Europe

Some countries have solutions in place, but too many don’t.

Your organization can become more decisive—and can implement strategy more quickly—if you know where the bottlenecks are and who’s empowered to break through them.

According to a study of German firms.

In most companies, strategic planning isn’t about making decisions. It’s about documenting choices that have already been made, often haphazardly. Leading firms are rethinking their approach to strategy development so they can make more, better, and faster decisions.

Most American managers have a hard time making sense of Germany. It has a fraction of the resources and less than one-third the population of the United States. Labor costs are higher, paid vacations are at least three times as long, and strong unions are deeply involved at all levels of business, from the local […]

The “bounded awareness” phenomenon causes people to ignore critical information when making decisions. Learning to expand the limits of your awareness before you make an important choice will save you from asking “How did I miss that?” after the fact.

Under pressure to keep costs down, customers may only look at price and not listen to your sales pitch. Help them understand—and believe in—the superior value of your offerings.

Companies doing business in the developing world have to contend with the staggering human and financial costs of HIV infection—and most would agree that conventional approaches to controlling the epidemic aren’t working. In our experience in the labor-intensive mining industries of Russia, South Africa, and Botswana, we’ve seen infection rates among workers exceeding 90% in […]

In this article, Bain consultants Orit Gadiesh and James Gilbert explore the concept of the strategic principle--a memorable and actionable phrase that...

For all the talk about lean manufacturing, it still seems to be the exception: Factory floors are cluttered, bottlenecks delay production, and the wrong products pile up in inventory while the right ones can’t be found. Fixing a dysfunctional factory isn’t easy, but consider this surprising case from Germany, where resistance to managerial innovations on […]

Outside Germany, the conventional view of the events of October third was unmistakably Wagnerian: Germans gazing in breathless wonder as history’s floodgates open for the rebirth of a united Fatherland, while the rest of the world anxiously awaits the creation of a new European economic and political order. How will it all come out? What […]

If the political newcomer falters, Le Pen will have a stronger hand in 2022.

A deal with the EU buys time. But is another crisis around the corner?

For a leader, a public apology is always a high-risk move. Understanding what apologies can and cannot do will help you avoid both foolhardy stonewalling and unnecessary contrition.

Everyone knows that being fair costs little and pays off handsomely. Then why do so few executives manage to behave fairly, even though most want to?

Companies often resort to lobbyists and lawyers to fight unfair trade policies. But sometimes there are easier alternatives. Consider the case of Chiquita and Dole, organizations that faced restrictive new trade policies in the early 1990s that limited banana exports into Europe. Following World War II, Chiquita became Europe’s main banana provider, exporting to Germany […]

What the referendum is really about.

For people growing up in controlled economies, dramas that show life in a free-market system can inspire.

Political connections are bad for competition.

Business leaders have been dealing with the direct, market-based risks presented by major economic, technological, and demographic trends. But these trends,...