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May 10, 2016
Creative Strategies for Business and Social Impact
by: David Gustave
Plenty of people can make money. Some can create social change. Doing both requires real creativity, but that’s where great business people should be aiming.
Making change happen is not an individual pursuit. My vision is to bring other businesses into a brave new world where their profits are maximised by making social change.
April 29, 2016
7 Essential Steps to Help you Build a Winning Startup Strategy
by: Brian de Haaf
You have a great idea for a business and are rightly excited to get going. There is so much to do that you can hardly sleep at night. You are thinking of all the plans and steps that you must complete, like securing financing, setting up a website, hiring your first employees… the list goes on and on.
You feel deep pressure to finalize all the details – if not today, then first thing tomorrow.
Not so fast.
Many new business owners share this sense of urgency. In their haste to build brilliant things, they skip over business fundamentals. But that’s a big mistake.
April 18, 2016
Designing the Machines That Will Design Strategy
by: Martin Reeves and Daichi Ueda
AlphaGo caused a stir by defeating 18-time world champion Lee Sedol in Go, a game thought to be impenetrable by AI for another 10 years. AlphaGo’s success is emblematic of a broader trend: An explosion of data and advances in algorithms have made technology smarter than ever before. Machines can now carry out tasks ranging from recommending movies to diagnosing cancer — independently of, and in many cases better than, humans. In addition to executing well-defined tasks, technology is starting to address broader, more ambiguous problems. It’s not implausible to imagine that one day a “strategist in a box” could autonomously develop and execute a business strategy. We’ve spoken to leaders who express such a vision — and companies such as Amazon and Alibaba are already beginning to make it a reality.
April 15, 2016
3 Steps to Align Culture With Business Strategy
by: Lauren Dixon
On this blog, I tend to write about ideal company cultures and best practices for improving different aspects of them. When on the road to improving a culture, it makes sense to measure first. However, culture is a pretty nebulous concept, making it hard match up with data. Consulting firm Deloitte says it figured out a way to do just that.
Culture is the “set of values and attributes that shape how things get done in the organization,” said Anthony Abbatiello, a principal in Deloitte’s human capital practice and who is also responsible for leadership and culture business. Ultimately, culture is how the business strategy becomes reality.
March 28, 2016
Reorganizations Should Advance Strategy and Drive Business, Not Just Cut Costs
by: The Boston Consulting Group
Company Reorganizations Driven by Cost Cutting Can Alienate Managers and Employees -- and Are Five Times Less Likely to Succeed Than Those Done to Realign, Redesign, and Strengthen the Organization, Says The Boston Consulting Group
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Mar 28, 2016) - Companies frequently announce reorganizations in an effort to cut costs. The exercise is often one of brute force in a time of crisis: a small group of leaders and HR professionals sit in an undisclosed conference room, working to cut the head count by 10% to 15% by drawing new lines and boxes and taking their best stab at putting people into them.
But this cost-focused approach to reorganization has hidden pitfalls: people get demoralized, surviving teams don't function well, and existing inefficiencies become exacerbated. To reorganize effectively, leaders must think about how the company's new design will align with and drive their strategy of tomorrow. This kind of reorganization can have a lasting, positive impact -- and sustainably eliminate costs in the process.
March 27, 2016
Spring Cleaning Your Business Strategy
by: Chris Myers
Spring is finally here, and now that the first quarter of 2016 is just about over, it’s a perfect time to pause, assess, and reflect on the state of your business. I love this time of year. As the dull days of winter give way to warmer weather it seems like the energy level in the marketplace seems to increase. Now is the time to spot check your strategy and execution to make sure that you and your team are poised to head into the second quarter strong.
March 16, 2016
Don’t Draft a Digital Strategy Just Because Everyone Else Is
by: Ken Favaro
When the CEO of GE announces that it will become a digital industrial enterprise and the CEO of Citigroup says it will become the world’s leading digital bank, you know that a new strategic priority is sweeping the corporate world. It used to be “What’s your IT strategy?” Then it was “What’s your internet strategy?” Now it’s “What’s your digital strategy?”
Business leaders are drowning in the hyperbole surrounding the “disruptive” potential of digital technology. They recognize the potential of the Internet of Things, big data, and always-on customer connectivity, and are terrified by what others could do to them with those same technologies. All you need is some influential business advisors and a pack of ravenous technology vendors to throw on a little lighter fluid and a lit match and — voilà! — digital strategy is on fire as today’s “it” strategy.