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Articles – Strategy • FAST COMPANY – The Art of the Anti-Apology Business has had a lot to apologise for. But is anyone actually owning up? We decipher executive remorse codes: GO • MIT SLOAN – Promotions and the Bottom Line Evidence suggests that innovative products boost a company’s long-term financial performance and stock-market value, whereas promotions may negate gains: GO • WHARTON – Socially Responsible Investing Outcome Socially responsible investors don’t want their money to support companies that do things they disapprove of, such as selling tobacco, alcoholic beverages or weapons. They may be willing to sacrifice some financial returns for their convictions – but how much must they give up? GO • FAST COMPANY – No Corporate Privacy is Good A few decades ago, we discovered that quality is free. Turns out, the new move toward transparency is also free and can be profitable too: GO • MIT SLOAN – Shareholders Vs Stakeholders Debate Does the belief that a manager’s overriding duty is to maximize shareholder returns encourage socially destructive actions by corporations? GO • WHARTON – Another Reorganisation? According to Wharton Management Professor Peter Cappelli, frequent reorganizations ‘are like doctors treating patients with antibiotics’. The medication might work short-term, but ‘long-term it can be harmful’: GO • MIT SLOAN – The Myopia of Bad Behaviour Long-term focus, not cosmetic ethics initiatives, will regain the public’s trust: GO • FAST COMPANY – Risky Business For these cautious managers, your risk is their reward: GO • MIT SLOAN – Sustainability and Performance Companies that actively manage a wide range of sustainability indicators are better able to create long-term value for all stakeholders: GO • FAST COMPANY – One Shrewd Move It’s easy to look smart when times are good. What separates winners from losers are the moves their leaders make when times are hard. Six CEOs explain their shrewdest move of 2002: GO • FAST COMPANY – Can Rollins Find Soul of Dell? The president of the computer world’s most relentless competitor is urging his colleagues to ask and answer a soul-searching question: What does it mean to be a great company? GO • FAST COMPANY – Yamashita: Reinvents Companies He may be the most influential consultant you’ve never heard of. He’s certainly one of the most creative. And his new ideas about strategy are powering a number of high-profile change efforts – including Carly Fiorina’s campaign to transform Hewlett-Packard: GO • MIT SLOAN – The Behaviour Behind the Buzzwords Management’s real challenges lie precisely in what the catchphrases don’t say: GO • WHARTON – Broader Community of Interests As the recent proposed sale of Hershey Foods shows, any action a company takes that affects the well-being of its employees and community, among other stakeholders, should be made by a board interested in more than the bottom line: GO • JOURNAL OF CHARTERED SECRETARIES AUSTRALIA Reputation Risk and the Internationalising Firm Australian companies have for some time factored reputational risk into their strategic planning processes. For firms taking their place on the global stage, it is vital they understand the changed risk profile this creates and also the pressure it creates on their relationships with existing stakeholders: GO • FAST COMPANY – Size is Not a Strategy A candid appraisal of why so many big companies (even the honest ones) don't work – and some radical ideas for reform: GO • WHARTON – On the Money or Off-Base In the United States, Republicans and Democrats are stumbling over each other to show who can be toughest with corporate wrongdoers with competing legislation calling for everything from longer jail terms and statutes of limitations to new accounting rules and oversight boards. Is this the right approach or are different tactics required? GO • MEDIA GUARDIAN – The Cost of Spin The amount of taxpayers’ money spent on UK government advertising has more than doubled, confirming fears that No 10’s current inhabitant is obsessed with spin: GO • MIT SLOAN – Strategy, Science and Management Today’s world of evolving ideas and opportunities calls for less hypothesis testing and more systematic observation. Sometimes the only way to find out if things work – in management as in science – may be to try them: GO • MIT SLOAN – Pricing as a Strategic Capability Pricing isn’t simply a matter of good tactics. By investing in specific areas of organisational capital, they’ve made it a strategic weapon that competitors can only envy: GO • FAST COMPANY – Going Global Insights, predictions and best practices for companies and managers facing globalisation: GO • WHARTON – Operational Risk Poses Challenges Operational risk has been a hot topic of debate among financial institutions and regulators. Unlike