Harvard Business Review Articles — Competitive Strategy
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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;
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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).
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
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
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.
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: building a company that can grow and prosper over the long haul. HBS Number: R0205E Subjects: Acquisitions; Business growth; Corporate reorganization; Divestiture; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Dranikoff, Lee; Koller, Tim; Schneider, An Publication Date: 05/01/2002 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR article R0205E originally published in May 2002. HBR OnPoints contain the full-text article, plus a synopsis and annotated bibliography. 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: building a company that can grow and prosper over the long haul. HBS Number: 1016 Subjects: Acquisitions; Business growth; Corporate reorganization; Divestiture; Strategic planning; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Werner, Uta Publication Date: 08/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0408D Subjects: Customer relations; Customer retention; Management philosophy; Service management; Values Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: If a company truly understood each customer's lifetime value, it could maximize its own value by boosting the number, scope, and duration of value-creating customer relationships. In reality, however, very few companies can measure customer lifetime value. The barriers have to do with the ways firms are organized, make decisions, and track information. Still, there are ways to understand better the intrinsic value of customers. Learn more about customer placement value, or CPV, which can offer powerful insights and help management make better, more customer-focused decisions.
Article Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Communication Letter Article Product Description: Mark Gordon has helped businesspeople, governments, and educators understand the intricacies of successful negotiating. A founder of the negotiation consultancy Vantage Partners, he has negotiated in difficult situations around the world, including Nicaragua, the Middle East, and South Africa. Gordon spoke with HMCL about strategies for negotiating a raise. Read a negotiation expert's rules for success in the tricky terrain of salary negotiations. HBS Number: C0501C Subjects: Communication; Employee compensation; Interpersonal relations; Negotiations; Performance appraisal Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Hamel, Gary; Prahalad, C. K. Publication Date: 07/01/1985 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Corporate response to the threat of foreign competition is often misdirected and ill timed — in part because many executives don’t fully understand what global competition is. Executives must anticipate competitive moves by starting from new strategic intentions rather than from old strategies. They must think and act in complex ways. They may slice the company in one way for distribution investments, in another for technology, and in still another for manufacturing. In addition, global competitors must develop varied criteria and analytical tools to justify these investments. Even when its manufacturing is not on a global scale, a company must be sensitive to the potential of global competitive interaction. HBS Number: 85409 Subjects: Competition; Corporate strategy; International business; International operations; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Anthony, Scott D. Publication Date: 05/15/2005 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0505A Subjects: Disruptive technologies; Innovation; Strategic intent; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Today, more and more people realize that disruptive strategies can help revitalize sluggish companies. The word “disruption,” however, has become loaded with alternative meanings and connotations, many of which run counter to the precise pattern first identified by Clayton Christensen. As the term has increased in popularity, confusion about the exact definition of “disruption” has increased as well, creating challenges for companies seeking to grow through disruptive innovation. This article attempts to clarify the concept of disruption by discussing the specific mistakes companies make when they misuse the term and suggests a number of quick ways to determine whether a specific approach is in fact disruptive.
Article Author(s): Gary, Loren Publication Date: 02/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Is it time for business to start paying more attention to top-line growth and less to cost savings? Based on improvements in the underlying fundamentals of the U.S. economy, a growing number of analysts say yes. But the approach they recommend differs markedly from the one that many firms followed during the late 1990s. Today's growth initiative must be ever mindful of the hard-won efficiency lessons of the past several years. To be truly valuable, top-line growth must be impatient for profit, internally generated, and sustainable over time. HBS Number: U0402A Subjects: Business processes; Growth management; Growth strategy; Management philosophy; Organizational development Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller Publication Date: 01/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Given the frequency of role changes today, managers must have their own fast-start strategy at the ready before transitioning into a new job. The most successful of these strategies combines reconnaissance on both business and cultural issues through face-to-face meetings with colleagues and customers and through plenty of independent research. Learn how sizing up your new role ahead of time can help you do more than hit the ground running. HBS Number: U0501A Subjects: Job analysis; Management by objectives; Research methodology; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Gary, Loren Publication Date: 11/15/2004 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0411D Subjects: Chemical industry; Disruptive technologies; Growth management; Innovation; Internet; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Specialty chemicals giant Dow Corning caught its competitors by surprise in 2002 when it launched Xiameter, a discount, Web-based sales channel whose mandate was to bring in new business as well as retain cost-conscious customers who were fleeing their traditional, high-touch relationship with the company. Some industry analysts saw this as suicidal. Such a two-tiered pricing system, they argued, would undermine Dow Corning's core business; purchasers of premium-priced products, seeing those chemicals available for a lower price through the Xiameter channel, would think they were being overcharged and would clamor for a better deal. To date, however, Xiameter has been a clear winner, as evidenced by the fact that it paid back its original investment to the parent company in just three months. Read about how this industry leader is managing the inherent tensions between its established business and the low-end disruption it created to grow its business further.
