Raakhi Agrawal, Shelby Senzer, Joe Simon, Siwei He, Lachelle Trout
Structural alignment is the outcome of three decisions: the organizing principle (e.g., function, segment, product, or customer), where teams and capabilities sit within the organization, and the shape of the organization.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Joe Simon, Lachelle Trout, Raakhi Agrawal, Shelby Senzer, Siwei He | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Organizational Behavior
How Leaders and Employees Can Be Partners in Change
People closer to the decision making feel more favorably toward change than those further away. Employees need to have more agency in the process.
- A number of factors contribute to what we call “change distance” in organizations. Some reflect roles and business trends; others result from troubling disconnects between leaders and the people they lead.
- Leaders can mitigate the effects of change distance if they actively
Content: Article | Authors: Adriann Negreros, Julia Dhar, Matt Solowey | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Change Management
Nadjia Yousif, Ashley Dartnell, Gretchen May, Elizabeth Knarr
Psychological safety effectively functions as an equalizer—enabling diverse and disadvantaged employee groups to achieve the same levels of workplace satisfaction as their more advantaged colleagues.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Ashley Dartnell, Elizabeth Knarr, Gretchen May, Nadjia Yousif | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior
The Secret to High-Performing Strategy Teams
Most strategy teams underdeliver. Top performers, however, stand out by sticking with a singular mandate and mastering collaboration.
Content: Article | Authors: Sabrina Kristic, Sebastian Stange, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Best Practices, Strategy
The Transformation Paradox: How to Grow When the Growing Gets Tough
Unlikely as it seems, businesses can not only thrive amid economic uncertainty—they can seize the opportunity to transform for sustained growth.
- Successful growth transformations hinge on balancing creativity with disciplined execution—embracing innovation systematically rather than relying on chance.
- Companies must simultaneously pursue long-term visions and short-term foundations, effectively communicating with stakeholders and efficiently reallocating resources.
- Building adaptability through repeated transformation experience significantly boosts long-term success rates, enabling
Content: Article | Authors: Adam Job, Andreas Holmbom, Dominic C. Klemmer, Gabe Bouslov, Kristy Ellmer, Martin Reeves, Paul Catchlove, Tuukka Seppä, Ulrich Pidun | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Best Practices, Change Management, Management
The Four Biggest Organizational Cost Challenges—and How to Solve Them
Companies repeatedly launch cost reduction programs—with mixed results. To cut costs sustainably, they need to redesign the organization and change the underlying behaviors that lead to cost creep.
Content: Article | Authors: Kevin Kelley, Miyabi Honda, Sarah Baxter, Travis Meyer | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior
Jaap Backx, Julia Madden, Benjamin Rehberg, Andrew Toma
Too often, companies focus on organizational structure at the expense of governance, leadership, and ways of working. Rigid structures lock talent into fixed teams. Companies fail to establish clear mechanisms for building future-proof competencies into the organization and to adopt company-wide mechanisms for structuring alignment across teams.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Andrew Toma, Benjamin Rehberg, Jaap Backx, Julia Madden | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior
Kristy Ellmer, Julia Dhar, Simon Weinstein, Cordelia Chansler, Paul Catchlove, Connor Currier
Unconventional project-management approaches are fine in normal times, but they don’t work during transformations, when individual initiatives and portfolios of initiatives require the cooperation of multiple departments and the careful use of scarce resources. Everybody needs to align on one way of doing things—using the same process, accessing the same tools, and following the same cadence for reporting and meetings.
Content: Quotation | Authors: Connor Currier, Cordelia Chansler, Julia Dhar, Kristy Ellmer, Paul Catchlove, Simon Weinstein | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Change Management, Management, Project Management
Six Winning Go-to-Market Strategies for Emerging Economies
Companies have a huge growth opportunity in emerging markets, but only if they have the right approach to get their products onto store shelves and into consumers’ hands.
- Many emerging markets have expanding populations and rapid GDP growth, making them more attractive than developed countries.
- They also pose some challenges, such as highly fragmented retail channels, small-scale retailers, gaps in the skills of frontline sales staff,
Content: Article | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: International, Management
Five Ways to Make Supply Chains More Cost Efficient
Companies have already taken steps to reduce costs along the supply chain. Further reductions require tougher decisions in several key areas.
- It’s critical to link the cost agenda for the supply chain to the company’s overall growth outlook in order to determine which costs should be targeted.
