Articles Tagged Strategy

Consider this product. The life of the product begins when mammoth trees are grown on a huge scale, then pulled down and turned into pulp with massive machinery. The pulp is taken to giant mills and turned into huge rolls of paper. Those rolls are trucked and shipped around the world. The rolls are then […]

“At $5.2-billion Iridium was one of the largest, boldest and audacious startup bets ever made. Conceived in 1987 by Motorola and spun out in 1990 as a separate company, Iridium planned to build a mobile telephone system that would work anywhere on earth. It would cover every city, town and square inch of the earth from […]

“Today, a new generation of renegades – companies as seemingly different as Walmart, Nike, Google, and Unilever, for example – are thriving not in spite of but by rebelling against the tired, toxic orthodoxies of industrial age capitalism. Their secret? Haltingly, imperfectly, often messily, never easily, they’re learning to become twenty-first-century capitalists. Maybe, just maybe, […]

“What could be more valuable than having a goal? From our earliest days, teachers, coaches, and parents advise us to set goals and to work mightily to achieve them – and with good reason. Goals work. The academic literature shows that by helping us tune out distractions, goals can get us to try harder, work […]

Suppose you go into a shop to buy a drink. You notice that instead of saying “1 litre” on the carton, it says “up to 1 litre” instead. You buy the drink, go home and empty out the contents and measure them. You find there was only half a litre in the box. How do […]

“Successful strategies are compelling and persuasive in the eye of the beholder – put more vividly, they are seductive. The real power of any strategy is the power it affords to entice people into sharing an image of the future. Notice that I said entice – not delude or manipulate. That is not an easy […]

“Most companies, regardless of their sectors, have a mission statement. And most are awash in jargon and marble-mouthed pronouncements. Worse still, these gobbledy-gook statements are often forgotten by, misremembered, or flatly ignored by frontline employees. To combat this, (Kevin) Starr insists that companies he funds can express their mission statement in under eight words. They […]

“…three financial economists — Itzhak Ben-David of Ohio State University and John R. Graham and Campbell R. Harvey of Duke — found that chief financial officers of major American corporations are not very good at forecasting the future. The authors’ investigation used a quarterly survey of C.F.O.’s that Duke has been running since 2001. Among […]

When I was a boy, the world seemed a simple place. According to pretty much all the books and comics I read, and the TV shows and movies I watched, there were some self-evident truths about the world. These were some of them. All the action was in the world was in the rich countries […]

“Microsoft made its final roll of the dice in the global smartphone market today, launching a new mobile operating system which the software powerhouse hopes will rival iPhone and Android devices. The Windows Phone 7 marks a complete break from its past efforts – and the suppression of internal politics in favour of the man […]

“…organizations are communities of human beings, not collections of human resources. As human beings, we engage with our communities. Indeed, we cherish the very sense of community, since it is the social glue that bonds us together for the social good, and so allows us to function energetically. Organizations thus work best when they too […]

Henry Mintzberg, McGill University’s renowned professor of strategy and management, will be in Nairobi for a rare visit, courtesy of Kenya Red Cross. Strathmore Business School be hosting a unique session with Prof Mintzberg, moderated by me, on Wednesday 13th October from 3.30 pm. Details here Please contact SBS to book places for yourself and […]

Nokia, the leading maker of mobile phones, replaced its chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, on Friday with the head of Microsoft’s business unit in a bid to turn around the company’s struggling smartphone lineup and stop a decline in American market share. Nokia said it had appointed Stephen Elop, a 46-year-old native of Ancaster, Ontario, to […]

“I remember an illuminating conversation with a senior executive of a recently privatised water company. I was puzzled that so many companies seemed to be able to issue peremptory edicts to their managers to reduce costs, or headcount, and see these edicts fulfilled. Could it really be that there was so much inefficiency and, to […]

“Last week, Jeff Bezos announced plans to release a new-generation Kindle that will be even cheaper ($139) than the current generation, but will make only a few modest improvements in quality and performance. Even as analysts applauded the success of the Kindle thus far, they wondered why Bezos and his colleagues weren’t making the device […]

I suffer from an affliction. Having spent the better part of my life studying management and organisations, I am unable to switch that part of my brain off. Even when I am enjoying myself on holiday, I find myself observing the processes, systems, leadership and strategies that underlie the excellent (or dire) experience I am […]

“The simple fact—frustrating though it may be to the great number of hard-working and capable people inside an organization—is that their best execution efforts can be negated by strategic choices that turn out badly. It may make employees feel good to be told that company performance is 10% strategy and 90% execution. It may inspire […]

“Who sells the largest number of cameras in India? Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. The answer is: None of the above. The winner is Nokia, whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cellphones. Try this. Who runs the biggest music business in India? The answer is […]

“We will encounter multiple forms of hubris in our journey through the stages of decline. We will see hubris in undisciplined leaps into areas where a company cannot become the best. We will see hubris in a company’s pursuit of growth beyond what it can deliver with excellence. We will see hubris in bold, risky […]

“It is difficult to overstate the extent to which the Renaissance was built on the professional rivalries of its major figures. While these men generally held each other in deep respect and esteem, they also competed passionately against each other for commissions, recognition, and prestige. Competition can sometimes yield petulance and destructive energy. But rivalry […]

Whether or not Goldman Sachs is found guilty of the various charges laid against it, its reputation has suffered huge damage. It is being fried at the court of public opinion, and faces an uneasy path back to its previously dominant investment banking position. Many other companies face these ordeals, and they are usually of […]

“Contrary to the widespread cliché of American dynamism versus European economic stagnation, over the past decade Europe’s top companies have beaten America’s (not to mention Japan’s) by an often substantial margin. Despite the rise of China and the rest, Europe has held roughly steady, at about 17 percent, its share of world exports since 2000, […]

The problem with being a business commentator is that your subject-matter regularly lets you down. Last year I was interviewed by NTV about the importance of ethics and integrity in business (a clip can be seen on www.sunwords.com). Great firms, I asserted confidently, do not become great by cutting corners or greasing palms. They thrive […]

1. No more 9 to 5 2. Productivity will be closely measured 3. Cogs will become redundant 4. The winners will be the linchpins 5. Work will become art SETH GODIN, Regus Business Sense (April 2010) Business guru and author Seth Godin spelled out some of the ideas in his new book, Linchpin, in Regus […]

One of the key practices of successful businesses is the ability to follow trends and anticipate market movements. This is extremely difficult: if any of us really knew what next year’s markets would look like, we would be billionaires. Some trends, however, are so predictable that the foolishness lies in ignoring them. And that is […]

The recent spate of competition in Kenya’s telecom sector has been characterised by something ugly: vandalism. Now that fibre-optic connectivity is commonplace, what easier way to disable your competitor than to hire a few goons to cut their cables? That leaves them in disarray for days, while we gain ground. Or do we? Telecommunications is […]

“In the 1980s, competition from Japan was every western CEO’s worst nightmare. Whether it was TVs, VCRs, or fax machines, Japan’s ability to produce high-quality goods at low cost drove U.S. and European competitors out of those businesses. Since then, Japan has floundered for more than a decade. Why? A big piece of the answer […]

Last week this column looked at two words: Event and Process. This week I want to engage you in a discussion about two more: PLAN and REALITY. The need to think about these words came to me on a recent flight. Anyone who has flown on a commercial flight will be familiar with the in-flight […]