Strategic planning

To cope with volatility, companies should rethink how they approach strategic planning.

A dynamic new model

You don't need a time line; you need a time cone.

To meet the challenges of a complex world, strategic planners need to understand the differences between the four elements of VUCA--volatility, uncertainty,...

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

How some large companies infuse their planning process with new entrepreneurial vigor, maintaining market leadership over the long haul

The business plan admits the entrepreneur to the investment process. Without a plan furnished in advance, many investor groups won’t even grant an interview. And the plan must be outstanding if it is to win investment funds. Too many entrepreneurs, though, continue to believe that if they build a better mousetrap, the world will beat […]

This package begins with "What the West Gets Wrong About China," by Rana Mitter and Elsbeth Johnson, which discusses three fundamental misconceptions:...

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....

A detailed plan may be comforting, but it’s not a strategy.

Most alert and thoughtful senior marketing executives are by now familiar with the concept of the product life cycle. Even a handful of uniquely cosmopolitan and up-to-date corporate presidents have familiarized themselves with this tantalizing concept. Yet a recent survey I took of such executives found none who used the concept in any strategic way […]

Many leaders I work with struggle with strategy. They know it’s important to have strategies in order to align decision making in their businesses. They understand that they can’t observe and control everything in their organizations (much as many of them would like to). They earnestly want to develop good strategies and they get the […]

Corporate strategy, the overall plan for a diversified company, is both the darling and the stepchild of contemporary management practice—the darling because CEOs have been obsessed with diversification since the early 1960s, the stepchild because almost no consensus exists about what corporate strategy is, much less about how a company should formulate it. A diversified […]

Three steps to move past business as usual.

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...

Despite the benefit of high profits, as well as the enjoyment of a position of leadership, a company that has a high market share is a tempting target...

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 […]

They actively embrace impostor syndrome.

The top team’s annual strategic off-site differs from all other meetings in its potential impact on the company. That’s why it should be designed and managed differently.

What makes for a good strategy in highly uncertain business environments? Some executives seek to shape the future with high-stakes bets. Eastman Kodak Company, for example, is spending $500 million per year to develop an array of digital photography products that it hopes will fundamentally change the way people create, store, and view pictures. Meanwhile, […]

In 1991 Peru undertook perhaps the most radical tax administration reform in the developing world as President Fujimori created the National Tax Administration...

Rebecca Wilson, a recent policy school graduate, has started an unexpectedly successful small nonprofit to help urban high school students tap the many...

In 1987, IBM changed its strategy in an attempt to become a market-driven company rather than a product-driven company. The case begins with a description...

Supplements the (A) case.

The case describes Information Technology at Cirque du Soleil in 2000, when a new Chief Information Officer was hired. The main challenge of the CIO was...

Supplements the (A) case.

This is a case which might inspire discussion both about political strategy and the relation of marginalized cultural groups to the mainstream. It tells...

Provides students with the opportunity to track industry evolution over time, to explore the role that signaling may play in such evolution, and to construct...

Identifies the 10 key components of a strategic I-Net. May be used with any case or discussion about building strategic IT infrastructures.

SK Group, one of Korea's largest conglomerates, announced its Double Bottom Line (DBL) initiative in 2018. In January 2019, Chairman Tae-won Chey unveiled...

For more than 70 years, beginning in 1929, one party-the Party of Institutional Revolution, known by its Spanish initials PRI-dominated political life...

The case describes the internationally known Singapore initiative to implement electronically deducted charges for road use, varying by route, type of...

Publicly listed in November 2005, Link REIT was the first real estate investment trust (REIT) in Hong Kong after the Hong Kong government decided to privatize...

Fola Adeola, the CEO of Nigeria's Guaranty Trust Bank and one of its founders in 1991, is considering what should be done to maintain the bank's original...

Supplements the (A) case.

Charts the strategic shifts in the go-to-market strategy of Oracle Corp., with thousands of go-to-market partners of varying sizes and business models--many...

Named one of "10 Must-Read Career and Leadership Books For 2022" by "Forbes." The ultimate guide to the essentials of strategy and management, from one...

Put strategy into action. Managing a successful strategic initiative may be the key to transforming your company--and propelling your career forward....

Organization 2005, the latest initiative by Procter & Gamble (P&G) worldwide, was put in place to help double revenue growth between 2000 and 2005. The...

In 1995 Haiti's banking sector undergoes reformtwo important aspects of which are a lowering of the reserve requirement on banks and a lifting of the...

To cope with volatility, companies should rethink how they approach strategic planning.

A dynamic new model

You don't need a time line; you need a time cone.

To meet the challenges of a complex world, strategic planners need to understand the differences between the four elements of VUCA--volatility, uncertainty,...

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

How some large companies infuse their planning process with new entrepreneurial vigor, maintaining market leadership over the long haul

The business plan admits the entrepreneur to the investment process. Without a plan furnished in advance, many investor groups won’t even grant an interview. And the plan must be outstanding if it is to win investment funds. Too many entrepreneurs, though, continue to believe that if they build a better mousetrap, the world will beat […]

This package begins with "What the West Gets Wrong About China," by Rana Mitter and Elsbeth Johnson, which discusses three fundamental misconceptions:...

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....

A detailed plan may be comforting, but it’s not a strategy.