Article Author(s): Johnson, Lauren Keller; Nisita, Vittorio Publication Date: 07/15/2009 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article HBS Number: B0907C Industry Setting: Pharmaceutical industry Subjects: Execution; Strategic management; Strategy; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: For a pharmaceuticals giant experiencing unprecedented change, the Strategy Realization Office (its Office of Strategy Management) leads the charge to execute a bold new strategy. The office's role: strengthening governance processes and building an infrastructure for strategy formulation and execution.
Article Ghemawat, Pankaj; Ghadar, Fariborz The almost universal belief among executives today is that bigger is better: companies are entering into huge, pricey cross-border mergers at an unprecedented rate. Common wisdom is that industries will become more concentrated as they HBS Number: R00405 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 7/1/2000 Subjects: Acquisitions; Aluminum industry; Automobile industry; Globalization; Industry structure; International business; Mergers & acquisitions; Multinational corporations
Article Author(s): Harreld, J. Bruce; O'Reilly, Charles A, III; Tushman, Michael L. Publication Date: 08/01/2007 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR370 Industry Setting: Computer industry; Consulting Subjects: Consulting; Corporate strategy; Organizational change; Organizational design Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In the past 15 years, IBM has undergone a remarkable transformation from a struggling seller of hardware to a successful broad range solutions provider. Underlying this change is a story of foresighted strategy and disciplined execution — of connecting knowing to doing. In strategic terms, the IBM transformation illustrates the ideas behind dynamic capabilities, showing how the company has been able to sense changes in the marketplace and to seize these opportunities by reconfiguring existing assets and competencies. We review the literature on dynamic capabilities and, using IBM as an example, show how their strategy process permits them both to explore new markets and technologies (e.g., life sciences, pervasive computing) as well as to exploit mature products and markets (e.g., mainframe computers, middleware).
Article Author(s): Bogsnes, Bjarte Publication Date: 09/15/2009 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article HBS Number: B0909C Subjects: Business growth; Forecasting; Innovation; Strategic management; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: A pioneering strategy management professional, Bjarte Bogsnes holds the unique distinction of being the only person to have “blown up the budget” at more than one company: at his previous employer, the European plastics manufacturer Borealis, and at his current one, Statoil, the Norwegian oil giant. Now he wants to blow up the calendar, too — calling it an arbitrary (and anachronistic) basis for forecasting. A dedicated champion of the Beyond Budgeting movement, Bogsnes takes the concept of rolling forecasting — itself a relatively new approach — one big step further, with dynamic forecasting.
Article Author(s): Mascarenhas, Briance; Baveja, Alok; Jamil, Mamnoon Publication Date: 07/01/1998 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: This articles examines the core competencies of twelve leading multinational companies. It explores their competencies, how they were developed, and how they are shifting over time. Successful companies rely on three types of competencies: superior technological know-how, reliable processes, and close external relationships. Different approaches are needed to develop each type of competency. While these firms have historically relied on technological know-how and reliable processes, they are planning more close external relationships for the future. External relationships help these firms strengthen and extend their traditional competencies while responding to the demands of globalization, mass customization, enhanced quality, and rapid technological change. HBS Number: CMR128 Subjects: Core competency; Multinational corporations; Technological change Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Shama, Avraham Publication Date: 09/15/2001 Product Type: Business Horizons Article Publisher: Business Horizons/Indiana University Product Description: Most e-commerce firms fail sooner than later. But how do their strategies affect those failures? Most firms used price as their key competitive strategy, even pricing products below present costs (but above the lower cost expected in the future because of eventual economies of scale) to capture market share. This created large and growing losses in almost all firms studied. Most of the e-coms said they catered to all sectors--consumer, business, and public--but concentrated or identified with only one. Firms found it more complicated than expected to develop different strategies for each sector. The picture that emerges is of a technology-induced industry that began running on its technical success and now faces a stark reality. To succeed, e-coms need to couple technical know-how with business savvy, as Dell has done. Faced with this reality, many have employed different measures, including raising more cash to stay liquid, adding new target groups and products/services, and going global. HBS Number: BH062 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Electronic commerce; Information technology; Marketing strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Bower, Joseph L. The measure of efficiency in good business management is profit, the measure of effectiveness is market leadership. These measurements are not applicable to public organizations where an emphasis is placed on "purpose." Thus, the process of measuring good public management becomes complex, indicating not only a difference in degree between public management and corporate management, but also a difference in quality. A review of the programs of several successful public managers reveals that simple, politically acceptable goals must be set to orient the organization. HBS Number: 77201 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 3/1/1977 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Nonprofit organizations; Planning; Public administration
