intelligence [12 posts]   → Knowledge [110 posts]   → Life [50 posts]   → Luck [17 posts]   → Mistakes [7 posts]   → Observations [10 posts]   → Opportunity [26 posts]   → Perception [15 posts]   → Persuasion [27 posts]   → Philosophy [8 posts]   → Potential [7 posts]   → Preparation [9 posts]   → Privacy [1 posts]   → Problems / Solutions [39 posts]   → Progress [10 posts]   → Reputation [6 posts]   → Skills [18 posts]   → Teaching [7 posts]   → Thought [96 posts]   → Time Management [16 posts]   → Wisdom [58 posts]
Risk Management   [66 posts]
Social Responsibility (ESG)   [93 posts]
Statistics   [12 posts]
Strategy   [355 posts]   → Business Model [3 posts]   → Competition [55 posts]   → Planning [21 posts]

Browse Business Quotations by Industry

Automotive   [1 post]
Consulting   [2 posts]
Education / Training   [4 posts]
Investing   [2 posts]
Retail   [1 post]