What can your business do in the face of the economic, social, and technological forces shaping the global economy? Even the largest corporations may feel that there is little they can do to shape the future the way they would prefer. While they are probably right that they are largely helpless to... [read more...]

Are you clear on how exactly to incorporate social and environmental trends into your strategies? The authors say that you should navigate important trends by first studying their impact on subindustries, segments, categories, and micromarkets. This involves zeroing in on microtrends in which dwell good... [read more...]

Mistakes involving mergers or acquisitions can be enormously costly. What are the major causes of such mistakes? Although experts have often pointed their fingers at excessive optimism and hubris, the authors belief that to be only one factor among several. After studying the psychology of the deal for... [read more...]

Economic policies based purely on macroeconomic variables can have undesirable and unanticipated consequences. The same is true of business strategy based on highly aggregated terms such as “growth industry” and “mature industry,” according to the authors of this article. Based on their research into... [read more...]

Psychological biases can make it difficult to get out of an ailing business.

In over 20 years, Saturn has never made a profit for General Motors, and Polaroid went bankrupt in 2001 after years of failing to flourish in the new world of digital photography. These two events exemplify a common tendency among companies: staying too long with a losing venture, whether it’s a product... [read more...]

The life of a market entrant is, in most cases, a brief and painful one. For every successful market entry, about four fail. The failure rate of projects is high in industries such as pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, and motion pictures. The failures are not only inexperienced start-ups, but also sophisticated... [read more...]

The largest corporations rarely sustain strong growth unless they compete in the right places at the right times.

If you’re a corporation, it’s good to be big. Size brings obvious advantages such as economies of scale or scope, easier access to capital markets, brand recognition, and extensive distribution networks. Along with the benefits of bigness come big challenges, prominent among which is the need to add... [read more...]

Established companies are about to be disestablished. They will be rudely unseated from their thrones by extreme competition, driven by the supply-side forces of globalization, technology, and liberalization. Huyett and Viguerie contend that we will see the acceleration of supply-side growth and the... [read more...]

The authors, seeing little consensus on the issue of corporate scope, claim that their research indicates a particularly fertile ground between focus and diversification. While focused companies tend to do better than highly diversified companies, those which are moderately diversified do the best. The... [read more...]

This paper presents a high-level view of how to formulate strategy under conditions of uncertainty. Traditional analysis (DCF, market research, five forces analysis, etc.) assumes a predictable future. This assumption is comfortable and tempting, but often inappropriate. Other planners recognize uncertainty... [read more...]