Corporate strategy

The key is knowing what your top price is—and having the discipline to stick to it.

Bonuses and other forms of incentive compensation are an effective motivator of executives to achieve ever higher earnings per share. The drive to produce short-term results, however, often influences management to forgo investment in capital equipment and R&D that would benefit the corporation several years hence even more than improved earnings next year would. The […]

Executing a new strategy nearly always requires new resources and capabilities-and most firms seek them out the wrong way. In a 10-year study of 162 telecom...

During the past 25 years an increasing proportion of U.S. companies have seen wisdom in pursuing a strategy of diversification. Between 1950 and 1970, for example, single-business companies comprising the Fortune “500” declined from 30% to 8% of the total. Acquisition has become a standard approach to diversification. In recent years the productivity of capital […]

In the wake of a series of gross corporate abuses around the turn of the century, Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which was intended to make corporate...

Across-the-board cuts often backfire.

Now that providing services is more lucrative than making products, the old foundations for success in manufacturing are crumbling. Smart manufacturers are creating new business models to capture profits at the customer’s end of the value chain.

For the last decade, the Gallup Organization has surveyed the people of China, as both consumers of goods and employees of the companies that produce those goods. The data provide a unique picture of changing consumer attitudes, market opportunities, and management challenges.

How businesses shift from selling products to building networks.

It’ll help ensure your international expansion is a success.

Because of growing commitments of their companies in developing countries, large numbers of American and European managers have entered negotiations with government officials in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Also, with emerging nationalism, these negotiations have become increasingly frustrating. Sometimes misunderstandings have been so great that they have led to a breakdown in negotiations that […]

The internet runs on trading personal data for free services - and we can't figure out if it's a fair trade until we acknowledge that.

Three steps to put your plan into action.

Companies don't win over investors just by issuing sustainability reports and engaging in other standard ESG practices. What they need to do, says Harvard...

To understand your customers' expectations, look beyond your industry.

Changes in tools, teams, regulations, and markets are putting sustainability in the hands of the finance department.

And why your company can’t ignore it.

Get clarity on what really matters.

Companies are increasingly paying for acquisitions with stock rather than cash. But both they and the companies they acquire need to understand just how big a difference that decision can make to the value shareholders will get from a deal.