Liu Chuanzhi
Liu is the chairman of Legend Holdings, China’s (and Asia’s) number-one manufacturer of PCs, with more than $3 billion in revenue.
Content: Thought Leader | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Management | Industry: Personal Computer
Making sense of broadband
Measuring What Matters in Nonprofits
Every nonprofit organization should measure its progress in fulfilling its mission, its success in mobilizing its resources, and its staff’s effectiveness on the job.
Content: Article | Authors: David Williamson, John Sawhill | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Nonprofit
Segmenting the e-market
McKinsey and Media Metrix analyzed on-line behavior using a sample of the most active on-line consumers in the Media Metrix US panel of 50,000 users to categorize six segments: Simplifiers, Surfers, Bargainers, Connectors, Routiners, and Sportsters.
Editor’s Note: This research was done in 2000 so I wonder if it holds up today; nonetheless the categories are interesting and I think of some value.
Content: Article | Authors: Johanne Lavoie, John E. Forsyth, Tim McGuire | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Marketing / Sales
Shedding the Commodity Mind-Set
No product really has to be a commodity. The trick is to know what services your customers want – and to charge more.
Content: Article | Authors: Alok Gupta, John Forsyth, Mike Marn, Sudeep Haldar | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Strategy
When to think alliance
Equity markets judge mergers, acquisitions, and alliances quickly-and often harshly. The authors’ study of 2,100 companies shows that the stock market responds sharply to announcements of mergers or alliances, that it favors some types of transactions over others, and that this market response is a good indicator of a deal’s long-term prospects. In volatile, fast-moving industries, such as electronics, software, and the mass media, alliances … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: David Ernst, Tammy Halevy | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy
The other end of the supply chain
By tweaking the demand-supply chain, suppliers can offer their customers completely new value propositions and improve their own operations-without having to weigh the benefits of customer service against its cost.
Content: Article | Authors: Antti Vasara, Bill Hoover, Jan Holmström, Perttu Louhiluoto | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Operations
Retailers to the world
A “virtuous cycle” of self-reinforcing benefits will permit certain companies to redefine-and control-the retail industry. Even so, retailers still have enough time to build cross-border positions and local-market defenses.
Editor’s Note: This article will be of most interest to those in or interested in the retail industry, but some of the discussion has broader value, especially the introduction and use of the strategic-control map tool. … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Christiana Smith Shi, Denise Incandela, Kathleen L. McLaughlin | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Industry Specific, Strategy
View Customers Strategically (a 2×2 matrix)
Environment risk management: Take it back from the lawyers and engineers
Corporate environmental liabilities in the United States now stand at more than $250 billion. Many remain hidden on balance sheets, only to emerge as surprising and painful charges against earnings. Despite the scale of the problem, most corporations do not manage the environment as an integral part of their everyday activities. This need not be the case. The solutions to risk management issues are multiplying, … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Andreas Merkl, Harry Robinson | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Social Responsibility (ESG), Strategy
Retail Value Chain Slivers
Making Logistics Alliances Work
Logistics alliances-formal or informal relationships between companies and logistics providers-are rapidly emerging in Europe, North America, and, increasingly, East Asia. A McKinsey survey shows that their success depends on six best practices.
Content: Article | Authors: Graham Sharman, Peter Van Laarhoven, Shyam Lai | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Operations, Strategy
Jay W. Forrester
Business leaders make impassioned speeches about the advantages of a free-enterprise economic system while running some of the largest socialist bureaucracies in the world. They have central planning, central ownership of capital, central allocation of resources, subjective evaluation of people, lack of internal competition, and decisions made at the top in response to internal political pressures. These are the fundamental characteristics of a socialist economy. … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior
Jay W. Forrester
There are two – and only two – kinds of variables in a system dynamics model: levels (or accumulations) and rates (or actions). Once you believe that there are only two kinds of concepts in a system, everything you look at has to be one or the other.
The existence of only two kinds of variables – levels and rates – is true of all … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Measurement
The CEO as organization designer: An interview with Prof. Jay W. Forrester
This interview explores the field of system dynamics, originated in 1956 by Jay W. Forrester, Germeshausen Professor, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Content: Article | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, People
National Change Management Interrelated Levels
Has Outsourcing Gone Too Far?
Farming out in-house operations has become a religion. Faith must now be tempered by reason.
Content: Article | Authors: Daniel Woolson, Kurt Speckhals, Ronald C. Ritter, Stephen J. Doig | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Outsourcing / BPO, Strategy
Outsourcing Facts
Getting International Banking Rules Right
International bank regulators are currently drafting a new version of the historic 1988 Basel Capital Accord, which set minimum capital requirements for banks around the world. Far from being an esoteric banking issue, the new rules will have far-reaching implications for banks and borrowers alike. As currently written, however, proposals for the new accord threaten to put an undue and unintended capital burden on … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: David Bear, Gunnar Pritsch, Kevin S. Buehler | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Industry Specific | Industry: Finance / Banking
Making the Most of Uncertainty
Shape or adapt? For years, executives have regarded the question as perhaps their most fundamental strategic choice. Is it better for a company’s competitive position to try to influence, or even determine, the outcome of crucial and currently uncertain elements of an industry’s structure and conduct? Or is the wiser course to scope out defensible positions within an industry’s existing structure and then to move … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Hugh Courtney | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Strategy