risks of borrowers defaulting on debt or markets collapsing, operational risk management deals with internal system failures (such as a rogue trader) or external events (such as terrorist attacks): GO • FAST COMPANY – There Is No Alternative… How do you develop strategy in an uncertain economy? Meet TINA: There Is No Alternative. When everything starts to change, the way to do planning is to focus on things that don’t change: GO • FAST COMPANY – Memo To: Media Monopolists And you thought moguls had it made? Turns out, trying to hang on to a monopoly these days is enough to make anyone miserable, even Rupert, Michael, and Sumner. We feel their pain – and offer some help: GO • FAST COMPANY – Memo to CEOs Business is at a crossroads. Scandal and recession have cast a pall on the way CEOs go about leading their companies. This memo – Five Half-truths of Business – is a wake-up call: GO • WHARTON – The CFO and Ethics Companies these days are revisiting what they expect of their CFOs. Since nobody wants their top management team to be the subject of news stories or SEC investigations, a strong emphasis on ethics is key to the job. But that’s only the beginning: GO • MEDIA GUARDIAN – The Game of the Name You’re stuck in a dying industry, selling a product with a reputation for killing your customers, what do you do? Stephen Armstrong on the rebranding of tobacco giant Philip Morris: GO • WHARTON – A Better Case for Conservation Gross miscalculation, unrealistic goals and a penchant for false prophecy have become virtually synonymous with the conservation movement. The problem of conservation today is to find a way to present its concerns without coming off as impossibly reactionary, hopelessly naïve or flat-out crazy: GO • MIT SLOAN – Commercialisation for Startups The external environment dictates to a great degree whether competition or cooperation is the preferred road: GO • MEDIA GUARDIAN – Reputations at Risk The 24-hour news environment is putting corporate reputations at risk as firms struggle to stay ‘on message’: GO • FAST COMPANY – Genomics Changes Everything ‘Size really doesn’t matter. In a knowledge economy, you don’t need a lot of resources to generate a lot of wealth. You need quality, not quantity, of ideas.’ GO • FAST COMPANY – Re-Education of Silicon Valley There’s much going wrong in the land of silicon and software. But there’s one important thing going right: GO • WHARTON – Media Conglomerates Go Global Big fish have been gobbling up smaller fish in the media world for the past decade. And the trend shows no sign of ending, according to Joel Klein, chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann Inc. and former head of the US Justice Department’s antitrust division: GO • FAST COMPANY – Trying to Stop Me Track coach John Smith teaches the fastest runners in the world how to go even faster. Here’s what he can teach you: GO • FAST COMPANY – NCR’s Speed Demons How does a slow-moving company get faster? It buys a young, fast-moving company and lets their executives pick up the pace. Get with it: GO • FAST COMPANY – Smarter Moves for Smarter Times A roundtable of seasoned business leaders assembled in Dallas to come up with short-term tactics for surviving the downturn and long-term strategies for winning in the future: GO • FAST COMPANY – Survival is Not Enough Hey, it’s a jungle out there! So if you want to win, do more than embrace change – learn how to evolve: GO • WHARTON – High-Tech Firms Can’t Afford to Ignore Patents In many industries, firms eager to capture gains from their innovations are filing patent applications at an unprecedented rate. At the same time they are struggling to keep up with accelerating development cycles, shrinking lead times and changing legal interpretations: GO • FAST COMPANY – Fast Growth, Great Service In a period of diminished hopes and slower growth, Convergys is a change of pace – a company that’s growing fast without sacrificing service. And it better not: service is its business: GO • SLOAN – Back to the Future Benetton is rethinking its global network of suppliers and distributors and defying conventional wisdom in the process. Its efforts may prove to be a model for other companies with far-flung operations: GO • WHARTON – Are Government Bailouts Bad Business? Even the most cold-hearted free-marketer would concede the airlines got a tough break in the two-day grounding after the terrorist attacks. So a government bailout is a reasonable response, right? Not necessarily, say those who have studied past examples of government bailouts: GO • WHARTON – Fear of Flying Government aid to beleaguered US airlines will help stem the industry’s tide of red ink, already in evidence even before the Sept 11 disaster. But airlines also must work harder than ever to stimulate demand and emphasise airline security, say Wharton faculty and aviation experts: GO • FAST COMPANY – How EDS Got Its Groove Back Before Dick Brown took the reins at EDS, people wrote the company off as slow, stodgy, even uncool. By focusing on the soft stuff – the company’s culture – he’s turned EDS into the leading example of an old-economy company that gets it: GO • FAST COMPANY – Teacher in Chief ‘Customer service is perception minus expectations!’ he booms. ‘It’s expecting one thing and getting a lot more!’ GO • FAST COMPANY – The Customer Economy Adopt customer-relationship management. Be customer-centric. Organize around the customer. The customer is king. By now, these customer mantras should sound familiar. But are they the new hype or the new habit? GO • FAST COMPANY – Creative Drive BMW’s Designworks/USA studio has a formula for profitable creativity that involves working on everything from tractors to goggles. Which may be why it designs such cool cars: GO • FAST COMPANY – Beyond Re-Engineering In this age of management turmoil, consultants peddle re-engineering as the science of success. But technology doesn’t trump talent, and no science can lock in winning results 100% of the time: GO • SLOAN – Building an Effective Global Business Team Successful teams strive to build trust and overcome barriers of geography, language and culture: GO • FAST COMPANY – Has Your Company Really Found its Voice? Some brands really talk the talk. Sophisticated technology has the power to turn a customer’s interaction with an automated call centre into a virtual marketing conversation. Paul C. Judge reports: GO • FAST COMPANY – Are Brands Out of Hand? A new kind of brand proletariat is on the loose, courtesy of Harvey Alpert, the man behind Brand in Your Hand: GO • FAST COMPANY – Techno Solution or Screwup? Has the Web been the biggest boon – or the biggest bust – when it comes to improving the customer experience? GO • FAST COMPANY – Voice of Experience What’s the best strategy for making it through a bad patch? The answer comes from 12 experienced business leaders who have been there, seen it, and made it through – old pros who speak with the voice of experience: GO • FAST COMPANY – Battle of the Brands John Hancock’s outspoken CEO names and points fingers at some high-profile brand offenders in his new book. He also offers some good advice on not screwing up your own company’s brand: GO • FAST COMPANY – Masters of Disaster Your company’s tanking. Your biggest customer just went AWOL. A once-sleeping competitor has turned into your worst nightmare. Your operation is headed for the ditch – and it’s up to you to fix it. Fast. We asked twelve turnaround experts, from professors to investors to managers, who have brought companies back from the brink, to give us their recipe for rescue: GO • FAST COMPANY – How to stay on the move... ...when the rest of the world is slowing down. It’s hard to remember a less-inviting time to have a great idea for a new company or to champion new ideas to change a big company. But leaders who think big aren’t willing to downsize their ambitions – they just have to work harder (and smarter). Here’s advice on how to stay fast in slow times: GO • FAST COMPANY – Smart Ways to Land your Next Gig It’s a jungle out there – but there are still good jobs to be had. We asked recruiters and career specialists to share successful strategies for standing apart while everyone else is standing around. Jennifer Reingold reports: GO • FAST COMPANY – Socially Networked Organisations ‘The successful organisation of a decade from now will be one that recognise that the real value of the business is not on the balance sheet but in the relationships it develops with a whole range of constituencies.’ Hayes explains the five principles behind the socially networked company of the future: GO • FAST COMPANY – Corporate Philanthropy Why should your business be socially responsible? Because it’s your obligation. But if you need another reason, here’s one: It’s good for business. You really can do good and do well at the same time: GO • FAST COMPANY – Innovation Conversation Start with a conversation. Bring together 10 forward-looking business leaders – visionaries in technology, video games, retail, hospitality, finance and design. Add pressure and limit time to 90 minutes. What do you get? Instant innovation! GO • FAST COMPANY – Lessons Learnt What smart steps should business leaders be taking to deal with Act II of the new economy? Maybe the smartest thing to do is to take stock of Act I: What lessons did we learn in the first five years of the new economy? GO • FAST COMPANY – On the Eve of Destruction It is one of the defining strategic questions of the new economy: How do you build a company that excels over the long term, but that is also capable of reacting quickly to massive shifts in technology and markets? GO Back to Top