Lars Faeste, Jim Hemerling, Perry Keenan, Martin Reeves
Each [change] leader should be assessed for past performance, current readiness, and future potential across four dimensions: knowledge, soft skills, experience, and motivation and personality traits. Leaders also must have a foundation in adaptability and change leadership. A shortcoming in any one of these can be a warning sign.
However, the right leaders will fill roles in varying ways throughout the journey, from champion of the … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Jim Hemerling, Lars Faeste, Martin Reeves, Perry Keenan | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Change Management, Leadership
Archie Norman
Behind all financial failures is organizational failure.
Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior
David Küpper, Markus Lorenz, Andreas Maurer, and Kim Wagner
Before the start of any project, management needs to clarify whether the product development plan will follow a radical or conventional approach. Products that involve both new technology and a new market are certainly radical, but categorizing those that involve only new technology or a new market will require judgment. Leaders need to factor in their organization’s innovation expertise. Most breakthrough products that are truly … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Andreas Maurer, David Küpper, Kim Wagner, Markus Lorenz | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Innovation
Ray Dalio
Creating a great culture, finding the right people, managing them to do great things, and solving problems creatively and systematically are challenges faced by all organizations. What differentiates [organizations] is how they approach these challenges.
Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Culture, Management, Organizational Behavior
Martin Reeves and Jussi Lehtinen
The effectiveness of a company’s problem solving, as measured along the dimensions of cost, speed, and accuracy, is influenced by five elements: strategy (that is, the core of the company’s problem-solving approach, which drives decisions about the other elements), framing, data selection, choice and implementation of a solution method, and selection of problem solvers. Classical enterprises typically lack a strategy for problem solving. They try … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Jussi Lehtinen, Martin Reeves | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Problems / Solutions
Bruce Henderson
Success in the past always becomes enshrined in the present by the over-valuation of the policies and attitudes which accompanied that success.
Content: Quotation | Author: Bruce D. Henderson | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Success / Failure
Jens Harsaae, Ross Link, Neal Rich, Kevin Richardson, and Rohan Sajdeh
We found no consistent correlation between marketing spending as a percentage of dollar sales and either marketing impact or ROMI. Brands that spent more on marketing as a percentage of dollar sales (that is, 30 to 35 percent rather than 20 to 25 percent) did not drive more volume, but they did realize lower returns on their investment. We therefore conclude that spending as a … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Marketing / Sales
Perry Keenan, Kimberly Powell, Huib Kurstjens, Michael Shanahan, Mike Lewis, Massimo Busetti
The process of identifying and prioritizing stakeholders by their level of support for the change effort and their degree of influence in the organization promotes targeted engagement. We find that in many cases, influential supporters are underleveraged and skeptics underengaged. Effective stakeholder engagement sees business leaders arming influential supporters as change agents, giving them the information and messages they need to influence the organization. At … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Huib Kurstjens, Kimberly Powell, Massimo Busetti, Michael Shanahan, Mike Lewis, Perry Keenan | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Change Management
Maximizing the Make-or-Buy Advantage: A Scenario-Based Approach to Increasing Resilience and Value
The context for make-or-buy decisions has become more dynamic, as manufacturers face dramatic swings in demand and the relative costs of sourcing locations. To maximize their resilience and value creation, leading manufacturers use a scenario-based approach to assess the implications of a broad array of sourcing decisions simultaneously.
Content: Article | Authors: Claudio Knizek, Daniel Küpper, Daniel Spindelndreier, Michael Zinser | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Operations, Outsourcing / BPO, Strategy
Getting More Value from Joint Ventures
Joint ventures can be an effective way to enter new markets, gain expertise, increase production capabilities, and expand distribution. Given these potential benefits, it’s no wonder that these partnerships have regained popularity. But despite their advantages, they often fail to deliver value. BCG’s research into what it takes to succeed revealed eight important lessons.
