For a company’s information technology to promote competitiveness, it must support strategy, be low in cost and high in quality, and use an appropriate platform. That all calls for flexibility of both IT systems and IT staff. Tapping three strands of research — on the CIO’s role, on the CIO’s capabilities and on outsourcing IT — the authors conclude that organizations exploiting IT effectively are those that make its design a high priority and take an anticipatory rather than a reactive approach.

In a dynamic marketplace, shortening the new product development process can be a competitive weapon.1 Xerox, for example, reduced its product development time from seven to two years and recaptured its lead in the copier market. GE shortened the product development time for its circuit breaker line and regained its market share.2 Fast product introduction [...]

In May 1959, when Harry Cunningham became president of Kresge, the variety store chain (originally founded in 1897) was second only to Woolworth. In the next few years, Cunningham transformed Kresge (with 803 stores in operation) into the largest discount store in the United States and renamed it Kmart. The decision was a particularly difficult [...]

Franchising has become the dominant mode of retail entrepreneurship in the United States. There are 1.5 million franchised outlets, accounting for approximately one-third of all U.S. retail sales. Franchising is growing at roughly 6 percent per year, as franchises replace independent businesses in industries as diverse as fast food, banking, and Internet services.1
In each of [...]

In 1980, NCR’s subsidiary in Dundee, Scotland, was on the verge of closure. The operation had been established as a second-source manufacturer of NCR products, but a combination of technological changes in the marketplace, along with internal problems, had caused it to shrink from 6,500 employees in 1969 to 770 in 1980. Moreover, Dundee’s most [...]

With reengineering has come a shift in the way managers and their staff negotiate both inside and outside their organizations. Managers must now devise new ways for employees to interact with each other, with suppliers, and with customers and clients more efficiently, more responsively, and more profitably.
Several years ago, Roger Fisher examined the impact of [...]

A plethora of articles in the popular business press in both Japan and the United States have reported the end of the Japanese-style human resource management system, in particular, the demise of lifetime employment and seniority-based wages and promotion in large Japanese firms.1 While many companies are making changes, it is inaccurate to proclaim the [...]