341 Posts found for Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

A force critical to lowering transaction costs is trust. Trust substitutes for search, negotiation, monitoring, and enforcement; it substitues for hierarchical control internally and for the legalisms of contracts externally. The core elements of trust are threefold: reciprocity (the understanding that the parties will deal with each other repeatedly), reputation (the understanding that other potential parties are watching), and a common semantic (a shared language … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Economics, Trust

In general, organizational structure tends to channel and constrain value creation. Structures exist to prvoide formal authority for decisions and to arbitrate when consensus cannot be reached. Those functions are both necessary and valuable. But increasingly, value creation is occurring across structural boundaries through network overlays of one sort or another: functions work with other functions to improve the management of common processes; locations work … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The concept of uncertainty provides the basis for a rigorous understanding of power in human behavioral systems. Power is the capability to act in – and on – the system: it is a function of the uncertainties one controls for other members in the system. Actors with power set the rules of the collective game and thus influence the behavior of others. In this way, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Power / Authority

In today’s stock-market environment, companies need to take advantage of the full range of levers available to generate shareholder value. In particular, they must identify and manage the key tradeoffs across the three chief components of a comprehensive value-creation strategy: improving fundamental value, exploiting differences in industry valuation multiples, and setting priorities for the use of free cash flow. The report, the sixth in BCG’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Daniel Stelter, Eric E. Olsen, Pascal Xhonneux | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Finance, Strategy

Globalization is on the CEO’s agenda at virtually every major company. The recent emergence of a set of rapidly developing economies (RDEs) as highly advantageous places to do business is dramatically reshaping the global economy, forcing executives to rethink their strategies, their operations, and their organizations. Underlying this new wave of globalization are five principal currents of activity that are combining with unprecedented force. [BNET … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Dave Young, Jim Hemerling, Thomas Bradtke | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: International

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Whether for strategic, financial, or technological reasons, companies today are increasingly finding that they must completely transform critical elements of their businesses. As a result, the ability to manage such efforts quickly, effectively, and confidently has become an important source of competitive advantage and shareholder value. The problem, however,is that transformation, by its very nature, severely stretches organizations-often pushing skills, resources, and comfort levels to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Alan Jackson, Harold L. Sirkin, Perry Keenan | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Change Management

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In late 2004, The Boston Consulting Group conducted its second annual global survey of senior executives on innovation and the innovation-to-cash (ITC) process. A total of 940 executives, representing 68 countries and all major industries, participated. This report highlights some of the top-level findings from the survey and explores the implications. It also offers a framework to guide managers as they continue to think about … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Innovation

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Trying to outshout the competition in an environment that is increasingly cluttered and expensive can lead to frustration and low returns. Managers can increase returns immediately and dramatically with a zero-based budgeting approach to advertising and promotions. In allocating investments according to the distinctive needs of brands, regions or countries, and market segments, companies can free up as much as 20 percent of their A&P … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Emile Gostelie, Mark Kistulinec, Rich Hutchinson, Wouter-Jan Schouten | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Skepticism about the value-creating potential of mergers and acquisitions is unwarranted, according to this BCG study. The report analyzes the 1993-2002 stock-market performance of 705 public U.S. companies, based on their level of Merger & Acquisition (M&A) activity. The highly acquisitive companies in the sample had the highest median total shareholder return-more than a full percentage point per year greater than that of companies that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Chris Neenan, Kees Cools, Kermit King, Miki Tsusaka | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

The Internet undermines the premises of competitive analysis. Porter’s “five forces” framework presumed that the definitions of the firm, industry, suppliers, customers, and new entrants were given and obvious. But the Internet destroys these neat categories. The definition of the business, competitors, suppliers, etc. is now the essence of the question, not a premise of the answer. Compound this with the well-known prevalence of increasing … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Journal of Business Strategy | Subject: Strategy

The New Economy liberated competencies from the core. The technologies of Silicon Valley (to take one of the purest examples) belong largely to the community, not to any individual firm. Personal networks, fluid labor markets, and sophisticated venture capital communities transplant much of that knowhow from one firm to another, despite the efforts of every constituent firm to prevent it. But in the New Economy … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Journal of Business Strategy | Subject: Strategy

Perhaps a lot of traditional insights can still be exploited if we are willing simply to abandon the idea of a solution, an endgame. Not because it does not exist or does not matter, but simply because it is unknowable, at least for now. Perhaps we need to redefine strategy as the art of surviving rapid transition, something like log-rolling or surfing. Strategy as direction … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Journal of Business Strategy | Subject: Strategy

Much of the debate about the value of highly diversified companies, or conglomerates, centers on theoretical views of diversification, risk, and investor portfolio profiles. In an effort to examine the issue of conglomerate performance in a more pragmatic and action-oriented way, The Boston Consulting Group studied the market performance of conglomerates during the 10-year period from 1988 to 1997.

Content: Article | Author: Lawrence Shulman | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Finance, Management

China is on the CEO’s agenda of virtually every global company, with a powerful concern – Intellectual Property (IP) – increasingly capturing top attention. Large sums of money and future strategic positions are at stake amidst a jungle of IP issues in China. Leading companies pursue three key IP objectives in China: defending and monetizing IP rights, influencing and monitoring the development of key standards, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: David Michael, Kevin Rivette | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subject: International – China

China offers potentially huge benefits for multinational corporations. With a population exceeding 1 billion and an immense supply of low-wage workers, China is coveted both as a consumer market and as a superb location to source products. But is China really the place where major corporations need to be in the decades to come? In this first of four special reports on China, experts from … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: International – China

Gregory Mankiw, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, ignited a firestorm of debate when he said outsourcing of U.S. jobs is probably a good thing in the long run. As tends to happen with hot-button issues in presidential election years, sensible discussion of this question was soon drowned in an uproar of political posturing. Experts at Wharton and the Boston Consulting Group … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO