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Building a New Ladder to the Top
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Ross, Judith A. Publication Date: 04/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: We carry in our minds a classic image of the corporate ladder -- a clean and linear path executives follow as they take on more and more responsibility and amass more and more power. Although we know the route to the top has never really been quite that direct, did we ever anticipate it would become the maze that it is today? Hierarchies are a mess of dotted and dashed lines; strategies -- and the organizational components they require -- are in constant flux; and mergers and acquisitions, which bring together often disparate power structures, only add to the confusion. So this leaves us wondering: What is the best way to move up in this volatile environment? While much depends on who you are and where you are, it does seem unlikely that the old-style corporate ladder will take you where you want to go. Instead, the experts say, you should concentrate on building your own ladder. The critical steps? Developing deep competence in your job and methodically expanding your sphere of influence. HBS Number: U0504A Subjects: Career advancement; Careers & career planning; Decision making; Leadership Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building an Organized Process for Strategy Communication
	Add	View	7 pp.	Article Author(s): Norton, David P.; Coffey, James Publication Date: 05/15/2007 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article HBS Number: B0705A Subjects: Audiences; Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Corporate strategy; Employee empowerment; Strategy focused organization Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Successful organizations know that the frontline employee is key to successful strategy execution; that's why they put resources into communicating strategy to employees — over and over, through different channels and in different formats. In this article, David P. Norton and James Coffey present the four elements that are the basis of the successful strategy-focused organization's communications program.
Building and Leading Your Team
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Author(s): Michelman, Paul Publication Date: 05/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: What are the hallmarks of effective senior-team leaders? Not only do they accept that tension and competition are unavoidable, they embrace them, even encourage them. More important, they are able to channel this conflict toward a common good. This is no easy task, of course. In the upper reaches of large organizations, teams include executives with billion-dollar responsibilities. These executives have their own strategic priorities, are competing for sometimes scarce resources, and may well be jockeying for positions in the succession queue. To help senior-team leaders manage the tensions and extract top performance, Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill has developed for senior team leaders a checklist of the key levers to pull. It not only aids leaders of senior teams but also team leaders at all levels of the organization. HBS Number: U0505E Subjects: Leadership; Organizational behavior; Organizational development; Teams Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building Breakthrough Businesses Within Established Organizations
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Govindarajan, Vijay; Trimble, Chris Publication Date: 05/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Many companies assume that once they've launched a major innovation, growth will soon follow. It's not that simple. High-potential new businesses within established companies face stiff headwinds well after their inception. That's why a company's emphasis must shift: from ideas to execution and from leadership excellence to organizational excellence. The authors spent five years chronicling new businesses at the New York Times Co., Analog Devices, Corning, Hasbro, and other organizations. They found that a breakthrough new business (referred to as NewCo) rarely coexists gracefully with the established business in the company (called CoreCo). The unnatural combination creates three specific challenges — forgetting, borrowing, and learning — that NewCo must meet to survive and grow. NewCo must first forget some of what made CoreCo successful. NewCo must also borrow some of CoreCo's assets — usually in one or two key areas that will give NewCo a crucial competitive advantage. Incremental cost reductions, for example, are never a sufficient justification for borrowing. Finally, NewCo must be prepared to learn some things from scratch. Because strategic experiments are highly uncertain endeavors, NewCo will face several critical unknowns. The more rapidly it can resolve those unknowns — that is, the faster it can learn — the sooner it will zero in on a winning business model or exit a hopeless situation. Managers can accelerate this learning by planning more simply and more often and by comparing predicted and actual trends. HBS Number: R0505C Subjects: Innovation; Learning; Organizational design; Organizational learning; Organizational structure; Resource allocation; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building Breakthrough Businesses Within Established Organizations (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Govindarajan, Vijay; Trimble, Chris Publication Date: 05/01/2005 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 9955 Subjects: Innovation; Learning; Organizational design; Organizational learning; Organizational structure; Resource allocation; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0505C, originally published in May 2005. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. Many companies assume that once they've launched a major innovation, growth will soon follow. It's not that simple. High-potential new businesses within established companies face stiff headwinds well after their inception. That's why a company's emphasis must shift: from ideas to execution and from leadership excellence to organizational excellence. The authors spent five years chronicling new businesses at the New York Times Co., Analog Devices, Corning, Hasbro, and other organizations. They found that a breakthrough new business (referred to as NewCo) rarely coexists gracefully with the established business in the company (called CoreCo). The unnatural combination creates three specific challenges — forgetting, borrowing, and learning — that NewCo must meet to survive and grow. NewCo must first forget some of what made CoreCo successful. NewCo must also borrow some of CoreCo's assets — usually in one or two key areas that will give NewCo a crucial competitive advantage. Incremental cost reductions, for example, are never a sufficient justification for borrowing. Finally, NewCo must be prepared to learn some things from scratch. Because strategic experiments are highly uncertain endeavors, NewCo will face several critical unknowns. The more rapidly it can resolve those unknowns — that is, the faster it can
Building Deals on Bedrock
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Author(s): Harding, David; Rovit, Sam Publication Date: 09/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0409J Subjects: Competitive advantage; Industry structure; Mergers & Acquisitions Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: The headlines are filled with the sorry tales of companies like Vivendi and AOL Time Warner that tried to use mergers and acquisitions to grow big fast or transform fundamentally weak business models. But, drawing on extensive data and experience, the authors conclude that major deals make sense in only two circumstances: when they reinforce a company's existing basis of competition or when they help a company make the shift, as the industry's competitive base changes. In most stable industries, the authors contend, only one basis — superior cost position, brand power, consumer loyalty, real-asset advantage, or government protection — leads to industry leadership, and companies should do only those deals that bolster a strategy to capitalize on that competitive base. That's what Kellogg did when it acquired Keebler. Rather than bow to price pressures from lesser players, Kellogg sought to strengthen its existing basis of competition — its brand — through Keebler's innovative distribution system. A company coping with a changing industry should embark on a series of acquisitions (most likely coupled with divestitures) aimed at moving the firm to the new competitive basis. That's what Comcast did when changes in government regulations fundamentally altered the broadcast industry. In such cases, speed is essential, the investments required are huge, and half measures can be worse than nothing at all. Still, the research shows that successful acquirers are not those that try to swallow a single, large, supposedly transformative deal but those that go to the M&A table often and take small bites. Deals can fuel grow
Building Deep Supplier Relationships
	Added	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Liker, Jeffrey K.; Choi, Thomas Y. Publication Date: 12/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: More and more, businesses are counting on their suppliers to lower costs, improve quality, and develop innovations faster than their competitors' suppliers can. To this end, many experts agree that American firms, like their Japanese rivals, should build supplier keiretsu: networks of vendors that learn, improve, and prosper in sync with their parent companies. As history has shown, however, that's easier said than done. Some U.S. corporations created supply chains that superficially resembled those of their Japanese competitors, but they didn't alter the nature of their relationships with suppliers. As a result, relations between U.S. manufacturers and their suppliers have sunk to the lowest levels in decades. But reports of keiretsu's demise are overblown. The Japanese supplier-partnering model is alive and well — in North America as well as Japan. During the past 10 years, automakers Toyota and Honda have struck successful partnerships with some of the same suppliers that are at odds with the Big Three and created effective keiretsu across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. So how do Toyota and Honda do it? The authors, who have studied the American and Japanese automobile industries for more than 20 years, found that Toyota and Honda have built great supplier relationships by consistently following six steps: they understand how their suppliers work, turn supplier rivalry into opportunity, monitor vendors closely, develop those vendors' capabilities, share information intensively but selectively, and help their vendors continually improve their processes. HBS Number: R0412G Subjects: Automobile industry; Competitive advantage; Models; Outsourcing; Suppliers; Supply chain Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building Executive Alignment, Buy-In, and Focus with the Balanced Scorecard SWOT
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Brown, Terry S.; Norberg, Lennart Publication Date: 05/15/2001 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Almost everyone agrees on the value of the Balanced Scorecard for mapping an organization's strategy. But a proper implementation can take time--especially for organizations that haven't yet articulated their strategy. A team of BSCol consultants have developed a new approach, one that combines the widely-used SWOT methodology (analyzing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) with the BSC perspectives to jump-start an organization's strategy map and scorecard development. The Collaborative's Terry Brown and Lennart Norberg outline the novel but successful strategy. HBS Number: B0105E Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Corporate strategy; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building Strategy Maps, Part Four: Organizing to Create Value
	Add	View	6 pp.	Article Author(s): Norton, David P. Publication Date: 05/15/2001 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: The new economy has brought about many changes in the way business is conducted. Among the most dramatic is the introduction of a fundamentally different process for creating value in organizations, one based on the conversion of intangible assets like skills and information to tangible outcomes. In part four of BSR's ongoing series on strategy, BSR co-creator David Norton uses the premise of structure following strategy to show how companies can (and should) organize to create value--by strategic theme, rather than function. HBS Number: B0105A Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Corporate strategy; Intangible assets; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building Strategy Maps, Part Three: The Importance of Time-Phasing the Strategy
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Norton, David P. Publication Date: 03/15/2001 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: The failure of singular strategies--"Chainsaw" Al Dunlap's cost-cutting and the huge value creation of dot-coms based solely on the promise of future profits--shows definitively that creating shareholder value isn't enough. The point, says David P. Norton, is sustaining value creation. This involves the careful balancing of long-term and short-term goals--the sub-strategies that comprise a company's overall strategy (operational effectiveness, customer management, and product innovation). By complementing the short-term with the long-term, companies create a time-balanced agenda of action and value. In Part Three of this series on strategy mapping, Norton analyzes common threads among some 50 companies that time-phased their strategies. HBS Number: B0103A Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Chemical industry; Corporate strategy; Forest products; Goal setting; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; United Kingdom; Valuation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Building Strategy on the Experience Curve
	Add	View	8 pp.	Article Ghemawat, Pankaj Many managers see the experience curve as out of date, but experience curve strategies can improve competitive performance in some clearly defined situations. Successful use of the curve requires understanding why and how it works and when to apply it. Industry examples explain how products have different experience curve slopes, experience bases, and cost reduction sources. Managers should study three critical variables to discover both the opportunities and traps in putting the experience curve to work for their companies: industry structure, the relative position of key competitors, and government impact. HBS Number: 85206 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1985 Subjects: Competition; Experience curves
Building Your Internal Growth Engine
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Anthony, Scott D.; Christensen, Clayton M. Publication Date: 01/15/2005 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0501A Subjects: Business growth; Growth management; Growth strategy; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: If growth is hard to get right once (and it is), imagine the difficulty of doing it again and again. The challenge is stark, given that many of a company's systems and processes — particularly the resource allocation process — stymie efforts to build a true capability around creating viable growth businesses. Clay Christensen has come to realize that Chapter 10 of The Innovator's Solution gives insufficient advice to companies seeking to address this problem and related challenges. Further work with companies has shown that, to tackle this challenge successfully, a company must do three crucial things. Read more to find out the steps your company can take to improve its ability to create new business continually.
Business and Battles: Lessons from Defeat
	Add	View	6 pp.	Article Bower, Joseph L. This review of Military Misfortunes, a study of well-known military disasters by Eliot A. Cohen and John Epoch, finds many important parallels for business strategists. Among them: 1) the roots of failure are embedded in the way a military force is organized to plan and operate; 2) organizational learning means changing the routines that regulate corporate activity, communication, and the use of information; and 3) the best intelligence reveals what your enemy is fighting for as well as how it fights. HBS Number: 90402 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1990 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Military R&D; Organizational development; Organizational structure
Business Models for Internet-Based E-Commerce, An Anatomy
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Mahadevan, B. Publication Date: 07/01/2000 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR179 Subjects: Business models; Electronic commerce; Internet; Market structure Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: The success of Internet-based businesses in the business-to-customer segment in recent years has been impressive. It is widely projected that the business-to-business segment is poised for a spectacular growth as well. However, a consistent definition and a framework for a business model for Internet-based business is still non-existent. This article proposes a three-dimensional framework for defining a business model and applies it to the emerging market structure. It also identifies certain factors that can guide organizations in their choice of an appropriate business model.
