Strategic planning

Today's dynamic markets and technologies have called into question the sustainability of competitive advantage. Under pressure to improve productivity,...

In the past decade, the author has watched more than 100 companies try to remake themselves into better competitors. Their efforts have gone under many...

A well-conceived business plan is essential to the success of an enterprise. Whether you are starting up a venture, seeking additional capital for an...

To meet the challenges of a complex world, strategic planners need to understand the differences between the four elements of VUCA--volatility, uncertainty,...

Businesses hoping to survive over the long term will have to remake themselves into better competitors at least once along the way. These efforts have...

Risk management is too often treated as a compliance issue that can be solved by drawing up lots of rules and making sure that all employees follow them....

This package begins with "What the West Gets Wrong About China," by Rana Mitter and Elsbeth Johnson, which discusses three fundamental misconceptions:...

The product life cycle measures the likelihood, character, and timing of competitive and market events. A product strategy that includes some sort of...

How some large companies infuse their planning process with new entrepreneurial vigor, maintaining market leadership over the long haul.

A detailed plan may be comforting, but it’s not a strategy.

Many people don't tackle negotiations in a proactive way; instead, they simply react to moves the other side makes. While that approach may work in a...

Projects fail at a spectacular rate. One reason is that too many people are reluctant to speak up about their reservations during the all-important planning phase. By making it safe for dissenters who are knowledgeable about the undertaking and worried about its weaknesses to speak up, you can improve a project’s chances of success. Research […]

You don’t need a time line; you need a time cone.

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.

Design is a team effort, but how do marketing and engineering talk to each other?

Companies profess devotion to shareholder value but rarely follow the practices that maximize it. What will it take to make your company a level 10 value creator?

Many leaders I work with struggle with strategy. They know it’s important to have strategies in order to align decision making in their businesses. They understand that they can’t observe and control everything in their organizations (much as many of them would like to). They earnestly want to develop good strategies and they get the […]

Most business executives who have put time, effort, and investment into developing a presence in China resist the notion of decoupling. With the Biden...

When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of "corporate social responsibility"...

Despite the benefit of high profits, as well as the enjoyment of a position of leadership, a company that has a high market share is a tempting target...