Article Author(s): Khanna, Tarun; Palepu, Krishna G. Publication Date: 10/01/2006 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0610C Geographic Setting: Brazil; Chile; China; India; Israel; Mexico; Philippines; South Africa; Taiwan; Turkey Subjects: Business ecosystems; Contracts; Country analysis; Developing countries; Emerging markets; Global business; Globalization; Risk assessment; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Over the past 20 years, waves of liberalization have all but washed away protectionist barriers in developing countries. As multinational corporations from North America, Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea stormed into the emerging markets, many local companies lost market share or sold off businesses — but some fought back. India's Mahindra & Mahindra, China's Haier Group, and many other corporations in developing countries have held their own against the onslaught, restructured their businesses, exploited new opportunities, and built world-class companies that are today giving their global rivals a run for their money. In this article, the authors, citing the results of their six-year study of “emerging giants,” describe the three strategies these businesses used to become effective global competitors — despite facing financial and bureaucratic disadvantages in their home markets. Some capitalized on their knowledge of local product markets. The Philippines' Jollibee Foods, for instance, has profitably battled McDonald's because it realizes that Filipinos like their burgers to have a particular soy and garlic taste. Some have exploited their knowledge of local talent and capital markets, thereby serving customers both at home and abroad in a cost-effective manner. India's software companies, for instance, recognized the possibility of providing services to overseas customers at least a decade
Article Author(s): Khanna, Tarun; Palepu, Krishna G. Publication Date: 10/01/2006 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 1459 Subjects: Contracts; Country analysis; Developing countries; Emerging markets; Global business; Globalization; Risk assessment; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Over the past 20 years, waves of liberalization have all but washed away protectionist barriers in developing countries. As multinational corporations from North America, Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea stormed into the emerging markets, many local companies lost market share or sold off businesses — but some fought back. India's Mahindra & Mahindra, China's Haier Group, and many other corporations in developing countries have held their own against the onslaught, restructured their businesses, exploited new opportunities, and built world-class companies that are today giving their global rivals a run for their money. In this article, the authors, citing the results of their six-year study of “emerging giants, ” describe the three strategies these businesses used to become effective global competitors — despite facing financial and bureaucratic disadvantages in their home markets. Some capitalized on their knowledge of local product markets. The Philippines' Jollibee Foods, for instance, has profitably battled McDonald's because it realizes that Filipinos like their burgers to have a particular soy and garlic taste. Some have exploited their knowledge of local talent and capital markets, thereby serving customers both at home and abroad in a cost-effective manner. India's software companies, for instance, recognized the possibility of providing services to overseas customers at least a decade before Western companies even considered hiring Indian software professionals. And some emerging giants have exploited institutional voids to create pro
Article Knight, Charles F. In 1991, Emerson Electric marked its 34th year of increased earnings and earnings per share. Its financial performance is a result of planning and control. Management sets tough financial goals. CEO Charles Knight and his senior managers spend at least half their time in the planning cycle, which culminates in annual conferences where division heads communicate--and defend--their business plans. Finally, a tight control system that focuses on short-term results tracks implementation and feeds back into the next planning conference. McKinsey Award Winner. HBS Number: 92106 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1992 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Electronics; McKinsey Award Winners; Planning; Planning systems; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation
Article Author(s): D'Aveni, Richard Publication Date: 11/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Industry leaders frequently worry that their companies will fall victim to some revolutionary business model or disruptive technology. But new research shows that it's strategically better for incumbents to counter a revolution than to ignore or fully embrace it. Successful incumbents rely on one or more of five approaches to restrain, modify or, if necessary, neutralize a revolutionary threat. A company that perceives a revolution in its earliest stages can use containment strategies. By throwing up roadblocks, an incumbent can often limit the degree to which customers and competitors accept a nascent insurgency. And, sometimes, revolutions die there. If not, early containment buys a company some time to shape the revolution so that it complements, rather than supersedes, the incumbent's strengths. And even if shaping efforts fail, they can give an industry leader more time to work out how to absorb the threat by bringing the new competencies or technologies inside the firm in such a way that they don't destroy its existing strengths and capabilities. When revolutions have progressed too far to slow them down, incumbents must take a more aggressive tack. Neutralizing strategies meet a revolution head-on and terminate it--by, say, temporarily giving away the benefits offered by the challenger for free. Annulment strategies allow the market leader to leapfrog over or sidestep the threat. These five strategic approaches need not be used in isolation. HBS Number: R0211D Subjects: Disruptive technologies; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Rosen, Kenneth T.; Howard, Amanda L. Publication Date: 04/01/2000 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review HBS Number: CMR173 Industry Setting: Retail industry Subjects: Electronic commerce; Internet Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: This article examines the current and medium-term future impact of Internet-based sales on the physical retail store format. The web-based retail sector currently has a minimal financial effect on physical-based retail. The evolution of e-retail sales will likely mimic that of the catalogue industry in terms of ultimate market share potential. Certain categories of goods (travel, computers, electronic services, books, toys, and sporting goods) lend themselves more readily to shopping by computer and, therefore, are more susceptible to e-based competition. However, with Internet commerce firm profit forecasts still in the distant future, cutthroat price competition, and distribution and tactility constraints, e-retail will continue to present a relatively minor risk to experience-oriented and non-commodity physical retailers.
Article Author(s): Sviokla, John; Paoni, Anthony J. Publication Date: 10/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: To exploit your product's platform potential, say consultants John Sviokla and Anthony J. Paoni, you need creativity -- and good intellectual property protection. HBS Number: F0510C Industry Setting: Consumer products Subjects: Creativity; Innovation; Intellectual property; Platforms; Product development Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Ham, Rose Marie; Linden, Greg; Appleyard, Melissa M. Publication Date: 10/01/1998 Product Type: CMR Article Publisher: California Management Review Product Description: This article examines the interactions between public and private actors as cooperation in the semiconductor industry becomes increasingly international. The latest manifestations of multilateral collaboration are two consortia: I300I based in the United States and Selete based in Japan. Through an analysis of their structures and their origins, this article provides a deeper understanding of the complexities facing industry-wide consortia, the role of the government in promoting or inhibiting cooperation, and the lingering rivalries that impede truly global cooperation in a dynamic, high-technology industry. HBS Number: CMR139 Subjects: Coopetition; Industry analysis; Public policy; Semiconductors Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Rayport, Jeffrey F.; Sviokla, John J. Every business today competes in two worlds; a physical world of resources that managers can see and touch and a virtual world made of information. Executives must pay attention to how their companies create value in both arenas--the marketplace and the marketspace. But the processes for accomplishing this are not the same in the two worlds. Managers who understand how to master both can create and extract value in the most efficient and effective manner. Creating value in any stage of a virtual value chain involves a sequence of five activities: gathering, organizing, selecting, synthesizing, and distributing information. Just as someone takes raw material and refines it into someting useful, so a manager today collects raw information and adds value through these five steps. HBS Number: 95610 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1995 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Customer relations; Electronic commerce; Information age; Information technology; Innovation; Value of information
Article Author(s): Quelch, John A.; Kenny, David Publication Date: 11/01/2005 Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article HBS Number: 2238 Subjects: Brands; Consumer marketing; Product lines; Product portfolio management; Profitability; Strategic planning Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In the last 10 years, products have proliferated in every category of consumer goods and services, and the deluge shows few signs of letting up. Most companies are pursuing product expansion strategies — in particular, line extensions — full steam ahead. But more and more evidence is indicating the pitfalls of such aggressive tactics. The strategic role of each product becomes muddled when a line is oversegmented. Also, a company that extends its line risks undermining brand loyalty. Some companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Chrysler, and a leading U.S. snack foods company, have discovered that a carefully focused and well-managed line can increase profits and sales volume. Quelch and Kenny describe how marketing managers can sharpen their product-line strategies by improving cost accounting, allocating resources to popular products, researching consumer behavior, coordinating marketing efforts, working with channel partners, and fostering a climate in which product-line deletions are not only accepted but also encouraged.
