During the e-boom of the 1990s, academics, consultants, executives and investors alike claimed that e-procurement, and its increasingly central role in supply-chain management, would revolutionize how future business-to-business practices would take place: Efficiencies would be improved and procurement costs reduced; the flow of information along the supply chain enhanced; strategic
In recent years, firms have turned to non-traditional marketing campaigns to generate buzz about their products and services. Indeed, positive word-of-mouth is anecdotally cited as the secret behind such successes as Chrysler’s PT Cruiser and the revival of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
Early in our careers, when we worked for the General Electric Co. in Schenectady, New York, there was no road map for a young manager desperately trying to find ways to lead. One had to experiment, employing various mechanisms such as motivational sessions, inventory control, budgetary control and information management.
Emerging technologies enable virtual and distributed teams to communicate – and innovate – more effectively.
Boards in the United States are undergoing reforms in leadership, membership and performance evaluation. But are all the changes for the better?
The practice of separating the two top jobs is common in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, but it is not necessarily an improvement over the U.S. model of combining the two positions.
As entrepreneurs are considering international expansion earlier and earlier, it is crucial that they structure their ventures to anticipate and mitigate the tensions that can arise from the ongoing need to match perceived opportunities to available resources.
The benefits of Web services will be profound, but not easily or quickly obtained. Building application-to-application links will require not only excellent technologists but skilled managers and leaders as well.
Traditionally, a company’s links to its customers, suppliers and other external parties have been based upon either arm’s-length transactions or socially embedded ties. Electronic technologies have enabled a third and more flexible option, dubbed “virtually embedded ties.”
The key to making new employees productive quickly, known as “rapid on-boarding,” is to help them immediately build an informational network with co-workers.
Organizations are increasingly able to gather and process information from a variety of new sources. But competitive advantage will still belong to those who know how to use it.
Information and knowledge management models that exclude the influence of national and regional culture seriously undercut their potential effectiveness.
Throughout an organization, individuals make decisions daily that influence the need for and the value received from information technology. A simple one-page framework can help companies allocate IT decision rights and accountabilities so that individual IT decisions align with strategic objectives.
Marketing research must become a model for innovation rather than support the mere incremental administration of brands.
Many companies’ brand portfolios have become bloated and obscured. A five-step approach can illuminate which brands should be supported, retired, repositioned or otherwise honed to bring greater clarity to the portfolio.
Many companies now offer slick “sustainability reports” along with their annual reports as indicators of their performance. The problem is that none of this espoused benevolence creates true sustainability. The root of this problem is neither business’s misunderstanding of what’s at stake nor corporate cynicism about the sustainability cause (though these may be contributing factors). The problem really stems from management’s failure to see unsustainability as a deep-seated systems failure.
Companies that are having trouble filling board positions should consider a new type of director: well-established professionals who devote all of their work, time and energies to corporate board activities.
A restaurant patron berates a waiter for delivering the wrong entrée. A traveler cuts in line at an airline ticket counter and demands immediate service. A manager refuses to gather the documentation an outside consultant needs to provide services. As these examples suggest, the obnoxious customer has many faces.