Business models

The problems with the company are ingrained in its business model.

Many companies looking for breakthroughs struggle to move beyond incremental ideas, because cognitive biases trap people in the status quo and prevent...

5% of patients drive half of the health care spending in the U.S.

Three elements to focus on.

While in-depth analysis of competitors and suppliers is de rigueur in formulating strategy, surprisingly few companies pay much attention to firms that sell complementary products and services.

The two business models transforming the industry.

Lured by the success of marketplaces such as eBay, many companies have tried operating as multisided platforms, which let buyers and sellers transact...

Lessons from Howard Schultz, Leslie Wexner, and Brunello Cucinelli.

If you listed the blockbuster products and services that have redefined the global business landscape, you'd find that many of them tie together two distinct...

The 1990s have been a great time to be in business--unless, that is, you happen to be a manufacturer. As business value has flowed steadily downstream,...

Ever since businesses started offering solutions instead of products, they have acknowledged that selling spare parts and after-sales services could be...

How the three Fs-facts, faith, and fortitude-can create a persuasive business case as well as a roadmap for new initiatives.

Businesses constantly innovate to create new value--but unless they also focus on how they capture value, they won't realize maximum benefit from their...

Most people think of Napster when they think of peer-to-peer systems. Nirav Tolia, CEO of Epinions, explains why the power of peer-to-peer goes far beyond...

Transformation is punishingly difficult if you don't reimagine the business or allocate resources toward the change.

There's a major cultural and demographic shift away from suburban sprawl. Businesses need to understand it and plan for it.

Electronic invoice and payment systems have been slow to catch on, even though they offer enormous promise for cost savings, speed, and transparency in business-to-business transactions. The technology has a lot going for it: It’s getting more robust all the time, and big financial services firms, including American Express and JPMorgan Chase, are partnering with […]

More and more we hear the word “systems” used in discussions of business problems. Research people are studying systems, experts are looking at organizations as systems, and a growing number of departments and companies have the word “systems” in their names. Just what is a system in the business sense? What does it do? What […]

Platforms require curation, which is increasingly a task for AI.