Business Responses to Climate Change: Identifying Emergent Strategies
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Kolk, Ans; Pinkse, Jonatan Publication Date: 04/01/2005 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: Companies face much uncertainty about the competitive effects of the recently adopted Kyoto Protocol on global climate change and the current and future regulations that may emerge from it. Companies have considerable discretion to explore different market strategies to address global warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Examines these strategic options by reviewing the market-oriented actions that 136 large companies that are part of the Global 500 are currently taking. Companies use six different market strategies to address climate change, consisting of different combinations of the market components available to managers. Managers can choose between a greater emphasis on improvements in their business activities through innovation or employing compensatory approaches such as emissions trading. They can either act by themselves or work with other companies, NGOs, or (local) governments. HBS Number: CMR308 Subjects: Business & government; Climate change; Corporate strategy; Environmental protection; Environmental regulations Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Can Science Be a Business? Lessons from Biotech
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Pisano, Gary P. Publication Date: 10/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0610H Subjects: Biotechnology; Corporate strategy; Industry structure; R&D Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In 1976, Genentech, the first biotechnology company, was founded by a young venture capitalist and a university professor to exploit recombinant DNA technology. Thirty years and more than $300 billion in investments later, only a handful of biotech firms have matched Genentech's success or even shown a profit. No avalanche of new drugs has hit the market, and the long-awaited breakthrough in R&D productivity has yet to materialize. This disappointing performance raises a question: Can organizations motivated by the need to make profits and please shareholders successfully conduct basic scientific research as a core activity? The question has largely been ignored, despite intense debate over whether business's invasion of basic science — long the domain of universities and nonprofit research institutions — is limiting access to discoveries, thereby slowing advances in science. Biotech has not lived up to its promise, says the author, because its anatomy, which has worked well in other high-tech sectors, can't handle the fundamental challenges facing drug R&D: profound, persistent uncertainty and high risks rooted in the limited knowledge of human biology; the need for the diverse disciplines involved in drug discovery to work together in an integrated fashion; and barriers to learning, including tacit knowledge and murky intellectual property rights, which can slow the pace of scientific advance. A more suitable anatomy would include increased vertical integration; a smaller number of closer, longer collaborations; an emphasis by universities on sharing rather than patenting scientific discoveries; more cross-disciplinary academic res
Can Sigma Boost Your Company’s Growth?
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Snee, Ronald Publication Date: 06/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Six Sigma, which arose at Motorola in the 1980s and achieved legendary status at GE under Jack Welch, is showing its muscle in the current economy, creating efficiency and boosting growth. GE showed that Six Sigma could be applied not only to ailing manufacturing processes but also to any subpar process. Six Sigma has moved to administration, finance, new product development, and such surprising places as hospitals -- becoming the strategic signature of many diverse organizations. Today, as companies try to balance tight cost controls with the need to boost top-line growth, Six Sigma has the potential to play an ever broader role. HBS Number: U0406B Subjects: Competitive advantage; Growth strategy; Organizational development; Performance effectiveness Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Can This Partnership Be Saved?
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Segil, Larraine Publication Date: 02/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: For most companies, at one time or another, an underperforming business relationship is a painful fact of life. When alliances do not pay off, the working relationship between the organizations can become strained and communications acrimonious, which in turn make achieving business objectives even more difficult. Breaking out of this self-perpetuating ``doom loop'' and getting the relationship back on track becomes a real challenge. When faced with an underperforming key business relationship, companies commonly react in one of three ways: they terminate the relationship, throw additional resources at the relationship, or minimize the amount of time, energy, and money they spend on it. Each approach produces significant problems. An alliance can be saved, however. Learn more about a ``relationship relaunch,'' the process by which you examine how to improve communication and collaboration between parties, allowing the relationship to deliver its true value. HBS Number: U0502E >Subjects: Alliances; Communication; Interpersonal relations; Management of crises; Partnerships; Strategic alliances Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Can You Patent Your Business Model?
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Ovans, Andrea The head of the U.S. patent office explains the myths and realities of patenting business methods and suggests that these ownership claims actually boost innovation by forcing ideas to go public. HBS Number: F00401 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/2000 Subjects: Business processes; Intellectual property; Inventions; Patents
Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?
	Added	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Collis, David J.; Rukstad, Michael G. Publication Date: 04/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing HBS Number: R0804E Subjects: Value propositions; Goal setting; Competitive advantage; Execution; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Can you summarize your company's strategy in 35 words or less? Would your colleagues express it the same way? Very few executives can honestly say yes to these simple questions. The thing is, companies with a clear, concise strategy statement - one that employees can easily internalize and use as a guiding light - often turn out to be industry stars. In this article, Harvard Business School's Collis and Rukstad provide a practical guide for crafting an effective strategy statement and include an in-depth example of how the St. Louis-based brokerage firm Edward Jones developed one that has generated success. Any strategy statement must begin with a definition of the objective, or the goal that the strategy is designed to achieve. Since most firms compete in a more or less unbounded landscape, it is also crucial to define the scope, or domain, of the business. Perhaps most important, companies need to have a clear sense of advantage - that is, the means by which the business will achieve its stated objective. Defining the objective, scope, and advantage requires trade-offs. If a firm pursues growth or size, profitability will take a backseat. If it chooses to serve institutional clients, it might ignore retail customers. If it derives its competitive advantage from scale economies, it will not be able to accommodate idiosyncratic customer needs. Before developing your strategy and crafting your statement, you'll want to carefully evaluate the industry landscape. This includes segmenting customers and identifying unique ways of delivering value
Can You Spot the Early Warnings?
	Add	View	6 pp.	Article Author(s): Anthony, Scott D. Publication Date: 03/15/2005 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0503A Subjects: Decision making; Forecasting; Innovation; Strategic intent; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Anticipating the need to make bold strategic shifts is one of the most pressing tasks facing CEOs and investors. And missing the appropriate window for an effective strategic shift can be dire: A generation ago, Digital Equipment Corp. — then a leader in the minicomputer business — missed the personal computer era, fell into decline, and was acquired by Compaq in 1998. Currently, telecommunications giants such as Verizon are trying desperately to make sure they don't miss similar shifts toward new technologies such as wireless data and voice over Internet protocol. Managing this sort of transition requires that a company solve a two-part equation: Spot the early warning signals from the market that indicate it needs to shift strategies, and react appropriately to those signals. Companies that master this two-part equation can weather industry transitions while creating strong competitive advantages. Similarly, individuals who can discern which companies in their investment portfolios get it and which do not can manage their assets more prudently.
Can You Spot the Sure Winner?
	Add	View	6 pp.	Article Author(s): Mankin, Eric Publication Date: 07/15/2004 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0407A Subjects: Benchmarks; Business plans; Forecasting; Innovation; Product development; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: A new product or service will be successful if it does a better job than existing products at satisfying the needs of a targeted customer group. But what does doing a better job mean? Through researching the promises and prospects of innovative products and services, consultant Eric Mankin has developed a set of four benchmarks that can help companies evaluate and improve the probability of success for their new offerings. Using this framework can help you forecast the future of products or services you may be developing.
Can Your Company Actually Execute Its Strategy? (Guest Column)
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Author(s): MacGregor, Lawrence B. Publication Date: 05/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: While deciding and doing are two different things, the idea today is to excel at both. High performance requires effective strategy and flawless execution. Many companies miss this, resulting in a huge gap between what CEOs want and what their front-line managers do. Successful companies bridge this gap with a value management system, which links the creation of strategy with its execution. Each component--pricing analysis, strategic and operational planning, performance measurement--must be carefully woven into the system. Lawrence Serven examines American Express, a company that has managed to do just that. HBS Number: U9905E Subjects: Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Capturing the Ricochet Economy
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Mahajan, Vijay; Wind, Yoram (Jerry) Publication Date: 11/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0611D Subjects: Developing countries; Emerging markets; Globalization Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Immigrants in developed countries who send money to and buy goods for relatives in the developing world are creating a vast new international market.
Capturing Value from Knowledge Assets: The New Economy, Markets for Know-How, a
	Add	View	27 pp.	Article Teece, David J. The increasing liberalization of markets coupled with the creation of new markets for intermediate products is stripping firm-level competitive advantage back to its fundamental core: difficult to create and difficult to imitate intangible assets. This article explores these developments and elucidates implications for the management of intellectual capital inside firms. HBS Number: CMR108 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 4/1/1998 Subjects: Competitive advantage; Intangible assets; Intellectual capital; Intellectual property; Knowledge management; New economy Publisher: California Management Review
Cascading: The Process
	Add	View	26 pp.	Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 02/23/2006 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 1765BC Industry Setting: Banking industry; Military Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Decentralization; Franchises; Holding companies; Strategy maps Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Corporations follow different paths to achieve enterprise-wide alignment. An organization can cascade the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Map management system top-down or bottom-up, but ultimately scorecard reporting, analysis, and decision making should be flowing in both directions. Focuses on organizations that start at the corporate level and then cascade sequentially down the organizational hierarchy, providing examples of successful adopters. May be used with: (1757BC) Alignment: A Source of Economic Value; (1758BC) Corporate Strategy and Structure: Historical Perspective; (1760BC) Aligning Financial and Customer Strategies; (1761BC) Aligning Internal Process and Learning and Growth Strategies: Integrated Strategic Themes; (1764BC) Aligning Support Functions; (1766BC) Aligning Boards and Investors; (1769BC) Aligning External Partners; (1772BC) Managing the Alignment Process; (1773BC) Total Strategic Alignment.
Case of the Combative CFO
	Add	View	7 pp.	Article Nichols, Nancy A. The boardmembers of Minute Publishing must decide the fate of the company's three-year-old national newspaper, America Today. They can either follow the advice of CEO Neil Harcum, who implores them to continue the paper's publication, or CFO Peter Rawson, who wants to shut down the presses. Both sides have convincing arguments. Harcum has a proven track record of making newspapers profitable. He argues that Minute "cannot allow the beancounters to set policy." Rawson, on the other hand, explains that America Today is losing $100 million a year and has broken Minute's 20-year string of earning gains. In making its decision, Minute's board will also be choosing a new CEO. Harcum is retiring at the end of the year and doesn't want Rawson to take his place. HBS Number: 92408 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1992 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Decision making; Financial strategy; HBR Case Discussions; Newspapers; Succession planning
Case of the Stymied Strategist
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Mainer, Robert What happens when a management group turns its attention to strategic planning? Is such planning worth the unusual demands it places on management? Why does it perplex some executive teams that are otherwise effective in running their businesses? These related questions are explored. Synthesizes the experience of many organizations that have struggled with strategic planning. HBS Number: 68310 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1968 Subjects: Consulting; Corporate strategy; HBR Case Discussions; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation
Champions of Profitable Growth
	Add	View	8 pp.	Article Author(s): Stewart, G. Bennett, III Publication Date: 07/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Many companies have posted impressive top-line growth over the past two decades in their respective economic regions — for instance, Wal-Mart in North America, BP in Europe, Toyota in Asia, and News Corp. in the Southern Hemisphere. But which were the best at converting all of that revenue growth into shareholder value? Harvard Business Review asked G. Bennett Stewart III, senior partner of the consulting firm Stern Stewart & Co., and his colleagues to come up with the answer. For the period 1983 to 2003, they assembled a list of the top 20 high-growth value adders (and laggards) in each of the four regions cited above. Their calculations gave equal weight to companies' revenue growth and market-value-added scores, revealing the important effect of region on the performance of companies in the same industry. For instance, whereas automakers are positioned high on the Asian list of high-growth value adders, U.S. carmakers GM and Ford — each of which reported revenue growth in excess of $100 billion between 1983 and 2003 — are among the value laggards on the North American list, as are DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen on the European list. The Japanese win through better efficiency, higher quality, and narrower product mixes, the author says. And although there are four telecom companies represented among the European high-growth value adders, there is none on the North American list. That's probably because the European telecoms enjoyed more protective regulation, made fewer high priced acquisitions, and didn't bet as big on the overblown dot-com economy, the author says. HBS Number: R0407C Subjects: Growth strategy; Market share; Profitability Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Changing the Role of Top Management: Beyond Strategy to Purpose
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Bartlett, Christopher A.; Ghoshal, Sumantra Structure follows strategy; and systems support structure. In the high-growth environment of post-World War II, a management doctrine rose up around these two aphorisms. But today the business environment has changed. A change in manag HBS Number: 94601 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1994 Subjects: Business conditions; Corporate strategy; Executives; Leadership; Organizational structure; Strategy formulation; Upper management
Charting Your Company’s Future
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Author(s): Kim, W. Chan; Mauborgne, Renee A. Publication Date: 06/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0206D Subjects: Competitive advantage; Competitive decision making; Organizational learning; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Few companies have a clear strategic vision. The problem, say the authors, stems from the strategic-planning process itself, which usually involves preparing a large document, culled from a mishmash of data provided by people with conflicting agendas. That kind of process almost guarantees an unfocused strategy. Instead, companies should design the strategic-planning process by drawing a picture: a strategy canvas. A strategy canvas shows the strategic profile of your industry by depicting the various factors that affect competition. And it shows the strategic profiles of your current and potential competitors as well as your own company's strategic profile — how it invests in the factors of competition and how it might in the future. The basic component of a strategy canvas — the value curve — is a tool the authors created in their consulting work and have written about in previous HBR articles. This article introduces a four-step process for actually drawing and discussing a strategy canvas. Readers will learn how one European financial services company used this process to create a distinct and easily communicable strategy. The process begins with a visual awakening. Managers compare their business's value curve with competitors' to discover where their strategy needs to change. In the next step — visual exploration — managers do field research on customers and alternative products. At the visual strategy fair, the third step, managers draw new strategic profiles based on field observations and get feedback from customers and peers about these
Cheaper, Faster, Easier: Disruption in the Service Sector
	Add	View	6 pp.	Article Author(s): Christensen, Clayton M.; Anthony, Scott D. Publication Date: 01/15/2004 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0401A Subjects: Innovation; Service industries; Service management; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: New developments in health care, higher education, and the law are just the beginning. Most people think of disruptive innovations — the simple, cheap, convenient advancements that create new growth — as tangible products. However, service-related businesses face the same circumstances that drive disruption in product-related businesses, such as the pressure to improve to serve leading customers better and the presence of “nonconsumers” who seek to do for themselves what they historically paid an expert to do. As such, service-related businesses teem with the potential for disruption.
