170 Posts found for Source: Bain & Company

The pressure to perform is familiar to most CEOs these days. Fully 40 percent of new CEOs last less than two years. Leaders of fast turnarounds start by systematically determining the business’s current condition. That diagnosis, typically guided by four fundamental laws of business, enables them to gain a deep understanding of the point of departure. They next map out a realistic point of arrival, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Hernan Saenz, Mark Gottfredson, Steve Schaubert | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Management

There’s no single, perfect answer for leaders pursuing change initiatives; instead, success requires taking several basic steps. We’ve codified four elements in an approach we call PLOT: Plan, Lead, Operate, and Track. The PLOT framework–a toolkit for change management–calls for leaders to identify the sources of value and then focus on a few areas for improvement: get the right people in place quickly, rally the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Lori Flees, Manny Maceda, Todd Senturia | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Change Management

Call it a trial by fire, but a recession may in fact be good for your company.

Content: Article | Authors: Darrell K. Rigby, Sarabjit Singh Baveja, Steve Ellis | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Best Practices

Here is a summary of the concluding volume in Chris Zook’s trilogy on the business core. The previous two books focused on supporting, exploiting and expanding your core business, whereas this book shows you what to do when your position in the marketplace is under threat. Zook points out the dangers of defending your core until your company dies, or of jumping to the next … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Chris Zook | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

What do most companies do when their formula for success has stalled? Many leap into new markets or consider risky mergers. But rarely do such moves pay off. Instead, we find that companies choosing instead to mine their hidden assets – assets they already possess but have failed to tap for maximum growth potential – can go from unsustainable to unstoppable growth.

Content: Article | Author: Chris Zook | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Management, Strategy

What does the net price per each individual product look like over time at your company? If it is not going up, the business is headed for trouble.

Content: Article | Author: Paul Calthrop | Sources: Bain & Company, Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Pricing

A new playbook is helping private equity investors earn strong returns, at a time when buyouts have never been bigger or bolder. As deal prices and the cost of debt rise, private equity firms can no longer count on leverage and financial maneuvers to deliver outsized gains. To succeed in this environment, private equity firms need a different formula. As soon as a deal closes, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Bierly, Chul-Joon Park, Graham Elton | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Finance, Venture Capital

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Getting a good deal has never been easy, but picking the right acquisition target is doubly challenging these days, placing an even higher value on a key ingredient in the success of private equity firms: the discipline to walk away.

Content: Article | Authors: Graham Elton, Rolf-Magnus Weddigen | Sources: Bain & Company, Financial Times

Most of us have potentialities that have never been developed simply because the circumstances of our lives never called them forth.

Content: Quotation | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Ability, Personal Development

Why has Dell been consistently successful over the past decade? Aside from the operational discipline and talented people, Dell founder Michael Dell and CEO Kevin Rollins cites their success on “years and years of DNA development that is not replicable outside the company.” In a word: culture. Culture can be the glue that holds an organization together and leverages it well into the future. Find … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Paul Meehan, Paul Rogers, Scott Tanner | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

Today’s smart companies are turning selling into science. But they’re not depending on the native talents and gut instincts of their best and brightest to do so. Nor are they hiring extra salespeople. By adding scientific systems to the sales process, top-performing organizations are responding more effectively to new market environments.

Content: Article | Authors: Dianne Ledingham, Heidi Locke Simon, Mark Kovac | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: Marketing / Sales

If strategy is the art of allocating scarce resources, then segmentation-and the understanding it provides about your core customer groups-is part of the science informing that allocation.

Content: Quotation | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy

Customer segmentation divides customers into groups based only on those needs and factors actually driving purchase decisions. A common mistake is to segment customers based on peripheral characteristics that, while interesting, provide no help in achieving the fundamental goal of segmentation: selling more product more profitably.

Content: Quotation | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

Some marketers may shy away from measuring the Net Promoter Score because it sounds too complex. But others are not daunted. To show how it is done, a Bain & Company team used the approach to quantify the value of promoters and detractors in the personal-computer business. The team used only publicly available data so that what it did could serve as a model for … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Frederick F. Reichheld | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

International expansion requires a sure-footed strategy. Bain analysis shows that more than 60% of geographic moves fail entirely, and only 17% of companies achieve profitable foreign growth. But for those who get it right,the rewards can be great. How can companies score similar successes in overseas fields of competition? Bain’s research surfaced four major conditions linked to profitable international expansion: a strong domestic core; a … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: James Root, Josef Ming | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: International

Why do organizations lose their IT bearings and knowingly inhibit their ability to grow? A series of in-depth interviews with senior corporate executives, including chief information officers, led us to the answer: Over and over, the executives described a subtle, but unmistakable, pattern of self-perpetuating IT and business project failures that eroded their confidence that they could spend effectively.

Content: Article | Authors: David Shpilberg, Steve Berez, Thomas Gumsheimer | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

Most companies assume they’re consistently giving customers what they want. Usually, they’re kidding themselves. When we recently surveyed 362 firms, we found that 80% believed they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. But when we then asked customers about their own perceptions, we heard a very different story.

Content: Article | Authors: Barney Hamilton, Frederick F. Reichheld, James Allen, Rob Markey | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Customer Related

An effective organization is vital to success. Yet, Bain & Company research shows that only 15% of companies have an organization that helps them outperform. What separates the winners is the ability to make the most important decisions well-and then to make them happen. The key is not structure but rather an integrated organizational system that aligns five vital attributes-leadership, accountability, people, frontline execution and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Marcia Blenko, Paul Rogers | Source: Bain & Company | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

Many multinationals have struggled to make headway in China. The problem isn’t a Chinese aversion to foreign brands. Nor is it the brands’ starting point. Rather, it’s their approach to broadening market share. A handful of multinationals point to a better way.

Content: Article | Author: Ann Chen | Source: Bain & Company | Subject: International – China