Strategy formulation

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

Diversify your product line. Stick to your knitting. Hire a professional manager. Watch fixed costs. Those are some of the suggestions that entrepreneurs...

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.

The storied British banker and financier Nathan Rothschild noted that great fortunes are made when cannonballs fall in the harbor, not when violins play in the ballroom. Rothschild understood that the more unpredictable the environment, the greater the opportunity—if you have the leadership skills to capitalize on it. Through research at the Wharton School and […]

It’s the only way to make sound trade-off decisions and choose the right practices.

Lately companies have come to recognize the limitations of the view that they must create value only for shareholders. Recognizing that every stakeholder...

There is a disconnect in most companies between strategy formulation and strategy execution. On average, 95% of a company's employees are unaware of,...

Some start-up founders follow a business plan; others operate by the seat of their pants. This package looks at how entrepreneurs can carefully craft...

Strategy making forces executives to confront a future they can only guess at. It's not surprising, then, that they try to make the task less daunting...

Critical thinking isn’t an innate skill. It can be learned.

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 […]

How to move from promises to results