Chief Privacy Officer
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Purcell, Richard; Fusaro, Roberta Publication Date: 11/01/2000 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Microsoft's Richard Purcell makes the case for dedicating a senior manager to protecting your customers' on-line privacy. HBS Number: F00602 Subjects: Electronic commerce; Information management; Internet; Interviews; New economy; Right of privacy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Choose the Right Measures, Drive the Right Strategy
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Campbell, Dennis Publication Date: 05/15/2006 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Metrics overload is a common problem that can have serious consequences: Specifically, it can make it difficult for employees to see what actions they should take to execute strategic objectives. Having too many metrics dilutes the focus and invariably means many are irrelevant. Here, accounting and performance measurement expert Dennis Campbell traces a major Canadian bank's experience in overhauling its customer satisfaction metrics to make them meaningful — and actionable — to frontline employees. HBS Number: B0605D Geographic Setting: Canada Industry Setting: Banking industry Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Business metrics; Customer relationships; Customer satisfaction; Organizational development; Performance measurement; Strategic intent Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Choosing to Learn and Learning to Choose: Strategies for Client Co-Production and Knowledge Development
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Skjolsvik, Tale; Lowendahl, Bente R.; Kvalshaugen, Ragnhild ; Fosstenlokken, Siw M. Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR367 Industry Setting: Business services Subjects: Corporate strategy; Knowledge management; Learning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Decisions about what types of assignments and clients to prioritize are essential for the strategic development of successful knowledge-intensive business service firms (KIBS-firms). Two important considerations that need to be addressed are: the degree to which clients are ready to be efficient co-producers of value and the opportunities for knowledge development available in client co-production processes. Based on experience and several empirical studies, identifies characteristics of assignments and clients that are positively related to knowledge development. These characteristics are: novel tasks with a high degree of customization; multi-disciplinary assignment teams; large assignments; time pressure (to the extent that the tasks are novel and creative); highly knowledgeable clients; and a high degree of client interaction.
Client Co-Production in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services
	Add	View	30 pp.	Article Author(s): Bettencourt, Lance A.; Ostrom, Amy L.; Bro Publication Date: 07/01/2002 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: A common characteristic of knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms is that clients routinely play a critical role in co-producing the service solution along with the service provider. This can have a profound effect on both the quality of the service delivered as well as the client's ultimate satisfaction with the knowledge-based service solution. Based on research conducted with an IT consulting firm and work done with other knowledge-intensive business service providers, this article describes clients' key role responsibilities that are essential for effective client co-production in KIBS partnerships. It then presents strategies that service providers can use to manage clients so they perform their roles effectively. By strategically managing client co-production, service providers can improve operational efficiency, develop more optimal solutions, and generate a sustainable competitive advantage. HBS Number: CMR237 Subjects: Business services; Information technology; Knowledge management; Production processes; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Climate Change Strategy: The Business Logic Behind Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reductions
	Add	View	27 pp.	Article Author(s): Hoffman, Andrew J. Publication Date: 04/01/2005 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: To date, the United States has declined to ratify the Kyoto Treaty to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, many companies are taking advantage of the lack of a mandatory U.S. GHG emission reduction program to set targets at their own pace and in ways that complement their own strategic objectives. Currently, as many as 60 corporations, with net revenues of roughly $1.5 trillion, have set voluntary reduction targets. Many of these companies are agnostic about the science of climate change or the social responsibility of protecting the global climate. The reasons are decidedly strategic. So why are they doing this? They are searching for ways to be prepared for the long term should GHG emission reductions become mandatory, while at the same time attempting to reap near-term economic and strategic benefits should new regulations not emerge. HBS Number: CMR309 Subjects: Business & government; Climate change; Corporate strategy; Environmental protection; Environmental regulations Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Close the Gap Between Projects and Strategy
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 06/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: If your company is like most, it's tackling more and more projects that consume expanding levels of precious resources but failing to generate commensurate business results. The pressure is on. Companies must rein in and give focus to their evermore disparate arrays of projects by managing their projects in portfolios that both recognize the relationships between distinct projects and align them to corporate strategy. Read about the companies already finding success by doing so. HBS Number: U0406A Subjects: Product portfolio management; Project management; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Clusters and Competition: New Agendas for Companies, Governments, & Institutions
	Add	View	54 pp.	Article Author(s): Porter, Michael E. Publication Date: 06/07/1999 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter Product Description: Today's economic map of the world is characterized by what Michael Porter calls clusters: geographic concentrations of firms, suppliers, related industries, and specialized institutions that occur in a particular field in a nation, state, or city. This chapter from Porter's book On Competition explores this essential ingredient of economic development and how it can foster new roles for business, government, and institutions as well as new ways to structure relationships among them. This chapter formed the basis of Michael Porter's Harvard Business Review article Clusters and the New Economics of Competition (November/December 1998). Includes bibliography. HBS Number: 2034 Subjects: Business government relations; Competition; Competitive advantage; Economic development; Innovation; Location of industry; Sourcing; Strategic market planning; Suppliers Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Clusters and the New Economics of Competition
	Added	View	16 pp.	Article Porter, Michael E. In this article, Michael Porter, the C. Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, explains how clusters foster high levels of productivity and innovation and lays out the implications for competit HBS Number: 98609 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1998 Subjects: Competition; Economic development; Government & business; Innovation; Location of industry; Sourcing; Suppliers
CMR Forum: The “Honda Effect” Revisited
	Add	View	41 pp.	Article Mintzberg, Henry; Pascale, Richard Tanner; Goold, Michael; Rumelt, Richard P. Perhaps no other article published in the management literature has had the impact of Richard Pascale's piece on the "Honda Effect" that was published in the Spring 1984 issue of the California Management Review. This now classic article has stimulated considerable debate over the role and value of corporate strategy in business decision making--which is the subject of this forum. This special collection of essays includes an abridged version of Pascale's original article ("Perspectives on Strategy: The Real Story Behind Honda's Success"), an exchange of correspondence between Henry Mintzberg and Michael Goold, and new essays by Richard Rumlet, Michael Goold, and Richard Pascale, who revisits his own original article as well as this whole debate. HBS Number: CMR065 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 7/1/1996 Subjects: Competitive decision making; Corporate strategy; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation Publisher: California Management Review
Collaborate with Your Competitors - and Win
	Add	View	9 pp.	Article Hamel, Gary; Doz, Yves L.; Prahalad, C.K. Collaboration between competitors is in fashion. But the rise of competitive collaboration has triggered unease about its long-term effects. Companies that benefit most from competitive collaboration never forget that their partners may be out to disarm them. They know that harmony is not the most important measure of success; indeed, occasional conflict may be the best evidence of mutually beneficial collaboration. Successful companies also guard against competitive compromise by informing employees at all levels what skills and technologies are off-limits to the partner. Finally, they learn from their partners, viewing each alliance as a window on their partners' broad capabilities. HBS Number: 89104 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1989 Subjects: Alliances; Competition; Coopetition; Partnerships
Collaborative Advantage: The Art of Alliances
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Kanter, Rosabeth Moss When companies join forces--whether on research or as full-scale partners--they often tend to emphasize the legal or financial aspects of the deal. But smart managers know that alliances involve much more. Like human relationships, bus HBS Number: 94405 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1994 Subjects: Alliances; Joint ventures; Partnerships
Commercializing Technology: What the Best Companies Do
	Add	View	10 pp.	Article Nevens, T. Michael; Summe, Gregory L.; Uttal, Bro The ability to commercialize technology is linked to competitive leadership in a variety of markets, such as copiers, computers, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals. Leaders like Canon, Xerox, and Hewlett-Packard describe their approaches to commercialization in similar terms: they treat commercialization as a system and apply to it the same discipline they use in manufacturing; they make it a priority, state it in terms of measurable goals, build cross-functional skills, and encourage aggressive action. HBS Number: 90310 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1990 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Cross functional management; Product development; Product introduction; Technology
Commitment vs. Flexibility?