Article Mintzberg, Henry Strategic planning has fallen from the pedestal it occupied when it came on the scene in the mid-1960s. Strategic planning failed because it is not the same as strategic thinking. Planning is about analysis--about breaking a goal into steps, formalizing those steps, and articulating the expected consequences. Strategic thinking, in contrast, is about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction that must be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization. HBS Number: 94107 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1994 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Creativity; Long term planning; Strategic planning; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation
Article Author(s): Markides, Constantinos C.; Geroski, Paul A. Publication Date: 01/15/2005 Product Type: Strategy & Innovation Article HBS Number: S0501B Subjects: Competitive advantage; Emerging markets; Innovation; Market entry; Market positioning; Strategic planning; Technology Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: For many managers, the ability to move fast and arrive first in a new market is a prized competitive ability. This seems to be based on the notion that being first into a new market gives a company an unassailable advantage over latecomers. But research has shown that organizations that end up capturing new markets — we call them consolidators — are those that time their entry so they appear just when the dominant design is about to emerge. The authors call this a fast-second strategy and propose that for big, established companies contemplating entry into an emerging market, this is the best strategy to follow. Find out more about gaining a competitive edge.
Article Bower, Joseph L.; Hout, Thomas M. Today time is a source of competitive advantage. Through new organization practices and design, companies can take time out of operations and provide customers with better products and services and lower costs. Fast-cycle companies: 1) organize as much work as possible around small, self-managing, multifunctional teams; 2) track cycle times for individual activities and for the delivery system as a whole; and 3) build learning loops to inform everyone about customers, competitors, and the company's operations. HBS Number: 88602 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1988 Subjects: Corporate strategy; Organizational design
Article Author(s): Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P. Publication Date: 09/13/2000 Product Type: HBS Press Chapter HBS Number: 1623BC Subjects: Feedback; Performance Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Aligning strategy and targets, initiatives, and budgets puts the organization in motion. Performance must then be monitored and guided to close the feedback loop by managers who must also determine whether their strategy is still valid. Emphasizes that companies that are stretching for high performance need strategic feedback systems and management processes to verify that their strategy remains on course to a profitable future. 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; (1620BC) Defining Personal and Team Objectives; (1621BC) The Balanced Paycheck; (1622BC) Planning and Budgeting (Linking Operational Control Processes to Strategy); (1624BC) Leadership and Mobilization; (1625BC) Avoiding the Pitfalls (Learning from Failed Balanced Scorecard Programs); (1714BC) The Strategy-Focused Organization FAQ.
Article Author(s): Kedrosky, Paul Publication Date: 06/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Syndication feeds -- customized information streams distributed over the Internet in real time -- are proliferating fast. If you don't start syndicating soon, you'll be marked as unresponsive and retrograde. HBS Number: F0406A Subjects: Business models; Competition; Electronic commerce; Internet Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Tjan, Anthony K. Publication Date: 02/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Eager to capitalize on the Internet's potential, many companies have allowed scores of on-line projects to bubble up throughout their organizations. The result? More harm than good, as companies find themselves confusing customers, irritating employees, and wasting bushels of money. In this article, consultant Anthony Tjan explains how companies can do better. By adapting classical portfolio strategy to the digital age, executives can coordinate their Internet initiatives to avoid the needless headaches and spending, he says. Much of the market and industry data that underpin traditional portfolio analysis is unavailable for the Internet space, so Tjan replaces the two criteria used in traditional portfolio analysis--market position and industry attractiveness--with business viability and business fit. Viability captures the available quantitative data about an investment's likely payoff. Fit is qualitative; it measures the degree to which an investment dovetails with a company's existing processes, capabilities, and culture. Using viability and fit to assess their on-line initiatives, companies can then plot these efforts onto a simple matrix, called an Internet portfolio map. Their location on the matrix will suggest whether each initiative should be invested in, redesigned, sold or spun out, or killed. HBS Number: R0102E Subjects: Electronic commerce; Internet; New economy; Portfolio management; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Dhingra, Arun H.; Nagel, Michael Publication Date: 03/15/2001 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article Product Description: In recent years, sweeping industry, regulatory, and marketplace changes have created tremendous strategic and competitive challenges for financial services companies. In working with such organizations, the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative has identified three key strategic reasons why they adopt the scorecard--reasons, it turns out, that are critical for survival in the new industry environment. The pursuit of a "one-stop shop" approach requires companies to broaden their revenue mix, shift from product-driven to customer-focused selling, and align delivery and service channels to the customer. BSCol consultants Arun H. Dhingra and Michael E. Nagel discuss how the BSC can help financial services companies--percentage-wise, the largest users of the scorecard--achieve these outcomes. HBS Number: B0103E Subjects: Balanced scorecard; Corporate strategy; Financial services; New economy; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Mahindra, Anand G.; Raman, Anand P.; Stewart, Thomas A. Publication Date: 07/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0807F Subjects: Global business; Implementation; Innovation; Organizational transformations Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: The Mahindra & Mahindra Group, one of India's best-known business houses, is trying to become bigger, more global, and more innovative — all at the same time. In India's post-economic-reforms gold rush, the group, whose 2007 sales were $6.6 billion, has invested in a slew of unrelated businesses, from aircraft manufacture to film production. The flagship tractor and SUV businesses are readying to make big bets in, respectively, the Chinese and U.S. markets. Anand G. Mahindra, the group's chief executive, warns that M&M will survive only by creating a culture of innovation. “Indian companies have almost caught up with the productivity frontier,” he says. “What's going to distinguish us in the future is our ability to make products and services that capture the customer's imagination.” He says that in emerging markets, businesses structured as groups of companies have an edge over rivals. “I believe that business families should behave like aggressive private equity companies. They must allocate capital, demand performance, create synergies, sustain value systems, and implement good governance practices, but they should let professional managers run the companies.” That's why he won't mandate change, globalization, or innovation; he believes in giving the CEOs of the group's divisions tremendous autonomy. In this interview, conducted by two HBR editors, Harvard Business School graduate Mahindra discusses the advantages of creating a federation of companies rather than a conglomerate; the real role of the corporate center in today's world; and his personal formula
Article Editors In "Making Competition in Health Care Work" (July-August 1994), Elizabeth Olmstead Teisberg, Michael E. Porter, and Gregory B. Brown ask a question that has been absent from the national debate on health care reform: How can the United States achieve sustained cost reductions while at the same time maintaining quality of care? The authors argue that innovation driven by rigorous competition is the key to successful reform. A lasting cure for health care in the United States should include four basic elements: Corrected incentives to spur productive competition, universal insurance to secure economic efficiency, relevant information to ensure meaningful choice, and innovation to guarantee dynamic improvement. In this issue's Perspectives section, eleven experts examine the current state of the health care system and offer their views on the shape that reform should take. HBS Number: 94512 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 9/1/1994 Subjects: Competition; Health care policy; Health services; Quality control; Social enterprise
Article Author(s): MacPhail, John D.; Brousseau, Kenneth R. Publication Date: 05/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Managing talent -- putting the right person in the right job -- will always be challenging because humans are complex and difficult to predict. What's more, in these times of continual change, the demands of any given position are themselves in near-constant flux. So how can leaders know who in the workforce will excel in a particular role? To help clients address this pivotal issue, the leadership practice at Korn/Ferry International, the Los Angeles-based executive recruitment firm, developed a multifaceted assessment program that aims to understand and match a manager's abilities to the current and anticipated requirements of a position. Find out more about the assessment tools that can help companies achieve a more optimal match between managers' skills and job assignments. HBS Number: U0505D Subjects: Job satisfaction; Management of professionals; Professionals; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Zook, Chris Publication Date: 04/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0704D Subjects: Adjacency expansion; Assets; Competitive advantage; Competitive decision making; Expansion; Profitability; Strategy formulation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: How do you know when your core needs to change? And how do you determine what should replace it? From an in-depth study of 25 companies, the author, a strategy consultant, has discovered that it's possible to measure the vitality of a business's core. If it needs reinvention, he says, the best course is to mine hidden assets. Some of the 25 companies were in deep crisis when they began the process of redefining themselves. But, says Zook, management teams can learn to recognize early signs of erosion. He offers five diagnostic questions with which to evaluate the customers, key sources of differentiation, profit pools, capabilities, and organizational culture of your core business. The next step is strategic regeneration. In four-fifths of the companies Zook examined, a hidden asset was the centerpiece of the new strategy. He provides a map for identifying the hidden assets in your midst, which tend to fall into three categories: undervalued business platforms, untapped insights into customers, and underexploited capabilities. The Swedish company Dometic, for example, was manufacturing small absorption refrigerators for boats and RVs when it discovered a hidden asset: its understanding of, and access to, customers in the RV market. The company took advantage of a boom in that market to refocus on complete systems for live-in vehicles. The Danish company Novozymes, which produced relatively low-tech commodity enzymes such as those used in detergents, realized that its underutilized biochemical capability in genetic and protein engineering was a hidden asse
Article Author(s): Zook, Chris Publication Date: 11/14/2008 Product Type: Balanced Scorecard Report Article HBS Number: B0811D Subjects: Adjacency expansion; Competitive strategy; Core competencies; Growth strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: The greatest successes don't last forever. And adjacencies can't fuel continued success indefinitely. Business guru Chris Zook, best known for his book “Profit from the Core,” discusses redefining your core. When to do it is one thing; how is quite another. Zook offers inspiring examples from such success stories as DeBeers, PetSmart, and Marvel Comics.
Article Author(s): Downes, Larry Publication Date: 12/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Law is the last great untapped source of competitive advantage, argues professor Larry Downes. HBS Number: F0412E Subjects: Competitive advantage; Legal aspects of business; Legislation; Strategy implementation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Boulding, William; Christen, Markus Publication Date: 10/01/2001 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Speed kills: That's the disturbing conclusion of a new study of companies that pioneer markets. Learn why the venerated concept of first-mover advantage may be just an illusion. HBS Number: F0109A Subjects: Competitive advantage; Leadership; Market entry; Profitability Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Author(s): Porter, Michael E. Publication Date: 01/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0801E Subjects: Five forces; Industry analysis; Profitability; Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first article for HBR, “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.” In the years that followed, Michael Porter's explication of the five forces that determine the long-run profitability of any industry has shaped a generation of academic research and business practice. In this article, Porter undertakes a thorough reaffirmation and extension of his classic work of strategy formulation, which includes substantial new sections showing how to put the five forces analysis into practice. The five forces govern the profit structure of an industry by determining how the economic value it creates is apportioned. That value may be drained away through the rivalry among existing competitors, of course, but it can also be bargained away through the power of suppliers or the power of customers or be constrained by the threat of new entrants or the threat of substitutes. Strategy can be viewed as building defenses against the competitive forces or as finding a position in an industry where the forces are weaker. Changes in the strength of the forces signal changes in the competitive landscape critical to ongoing strategy formulation. In exploring the implications of the five forces framework, Porter explains why a fast-growing industry is not always a profitable one, how eliminating today's competitors through mergers and acquisitions can reduce an industry's profit potential, how government policies play a role by changing the relative strength of the forces, and how to use the forces to understand complements. He then shows how a company can influence the key forces i
Article Author(s): Stauffer, David Publication Date: 10/31/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0811D Subjects: Competitive strategy; Customer retention; Recessions; Strategy Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Bankruptcies, foreclosures, the credit crisis, and the $700 billion federal bailout. As the world economy reels, no one can be sure exactly when we'll reach recovery. But the experts Harvard Management Update consulted say there's far less uncertainty about what companies should do — or more precisely, what they should not do — in unstable times. We've distilled their thinking into five missteps to avoid — for example, delaying decisions that will improve the long-term health of your company, or trying to bulletproof it by moving into recession-resistant businesses. For each potential misstep, we offer advice to help you position your company for healthier gains in the years ahead.
Article Author(s): AufderHeyde, Radu; Sundjaja, Kristy Publication Date: 08/01/2008 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0808C Industry Setting: Telecommunications industry Subjects: Customers; Emerging markets; Global business; International business Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Emerging markets offer the possibility of enormous growth. Unfortunately, many western companies enter them at a strategic disadvantage. Operating under misguided notions about emerging markets, they offer products that often fail to meet the needs of individual consumers or business customers. As a result, these companies miss out on significant growth opportunities. This article, written by two experts from consultancy Oliver Wyman, topples the five most prevalent myths about emerging markets. It's a must-read for any leader considering a move into an emerging market.
Article Publication Date: 08/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: When a group or organization becomes stuck, at least one of seven causes is the likely culprit, writes Keith Yamashita, co-founder of the San Francisco consulting firm Stone Yamashita Partners, and Sandra Spataro, professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. In Unstuck: A Tool for Yourself, Your Team, and Your World, they argue that making the right diagnosis requires viewing a group's purpose, strategy, people, processes, metrics, and culture as an interconnected whole. Read more about what Yamashita believes to be the most prevalent causes of stuck teams today. HBS Number: U0408C Subjects: Group behavior; Group decision making; Organizational problems; Teams Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Publication Date: 02/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Getting others involved in the work you're responsible for is the essence of management. But what separates truly effective leaders from the rest is how they get others involved. Requiring employee participation is easy enough. But compliance does not equal engagement. Employees genuinely support only those things they have a hand in creating, says change consultant Richard H. Axelrod, co-author of You Don't Have to Do It Alone: How to Involve Others to Get Things Done. That realization fundamentally changes the way you manage. Read more about involving others. HBS Number: U0502F >Subjects: Employee development; Employee empowerment; Interpersonal relations; Leadership; Management of professionals; Participatory management Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Publication Date: 12/01/2004 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: The role of communities of practice in helping employees develop competence and technical expertise has been well documented. But the animating idea behind CompanyCommand.com--a Web site that serves as a professional forum for Army officers at the first level of command authority--is the belief that a community of practice can do even more: It can provide those who are in the middle of a leadership challenge with real-time connections to people who have had similar experiences. And those connections, say U.S. Army majors Tony Burgess, Nate Allen, Pete Kilner, and Steve Schweitzer, as well as knowledge management consultant Nancy Dixon--members of the Web site's team--can be transformative. HBS Number: U0412F Subjects: Community development; Education; Leadership; Military research Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Publication Date: 03/01/2005 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article Product Description: Restoring the fortunes of a company that has fallen on hard times often calls for bold moves, says Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L. Arbuckle professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. But brilliant strategies will have little effect if you don't first rebuild employees' confidence by giving them concrete reasons to believe in a brighter day. Read more about how to turn around organizations in decline. HBS Number: U0503E Subjects: Change management; Employee morale; Organizational problems; Uncertainty Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
Article Publication Date: 08/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0708E Subjects: Employee development; Employee empowerment; Interpersonal relations; Leadership; Management of professionals; Participative management Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Getting others involved in the work you're responsible for is the essence of management. But what separates truly effective leaders from the rest is how they get others involved. Employees genuinely support only those things they have a hand in creating, says change consultant Richard H. Axelrod, coauthor of “You Don't Have to Do It Alone: How to Involve Others to Get Things Done.”
