1160 Posts found for Source: McKinsey Quarterly

Adobe executives discuss the company’s move from selling shrink-wrapped products to offering web-based software and services.

Content: Case Study | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy | Company: Adobe Systems

Some ideas, such as luxury goods and many smartphone apps, are destined for niche markets. Others, like social networks, work at global scale. Explicitly considering the appropriate magnitude and reach of a given idea is important to ensuring that the right resources and risks are involved in pursuing it. The seemingly safer option of scaling up over time can be a death sentence. Resources and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Erik Roth, Marc de Jong, Nathan Marston | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Operations, Strategy

Transformational change is still hard, according to a new survey. But a focus on communicating, leading by example, engaging employees, and continuously improving can triple the odds of success.

Content: Article | Authors: Angelika Reich, Dana Maor, David Jacquemont | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

Debiasing techniques […] aim to limit the effects of overconfidence by forcing the decision maker to consider downside risks that may have been overlooked or underestimated. And they can mitigate the dangers of confirmation bias by encouraging executives to consider different points of view.

Examples of such techniques include either the systematic use of a devil’s advocate or a “premortem” (individuals project themselves into a future … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Olivier Sibony, Philip Meissner, Torsten Wulf | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Decision Making, Management, Organizational Behavior

Functional silos almost assure suboptimal outcomes. Most business processes cross functional boundaries. One example is order to cash: sales receives an order, logistics undertakes fulfillment, and finance handles invoicing and cash. Managing a process through separate silos almost guarantees complexity. It creates internal inconsistencies and punishes the customer with foreseeable mistakes. There are exceptions, of course. One is the supply chain, which in many multinational … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Pascal Visée | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Operations, Organizational Behavior

While there is nothing wrong with matrix organizations per se, they do place particularly heavy demands on the coordination of core functions such as R&D, marketing, and sales, as well as support functions such as finance, IT, and HR. Each function generally has four responsibilities: setting and executing a company’s strategy for that function, managing its area of expertise, partnering with the rest of the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Pascal Visée | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior

A company’s most regular and trusted customers—a group we call the “client rim”—can be a powerful force for change when they provide feedback on service standards or product quality. The opinion of these customers counts; they have extensive experience with the company and its ways of working, are generally committed to its success, know the people, and are typically both its most enthusiastic ambassadors and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Arne Gast, Raul Lansink | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Customer Related

New research shows that the trick for companies is to combine speed with stability.

Content: Article | Authors: Aaron De Smet, Chris Gagnon, Michael Bazigos | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Managers have to live with the results the people on their teams produce, so managers should be empowered to make relevant decisions and held responsible for outcomes. If HR constrains decisions too closely—by determining who should be hired, how much they get paid, or their performance ratings—managers no longer have the freedom to obtain the results they desire. In that case, it is neither logical … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter L. Allen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Accountability, Human Resources, Management

Governing beliefs reflect widely shared notions about customer preferences, the role of technology, regulation, cost drivers, and the basis of competition and differentiation. They are often considered inviolable—until someone comes along to violate them. Almost always, it’s an attacker from outside the industry. But while new entrants capture the headlines, industry insiders, who often have a clear sense of what drives profitability, are well positioned … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Marc de Jong, Menno van Dijk | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

Following the leader is a dangerous game. It’s better to focus on building an organization and culture that can realize the strategy that’s right for you.

Content: Article | Authors: Jay Scanlan, Paul Willmott, Tanguy Catlin | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy

The rationales behind innovation and earnings targets are not really great bedfellows. You have to invest in innovation, even if you don’t know where it will end up. But with a growth-target mind-set, you’re always thinking, “Oh, we can’t do this, because it’s going to undermine our margins” or whatever. You ought to do both well, but it’s challenging to balance those two parts of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adrian Gore | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Innovation

The rate of adoption is accelerating. Here are six things you need to know.

Content: Article | Authors: Jacques Bughin, James Manyika, Michael Chui | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

When companies think about cybersecurity […] most ask, “How can we protect ourselves and comply with standards or regulations?” instead of “How do we make confident, intelligent investments given the risks we face?” Many also treat cybersecurity primarily as a technology function rather than integrating it into business operations. As a result, they get the wrong answer about how to construct a cybersecurity program.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chris Rezek, James M. Kaplan, Tucker Bailey | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Risk Management

Constraints aren’t the enemy of creativity—they make it more effective.

Content: Article | Author: Donald Sull | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Innovation

When it comes to innovation, the single most common piece of advice may be to “think outside the box.” Constraints, according to this view, are the enemy of creativity because they sap intrinsic motivation and limit possibilities.

Sophisticated innovators, however, have long recognized that constraints spur and guide innovation. Attempting to innovate without boundaries overwhelms people with options and ignores established practices, such as agile programming, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Donald Sull | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Innovation

A consistent finding in our research is that about 75 percent of all growth is a function of the markets in which businesses compete—portfolio momentum—and the acquisitions they initiate. In other words, just 25 percent of a company’s growth typically comes at the expense of competitors. We highlighted this analysis before the market downturn in 2008, and it has continued to hold true since then. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Sven Smit, Yuval Atsmon | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: General, Management, Strategy

The great genius of capitalism—solving people’s problems—has, by necessity, a dark side: the solution to one person’s problem can create problems for someone else.

This is the age-old puzzle of political economy: how does an economic system resolve conflicts and distribute benefits? A fancy derivative product may help corporate treasurers solve their problem of managing corporate risk, and it might make bankers rich, but it might … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

Elevating the creation of shareholder value to the status of primary objective is based on a faulty assumption—that capital is the scarcest resource in an economy, when in reality it’s knowledge that’s the scarce, critical ingredient in solving problems. […] This is not to say that shareholders or other owners are unimportant. But providing them with a return that is competitive compared with the alternatives … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, Knowledge

The orthodox economic view holds that capitalism works because it is efficient. But in reality, capitalism’s great strength is its problem-solving creativity and effectiveness. It is this creative effectiveness that by necessity makes it hugely inefficient and, like all evolutionary processes, inherently wasteful. Proof of this can be found in the large numbers of product lines, investments, and business ventures that fail every year. Successful … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics