Industrial sector

Competing in overcrowded industries is no way to sustain high performance. The real opportunity is to create blue oceans of uncontested market space.

Everyone agrees that managing change is tough, but few can agree on how to do it. Most experts are obsessed with "soft" issues, such as culture and motivation,...

Before they have received even a day of training, the best salespeople already have two seemingly incompatible qualities in abundance: empathy with customers and a need to overcome their hesitation to buy.

In many companies, sales forces and marketers feud like Capulets and Montagues—with disastrous results. Here’s how to get them to lay down their swords.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." We've all been in conversations on the topics of creativity and innovation...

Research shows that class projects and internships reinforce a masculine culture.

Your organization can become more decisive—and can implement strategy more quickly—if you know where the bottlenecks are and who’s empowered to break through them.

Long the quality and efficiency standard-setter, Toyota now has an ostrich-sized egg on its face — a problem with sticking accelerator pedals that led to global product recalls and a suspension of production and sales. There are important lessons to be learned from Toyota’s stumble: Competitive success is fluid. It depends on continuously discovering better […]

The construction industry could boost productivity by 50% to 60%.

A hybrid-automotive supplier worries about losing its intellectual property.

Automation can make us safer, but it creates new vulnerabilities.

The struggle to do more with less.

Venture capitalist Brad Feld says the toll of flying to meetings usually outweighs the benefits.

Atida Motors’ decades-old complaint policy may be no match for unhappy customers who threaten to take their case to YouTube.

Powerful brands have distinct personalities: Duracell’s batteries last a long time. Volvos are safe in a crash. But even dominant brands can fade if they fall prey to multiple personality disorder. Consider General Motors. What’s the difference between a Chevrolet, a Pontiac, and a Buick? The company has recently woken up to the problem; last […]

It's the ultimate bottom-of-the-pyramid challenge: How do you create a well-designed, safe, and affordable house for the world's poorest people? When...

It pays to be big in a global economy, right? Wrong. The rush toward huge cross-border mergers is based on a faulty understanding of economics. There are better ways to address globalization than relentless expansion.

Maybe, but only if digital activism increases.

Avoiding this kind of disruption takes more than a skunkworks team.

There are opportunities and challenges.