Strategy

Losing talent is your number one risk.

Most companies mistakenly take a one-size-fits-all approach to prices.

A customer-research technique that requires respondents to make a sequence of explicit trade-offs when choosing their preferred product attributes can...

And why your company can’t ignore it.

Managers should make environmental investments for the same reason they make other investments: because they expect them to deliver positive returns or to reduce risks.

The CFO of a plastics company has been asked to moderate a heated internal debate over a revolutionary technology. The head of R&D thinks the company...

Many managers of service businesses are aware that the strategic management (by which I mean the total process of selecting and implementing a corporate strategy) of service businesses is different from that of manufacturing businesses. This article discusses how pure service businesses are different from product-oriented businesses and why they require different strategic thinking. A […]

To maintain competitive advantage in a multi-crisis world, operations and strategy must become even more intertwined.

A confident approach is a useful strategy when dealing with difficult people.

During boom times, deal-making is relatively easy. A rising tide lifts all boats … and the knowledge that there are lots of opportunities out there makes some negotiators forget that the deal is a way to get value, not an end in itself. You don’t have to look as far back as the excesses of […]

Leaders must leverage and develop diverse talent in 2014.

When business conditions change, the most successful companies are often the slowest to adapt. To avoid being left behind, executives must understand the true sources of corporate inertia.

He should start by spending time in the field, not the corporate office.

Just because this is a time of transformation doesn’t mean that it’s easy to sell transformational ideas. Economic uncertainty has reduced the audience for bold, grand rhetoric. Besides, even in boom times innovation is risky. Innovators often have to ease anxieties by sounding conservative while doing something radical. We all want breakthroughs; it’s just that […]

Denial dogged my travels around the world these past weeks. At a World Economic Forum gathering in Dubai just before Dubai World’s debt problems made headlines, the head Sheikh touted Dubai’s superiority over the West for problems that Dubai had seemingly avoided. But the idle cranes and empty buildings I saw were monuments to denial […]

A fictional bank CEO must make a fast decision in the face of an unthinkable crisis. What would you do in his place? Editors’ Note: This fictional case study will appear in a forthcoming issue of Harvard Business Review, and your comments will be considered for publication in the magazine. We’ll email you if your […]

Recently, I asked some business executives for their top three IT wishes. Across the board, their responses echoed a common plea: “I wish IT projects would come in on time and on budget.” Funny thing is – this very reasonable sounding request is actually quite unreasonable. You see, we are no longer simply automating existing […]

Just a few days ago James Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, was riding high. Not only did he pick up Bear Stearns in what amounted to a fire sale – shares that only a year ago fetched $159 a piece were going for $2 – he was heralded for doing so. Seen as a savior, […]

Over the last couple of weeks in Singapore I’ve wandered the halls of the regional and global headquarters of three pretty big companies with more than $150 billion in combined revenues. I figured the calamitous economic news out of the United States and Europe coupled with riots in England would result in corporate cube dwellers […]

It worked even better than other anti-bias programs.