1297 Posts found for Source: strategy+business

A five-dimension analytical model for deciding when (and when not) to purchase from the East.

Content: Article | Authors: Dermot Shorten, Mitchell Quint | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: International – China, Outsourcing / BPO

Creating disruptions is fine, but mending them may be even better. The case for cautious inventiveness.

Content: Article | Author: Nicholas G. Carr | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Innovation

When the yellow light is flashing, leaders tell us they face the widest range of strategic alternatives and have the most true decision-making power. (It may appear that leaders have more options when the light is green, but try making that argument to anyone who has attempted to make a fundamental change when the going is good.) And, although followers are more open to change … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Management

Being able to tell what time it is (that is, knowing the difference between merely difficult times and true times of crisis) is one of the most important analytical skills a leader can have, especially with respect to formulating or reassessing strategy.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Perception

History shows that CEOs who dither over tough decisions cause companies to get stuck in adversity and, ultimately, to drift into crisis…The secret appears to be to “get on with it”: The game is won in the long term based on successful execution of a strategy, even a flawed one.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Leadership

Most companies wait until their costs are demonstrably out of line before they scrutinize their manufacturing topography. But a forward-thinking firm can reduce unit costs by as much as 40 percent of total acquisition costs by asking: How many plants should we have? Where should they be? What should their focus and mission be? Designing an appropriate manufacturing footprint is not an easy process, but … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Curt Mueller, Dermot Shorten, Michael Pfitzmann | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Operations

A review of leadership development programs at eight major corporations reveals that nothing works better than interaction with colleagues.

Content: Article | Authors: Howard Morgan, Marshall Goldsmith | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

It can be proved through experiments that people are not conscious of the reasons why they make a decision…People do not know what has influenced their decision and often invent reasons for their choice afterward. Only a small part of decision making reaches the conscious mind, while most decision making, just as most thinking, is below this threshold of consciousness. You know what you are … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Thought

Returns to investors reflect changes in a company’s financial performance, not the level of its performance.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Finance, Investing

A survey of 100-plus executives in more than 20 countries identifies the knowledge, skills, and attributes young leaders need to succeed.

Content: Article | Authors: Laura D’Andrea Tyson, Nigel Andrews | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: MBA Related, Miscellaneous MBA-related Resources | Industry: Education / Training

Gung ho for going global? Make sure to look beyond labor costs. Specifically, three major variables should be considered:
1. Transportation Cost
2. Capital Intensity
3. Lead Time

Content: Article | Author: Tim Laseter | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Outsourcing / BPO

The cult of innovation seems healthy on the face of it. In a free market, after all, innovation underpins competitive advantage, which in turn undergirds profitability. Being indistinguishable from everyone else means operating with a microthin profit margin, if not outright losses. So why not try to innovate everywhere – to let, as Chairman Mao famously put it, a thousand flowers bloom?

Here’s why not: For … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Nicholas G. Carr | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Innovation

Among the many issues that make supply chain effectiveness challenging are complexity in mass customization, product line proliferation, shorter product life cycles, pressure for faster innovation, stress from quicker technology cycles, tougher, non-negotiable service levels, extended global supply chains, abundant channels and markets, and business cycle variability. With 40 to 70 percent of costs embedded in the typical supply chain, it is critical that companies … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Dermot Shorten, Harriet Engel, Keith Oliver | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Operations

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has found a way to enrich the poor.

Content: Article | Author: Art Kleiner | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, International

Prioritization is about doing something. It’s not about an excuse for inaction.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Accountability, Action

“The most powerful factors in how people perceive risk,” Professor Wildavsky wrote in his essay “Riskless Society,” “apparently are ‘trust in institutions’ and ‘self-rated liberal and conservative identification.'” According to the professor, left-leaning individuals are more likely to perceive true risk as potential injustice and perceive technology as exploitative, harming the poor and nature, while those who lean to the right are more likely to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Risk Management

You cannot create against a yielding medium. Let me have something finite, definite. My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Challenge, Innovation

Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of CEO succession aims to identify patterns in the relationship between chief executive officer tenure and corporate performance that can provide insights for managers, board members, and their advisors. Following the methodology used in previous years, we identified chief executives at the 2,500 largest publicly traded companies in the world (based on market capitalization as of January 1, 2003) who … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Charles E. Lucier, Junichi Handa, Rob Schuyt | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Succession Planning

Bob Nardelli’s pursuit of perfection, 3 billion human interactions per year.

Content: Case Study | Author: Victoria Griffith | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Change Management, Human Resources | Industry: Retail | Company: Home Depot

New product categories can subvert incumbent brands – or give them a new lease on life.

Content: Article | Author: David Aaker | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales