Many companies have learned to use the Internet as a powerful platform for collaborating with customers on innovation. They have created customer advisory panels to solicit ideas for new products, fostered online communities to encourage dialogue among customers, and built toolkits that enable customers and engineers to codesign products.
While analysts lavish praise on entrepreneurs, they are often less generous to one of the legacies of entrepreneurship — the family firm.
A series of surveys by Alan Rugman, professor of international business at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and senior research fellow in strategic management at Templeton College, Oxford, suggest that only a small proportion of the largest companies that call themselves multinational have an effective global presence.
Product-development and marketing managers know that customers make purchasing decisions on the basis of many criteria, including service quality, delivery speed and price.
Just as early adopters are the most valuable customers to acquire, “disadopters” are the most damaging to lose.
Recent research sheds light on some of the reasons behind the spectacular successes and failures in the online grocery industry.
Dramatic sales growth is spurred, not by drops in price, but by the collective effects of increased competition.
It is possible to protect citizens with a progressive structure of defined benefits and still maintain low, stable taxes.
Alert executives are learning to orchestrate the difficult transition from a product-innovation culture to a process-innovation culture that can transform successful startups into enduring industry leaders.
The goal of a strategic planning process should not be to make strategy but to build prepared minds that are capable of making sound strategic decisions.
Brand management has evolved from a dialogue between manufacturers and customers into a multilogue with a host of parties. To that end, the authors have developed a theoretical framework that helps companies to better manage brands, proposing the concept of a brand space, based on whether the brand has become independent from its associated product and whether the brand focuses more on the meaning of a product or its functionality.
Sometimes large-scale operational efficiencies can mask opportunities. In their research, the authors found that small-scale operations provide significant advantages in four areas. Using case studies, the authors illustrate how companies in a wide variety of industries have found the hidden benefits of small-scale approaches, concluding that executives who learn when it is better to think small can have a potentially huge impact on their companies‘ long-term success.
Some companies are better off making incremental improvements to their products. Others that must compete on their ability to innovate focus on breakthrough inventions. Either approach requires the exploration of a specific type of “technology landscape” and the right strategy for searching across the terrain.
Rather than trying to apply an exhaustive IT implementation checklist, executives should focus on identifying the likely pitfalls for the specific project at hand.
When a certain U.S. multinational corporation sought to adopt a global policy on employee mobility, it convened a yearlong symposium with representatives from units worldwide. Through a format that encouraged brainstorming and in-depth discussion, a consensus gradually emerged that enabled executives to reduce mobility classifications from eight to two.
Disruptive strategic innovations are not necessarily superior to the traditional ways of competing, nor are they always destined to conquer the market. Rushing to embrace them can be detrimental for established companies when other responses, including ignoring the innovation, make more sense.
Companies that actively manage a wide range of sustainability indicators are better able to create long-term value for all stakeholders.
Few businesses do a good job of integrating government relations with business strategy.
Education, professional experience, company stock holdings and age may exert an unexpected influence on a CEO’s approach to research and development.