The ability to create and manage strategic alliances is an important skill for most management teams. If you cannot make effective use of alliances in today’s world, you will be at a serious competitive disadvantage. One of the reasons for the low success rate of alliances is that there are […]
Business has changed radically in recent decades and is becoming more sophisticated. The public relations of today has become perception management. Communicators have increasingly come to the conclusion that perception is what really counts. You might run a great company, but if analysts don’t feel that way the stock does […]
The months before the collapse of so many dot-coms in early 2001 were marked by the influx of senior executives into a once totally youthful culture. These new companies, usually started by twenty-somethings with brilliant, innovative ideas, suddenly brought in older business managers to help them to weather what seemed […]
Which of the following does your company report on, monitor, and react to most frequently? Which consume the most management time? If you are like the overwhelming majority of businesses, you will focus primarily on financial results. Consequently, you are making less money than you could. Why? Because managing a […]
Conditions Necessary for Change The complexity, challenge, and time required for an organization to become truly customer-centric are usually underestimated. It is not just about introducing a new program, training customer contact people to smile over on the phone, or conducting a few customer focus groups. Rather, it is about […]
In the past, the typical wealth-creating enterprises of the advanced industrial societies were either labor-intensive – as coal, mining or textiles – or capital-intensive – such as chemicals and steel. Today, many of the world’s major corporations are best described as knowledge-intensive or talent-intensive. The obvious examples are companies in […]
Never in history has business played such a central role and been such a globally competitive endeavor. It’s very likely that what we are experiencing today is an easier time for business with what is projected to occur in future. Staying competitive isn’t just about hiring and developing the very […]
Words are the essential tools of communication. But they are so much more. They convey information, they express emotion, they influence, persuade, motivate. They do all the things that a successful business wants to do – if they are used well. Or, if they are used badly, they undermine a […]
Over the years, we’ve made strategy far more complicated than necessary. Smart people with advanced degrees and high salaries generate elaborate documents containing complex analysis, algorithms, heuristics, scenarios and projections which seldom yield competitive advantage. More than 50% of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies – each with elegant strategic plans […]
In turbulent and uncertain times, it is tempting for companies to wonder whether if they do actually require a strategy. They do. By way of proof, imagine that you find yourself in the middle of a dark and hostile jungle. If you want to get out of the jungle, do […]