Articles on Strategy Development

Strategic Management Models

The right strategic management model can play a critical role in helping you to optimize your efforts. Review the different strategic management models to help you determine the pros and cons of each, and to help you determine what model works best for you in your given situation. Continue Reading

Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education

Higher education may be ripe for “disruptive innovation.” We all look up to and model after Harvard. Its reputation is stellar. However, the total cost to produce one graduate is staggering. In 2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored a study carried out by McKinsey & Company. The objective was simple: to determine how to produce more highly qualified graduates at lower costs. Continue Reading

Summary of “Innovator’s DNA”

This may be the important business book of this decade on the topic of strategic innovation. The depth of the research, and the practical and memorable way the research is presented in this book is impressive. It seems clear that those that become the masters of the insights shared in this book will become the business leaders of the future. Continue Reading

5 Future Strategies

George Stalk with Boston Consulting Group argues the companies must understand and adopt top innovative business practices long before the media catches wind and begins to spread the word. He warns that if you wait to pick up and adopt business practices from the media then it may be too late to become a viable player in the new environment[...] Continue Reading

How to Predict the Future

“Scott Anderson with CNN wrote, “Eric is one of the most impressive thinkers I’ve met in Washington.” Eric states, “it is not that the study of the future is somehow incoherent as a managerial discipline. In fact, it has one of the best, most consistent methodologies of any intellectual field.” Continue Reading

Wisdom of Crowds

Gathering information and making decisions is at the crux of good business. Leaving to the few elite may be wrong wrong-headed. In the book The Wisdom of Crowds James Surowiecki finds that non-experts are collectively smarter than individual experts or even small groups of experts. Continue Reading

Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results

“Why do some groups achieve amazing results while most others do not? What do extraordinary groups have in common that sorts them from all the rest? What can be done to create these terrific results more often?” Continue Reading

Built to Love

Built to Love Examples of products that people love include Apple iPods, Navistar’s LoneStar trusk, Webkinz stuff animals and KitchenAid Toasters and waffle makers. These products meet the functional needs of the customers AND they elicit a positive emotion. Continue Reading

The Starfish and the Spider

Throughout history, societies were organized around hierarchies. There were always those that wanted to rule and conquer. Hierarchies were used to control and carry out orders. Will this pattern continue? There is a trend toward decentralization, empowerment and contribution. Continue Reading

New Market Penetration Approach

“Aha!” insights from Adrian C. Ott author of The 24-Hour Customer who spoke at the Association for Strategic Planning annual conference this month. Continue Reading

How the Mighty Fall – Review

Jim Collins’ research project uncovered five step-wise stages of the decline of formerly mighty companies. These stages are like a staged disease. It is generally hard to detect the disease while it is in its early stages, but that is when it is most curable. Continue Reading

Review of Business Plan Pro

The right business planning software can help you to focus less on tools and more on strategy and planning. Today, there are reasonably priced software applications that provide you expert guidance, formulas, research resources and samples to help develop sound business plans. Continue Reading

Strategic Speed – Review

Only 30 percent of strategic initiatives are successfully executed. If we can’t have confidence in our ability to strategize, plan and execute, what do we have? What’s going on? And how can you accelerate execution in your company? Three seasoned executives and consultants conducted major research to understand the problem and to find answers. Continue Reading

Leadership

Strategy

Planning

Execution

Culture

Industry