Article Publication Date: 10/01/2007 Product Type: Harvard Management Update Article HBS Number: U0710D Subjects: Change management; Management philosophy; Organizational behavior; Organizational transformations; Uncertainty; Vision Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: Restoring the fortunes of a company that has fallen on hard times often calls for bold moves, says Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration. But brilliant strategies will have little effect if you don't first rebuild employees' confidence by giving them concrete reasons to believe in a brighter day. In answering five questions, this article goes beyond flashy personalities and pep talks to show you how to redress the downward spiral of underperforming or failing organizations.
Article Author(s): Favaro, Ken; Meer, David; Romberger, Tim Publication Date: 04/01/2009 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article HBS Number: R0904E Industry Setting: Retail industry Subjects: Business marketing; Customer retention; Market share; Recessions Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy Product Description: In tough times, many retailers focus on their most loyal customers. That seems sensible enough. But, paradoxically, your most loyal customers are not your best source of revenue growth in a recession. You're already collecting most of the money they're spending. If they suddenly spend 25% less, most of that will come out of what they spend in your stores. It's not likely that you'll pry away customers who are fiercely loyal to other retailers either. Your best opportunity lies with “switchers” — the people who spend money both in your shops and elsewhere. If you collect, say, only 20% of what they're spending today but can increase that to 30%, you'll still realize a net gain even if their total spending drops by 25%. Drawing on a study of more than 50 major U.S.-based retailers and over 20 years of global consulting experience, consultants Favaro, Romberger, and Meer set out five operating rules to help retail executives determine where to direct recession-squeezed resources for the biggest return. These rules basically boil down to: (1) Identify the people who are shopping both in your stores and in others'. (2) Figure out what they're buying elsewhere (or want and can't find at all) and adjust your offer so you can give it to them. (3) Analyze which of your costs contribute to producing the benefits the switchers want, then spend more on those activities and less on the ones that don't matter to them. (4) Organize your efforts efficiently by grouping your stores into clusters based on different populations of switchers. And, finally, (5) focus your custom
Article Allison, John R. All forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) are designed to save time and money and to soften the sharp edges of the adversarial system. Variations and hybrids of ADR are limitless. In picking the method best suited to your circumstances, consider: the extent to which both disputants are committed to ADR, the closeness of the business relationship between the two parties, the need for privacy, the urgency of reaching a settlement, the absolute and relative financial health of both parties, the importance of the principles involved, the complexity of the case, the size of the stakes, and the ability and willingness of company executives to get involved. HBS Number: 90101 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 1/1/1990 Subjects: Conflict; Corporate strategy; Legal aspects of business
Article McGahan, Anita Merck's acquisition of Medco Containment Services in November 1993 set off a wave of controversial mergers between pharmaceutical companies and prescription-benefits-management companies. Drug-company executives argue that PBMs can pro HBS Number: 94606 Type: Harvard Business Review Article Publication Date: 11/1/1994 Subjects: Acquisitions; Corporate strategy; Industry structure; Pharmaceuticals
Article Author(s): Navarro, Peter Publication Date: 05/01/2002 Product Type: Harvard Business Review Article Product Description: Understand how your industry relates to overall stock-market cycles, and you'll have a powerful tool for shaping strategy. HBS Number: F0205B Subjects: Strategy formulation Academic Discipline: Competitive strategy