	Add	View	18 pp.	Article Ghemawat, Pankaj; Del Sol, Patricio This article unbundles the relation between commitment and flexibility by distinguishing between firm-specific and usage-specific resources. This distinction turns out to be valuable because firm-specificity does not always imply (nor is it always implied by) usage-specificity. Firm-specific resources are more strategic than usage-specific resources. More broadly, the distinction between these two kinds of specificity helps explain why the tension between commitment and flexibility can easily be overdone: the two aren't always negative measures of each other. HBS Number: CMR124 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 7/1/1998 Subjects: Competition; Corporate strategy; Decision making; Resource allocation; Strategy implementation Publisher: California Management Review
Communicating Strategy to Financial Analysts
	Add	View	8 pp.	Article Author(s): Kuperman, Jerome C. Publication Date: 09/15/2002 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University Product Description: Sell-side financial analysts are important to a firm because they affect both investor behavior and the firm's reputation in the business community. The effective implementation of strategy requires that the firm effectively communicate with these analysts regarding its strategy. Here, the focus is on the relationship that exists between companies and analysts, as well as its implications, from a communication strategy standpoint, for companies' investor relations activities. HBS Number: BH078 Subjects: Communication; Corporate strategy; Financial analysis; Financial strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Communication by the Numbers
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Grimshaw, Roly Publication Date: 07/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Understanding what numbers say is a core competency for senior managers. Communicating what they say should be as well. Unfortunately, this is a task that few do well. Time and again, leaders fail at conveying to employees just what the latest quarterly update, competitive analysis, or division report really means in terms of the work they'll do today and the challenges that await them tomorrow. Rather than challenging and inspiring employees with data, you end up boring and confusing them instead. What causes the trip-up? Confusing the messages you want to deliver with the evidence that supports those messages. Learn how to avoid confusing your audience, not to drown them in data, and to give them only the numbers they need. HBS Number: C0507B Subjects: Communication; Communication in organizations; Communication strategy; Statistical methods Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Companyism and Do More Better
	Add	View	8 pp.	Article Ohmae, Kenichi "Companyism" blinds managers to the changing conditions of competition. The Japanese have often practiced companyism, with disastrous results. "Do more better" represents a shortsighted approach to strategy. It is likened to a boat race: if you want to win, just hunch over and pull harder. Never mind that you don't look where you are going. Just do more better. Sometimes both of these strategies have worked. But in today's marketplace, strategy requires managers to look at their businesses and their customers' needs with fresh eyes and new perspectives. Doing more of the same is no longer enough. HBS Number: 89106 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1989 Subjects: Competition; Corporate strategy; Organizational change
Competing Across Locations: Enhancing Competitive Advantage Through a Global Str
	Added	View	22 pp.	Article Author(s): Porter, Michael E. Publication Date: 06/07/1999 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter Product Description: This chapter from Michael Porter's On Competition aims to take global strategy thinking to the next level. In it, Porter brings together the two dimensions of international strategy--location and global networks. Open global markets, rapid transportation, and high-speed communications should allow any company to source any thing from any place at any time. But in practice, location remains central to competition. Global strategy taps the innovation advantages of locating headquarters or “home base'' activities in cluster locations while spreading other activities to other locations to source low-cost inputs and gain access to foreign markets. Includes bibliography. HBS Number: 2026 Subjects: Competition; Competitive advantage; Innovation; Location of industry; Sourcing; Strategic market planning; Strategy formulation; Suppliers Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Competing for the Future
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Hamel, Gary; Prahalad, C.K. Is your company a rule maker or a rule follower? Does your company focus on catching up or on getting out in front? Do you spend the bulk of your time as a maintenance engineer preserving the status quo or as an architect designing the HBS Number: 94403 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1994 Subjects: Competition; Forecasting; Future; Innovation; Management of change; Strategy formulation
Competing on Analytics
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Davenport, Thomas H. Publication Date: 01/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0601H Industry Setting: Banking industry; Computer industry; Consumer products; Credit card; E-commerce; Hospital industry; Hotel industry; Insurance industry; Sports industry; Winemakers Subjects: Analytics; Business processes; CEO; Competition; Competitive advantage; Consolidations; Data analysis; Decision analysis; Decision making; Quantitative analysis; Strategy; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: We all know the power of the killer app. It's not just a support tool; it's a strategic weapon. Companies questing for killer apps generally focus all their firepower on the one area that promises to create the greatest competitive advantage. But a new breed of organization has upped the stakes: Amazon, Harrah's, Capital One, and the Boston Red Sox have all dominated their fields by deploying industrial-strength analytics across a wide variety of activities. At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the few remaining points of differentiation — and analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes. Employees hired for their expertise with numbers or trained to recognize their importance are armed with the best evidence and the best quantitative tools. As a result, they make the best decisions. In companies that compete on analytics, senior executives make it clear — from the top down — that analytics is central to strategy. Such organizations launch multiple initiatives involving complex data and statistical analysis, and quantitative activity is managed at the enterprise (not departmental) level. In this article, professor Thomas H. Davenport lays out the characteristics and practices of these statist
Competing on Analytics (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Davenport, Thomas H. Publication Date: 01/01/2006 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 3005 Subjects: Business processes; Competitive advantage; Data analysis; Decision analysis; Decision making; Quantitative analysis; Strategy; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: We all know the power of the killer app. It's not just a support tool; it's a strategic weapon. Companies questing for killer apps generally focus all their firepower on the one area that promises to create the greatest competitive advantage. But a new breed of organization has upped the stakes: Amazon, Harrah's, Capital One, and the Boston Red Sox have all dominated their fields by deploying industrial-strength analytics across a wide variety of activities. At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the few remaining points of differentiation — and analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes. Employees hired for their expertise with numbers or trained to recognize their importance are armed with the best evidence and the best quantitative tools. As a result, they make the best decisions. In companies that compete on analytics, senior executives make it clear — from the top down — that analytics is central to strategy. Such organizations launch multiple initiatives involving complex data and statistical analysis, and quantitative activity is managed at the enterprise (not departmental) level. In this article, professor Thomas H. Davenport lays out the characteristics and practices of these statistical masters and describes some of the very substantial changes other companies must undergo to compete on quantitative turf. As one would expect, the transformation requires a significant investment in technology, the accumulation of massive stores of
Competing on Capabilities: The New Rules of Corporate Strategy
	Add	View	14 pp.	Article Stalk, George, Jr.; Evans, Philip; Shulman, Lawrence E. In today's dynamic business environment, strategy too must become dynamic. The essence of strategy is not the structure of a company's products but the dynamics of its behavior. To succeed, a company must weave its key business processes into hard-to-imitate strategic capabilities that distinguish it from its competitors. A capability is a set of business processes understood strategically. While such capabilities are collective and cross-functional, they must be built and managed by the CEO. Uses examples from Wal-Mart. HBS Number: 92209 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1992 Subjects: Business processes; Competition; Competitive advantage; Corporate strategy; Cross functional management; Operations management; Process analysis; Strategy implementation
Competing on Resources (HBR Classic)
	Add	View	14 pp.	Article Author(s): Collis, David J.; Montgomery, Cynthia A. Publication Date: 07/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0807N Subjects: Competitive strategy; Resource allocation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: How do you create and sustain a profitable strategy? Many approaches have focused managers' attention inward, urging them to build a unique set of corporate resources and capabilities. In practice, however, identifying and developing core competence too often becomes a feel-good exercise that no one fails. Collis and Montgomery, of Harvard Business School, explain how a company's resources drive its performance in a dynamic competitive environment, and they offer a framework that moves strategic thinking forward in two ways. The resource-based view of the firm comprises a pragmatic and rigorous set of market tests to determine whether a company's resources are truly valuable enough to serve as the basis for strategy and integrates that market view with earlier insights about competition and industry structure. Where a company chooses to play will determine its profitability as much as its resources do. The authors spell out in clear managerial terms why some competitors are more profitable than others, how to put the idea of core competence into practice, and how to develop diversification strategies that make sense. To illustrate the power of resource-based strategies, the authors provide many examples of organizations — including Disney, Cooper, Sharp, and Newell — that have been able to use corporate resources to establish and maintain competitive advantage at the business-unit level and also to benefit from the attractiveness of the markets in which they compete.
Competing on Resources: Strategy in the 1990s
	Added	View	12 pp.	Article Collis, David J.; Montgomery, Cynthia A. How do you create and sustain a profitable strategy? Many of the approaches to strategy that have been championed in the past decade have focused the attention of managers inward, urging them to build a unique set of resources and capa HBS Number: 95403 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1995 Subjects: Business unit; Competition; Core competency; Corporate strategy; Diversification; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation
Competition, Strategy, and Business Performance
	Add	View	29 pp.	Article Author(s): McGahan, Anita Publication Date: 04/01/1999 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: What drove business profitability during the 1980s and early 1990s? Management consultants, business academics, investment analysts, and the business press have all offered managers a range of theories. However, managers have not had access to much data about aggregate trends and broad influences on business profitability over time. With new reporting requirements in place in the United States around 1980, the problem was partly solved. This article uses the new data to categorize the performance of U.S. businesses over the past two decades. The study begins by grouping businesses based on the trajectory in their accounting profitability. It offers information on the average size, growth, financial-market premium, and sectoral affiliation of businesses within each of the groups. Finally, this article describes the broad strategic issues that arise for a subset of the businesses within each group. The result is a series of suggestions about shifts in the strategic issues that face businesses across the economy. HBS Number: CMR149 Subjects: Competition; Corporate strategy; Profitability; Profitability analysis Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy
	Add	View	24 pp.	Article Author(s): Porter, Michael E.; Kramer, Mark R. Publication Date: 12/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 242X Subjects: Business & society; Competitive advantage; Corporate responsibility; Philanthropy; Public opinion; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of “corporate social responsibility” and investors applying pressure to maximize short-term profits. Increasingly, philanthropy is used as a form of public relations or advertising, promoting a company's image through high-profile sponsorships. But there is a more truly strategic way to think about philanthropy. Corporations can use their charitable efforts to improve their competitive context — the quality of the business environment in the locations where they operate. Using philanthropy to enhance competitive context aligns social and economic goals and improves a company's long-term business prospects. Addressing context enables a company not only to give money but also leverage its capabilities and relationships in support of charitable causes. Taking this new direction requires fundamental changes in the way companies approach their contribution programs. Adopting a context-focused approach requires a far more disciplined approach than is prevalent today. But it can make a company's philanthropic activities far more effective.
Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Porter, Michael E.; Kramer, Mark R. Publication Date: 12/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0212D Subjects: Business & society; Competitive advantage; Corporate responsibility; Philanthropy; Public opinion; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of “corporate social responsibility” and investors applying pressure to maximize short-term profits. Increasingly, philanthropy is used as a form of public relations or advertising, promoting a company's image through high-profile sponsorships. But there is a more truly strategic way to think about philanthropy. Corporations can use their charitable efforts to improve their competitive context — the quality of the business environment in the locations where they operate. Using philanthropy to enhance competitive context aligns social and economic goals and improves a company's long-term business prospects. Addressing context enables a company not only to give money but also leverage its capabilities and relationships in support of charitable causes. Taking this new direction requires fundamental changes in the way companies approach their contribution programs. Adopting a context-focused approach requires a far more disciplined approach than is prevalent today. But it can make a company's philanthropic activities far more effective.
Competitive Advantage of Nations
	Added	View	21 pp.	Article Porter, Michael E. A four-year, ten-nation study of the patterns of competitive success in leading countries concludes that companies achieve competitive advantage through acts of innovation. A nation's capacity to innovate is affected by four broad attributes, the "diamond" of national advantage: 1) factor conditions; 2) demand conditions; 3) related and supporting industries; and 4) firm strategy, structure, and rivalry. Based on this analysis, government and companies should act as catalysts and challengers, but not get directly involved in competition. HBS Number: 90211 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1990 Subjects: Competition; Competitive advantage; Corporate strategy; Government & business; International business; National competitiveness
Competitive Advantage on a Warming Planet
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Lash, Jonathan; Wellington, Fred Publication Date: 03/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0703F Subjects: Competitive advantage; Corporate responsibility; Environmental protection; Global economy; Greenhouse effect; Strategic planning; Strategic positioning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Whether you're in a traditional smokestack industry or a “clean” business like investment banking, your company will increasingly feel the effects of climate change. Even people skeptical about global warming's dangers are recognizing that, simply because so many others are concerned, the phenomenon has wide-ranging implications. Investors already are discounting share prices of companies poorly positioned to compete in a warming world. Many businesses face higher raw material and energy costs as more and more governments enact policies placing a cost on emissions. Consumers are taking into account a company's environmental record when making purchasing decisions. There's also a burgeoning market in greenhouse gas emission allowances (the carbon market), with annual trading in these assets valued at tens of billions of dollars. Companies that manage and mitigate their exposure to the risks associated with climate change while seeking new opportunities for profit will generate a competitive advantage over rivals in a carbon-constrained future. This article offers a systematic approach to mapping and responding to climate change risks. According to Jonathan Lash and Fred Wellington of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, the risks can be divided into six categories: regulatory (policies such as new emissions standards), products and technology (the development and marketing of climate-friendly products and services), litigation (lawsuits alleging environmental harm), reputational (how a company's environmenta
Competitive Dynamics of Network-Based Businesses
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Coyne, Kevin P.; Dye, Renee Kevin Coyne and Renee Dye, consultants at McKinsey, show how customers use networks in different ways and explain how companies can adjust their strategies according to the usage patterns in their networks. Managers of network-based bu HBS Number: 98103 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1998 Subjects: Banking; Branches; Cost allocation; Shipping; Shipping industry; Strategy formulation; Transportation
Competitive Environmental Strategies: When Does It Pay to Be Green?
	Add	View	18 pp.	Article Author(s): Orsato, Renato J. Publication Date: 02/01/2006 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR334 Subjects: Competitive advantage; Corporate responsibility; Corporate strategy; Environmental protection; Investments Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Proactive corporations have typically invested in increasingly ambitious sustainability initiatives. However, managers need to identify the circumstances favoring the generation of both public benefits and corporate profits. For some firms, better utilization of resources may result from some environment-related investments. For others, obtaining ISO 14001 certification or having some eco-labeled products can enable them to pursue competitive advantage. However, no one generic strategy makes business sense for all firms. Presents a framework for categorizing generic types of competitive environmental strategies to help managers define and prioritize areas of organizational action, thus optimizing the overall economic return on environmental investments and making them into sources of competitive advantage.
Competitive Fitness
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Maruca, Regina Fazio How would your company fare in the Business Olympics? An INSEAD professor and his students assess the "corporate fitness" of the largest firms in Europe and the United States and map out which companies and industries are likely to take the gold. HBS Number: F00405 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/2000 Subjects: Competition;
Competitive Intelligence — 1999, A Primer
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Von Hoffman, Constantine Publication Date: 09/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: The concept of competitive intelligence has always been around, but today more and more companies are formalizing and expanding their CI efforts. Why? Technology and other new ways of doing business are dissolving many of the boundaries that once separated competitors. This article, in question-and-answer format, explains what you need to know about CI today. HBS Number: U9909C Subjects: Competition; Competitive advantage Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Computerless Computer Co.
