Bill Huyett
Extreme competition means more volatile earnings – something that worries equity markets obsessed by predictable earnings per share. Most businesses monitor and control operational risks but pay too little attention to the more complex range of strategic ones. Four in particular merit attention: the value proposition risk (will a cheaper product knock the company out of the water?), the cost curve risk (will a low-cost … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Risk Management, Strategy
Innovation Blowback: Disruptive Management Practices from Asia
Western companies think too narrowly about the emerging world. If they aren’t careful, they may end up as defenders, not attackers.
Content: Article | Authors: John Hagel III, John Seely Brown | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: International – Asia, Strategy
Drivers of Value
Drivers of Value: Do You Have What It Takes?
Creative Destruction
How can corporations make themselves more like the market? An excerpt from the best-selling book.
Content: Article | Authors: Richard N. Foster, Sarah Kaplan | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior
Corporate transformation without a crisis
The art of leading deep corporate change can be learned. The trick is to help each member of the company discover a new reality.
Content: Article | Authors: Jonathan D. Day, Michael Jung | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior
How to Fix China’s Banking System
Old bad debt hasn’t been fully resolved. New bad debt is piling up. Yet the problems can be cleared up without a systemic crisis.
Content: Article | Authors: Gregory P. Wilson, Matthias M. Bekier, Richard Huang | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Industry Specific, International – China | Industry: Finance / Banking
Exploding the myths of offshoring
Far from damaging the economy of the United States, offshoring should enable its companies to direct resources to next-generation technologies and ideas-if public policy doesn’t get in the way.
Editor’s Note: I admit I am not smart enough to fully get my arms around all the issues involved in the debate over offshoring; this article presents one of the strongest and most detailed pro-offshoring (outsourcing) … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Diana Farrell, Martin N. Baily | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Outsourcing / BPO
How IT Spending is Changing
Steering customers to the right channels
Migrating customers to a new channel can be a pain-for them, the company, and its channel partners. But the rewards can make the effort worthwhile.
Content: Article | Authors: Andrew D. Pickersgill, Evan S. Van Metre, Joseph B. Myers | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales
China and India: The race to growth
The contrasting ways in which China and India are developing, and the particular difficulties each still faces, prompt debate about whether one country has a better approach to economic development and will eventually emerge as the stronger. We recently asked three leading experts for their views on the subject. The essays are:
“India’s entrepreneurial advantage” by Tarun Khanna
“China: The best of all possible models” … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Diana Farrell, Jayant Sinha, Jonathan R. Woetzel, Tarun Khanna | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, International – China
Organizing for CRM
CRM and the forces impeding its success are both growing up: early problems that mostly concerned technology and the misaligned goals of different organizations within the same company are giving way to perennial organizational challenges. Companies are increasingly getting the business-alignment and technology issues right, but many must still tackle the hardest challenge of all: motivating organizations and making them accountable for results.
Content: Article | Authors: Anupam Agarwal, David P. Harding, Jeffrey R. Schumacher | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Customer Related, Organizational Behavior
Hanging up on landlines
Can China compete in IT services?
Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan
“Cultural lock-in”-the inability to change the corporate culture even in the face of clear market threats-explains why corporations find it difficult to respond to the messages of the marketplace. Cultural lock-in results from the gradual stiffening of the invisible architecture of the corporation and the ossification of its decision-making abilities, control systems, and mental models. It dampens a company’s ability to innovate or to shed … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Organizational Behavior
Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan
Lacking production-oriented control systems, markets create more surprise and innovation than do corporations. They operate on the assumption of discontinuity and accommodate continuity. Corporations, on the other hand, assume continuity and attempt to accommodate discontinuity. The difference is profound.
Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior
Keeping your sales force after the merger
Lost revenue growth is one of the main reasons for the failure of mergers. Competitors attack merging companies and woo their employees while most of these companies are too focused on managing integration to respond effectively. But with a concerted effort to win over customer-facing employees, to ease their transition, and to give them appropriate financial rewards, companies will find that acquisitions can pay off … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Matthias M. Bekier, Michael J. Shelton | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales
Taming postmerger IT integration
Integrating IT platforms after a merger is always a challenge, particularly in the banking industry, in which IT is crucial to daily operations. Moving too slowly threatens the synergies promised by the merger; too rapid a change can alienate important customers.
Content: Article | Authors: Diane L. Sias, Lisa Åberg | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business
A Guide to Doing Business in China
China lends itself to sweeping statements about the nature of doing business there. Most are unfounded.
Content: Article | Author: Jonathan R. Woetzel | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: International – China
Making Foreign Investment Work for China
The radically different experience of two industries shows that the country needs more competition as well.
Content: Article | Authors: Diana Farrell, Gordon R. Orr, Paul Gao | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: International – China