Perspectives

In an era where technology and online businesses are booming, the telecommunications industry surprisingly faces a decline in global revenues. This trend stems from a failure to capitalize on the major investments in advanced network standards such as 4G and 5G. Competitors outside the industry have harnessed these technologies to reap billion-dollar returns and premium ...

‘Being strategic’, in an organizational context, means three things: 1. Thinking strategically2. Acting strategically3. Leading strategically Thinking StrategicallyThinking strategically is what most people associated with ‘being strategic’. And it is true: cognition is central to being strategic. Strategic people think in strategic ways, for example: creatively, imaginatively, synthetically, intuitively, analogically, etc. They look beyond direct ...

Strategy is like sport: there are more pundits than players... People love talking about strategy, what it is and isn’t, whether formulation or execution is more important, what the difference is between strategy and tactics, and so on.   But how many people actually do strategy? When was the last time they played the strategy game ...

The most strategic business people I know, don’t know anything about strategy. At least in terms of knowing about formal strategy theories and frameworks. They just do strategy: they watch and listen to everything going on in their market, think a lot about how to do things better, where their next opportunity is coming from, ...

I’ve been consulting on intra-company venturing for over 20 years, through three economic cycles, and with dozens of Fortune 500 clients. Typically, ventures are started during a technology inflection, such as the original dot com, web 2.0 or SaaS; with the intention to drive growth and strategic transformation. In truth, these objectives are rarely achieved. ...

The basic premise of new business building is that the parent assets can be leveraged to support growth. That is what creates an advantage over greenfield startups.   Leverageable assets include capital, salesforce, customer accounts, brand, technology, and business processes. Collectively, these assets are the 'corporate capabilities'. 

The corporate start-up sweet spot is where an internal venture provides corporate fit and stretch, in terms of markets, strategic learning, and business model. The rationale for corporate start-ups is that large companies have a resource advantage over start-ups-in-the-wild, in the form of customers, brand, expertise and capital. In other words, they have the ability ...

  Download Effects Research Report on “Integrated Strategy” How integrated is your strategy?  It’s a good time to be a business strategist. Strategy is in a period of renewal. New practices are being invented to deal with new market conditions, more people are getting involved in strategy, and the positive social impact of the strategy is on the rise. Strategy has ...

‘Disruption’ sounds painful, and it is when you are running a business that suddenly finds itself losing profit and market share to a competitor providing a product or service that makes yours look expensive or obsolete. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen coined the term ‘disruption’ in his 1995 book The Innovators Dilemma. The dilemma ...

There may seem little point in medium-term 1-3 year strategic planning during a crisis. But decisions taken today have ramifications down the line, so having a plan with stated objectives is helpful to making the right ones. The problem is that standard strategic planning is time-consuming and requires a baseline and stable environment to be ...

Most startups now follow a customer development approach to innovation as follows: talk to users about the area you want to innovate identify their pain come up with ways to solve their pain show them your ideas get feedback adapt your best idea repeat the process until you find what they are willing to pay ...

Business strategy projects often begin full of curiosity and enthusiasm to develop a powerful new plan but end with an incremental set of objectives and initiatives based on the current model. Why is that? What happens during the course of converting analysis into strategy that renders the output so ordinary a lot of the time? ...

Recently I’ve noticed several consulting firms promoting accelerated strategy development methodologies with names like ‘Rapid Strategy’ and ‘Competitive Advantage in 3 Days’. They follow a similar format: 2-3 day executive workshop Start with defining a long term vision Then derive implications for each area of the business Then set objectives Then define initiatives and accountabilities ...

It’s hard to find time for strategy in today’s hyperactive environment. The corporate world is entranced by an agile credo that prizes speed and activity over dialogue and ideas. As a result, expectations about strategy are changing: executives want strategy now and demand the data science team gives it to them. Gone are the days ...

A decline in performance will often lead a company to review its strategy. The assumption is that a new strategy will turn things around. Built into this is the idea that there is something missing from the strategy – if management can find an insight or new business concept, everything will be fine. This is ...