	Add	View	14 pp.	Article Rappaport, Andrew S.; Halevi, Shmuel By the end of the century, the most successful computer companies will be buying computers rather than building them. Defining how computers are used, not how they are built, will create real value. Three new rules will guide the computer industry's strategic transformation: 1) compete on utility, not power; 2) monopolize the true sources of added value; and 3) maximize the sophistication of the value delivered, while minimizing the sophistication of the technology consumed. McKinsey Award Winner. HBS Number: 91411 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1991 Subjects: Competition; Computer industry; Corporate strategy; Industry analysis; Innovation; McKinsey Award Winners; Technology
Connect and Develop: Inside Procter & Gamble’s New Model for Innovation
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Huston, Larry; Sakkab, Nabil Publication Date: 03/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0603C Geographic Setting: Bologna; China; India; Japan; Latin America; United States Industry Setting: Chemical industry; Consumer products Subjects: Alliances; Collaboration; Competitive advantage; Creativity; Culture; Entrepreneurs; Globalization; Ideas; Innovation; Joint ventures; Licensing; Networks; Problem solving; Product development; R&D; Sourcing; Strategy; Suppliers; Technology Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: For generations, Procter & Gamble generated most of its phenomenal growth by innovating from within — building global research facilities and hiring the best talent in the world. Back when companies were smaller and the world was less competitive, that model worked just fine. But in 2000, newly appointed CEO A.G. Lafley saw that P&G couldn't meet its growth objectives by spending greater and greater amounts on R&D for smaller and smaller payoffs. So he dispensed with the company's age-old “invent it ourselves” approach to innovation and instead embraced a “connect and develop” model. By identifying promising ideas throughout the world and applying its own capabilities to them, P&G realized it could create better and cheaper products, faster. Now, the company collaborates with suppliers, competitors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and others (that's the connect part), systematically scouring the world for proven technologies, packages, and products that P&G can improve, scale up, and market (in other words, develop), either on its own or in partnership with other companies. Thanks partly to this connect-and-develop approach, R&D productivity at Procter & Gamble has increased by nearly 60%. In the past two years, P&G launched more than 100 new products for which some aspect of development cam
Connect and Develop: Inside Procter & Gamble’s New Model for Innovation (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Huston, Larry; Sakkab, Nabil Publication Date: 03/01/2006 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 351X Industry Setting: Consumer products Subjects: Alliances; Collaboration; Competitive advantage; Innovation; Joint ventures; Licensing; Product development; R&D; Sourcing; Strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: For generations, Procter & Gamble generated most of its phenomenal growth by innovating from within — building global research facilities and hiring the best talent in the world. Back when companies were smaller and the world was less competitive, that model worked just fine. But in 2000, newly appointed CEO A.G. Lafley saw that P&G couldn't meet its growth objectives by spending greater and greater amounts on R&D for smaller and smaller payoffs. So he dispensed with the company's age-old “invent it ourselves” approach to innovation and instead embraced a “connect and develop” model. By identifying promising ideas throughout the world and applying its own capabilities to them, P&G realized it could create better and cheaper products, faster. Now, the company collaborates with suppliers, competitors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and others (that's the connect part), systematically scouring the world for proven technologies, packages, and products that P&G can improve, scale up, and market (in other words, develop), either on its own or in partnership with other companies. Thanks partly to this connect-and-develop approach, R&D productivity at Procter & Gamble has increased by nearly 60%. In the past two years, P&G launched more than 100 new products for which some aspect of development came from outside the company. Among P&G's most successful connect-and-develop products to hit the market are Olay Regenerist, Swiffer Dusters, the Crest SpinBrush, and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Most companies are still clinging
Considerations on Cascading BSC Measures
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Nirmul, Antosh G. Publication Date: 09/15/2003 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: The Balanced Scorecard becomes a strategic, value-adding tool only when an organization has in place a sound cascading process, one that ensures that strategy and priorities are aligned across the organization. This article focuses on how to execute the cascading process to ensure scorecard alignment at successive levels of the organization. HBS Number: B0309E Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Competitive advantage; Organizational development; Organizational management; Performance measurement; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Consolidation Curve
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Author(s): Deans, Graeme K.; Kroeger, Fritz; Zeisal, Publication Date: 12/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Everyone knows that industries start out fragmented and then consolidate. But new research suggests that most industries do so in a predictable way. They go through four stages, each one requiring companies to employ a different competitive strategy. HBS Number: F0212B Subjects: Industry analysis; Industry structure Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Consorting with Competitors
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Author(s): Kurt, Christopher Publication Date: 01/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: To thrive in a connected world, businesses need common standards. But industry consortia require collaboration from competitors, making these consortia difficult to set up and keep on track. Learn five practices that will help cross-industry groups succeed. HBS Number: F0201D Subjects: Competition; Information technology; Standardization Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Conversation: Nau CEO Chris Van Dyke on Tapping Customers’ Passions
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Van Dyke, Chris; O'Connell, Andrew Publication Date: 09/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: F0709F Subjects: Consumer groups; Online retailing; Product management Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Chris Van Dyke, the CEO of the outdoor apparel start-up Nau, offers some intriguing ideas about how to engage a generation of customers who are comfortable shopping online and eager to enter into a dialogue with the companies they buy from.
Core Competence of the Corporation
	Add	View	14 pp.	Article Prahalad, C.K.; Hamel, Gary A company's competitiveness derives from its core competencies and core products. Core competence is the collective learning in the organization, especially the capacity to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate streams of technologies. First companies must identify core competencies, which provide potential access to a wide variety of markets, make a contribution to the customer benefits of the product, and are difficult for competitors to imitate. Next companies must reorganize to learn from alliances and focus on internal development. McKinsey Award Winner. HBS Number: 90311 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1990 Subjects: Alliances; Competition; Competitive advantage; Core competency; Corporate strategy; McKinsey Award Winners; Organizational development; Organizational structure
Core Competence of the Corporation (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	24 pp.	Article Author(s): Prahalad, C.K.; Hamel, Gary Publication Date: 04/01/2001 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. A company's competitiveness derives from its core competencies and core products. Core competence is the collective learning in the organization, especially the capacity to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate streams of technologies. First companies must identify core competencies, which provide potential access to a wide variety of markets, make a contribution to the customer benefits of the product, and are difficult for competitors to imitate. Next companies must reorganize to learn from alliances and focus on internal development. McKinsey Award Winner. HBS Number: 6528 Subjects: Alliances; Competition; Competitive advantage; Core competency; Corporate strategy; McKinsey Award Winners; Organizational development; Organizational structure Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Core Objectives: Clarity in Designing Strategy
	Add	View	18 pp.	Article Author(s): Chatterjee, Sayan Publication Date: 02/01/2005 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: Simply copying the strategies of existing players is not enough for competitive success. Whether it's an existing market or a new market, it is important to devise methods to add more value at a lower cost to expand the value frontier. For most firms, this is an ad hoc process that can rarely be structured. Further, existing frameworks such as the value chain are very good at explaining strategy after the fact but not as good in helping managers design a strategy from the ground up. Develops a simple framework that all firms can use to design successful strategies where the tactical details can be clearly spelled out at the design stage. This framework provides managers with more choices when developing new business models. HBS Number: CMR302 Subjects: Business models; Corporate strategy; Organizational design; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Corporate Redemption and the Seven Deadly Sins
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Pearson, Andrall E. Many formerly proud U.S. corporations are languishing from the devastating effects of seven familiar sins: inconsistent product quality; slow response to the marketplace; lack of innovative, competitive products; uncompetitive cost structure; inadequate employee involvement; unresponsive customer service; and inefficient resource allocation. What's needed is a work environment that stresses speed, Spartanism, innovation, and marketplace focus. Top managers must decide what their company stands for and convince their employees of this uniqueness. They must set world-class standards and constantly pursue innovation. Other crucial factors are the right talent, an effective reward system, and CEOs that can drive the desired changes personally. HBS Number: 92308 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1992 Subjects: Competition; Corporate strategy; Innovation
Corporate Reputations: Should You Compete on Yours?
	Add	View	19 pp.	Article Author(s): Dowling, Grahame R. Publication Date: 05/01/2004 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: Although all companies would like a better corporate reputation, many are not sure what it takes to create a good reputation and others are not sure that they should use their good reputation to compete in their various markets. Mimicking the behavior of respected companies does not provide a reliable resolution to these dilemmas. Presents a framework to help managers create a better corporate reputation for their organizations and assist them in deciding whether to use this as a primary basis for competition. Also exposes some of the main costs for an organization that decides to compete on its corporate reputation. HBS Number: CMR282 Subjects: Competitive advantage; Corporate image; Corporate responsibility; Corporate strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Corporate Strategy and Structure: Historical Perspective
	Add	View	15 pp.	Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 02/23/2006 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 1758BC Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Conglomerates; Core competencies; Platforms; Synergy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Organizations have struggled for more than a century to find the ideal structures to manage their strategies. From Adam Smith's prototypical pin factory to the strategy-focused organization, provides an historical perspective on the evolution of the organization, illuminating how Balanced Scorecard innovation enables companies to design their operating systems to align structure with strategy. May be used with: (1757BC) Alignment: A Source of Economic Value; (1760BC) Aligning Financial and Customer Strategies; (1761BC) Aligning Internal Process and Learning and Growth Strategies: Integrated Strategic Themes; (1764BC) Aligning Support Functions; (1765BC) Cascading: The Process; (1766BC) Aligning Boards and Investors; (1769BC) Aligning External Partners; (1772BC) Managing the Alignment Process; (1773BC) Total Strategic Alignment.
