Pulling the Capex Lever
Companies across all industries have room to grow in optimizing “return on capex.” The fundamental questions of how much to spend, what to spend it on, and how to transform the investment into real returns must be answered in a radically different way.
Content: Article | Authors: Axel Freyberg, Hanjo Arms, Raoul Felix Maier, Ulli Dannath | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Finance, Management
Better Decision Making with Proper Business Intelligence
As companies focus on growth and business development, the availability of quality information is crucial for making sound business decisions.
Content: Article | Authors: Alexander Martin, Edgar Simons, Robert Jekel | Source: Kearney | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Management
Thomas Kratzert, Michael Broquist
An effective strategy framework must include the level of industry predictability as a main dimension.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Michael Broquist, Thomas Kratzert | Source: Kearney | Subject: Strategy
Ira Gaberman and Marieke Witjes
Getting the right mix of strategy and culture creates a formula for business success. Pursuing a strategy of innovation in a dynamic market can only succeed within an inquisitive culture where the workforce pushes boundaries and management encourages new ideas and constructive risk-taking. Similarly, pursuing a strategy of high-volume, low-cost processes can only succeed within a disciplined culture where the workforce operates in an efficient, … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Ira Gaberman, Marieke Witjes | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Culture, Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy
“Home-Grown” CEO
Business leaders who achieve extraordinary short-term financial gains for their companies often become celebrities. But how does a company secure long-term value for their shareholders, and how does this correlate with CEO leadership? More specifically, what do we know about the importance of effective succession management?
Content: Article | Authors: Chip Snively, Fred G. Steingraber, Richard Magjuka | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Succession Planning
The Theory of Everything in Operations
Current thinking on operational excellence focuses mainly on improving performance while neglecting companies’ interoperability. The central tenet of A.T. Kearney’s Theory of Everything in Operations is that, to achieve operational excellence, organizations must improve performance within functions while promoting collaboration across functions.
Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Management, Operations
Playing on the New Strategy Chessboard
Hundreds of schools of thought exist on strategy, but none is universally applicable. The Strategy Chessboard helps articulate clear choices in strategic approaches so you can make the right moves at the right times in the right situations.
Content: Article | Authors: Michael Broquist, Thomas Kratzert | Source: Kearney | Subject: Strategy
Aligning Strategic Decisions across all Phases of a Product’s Life Cycle
Expanding the Profit Frontier
For businesses seeking to improve profits, the low-hanging fruit is obvious. Cut costs, improve sales performance, optimize the supply chain. But after that, is everything else out of reach? In challenging economic times, you can’t afford to draw such conclusions.
Content: Article | Authors: Paul Schroder, Sean Ryan, Steve Mehltretter | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Management, Strategy
Hitting Back: Strategic Responses to Low-Cost Rivals
Successful low-cost competitors don’t just sap margins incrementally. What makes them so dangerous is their ability to redefine the entire competitive landscape. The low-cost competitor transforms its value chain to reduce prices drastically. With low costs as a pivot, it shifts the ground beneath larger, less flexible opponents and turns their mass and momentum against them. Responses often come too late to be effective, and … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Bob O’Meara, Christian Hagen, Jim Morehouse, Todd Huseby | Source: Kearney | Subject: Strategy
The Old Psychology of Internet Pricing
What if you could use the Web to return to the old-world traditional markets where merchants sized up every customer and quoted an exclusive price to each one? You can. Rather than eliminating sophisticated pricing strategies, the Internet actually empowers them.
Content: Article | Authors: Laurent Guerard, Rasvan Dirlea, Stephane Remy | Source: Kearney | Subject: Pricing
Low Cost Competitor Value Chain
Strategies for Competing with Low Cost Rivals
Steve Mehltretter, Sean Ryan, Paul Schroder
Effective business intelligence relies on visibility and “actionability.” You need to be able to see information (the right information), and that information needs to lead to insights you can act on. It’s not enough to know whether a customer or product is profitable—you need to know why. Getting to the multiple dimensions of why requires business intelligence at the level of individual transactions and a … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Paul Schroder, Sean Ryan, Steve Mehltretter | Source: Kearney | Subject: Management
A Product Life-cycle Approach to Sustainability
SKU Optimization: A Parable and 10 Provocations for Action
Many companies are trying to cut costs by reducing the number of product classifications (stock-keeping units or SKUs) they offer. Here’s a story of a typical SKU optimization effort and 10 provocations that companies can use to help achieve lower costs, fewer out-of-stocks, higher revenues and lower prices.
Content: Article | Author: Bob Byrne | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Management, Marketing / Sales, Operations
Internet Value Chain Economics
The Internet has left its mark on society – from online shopping and banking to YouTube videos and social networking. Beyond these societal trends, how does the economy of the Internet work? How is the industry structured, and which companies are the players? How do companies make money, and what are the prospects for growth?
Content: Article | Authors: Christophe Firth, Laurent Viviez, Mark Page | Source: Kearney | Subject: Industry Specific | Industries: Information Technology, Other
Sustainability – A Product Life-Cycle Approach
There is a lot more to measuring a company’s total environmental impact than merely examining internal processes. It requires a product life-cycle approach to sustainability-from growing raw materials and production, to distribution, consumer use and product disposal.
Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)
Covert Pricing: Expanding Profitable Business Behind Enemy Lines
One way to survive online price wars is to avoid them altogether. Covert pricing skirts the online dust-up by surreptitiously offering short-lived promotional prices to micro-segments of customers. To ensure wins are not one-time events, the promotional prices change constantly—as do the targeted customers.
Content: Article | Authors: Dan Oxyer, Ozgun Ataman, Rasvan Dirlea, Tuvan Sencalis | Source: Kearney | Subject: Pricing