Content: Article | Authors: Alex Dolya, Alexander Roos, Dinesh Khanna, Gaurav Nath, Nikolaus Lang, Sharad Verma, Tawfik Hammoud | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, Strategy
Transformation: The Imperative to Change
As volatility and complexity rise, transformation has become an imperative for most companies, meaning fundamental changes to the strategy, operating model, organization, people, and processes. To transform, companies must take three steps: funding the journey, winning in the medium term, and establishing the right team, organization, and culture.
Content: Article | Authors: Jim Hemerling, Lars Faeste, Martin Reeves, Perry Keenan | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Change Management, Management, Strategy
Driving Growth with Business Model Innovation
Business model innovation is complex and challenging. By understanding four distinct approaches—and the success stories of companies using those approaches—executives can make effective choices in designing the path to growth and uncovering a lasting competitive advantage.
Content: Article | Authors: Margaret Ayers, Zhenya Lindgardt | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Strategy
Transforming the Business Portfolio: How Multinationals Reinvent Themselves
Recent research by BCG and Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg investigated the motivations and success factors for business portfolio restructurings. By analyzing the characteristics and patterns of the underlying transformation processes, we developed practical insights on issues relating to the magnitude, speed, and sequencing of restructurings.
Editor’s Note: I was really intrigued by this research.
Content: Article | Authors: Michael Nippa, Sebastian Schönhaar, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Miscellaneous, Strategy
BCG Classics Revisited: The Growth Share Matrix
The growth share matrix—first put forth by BCG founder Bruce Henderson in 1970—helped companies allocate resources based on two factors: company competitiveness and market attractiveness. More than four decades later, the matrix remains a powerful tool that helps companies manage strategic experimentation amid greater, and more unpredictable, change.
Content: Article | Authors: Martin Reeves, Sandy Moose, Thijs Venema | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Strategy
Using Business Model Innovation to Reinvent the Core: Doing Something New with Something Old
Growth is hard to achieve—and creating value through growth is even harder. Embracing comprehensive business-model innovation can give a company a crucial edge over those rivals that try to drive growth by pulling individual levers such as pricing or product extension.
Content: Article | Authors: Charles Hendren, Zhenya Lindgardt | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy
Lean, But Not Yet Mean: Why Transformation Needs a Second Chapter
Many corporate-transformation efforts fail to deliver lasting competitive advantage. BCG has identified the factors that lead to successful transformations—and the common traps that characterize failures.
Content: Article | Authors: Gideon Walter, Kaelin Goulet, Martin Reeves, Michael Shanahan | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Change Management
Managing the “Unmanageable”: Radical Innovation
In recent decades, one of management’s objectives has been to add discipline to innovation. Companies have greatly improved the efficiency of new-product development, and managers have been able to draw on a variety of processes, methods, and tools to maximize the return on their R&D investment.
Unfortunately, these advances have had the unintended consequence of discouraging radical innovation: technical breakthroughs that render existing products obsolete or … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Andreas Maurer, David Küpper, Kim Wagner, Markus Lorenz | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Innovation
Designing the Corporate Center: How to Turn Strategy into Structure
Complex global corporations are under unrelenting pressure to create value. But no corporate center can add value without an effective parenting strategy, and no strategy can succeed without an organizational design that translates strategy into operational reality. Learn how to turn your corporate center into a value-creation engine.
Content: Article | Authors: Fabrice Roghé, Matthias Krühler, Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Management, Organizational Behavior
The Art of Risk Management
Risk management isn’t just a matter of complex financial models and formal risk-management systems. It is an essential value-creating activity that should inform the strategic debate at every level of the organization. Here are ten basic principles that should govern “the art of risk management.”
Content: Article | Authors: Fabian Günther, Frank Plaschke, Marc Rodt, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Risk Management
Ambidexterity: The Art of Thriving in Complex Environments
Ambidexterity—the ability to excel simultaneously in efficiency and innovation—is a rare but increasingly critical capability in today’s complex business environment. There are four distinct approaches to achieving it, and the suitability of each one depends on the diversity and dynamism of the specific company’s environment.
Content: Article | Authors: Filippo Scognamiglio Pasini, James Hollingsworth, Knut Haanæs, Martin Reeves | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior, Strategy