Corporate Strategy: The Quest for Parenting Advantage
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Campbell, Andrew; Goold, Michael; Alexander, Marcus While the core competence concept appealed powerfully to companies disillusioned with diversification, it did not offer any practical guidelines for developing corporate-level strategy. To fill the gap, the authors propose the parentin HBS Number: 95202 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1995 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Diversification; Subsidiaries
Countering the Biggest Risk of All
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article
Countering the Biggest Risk of All (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Slywotzky, Adrian J.; Drzik, John Publication Date: 04/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 977X Subjects: Hedging; Industry analysis; Risk management; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Uncertainty Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0504E, originally published in April 2005. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. Corporate treasurers and chief financial officers have become adept at quantifying and managing a wide variety of risks: financial, hazard, and operational. To defend themselves, they use tried-and-true tools such as hedging, insurance, and backup systems. Some companies have even adopted the concept of enterprise risk management, integrating available risk management techniques in a comprehensive, organization wide approach. But most managers have not addressed in a systematic way the greatest threat of all: strategic risks, the array — of external events and trends that can devastate a company's growth trajectory and shareholder value. For example, a new technology may overtake your product. Gradual shifts in the market may slowly erode one of your brands beyond the point of viability. The key to surviving these strategic risks, the authors say, is knowing how to assess and respond to them. In this article, they lay out a method for identifying and responding to strategic threats. They categorize the risks into seven major classes and describe a particularly dangerous example within each category. The authors also offer countermeasures to take against these risks and describe how individual companies have deployed them to neutralize a threat and, in many cases, capitalize on it. Besides limiting the downside of risk, strategic-risk managem
Coupling Strategy to Operating Plans
	Add	View	8 pp.	Article Hobbs, John M.; Heany, Donald F. Successful strategic planning requires a thorough knowledge of operational resources. Managers can take five steps to forge effective links between a new strategy and operating plans: determine a functional overload does not exist before embarking on a new strategy; insulate portions of the business from strategic shock waves; pay personal attention to major "coupling" issues between strategy and operational planning; ensure that the strategic planning team has charted comprehensive follow-through actions; and focus on downward, not just upward, communication within the corporation. HBS Number: 77308 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1977 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Operations management; Strategic planning
Crafting Strategy
	Added	View	10 pp.	Article Mintzberg, Henry Formal planning alone is not the best way for managers to develop strategy. Facts, figures, and forecasts are necessary; but managers also need an intuitive understanding of the organization, a feel for the business not unlike a potter's feel for the clay. Strategy is not just a plan for the future but also a pattern out of the past. Strategies are not always deliberate--they also emerge over time as organizations innovate and respond to their markets. By seeing patterns take shape in their environments, the best strategists find strategies as well as create them. McKinsey Award Winner. HBS Number: 87407 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/1987 Subjects: McKinsey Award Winners; Planning; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation
Creating Climate for Change: Mobilizing the Executive Team & Your Organization
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Kane, Katherine Publication Date: 05/15/2004 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Managing change is fundamentally a people issue. It's about motivation and influencing behavior, breaking old habits and attitudes, and creating an environment that's conducive to embracing the new. Jay Conger, a leading expert on executive leadership, change management, and corporate governance, offers four points on fostering new attitudes that will help rally your organization for transformation. HBS Number: B0405D Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Leadership; Management of change; Motivation; Organizational behavior; Organizational development Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Creating Corporate Advantage
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Collis, David J.; Montgomery, Cynthia A. This article presents a comprehensive framework for value creation in the multibusiness company. It addresses the most fundamental questions of corporate strategy: What businesses should a company be in? How should it coordinate activ HBS Number: 98303 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 5/1/1998 Subjects: Competition; Competitive advantage; Corporate strategy; Performance measurement; Portfolio management
Creating New Growth Platforms
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Laurie, Donald L.; Doz, Yves L.; Sheer, Claude P. Publication Date: 05/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0605D Industry Setting: Medical equipment & device industry Subjects: Acquisitions; Growth strategy; Innovation; Interviews; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Sooner or later, most companies can't attain the growth rates expected by their boards and CEOs and demanded by investors. To some extent, such businesses are victims of their own successes. Many were able to sustain high growth rates for a long time because they were in high-growth industries. But once those industries slowed down, the businesses could no longer deliver the performance that investors had come to take for granted. Often, companies have resorted to acquisition, though this strategy has a discouraging track record. Over time, 65% of acquisitions destroy more value than they create. So where does real growth come from? For the past 12 years, the authors have researched and advised companies on this issue. With the support of researchers at Harvard Business School and INSEAD, they instituted a project titled The CEO Agenda and Growth. They identified and approached 24 companies that had achieved significant organic growth and interviewed their CEOs, chief strategists, heads of R&D, CFOs, and top-line managers. They asked, “Where does your growth come from?” and found a consistent pattern in the answers. All the businesses grew by creating new growth platforms (NGPs) on which they could build families of products and services and extend their capabilities into multiple new domains. Identifying NGP opportunities calls for executives to challenge conventional wisdom. In all the companies studied, top management believed that NGP innovation differed significantly from traditional product or service innovation. They had
Creating New Market Space
	Added	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Kim, W. Chan; Mauborgne, Renee A. Publication Date: 01/01/1999 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 99105 Subjects: Competition; Growth strategy; Industry analysis; Innovation; Market structure; Product development; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Most companies focus on matching and beating their rivals. As a result, their strategies tend to take on similar dimensions. What ensues is head-to-head competition based largely on incremental improvements in cost, quality, or both. The authors, Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne from INSEAD, have studied how innovative companies break free from the competitive pack by staking out fundamentally new market space — that is, by creating products or services for which there are no direct competitors. This path to value innovation requires a different competitive mind-set and a systematic way of looking for opportunities. Instead of looking within the conventional boundaries that define how an industry competes, managers can look methodically across them. By so doing, they can find unoccupied territory that represents real value innovation. Rather than looking at competitors within their own industry, for example, managers can ask why customers make the trade-off between substitute products or services. Home Depot, for example, looked across the substitutes serving home improvement needs. Intuit looked across the substitutes available to individuals managing their personal finances. In both cases, powerful insights were derived from looking at familiar data from a new perspective. Similar insights can be gleaned by looking across strategic groups within an industry; across buyer groups; across complementary product and service offerings; across the functional-emotional orientation of an industry; and even across time. To help readers explore new market space systematically, the
Creating New Market Space (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	20 pp.	Article Author(s): Kim, W. Chan; Mauborgne, Renee A. Publication Date: 07/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 726X Subjects: Competition; Growth strategy; Industry analysis; Innovation; Market structure; Product development; Product introduction; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of HBR article 99105, originally published in 1999. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. Most companies focus on matching and beating their rivals. As a result, their strategies tend to take on similar dimensions. What ensues is head-to-head competition based largely on incremental improvements in cost, quality, or both. The authors, W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne from Insead, have studied how innovative companies break free from the competitive pack by staking out fundamentally new market space — that is, by creating products or services for which there are no direct competitors. This path to value innovation requires a different competitive mind-set and a systematic way of looking for opportunities. Instead of looking within the conventional boundaries that define how an industry competes, managers can look methodically across them. By so doing, they can find unoccupied territory that represents real value innovation. Rather than looking at competitors within their own industry, for example, managers can ask why customers make the trade-off between substitute products or services. Home Depot, for example, looked across the substitutes serving home improvement needs. Intuit looked across the substitutes available to individuals managing their personal finances. In both cases, powerful insights were derived from looking at familiar data from a new perspective. Similar insights can be gleaned by lookin
Creating Value from Organizational Alignment
	Add	View	10 pp.	Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 11/15/2005 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Generally, when we speak of ``alignment'' we're referring to the idea that the component units of an organization must work toward supporting the corporate strategy. Such alignment flows from the bottom up. But there's another, top-down, form of alignment organizations should foster: creating value. After all, what is the purpose of the multiunit corporate entity if the whole doesn't exceed the sum of its parts? Here, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton share insights on the ways in which the corporate entity can cultivate synergies throughout the organization's business and support units, across all four Balanced Scorecard perspectives, to create that extra value. HBS Number: B0511A Subjects: Alignment; Brand management; Competitive advantage; Customer relationships; Economies of scale; Enterprises; Holding companies; Resource allocation; Strategic business unit; Strategy; Synergy; Value chains; Value creation; Value proposition Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Curse of the Superstar CEO
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Khurana, Rakesh Publication Date: 09/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0209D Subjects: CEO; Interpersonal behavior; Leadership; Management styles; Personal strategy & style; Power & influence; Values; Vision Academic Discipline: Organizational behavior & leadership Product Description: When struggling companies look for a new chief executive today, the one quality they prize above all others is charisma. But once they've recruited a larger-than-life leader, they often find that their troubles only get worse. Indeed, as the author's new research painfully reveals, the widespread belief in the powers of charismatic CEOs can be problematic. Why? First, Khurana says, there's no conclusive evidence that charismatic leadership affects an organization's performance. Second, the insistence on finding a charismatic leader, combined with the undefinable nature of charisma, results in selection processes that are overly conservative and even irrational. Boards end up considering only candidates who have already achieved the rank of CEO or president at a high-performing, high-profile company, even if they are not right for the job. Third, charismatic leaders deliberately destabilize organizations. This can result in a more vibrant company, as it did at General Electric during Jack Welch's tenure, but it can also leave a troubled legacy for the organization to overcome, as GE, Ford, and Enron have all found. Faith in a company, a product, or an idea can unleash tremendous innovation and productivity. May be used with: (9-493-017) Chrysler: Iacocca's Legacy.
Curveball: Strategies to Fool the Competition
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Stalk, George, Jr. Publication Date: 09/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0609G Geographic Setting: Australia; Europe; North America; United Kingdom; United States Industry Setting: Airline industry; Banking industry; Chemical industry; Cleaning product; Industrial goods; Medical equipment & device industry Subjects: Competition; Competitive advantage; Competitive rivalry between existing players; Corporate strategy; Customer service; Sales strategy; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Success; Tactics Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In this follow-up piece to his article “Hardball: Five Killer Strategies for Trouncing the Competition” (HBR, April 2004), George Stalk Jr. of the Boston Consulting Group offers another approach for prevailing over rivals. Strategic hardball is about playing rough and tough with competitors; strategic curveball is about outfoxing them. It involves getting rivals to do something dumb that they otherwise wouldn't (that is, swing at a pitch that appears to be in the strike zone but isn't) or not do something smart that they otherwise would (that is, fail to swing at a pitch that's in the strike zone but appears not to be). Stalk describes four types of curveball: First, draw your rival out of the profit zone. Lure competitors into disadvantageous areas — for example, by competing for, but intentionally failing to win, the business of less profitable customers. Second, borrow techniques from unexpected places. Using the hardball tactic of plagiarizing good ideas, put rivals off balance by importing techniques from other industries — for example, employing the retailer's hard sell in the stodgy world of retail financial services. Third, disguise how you attain your success. Veil your methods by achieving an advantage through
Curveball: Strategies to Fool the Competition (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Stalk, George, Jr. Publication Date: 09/01/2006 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 1055 Industry Setting: Airline industry; Chemical industry; Industrial goods Subjects: Competition; Competitive advantage; Competitive rivalry between existing players; Corporate strategy; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In this follow-up piece to his article “Hardball: Five Killer Strategies for Trouncing the Competition ” (HBR, April 2004), George Stalk Jr. of the Boston Consulting Group offers another approach for prevailing over rivals. Strategic hardball is about playing rough and tough with competitors; strategic curveball is about outfoxing them. It involves getting rivals to do something dumb that they otherwise wouldn't (that is, swing at a pitch that appears to be in the strike zone but isn't) or not do something smart that they otherwise would (that is, fail to swing at a pitch that's in the strike zone but appears not to be). Stalk describes four types of curveball: First, draw your rival out of the profit zone. Lure competitors into disadvantageous areas — for example, by competing for, but intentionally failing to win, the business of less profitable customers. Second, borrow techniques from unexpected places. Using the hardball tactic of plagiarizing good ideas, put rivals off balance by importing techniques from other industries — for example, employing the retailer's hard sell in the stodgy world of retail financial services. Third, disguise how you attain your success. Veil your methods by achieving an advantage through unlikely means — for example, generating product sales through your service operations. Finally, let rivals misinterpret the reasons for your success. Allow them to act on conventional but incomplete explanations for your success — for examp
Cut Complexity — and Costs
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Gottfredson, Mark; Schwedel, Andrew Publication Date: 08/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0808A Subjects: Costs; Customers; Product lines; Profitability; Strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: It's axiomatic that complexity is bad for business. In a recent Bain & Company survey of executives worldwide, 70% said that complexity drives up costs and hinders growth. For goods manufacturers, the evidence is hard to miss — stockpiles of inventory, costly downtime for production-line changeovers, merchandise languishing on retailers' shelves or in their showrooms. For service companies, though, complexity is much harder to spot and root out, largely due to the ease with which new products can be created and marketed. Invoking Henry Ford's “Model T” approach to product-line simplicity, the authors of this article suggest three disciplines to help you hold “complexity creep” in check as you innovate to meet your customers' evolving needs.
Cycles of Corporate Branding: The Case of the LEGO Co.