- Modeling can help operations leaders anticipate how specific measures will impact costs before they’re implemented.
- Companies need to develop a
Content: Article | Authors: Ashish Pathak, Dustin Burke, Jacopo Brunelli | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Operations
For CEOs, Building a Legacy Begins on Day One
Though they face a faster, more complex landscape than those who’ve come before them, CEOs can take a few key actions to create a lasting legacy.
- Adopting a strategy of regret minimization can help a CEO avoid wishing, years later, that they had moved faster, been bolder, or treated people with greater kindness.
- Building a cohesive senior leadership team that can fearlessly tell a CEO what
Content: Article | Author: James Brownsell | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Corporate Governance
Jean-Manuel Izaret, Arnab Sinha
Cost, competition, and customer value … are the three fundamental information sources for the development of any business strategy. The traditional pricing perspective, however, treats these information sources as inputs into price calculations… From this tactical perspective, customer value sets a price ceiling or a maximum price, while costs define the floor or the minimum price. To calibrate the range in between, leaders take competitor … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Authors: Arnab Sinha, Jean-Manuel Izaret | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Pricing, Strategy
Six Ways to Link Sustainability and Value Creation
While not every sustainability-related investment has the potential to create value, taking full advantage of the ones that do is essential.
Content: Article | Authors: Alexis Colombo, Gerry Hansell, Hady Farag, Jesper Nielsen | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)
How Multinationals Can Build Local Innovation Capabilities
Fractal innovation enables large companies to be more responsive to customer needs, leverage their global scale, and set the pace for their competition. Multinationals often face strong competition in geographies where nimble, local companies are able to succeed by meeting the changing demands of local customers with speed, responsiveness, and innovation.
- Large companies face two main innovation challenges: They have a limited understanding of the
Content: Article | Authors: Saurabh Chhajer, Sharad Verma | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Innovation, International, Management, Strategy
Skills-Based Hiring Can Shred the Paper Ceiling
Job holders without degrees perform as well as those with degrees—but they tend to stay in their jobs longer and be more engaged.
Content: Article | Authors: Cassandra Di Prizio, Claire Roehri, Lina Bankert, Molly Verghese, Nico Lake, Nithya Vaduganathan, Sara Wasserteil | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources
Supporting Frontline Workers Is a Boon to the Bottom Line
With proper attention and investment, frontline workers constitute a motivated workforce that can unleash an organization’s highest potential.
Content: Article | Authors: Cassandra Di Prizio, Claire Roehri, Julia Dhar, Lina Bankert, Molly Verghese, Sara Wasserteil | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior
Mastering the Megadeal: The New Rules for CEOs
Every corporate merger is a leap into the unknown. But for leaders contemplating a megadeal, certain rules do apply. Here’s what CEOs need to know.
Content: Article | Author: Gren Manuel | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Best Practices, Mergers & Acquisitions
Designing Support Functions for Innovation and Growth
At many companies, support functions can be a drag on business performance, with unnecessarily complex processes, bureaucratic structures, and a frustrating experience for both internal and external customers. But with the right approach—including the five priorities discussed here—companies can address these issues and turn support functions into a driver of performance. In that way, they will become true partners to business units and help companies … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Emmanuel Sissimatos, Fabrice Roghé, Martin Twesten, Mieke Gielis, Stefan Scholz | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Management
Fair-Chance Hiring Is a Win-Win for Companies and Job Seekers
Fair-chance job seekers are people who have been involved with the criminal justice system, whether convicted of a crime, incarcerated, or arrested but never convicted. These individuals—one in three US adults—are more likely than the overall population to be actively looking for work, but they have little to no access to quality employment opportunities because of their background.
But there’s good news. The data shows that … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Cassandra Di Prizio, Claire Roehri, Gabrielle Novacek, Lina Bankert, Molly Verghese, Nico Lake, Sara Wasserteil | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources
Is Your M&A Organization Built to Win?
Top-notch deal teams collaborate with business units to identify targets, execute transactions, and expertly navigate a minefield of risks.
- BCG collaborated with global dealmakers to study the common hazards and success factors involved in setting up M&A organizations.
- We found that making the right choices in several key areas is essential for building effective teams.
- Companies must tailor their design choices across these topics, applying a detailed
Content: Article | Authors: Anant Shivraj, Daniel Friedman, Daniel Kim, Jens Kengelbach, Maximilian Strauch | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Mergers & Acquisitions
