Strategy

The Idea in Brief Caught between critics demanding “corporate social responsibility” and investors demanding short-term profits, many companies seek to make their giving more strategic. But “strategic philanthropy” is often…

Just a few years ago, it wasn’t clear whether Indra Nooyi would survive as PepsiCo’s CEO. Many investors saw Pepsi as a bloated giant whose top brands were losing market…

Artwork: Tamar Cohen, Happy Motoring, 2010, silk screen on vintage road map, 26″ x 18″ “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” There’s much wisdom in that saying, which has…

In 1979, a young associate professor at Harvard Business School published his first article for HBR, “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.” In the years that followed, Michael Porter’s explication of…

For the better part of a decade, strategy has been a business buzzword. Top executives ponder strategic objectives and missions. Managers down the line rough out product/market strategies. Functional chiefs…

The Idea in Brief The best way to drive profitable growth? Stop competing in overcrowded industries. In those red oceans, companies try to outperform rivals to grab bigger slices of…

National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists.…

BCG research has found that 15% of companies outperform their industry in more than 80% of crises. Berkshire Hathaway, for example, outperformed its peers in 15 out of the last…

In recent years, a growing number of business practitioners and theorists have postulated that one way for a company to increase its return is by increasing its market share, and…

The Idea in Brief Even the most compelling strategy is useless if it isn’t implemented. But in many companies, no one’s driving execution. CEOs, grappling with the complexity of doing…