	Add	View	22 pp.	Article Author(s): Schultz, Majken; Hatch, Mary Jo Publication Date: 10/01/2003 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: Presents a framework for the strategic management of corporate brands as seen from a top management perspective. Describes the change processes involved in a corporate branding effort at the LEGO Co. Whereas much of the literature on branding focuses on the initiation of a corporate branding effort (e.g., brand positioning, brand identity formulation, brand architecture design), this case follows the LEGO Co.'s branding process through four progressive phases: stating the brand, linking vision to culture and brand image, involving stakeholders in brand-relevant activities, and integrating the organization behind the brand. During this strategic shift, LEGO's top management vision, organizational culture, and stakeholder images became increasingly aligned. HBS Number: CMR266 Subjects: Brand management; Corporate branding; Corporate culture; Vision Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Darwin and the Demon: Innovating Within Established Enterprises
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Author(s): Moore, Geoffrey A. Publication Date: 07/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: As commercial processes commoditize in a developed economy, they are outsourced or transferred offshore, leaving onshore companies with unrelenting, Darwinian pressure to come up with the next wave of innovation. But “innovation” is a broad term. There are many types, from the ballyhooed disruptive innovation to more mundane forms such as process and experiential, which might involve, respectively, doing such things as streamlining the supply chain and delighting customers with small product modifications. Many executives find it hard to decide which kind to focus on. The best way to choose is to consider the phases of a market's life span. In a market's earliest phase, a new technology attracts enthusiasts and visionaries. Eventually, the market reaches the Main Street section of its life, when growth slows, flattens, and finally subsides. Different types of innovation produce more bang for the buck at different points in the life cycle. Disruptive innovation, for example, is rewarded most during the earliest phase. Once the life cycle advances to Main Street, however, the marketplace is no longer willing to yield the revenue or margin gains necessary to fund that type of innovation, so other forms, including process and experiential, yield better returns. But attempts to change the company's direction are often thwarted by the inertia that success creates. To overcome the inertia demon, managers must introduce new types of innovation while aggressively extracting resources from legacy processes and organizations. By running the two efforts in parallel, they can defeat the demon and renew the company. HBS Number: R0407F Subjects: Disruptive technologies; Innovation; Market entry; Process innovation; Product development Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
David and Goliath, Reconsidered
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Bhide, Amar V. Large corporations and small start-ups are not mutually exclusive organizational forms. Rather, they exist symbiotically, each requiring and drawing on the unique capacities of the other. HBS Number: F00504 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/2000 Subjects: Business history; Entrepreneurs; Industry structure; Organizational structure
Dawn of the E-Lance Economy
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Malone, Thomas W.; Laubacher, Robert J. In this eye-opening article, Thomas W. Malone and Robert J. Laubacher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology look at how a new kind of organization could form the basis of a new kind of economy--an e-lance economy--where all the HBS Number: 98508 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1998 Subjects: Electronic commerce; Employees; Information age; Information technology; Internet; New economy; Virtual communities
Death of Diversification? The Focusing of the World’s Industrial Firms, 1980
	Add	View	10 pp.	Article Author(s): Franko, Lawrence G. Publication Date: 07/15/2004 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University Product Description: The 1990s saw the world's industrial companies turn away in droves from the strategy of product diversification. The causes for such change include recognition of the poor performance of highly diversified firms, a trend toward decision frameworks based on market allocation of resources among disparate activities, and the rise of institutional shareholders that demand performance and clarity. These developments will continue to raise the intensity of global industrial competition, requiring managers to cope by thinking more about multinational than multiproduct expansion. Will the few remaining conglomerates and highly diversified corporate holdouts remain strategically viable? And what will happen to firms that persist in diversifying outside their core industries in spite of all the evidence? HBS Number: BH106 Subjects: Competition; Conglomerates; Corporate strategy; Diversification Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debating George Gilder’s Microcosm: T.J. Rodgers vs. Robert Noyce
	Add	View	10 pp.	Article Rodgers, T.J.; Noyce, Robert N. Two leading figures from Silicon Valley offer different perspectives on George Gilder's Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology. T.J. Rodgers, president and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, applauds Gilder's central themes. Robert N. Noyce, a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel and CEO of the Sematech chip consortium, disagrees sharply with Gilder. HBS Number: 90112 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1990 Subjects: Competition; Corporate strategy; Economic policy; Regulated industries; Semiconductors; Technological change
Debriefing Barbara Kellerman: How Bad a Leader Are You?
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 02/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: In her new book, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, Barbara Kellerman, of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, discusses the varieties of faulty corporate management. There are intemperate leaders, who lack control over their hunger for money or power; callous leaders, who ignore or discount the needs and wishes of others in their organizations; corrupt leaders, who lie, cheat, or steal, putting self-interest before the needs of their organizations; insular leaders, who disregard the welfare of constituencies outside their organizations; and rigid leaders, who are unable or unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information, or changing times. Plenty of leaders fall into more than one of these groups. Leaders who want to help their companies succeed must first grasp the real nature of bad leadership. Only then can they develop strategies for combating it. HBS Number: U0502B >Subjects: Leadership; Organizational problems; Performance appraisal; Performance effectiveness Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debriefing Chris Argyris: Combating Defensive Reasoning
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 03/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: What do Enron, the CIA, and the Catholic Church have in common? Leaders in these organizations committed egregious mistakes and cover-ups that stemmed from defensive routines -- behaviors intended to prevent individuals, groups, or organizations from embarrassment or threats, says Harvard University professor Chris Argyris. Leaders who practice defensive routines don't simply ``spin'' or hide the truth when it's potentially embarrassing or threatening; their defensive reasoning leads them to cover up the fact that they're covering up. Moreover, they discourage opposing viewpoints and blame others or ``the system'' for mistakes. As a result, errors in thinking go unexamined, and poor decisions go uncorrected. Although eradicating defensive routines is difficult, their existence is so prevalent -- and so damaging -- that leaders have no choice but to try. HBS Number: U0503D Subjects: Behavior; Communication; Conflict; Ethics; Human behavior Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy



Debriefing Gabriel Szulanski: Improving Best-Practice Transfer
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Publication Date: 03/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: According to Gabriel Szulanski, author of Sticky Knowledge: Barriers to Knowing in the Firm and associate professor of strategy and management at Insead, most firms encounter huge difficulties in trying to spread best practices. Read about how executives can make their companies' existing knowledge less ``sticky'' and capture the financial gains awaiting them if they can close those performance gaps. HBS Number: U0403E Subjects: Knowledge management; Leadership; Management philosophy; Organizational development; Performance effectiveness Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debriefing Larry Bossidy: What Gets Things Done
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 01/01/2006 Product Type: Supply Chain Strategy Article Product Description: Your goal may be clear, but how clear is your strategy for reaching it? If you're like most executives, the answer is: Not clear enough. This article presents Larry Bossidy's take on why this is so often the case — and five steps managers can take to sweeten the odds that their initiatives will survive the hazards that threaten to stall them. HBS Number: P0601D Subjects: Leadership; Management communication; Strategic intent; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debriefing Larry Bossidy: What Makes Change Happen?
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 10/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0710C Subjects: Business growth; Change management; Leadership; Strategic management; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: You have been charged with implementing a significant new initiative. Your goal may be clear, but how clear is your strategy for implementing it? If you're like most executives, the answer is: Not clear enough. Indeed, most major change initiatives fail, many of them soon after implementation begins, says Larry Bossidy, coauthor of “Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right.” The reason? Executives commit one or more of several common errors, all of which stem from insufficient planning and follow-through. The five steps highlighted in this article will help executives avoid these and other prevalent mistakes when implementing new initiatives.
Debriefing Marcus Buckingham: What Leaders Must Provide
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 05/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Good leaders have to be passionate, the common wisdom goes. They must excel at public speaking, have brilliant minds for strategy, and possess the common touch with followers. Not true, insists Marcus Buckingham, author of The One Thing You Need to Know...About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success. Leaders don't necessarily have to demonstrate any of these qualities. Far more important is their ability to provide followers with clarity. Vague visions and mission statements and long lists of performance metrics have left employees unsure where to focus. But when leaders present a clear vision of their unit's or company's desired future and their plan for getting there, they replace employees' anxiety with confidence and their uncertainty with resilience and creativity. HBS Number: U0505C Subjects: Creativity; Leadership; Management philosophy; Management styles; Strategic intent Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debriefing Paul Nutt: Increase the Odds of Being Right
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 06/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: If you make decisions the way most people do, says Ohio State University management professor Paul Nutt, your decision is just as likely to be a failure as it is to be a success. And 50-50 is hardly a recipe for success in business. By Nutt's definition, a failed decision is one that proves, for whatever reason, impossible to carry out. For example, you evaluate several new technologies for your unit, select one that you consider the most promising, and then promptly encounter stiff resistance from the people who will have to use it. Failed decisions at any level in your company take a large toll in the form of wasted time, effort, and money. And poor decision making isn't limited to the inexperienced or intellectually inferior, says Nutt. Even smart people in clever organizations make bad decisions. So what do you do? Learn to find the weak points in your decision-making processes and move to eradicate them. HBS Number: U0506C Subjects: Decision analysis; Decision making; Decision theory; Leadership Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debriefing Richard Steele: Stamp Out Budget Shenanigans
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 08/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: It's budgeting time again, and several managers are up to their old tricks. The head of marketing presents a less-than-ambitious plan so he can exceed his targets and earn his bonus. A division manager is veiling her unit's flaws to win funding for her plan. The product development director insists that failing to invest in his idea will doom the company to the sidelines. Yes, in the short run, budget games may pay individual managers dividends in the form of healthy resources and achievable bonuses. But in the long run, executives who tolerate budget games ``help create a culture of underperformance, or what we call a mediocracy,'' says Richard Steele, a New York-based partner at management consultancy Marakon Associates. These executives set the stage for ongoing underperformance. And, ultimately, when the company underperforms, everyone suffers. To avoid this scenario, you need to identify questionable behavior and intervene promptly. Learn how. HBS Number: U0508B Subjects: Behavior; Budgeting; Leadership; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Debriefing William Sahlman: Manage Like an Entrepreneur
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Entrepreneurship is a largely misunderstood -- and, thus, underused -- idea in business, says Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman. And, in a business climate where disruptive technologies overturn all the rules and new rivals attack without warning, executives who fail to lead like entrepreneurs place their companies in deep peril. Owing to deeply embedded assumptions and other obstacles, many executives in established firms find it difficult to master this management approach. Yet, a handful of practices and principles can help leaders begin thinking -- and acting -- like entrepreneurs. HBS Number: U0501B Subjects: Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Management of change; Management philosophy; Strategic intent Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Decision Analytics: From Back Office to Center Stage
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 07/15/2007 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article HBS Number: B0707C Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Communication; Competitive advantage; Corporate strategy; Innovation; Market research; Performance measurement Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This article, adapted from a presentation by analytics guru Tom Davenport, author of the new “Competing on Analytics,” offers examples of how leading organizations from Marriott to Capital One are using analytics in creative ways to gain competitive advantage — and what your organization can do to get an analytics program under way.
Decisions: How Will You Turn Top-Level Strategy into Unit-Level Action?
	Add	View	3 pp.	Article Author(s): Michelman, Paul Publication Date: 08/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: A shift in corporate strategy should affect everyone in the company in some form. Near the top of the organizational chart, the impact is often dramatic. But as you go deeper into the organization, the issue of just how the new strategy should manifest itself can soon become cloudy. Managers throughout the ranks share the responsibility for creating clarity around what the strategy means at the unit, team, and individual levels -- and for seeing that the strategy is carried out. Learn about a three-point plan for converting corporate strategy into an actionable agenda. HBS Number: U0408G Subjects: Corporate culture; Corporate strategy; Organizational development; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Defining Complex Customer Relationships in Healthcare with the BSC
	Add	View	5 pp.	Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Nevius, Ann S. Publication Date: 03/15/2003 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: Few industries have such a spider's web of constituent relationships as healthcare. Recently, BSR sat down with four industry executives from a cross-section of providers to explore how the BSC has helped them define, validate, and clarify customer strategy and relationships. Read what these four experts had to say about the Balanced Scorecard. HBS Number: B0303C Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Corporate strategy; Customer relations; Executives; Health care; Health organizations management; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Defining Personal and Team Objectives
	Add	View	21 pp.	Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 09/13/2000 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 1620BC Subjects: Alignment; Business units; Integration; Quality; Strategic objectives Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: For strategy to become truly meaningful to employees, personal goals and objectives must be aligned with the organizational objectives. The Balanced Scorecard provides individuals with a broad understanding of company and business unit strategy. Illustrates several different methods, including the “Super Bowl” approach and Personal Balanced Scorecards, to connect the strategic objectives that appear on a company or business unit scorecard to personal and team objectives. May be used with: (1611BC) Creating the Strategy-Focused Organization; (1612BC) How Mobil Became a Strategy-Focused Organization; (1613BC) Building Strategy Maps; (1614BC) Building Strategy Maps in Private Sector Companies; (1615BC) Strategy Scorecards in Nonprofit, Government, and Health Care Organizations; (1616BC) Creating Business Unit Strategy; (1617BC) Creating Synergies through Shared Services; (1618BC) Creating Strategic Awareness; (1621BC) The Balanced Paycheck; (1622BC) Planning and Budgeting (Linking Operational Control Processes to Strategy); (1623BC) Feedback and Learning (Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create a Strategic Feedback System); (1624BC) Leadership and Mobilization; (1625BC) Avoiding the Pitfalls (Learning from Failed Balanced Scorecard Programs); (1714BC) The Strategy-Focused Organization FAQ.
Defining the Minimum Winning Game in High-Technology Ventures
	Add	View	22 pp.	Article Author(s): Burgelman, Robert A.; Siegel, Robert E. Publication Date: 05/01/2007 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR363 Industry Setting: High technology Subjects: Corporate strategy; High technology; High technology products; Product development; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Technological planning; Technology Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Based on a combination of exploratory field research and executive experience, proposes that defining the “Minimum Winning Game” (MWG) is a difficult yet critical responsibility of top management. It is essential to keep a high-technology venture focused and to enable managers to learn from their ongoing efforts in the face of rapidly evolving technological and market uncertainties. Achieving the MWG requires the intelligent balancing of three “key drivers of strategic action”: technology, product, and strategy development. Finally, instilling the discipline necessary to define the MWG and balance the drivers of strategic action is facilitated by the use of a strategy-making process informed by key data gathering and analysis tools such as the Market Requirement Document and the Product Requirement Document.
