Business services sector

To really win their loyalty, forget the bells and whistles and just solve their problems.

During economic slowdowns, consulting, law, and accounting firms often start offering services and taking on clients they really shouldn't, just to keep...

Nike is a champion brand builder. Its advertising slogans—“Bo Knows,” “Just Do It,” “There Is No Finish Line”—have moved beyond advertising into popular expression. Its athletic footwear and clothing have become a piece of Americana. Its brand name is as well-known around the world as IBM and Coke. So it may come as a surprise […]

The Internet promises to give marketing the same boost in productivity that new operational strategies have given to manufacturing.

Your choice of typeface tells customers whether your brand is attractive, innovative, dishonest, or unpleasant.

Author’s note: Alistair Hanna, Michael Reopel, and Stuart Flack, all of McKinsey & Company, contributed to this article. The U.S. defense industry is struggling to reorganize itself for growth, if not for survival. The disappearance of the communist threat and the desperate need to revive the U.S. economy have taken the defense industry for a […]

America’s banking crisis presents choices both perilous and promising. Perilous, because the failure to act intelligently will lead to the most serious economic collapse since the Great Depression. As much as 25% of the U.S. banking system—representing assets of more than $750 billion—has begun to post such massive loan losses that it must focus on […]

Most businesspeople will serve on the board of a nonprofit organization at some point. But the governance of nonprofits can differ dramatically from the governance of businesses. Even the best intentions can prove disastrous when new board members fail to understand that their traditional business experience can carry them only so far.

What a Chinese travel entrepreneur learned from the SARS crisis and its aftermath

This month, all of Harvard Business Review's Forethought contributions address avian influenza, its potential to become a pandemic, and the red flags...

Six actions for marketing leaders.

Full-time, permanent jobs with large organizations are quite possibly an artifact of a particular moment in economic history--about 60 or 70 years ago....

In most corporate settings, leaders are expected to inspire and direct employees--leading is something they do to followers. But in professional service...

This fictitious case study by Idalene F. Kesner, the Frank P. Popoff Professor at Indiana University, and Sally Fowler, assistant professor at Victoria...

Companies are spending more money than ever on advertising. So why are the results so disappointing?

Among the tests of a leader, few are more challenging--and more painful--than recovering from a career catastrophe. Most fallen leaders, in fact, don't...

Blackbird, a Delhi-based advertising agency, agreed to let a star designer leave to start his own firm and then became his first customer, enlisting his...

Reports of the “eclipse of the public corporation” underestimate its institutional staying power and unique capacity for renewal. In his recent HBR article, Michael C. Jensen, a distinguished scholar of corporate finance and governance, argues for a revolution in the structure of ownership and control in the U.S. economy.1 I share many of his criticisms […]

“We” are seated at a negotiating table. “They” are seated across from us. The outcome of these talks will shape America’s future competitiveness and economic well-being. But “us” is not necessarily companies based in the United States. “Them” is not foreign nations. Rather, us is the people—most prominently, the work force—of the United States. And […]

Companies have focused so much on downsizing to contain costs that they've largely neglected a looming threat to their competitiveness: a severe shortage...