MIT Sloan Management Review

Many companies hire top-notch talent but then fail to reap the full benefits of those star employees. Often, the culprit is faulty managerial practices.

In a Spring 2006 MIT Sloan Management Review article, “Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration,” Andrew McAfee first started to popularize the term “Enterprise 2.0” to describe the use of Web 2.0 collaboration technologies such as wikis and blogs within organizations.

When properly designed and operated, the traditional supply chain has offered customers three primary benefits—reduced cost, faster delivery and improved quality. But managers are increasingly recognizing that these advantages, while necessary, are not always sufficient in the modern business world. The supply chain should be designed and managed to deliver one or more of six basic outcomes: cost, responsiveness, security, sustainability, resilience and innovation.

Accurate measurement of cost savings in the supply chain is easier said than done. But learning how to address the measurement and reporting challenges can make businesses more profitable and more competitive.

When customers collaborate with suppliers they can build trust, reduce relational stress, and increase innovation-related activities.

Even corporations with clear environmental aims fail to go the distance when it comes to their supply chains. But lessons from a small group of Fortune 500 companies can give them the direction they need.

GM and Toyota launched their joint auto plant where GM’s work force had been at its worst. Here’s what happened next. And why.

There are several questions an organization should ask to improve its pricing strategy, including: What is the marketing strategy in this segment? What is the differential value that is transparent to target customers? What is the price of the next best alternative offering? What is the customer’s expectation of a “fair” price?

By asking these questions and others, an organization can choose a price point that provides the largest long-term value to the supplier.

When it comes to knowledge sharing among R&D employees, professional reputations matter — but the chances of successfully garnering information from a colleague increase if the information is important.

The field of forecasting has advanced significantly in recent years. But managers need to learn from history about what they can and cannot predict, and develop plans that are sensitive to surprises.

Too often, business students see little overlap between the jobs they plan to do — and those they consider most socially responsible or would most enjoy.

A new book examines the challenges — and potential benefits — of government programs designed to foster entrepreneurship.

New research suggests that ads that complement online content can be effective — but not if they rouse consumers’ privacy concerns.

How have strategies for supply chain design changed in recent years? What are the forces most profoundly shaping them now? What kinds of models have emerged for companies to consider, choose among or learn from?

In this pair of twinned interviews, MIT professor and entrepreneur David Simchi-Levi and MIT professor Charles Fine — two of the world’s leading thinkers on supply chain and value chain design — offer answers to those questions and others.