Delivering Desired Outcomes Efficiently: The Creative Key to Competitive Strate
	Add	View	19 pp.	Article Chatterjee, Sayan To stay strong in an increasingly competitive climate, firms must think creatively and make the best use of their resources. Managers tend to look at resources in terms of concrete product features rather than in terms of the abstract outcomes that are valuable to customers. Initially thinking about outcomes--and not about products, processes, or features--will enhance the creative use of resources that leads to competitive advantage. The mindset will allow managers to see alternate ways of delivering the outcomes that customers value. HBS Number: CMR103 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 1/1/1998 Subjects: Competitive advantage; Competitive decision making; Consumer marketing; Corporate strategy; Creativity; Resource allocation Publisher: California Management Review
Design Thinking
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Brown, Tim Publication Date: 06/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0806E Subjects: Innovation; Product design Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In the past, design has most often occurred fairly far downstream in the development process and has focused on making new products aesthetically attractive or enhancing brand perception through smart, evocative advertising. Today, as innovation's terrain expands to encompass human-centered processes and services as well as products, companies are asking designers to create ideas rather than to simply dress them up. Brown, the CEO and president of the innovation and design firm IDEO, is a leading proponent of design thinking — a method of meeting people's needs and desires in a technologically feasible and strategically viable way. In this article he offers several intriguing examples of the discipline at work. One involves a collaboration between frontline employees from health care provider Kaiser Permanente and Brown's firm to reengineer nursing-staff shift changes at four Kaiser hospitals. Close observation of actual shift changes, combined with brainstorming and rapid prototyping, produced new procedures and software that radically streamlined information exchange between shifts. The result was more time for nursing, better-informed patient care, and a happier nursing staff. Another involves the Japanese bicycle components manufacturer Shimano, which worked with IDEO to learn why 90% of American adults don't ride bikes. The interdisciplinary project team discovered that intimidating retail experiences, the complexity and cost of sophisticated bikes, and the danger of cycling on heavily trafficked roads had overshadowed people's happy memories of childhood biking. So the team created a brand concept — “Coasting” — to describe a whole new category of biking an
Designing Organizations for Performance: The Alignment of Design and Strategy
	Add	View	39 pp.	Article Author(s): Simons, Robert Publication Date: 06/16/2005 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 2410BC Subjects: Accountability; Control systems; Organizational behavior; Organizational design; Organizational structure; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation; Vision Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In this chapter, the author brings the analysis down to the ground level — the level of individual people and business units — to test whether different designs are capable of implementing strategy successfully. May be used with: (2403BC) The Tensions of Organization Design: Optimizing Trade-offs; (2404BC) Aligning Span of Attention: The Goal of Organization Design; (2405BC) Unit Structure: Defining a Primary Customer as a Basis for Organizational Architecture; (2406BC) Diagnostic Control Systems: Determining Critical Performance Variables to Support Strategic Goals; (2407BC) Interactive Networks: Determining the Right Degree of Creative Tension to Support Business Strategy; (2408BC) Share Responsibilities: Managing Human Behavior to Advance Organizational Strategy; (2409BC) Adjusting the Levers: Three Examples: Levers of Organization Design at Work.
Developing a Knowledge Strategy
	Add	View	22 pp.	Article Zack, Michael Today, knowledge is considered the most strategically important resource and learning the most strategically important capability for business organizations. However, many initiatives being undertaken to develop and exploit organizatio HBS Number: CMR151 Type: CMR Article Publication Date: 4/1/1999 Subjects: Competitive advantage; Corporate strategy; Information systems; Knowledge management; Learning Publisher: California Management Review
Developing Productive Customers in Emerging Markets
	Add	View	28 pp.	Article Author(s): Flores, Fernando; Letelier, Maria Flores; Spinosa, Charles Publication Date: 07/01/2003 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: Most companies believe that successful entry into lower income, emerging markets requires price slashing by subtracting product features. Moreover, companies generally believe that it is appropriate to appeal to potential customers strictly as consumers who want their needs satisfied. Demonstrates that companies can appeal to customers as productive agents who want to build and transform their lives. Offering customers productivity-enhancing systems coupled with culturally appropriate offerings allows companies to charge appropriately and succeed in lower income, emerging markets. Provides examples of such successful competitive differentiation in the global marketplace. HBS Number: CMR263 Subjects: Emerging markets; Market entry; Market positioning; Product differentiation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Developing Services Consumers Want
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Senior, John Publication Date: 10/31/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0811C Subjects: Business models; Consumer behavior; Consumers; Product development Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Creating new services that captivate consumers and boost the bottom line is a tough job today. The abundance of offerings, vendors, and channels makes the competition for consumers' attention especially keen. John Senior, a partner at worldwide consultancy Oliver Wyman, advises managers responsible for developing new service products to stay ahead of the game by following four steps: (1) Start with the customer, not the technology; (2) Prioritize concepts using sharply defined business criteria, not intuition; (3) Design the business model, not just the service features and functionality; and (4) Rigorously test ground-breaking concepts with consumers. Using these best practices, you can speed time to market and better your chances of a successful launch.
Diagnostic Control Systems: Determining Critical Performance Variables to Support Strategic Goals
	Add	View	42 pp.	Article Author(s): Simons, Robert Publication Date: 06/16/2005 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 2406BC Subjects: Accountability; Control systems; Organizational behavior; Organizational design; Performance measurement; Resistance; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This chapter introduces the second of the four Cs of organization design-critical performance variables — and examines how accountability and resistance factor in to designing an organization that creates value. May be used with: (2404BC) Aligning Span of Attention: The Goal of Organization Design; (2403BC) The Tensions of Organization Design: Optimizing Trade-offs; (2405BC) Unit Structure: Defining a Primary Customer as a Basis for Organizational Architecture; (2407BC) Interactive Networks: Determining the Right Degree of Creative Tension to Support Business Strategy; (2408BC) Share Responsibilities: Managing Human Behavior to Advance Organizational Strategy; (2409BC) Adjusting the Levers: Three Examples: Levers of Organization Design at Work; (2410BC) Designing Organizations for Performance: The Alignment of Design and Strategy.
Discipline and the Dilutive Deal
	Add	View	4 pp.	Article Author(s): Harding, David; Yale, Phyllis Publication Date: 07/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Mergers that instantly boost earnings per share may gain favorable attention from Wall Street, but dilutive deals can outperform accretive deals in the long term because executives are pressed to rigorously analyze and execute on the promise of their acquisitions. HBS Number: F0207B Subjects: Acquisitions; Earnings; Mergers Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Disciplined Decisions: Aligning Strategy with the Financial Markets
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Amram, Martha; Kulatilaka, Nalin The goal of strategy is clear--to increase shareholder value. But in volatile markets, it?s difficult to predict how a particular investment will affect a company?s value. In this article, Martha Amram, a partner with the consultancy O HBS Number: 99101 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1999 Subjects: Capital investments; Financial analysis; Financial planning; Financial strategy; Real options; Risk management; Securities analysis; Strategy formulation; Uncertainty
Discovery-Driven Planning
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Gunther McGrath, Rita; MacMillan, Ian C. Publication Date: 07/01/1995 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 95406 Subjects: Development stage enterprises; Entrepreneurship; Market entry; Planning; Planning systems; Pro forma financial statements; Product introduction; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Smart companies may incur huge losses when they enter unknown territory — new alliances, markets, products, technologies. Failures could be prevented or their cost contained if managers approached innovative ventures with the right planning and control tools. Discovery-driven planning is a practical tool that acknowledges the difference between planning for a new venture and for a more conventional business. Using Kao Corp.'s entry into floppy disks, the authors present a step-by-step approach to help companies think differently about planning. Managers should begin with the bottom line and work their way up the income statement, first determining a new venture's profit potential. May be used with: (9-698-079) Du Pont Kevlar Aramid Industrial Fiber (Abridged).
Disruptive Change: When Trying Harder Is Part of the Problem
	Add	View	8 pp.	Article Author(s): Gilbert, Clark; Bower, Joseph L. Publication Date: 05/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0205G Subjects: Competitive advantage; Disruptive technologies; Innovation; Organizational structure; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation; Technological change Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: When a company faces a major disruption in its markets, managers' perceptions of the disruption influence how they respond to it. If, for instance, they view the disruption as a threat to their core business, managers tend to overreact, committing too many resources too quickly. But if they see it as an opportunity, they're likely to commit insufficient resources to its development. Clark Gilbert and Joseph Bower explain why thinking in such stark terms — threat or opportunity — is dangerous. It's possible, they argue, to arrive at an organizational framing that makes good use of the adrenaline a threat creates as well as of the creativity an opportunity affords. The authors claim that the most successful companies frame the challenge differently at different times: When resources are being allocated, managers see the disruptive innovation as a threat. But when the hard strategic work of discovering and responding to new markets begins, the disruptive innovation is treated as an opportunity. The ability to reframe the disruptive technology as circumstances evolve is not an easy skill to master, the authors admit. In fact, it might not be possible without adjusting the organizational structure and the processes governing new business funding. Successful companies, the authors have determined, tend to do certain things: They establish a new venture separate from the core business; they fund the venture in stages as markets emerge; they don't rely on employees from the core organization to staff the new business; and they appoin
Disruptive Change: When Trying Harder Is Part of the Problem (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
	Add	View	16 pp.	Article Author(s): Gilbert, Clark; Bower, Joseph L. Publication Date: 05/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 9993 Subjects: Competitive advantage; Disruptive technologies; Innovation; Organizational structure; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation; Technological change Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR article R0205G originally published in May 2002. HBR OnPoints contain the full-text article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. When a company faces a major disruption in its markets, managers' perceptions of the disruption influence how they respond to it. If, for instance, they view the disruption as a threat to their core business, managers tend to overreact, committing too many resources too quickly. But if they see it as an opportunity, they're likely to commit insufficient resources to its development. Clark Gilbert and Joseph Bower explain why thinking in such stark terms — threat or opportunity — is dangerous. It's possible, they argue, to arrive at an organizational framing that makes good use of the adrenaline a threat creates as well as of the creativity an opportunity affords. The authors claim that the most successful companies frame the challenge differently at different times: When resources are being allocated, managers see the disruptive innovation as a threat. But when the hard strategic work of discovering and responding to new markets begins, the disruptive innovation is treated as an opportunity. The ability to reframe the disruptive technology as circumstances evolve is not an easy skill to master, the authors admit. In fact, it might not be possible without adjusting the organizational structure and the processes governing new business funding. Successful companies, the authors have determined, tend to do certain things: They establish a new venture separate from the co
Diversification via Acquisition: Creating Value
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Author(s): Salter, Malcolm S.; Weinhold, Wolf A. Publication Date: 07/01/1978 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: 78408 Subjects: Acquisitions; Corporate strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: A company should acquire another business only when the skills and resources of the two businesses can produce an income, or reduction in the variability of income, greater than what can be realized from a portfolio investment in the two businesses. Seven common misconceptions illustrate fallacies about diversification through acquisition. Acquisition-minded companies may use a set of seven suggested methods to obtain returns greater than those obtainable from simple portfolio diversification.
Divestiture: Strategy’s Missing Link
	Add	View	12 pp.	Article Author(s): Dranikoff, Lee; Koller, Tim; Schneider, An Publication Date: 05/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Although most companies dedicate considerable time and attention to acquiring and creating businesses, few devote much effort to divestitures. But regularly divesting businesses--even good, healthy ones--ensures that remaining units reach their potential and that the overall company grows stronger. Drawing on extensive research into corporate performance over the last decade, McKinsey consultants Lee Dranikoff, Tim Koller, and Antoon Schneider show that an active divestiture strategy is essential to a corporation's long-term health and profitability. In particular, they say that companies that actively manage their businesses through acquisitions and divestitures create substantially more shareholder value than those that passively hold on to their businesses. Therefore, companies should avoid making divestitures only in response to pressure and instead make them part of a well-thought-out strategy. This article presents a five-step process for doing just that: prepare the organization, identify the best candidates for divestiture, execute the best deal, communicate the decision, and create new businesses. As the fifth step suggests, divestiture is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to a larger end: