Goods, trade, and consumer services

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.

There may be fewer, but they'll be more useful.

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.

In China, the battle for the consumer is often won — and lost — not in factories or on television screens, but on store floors. As many as 45% of Chinese consumers make purchase decisions in real time, inside shops, according to surveys we have conducted, compared to just 24% in the US. Moreover, 56% […]

Would it surprise you to learn that Starbucks is a leading advocate for action on climate change? Think about it. Starbucks’ success hinges on a robust coffee crop, which needs certain growing conditions. But the company is seeing the imprint of climate change on coffee growing regions around the world. Global rainfall and harvest patterns […]

Retailers are increasingly heeding customers’ desire to weave the physical and digital worlds together.

The company realized that controlling its future meant controlling its supply chain.

The information technology explosion was set off by visionaries who thrive on uncertainty. Today that innovation-fueling uncertainty is in danger, a victim of its own success and excess. IT producers have historically built platforms that are useless standing alone, inviting others to parlay them into a variety of useful applications. The first PC makers shipped […]

Four ways to push an idea through resistance.

In 1998, the “Save Santa” incident marked a turning point.

This blog post is part of the HBR Online Forum The Future of Retail. Last year on Black Friday, I dropped by a local Staples store in Watertown, Massachusetts, to pick up a few office supplies. Surprised at the 40% off sale on many items, I ended up leaving with a lot of office supplies […]

All the market research said that TF’s NextStage stores couldn’t miss. What went wrong?

What they should prove before you bring them on board.

The Internet promises to give marketing the same boost in productivity that new operational strategies have given to manufacturing.

"Please don't tell me that I need to have a baby to have this time off." Those words were still ringing in the ears of Jessica Gonon an hour after a tense...

How retailers are creating digital showrooms of their own.

The most dubious business plan can look solid—even smart—if it’s cast as a virtuous circle. “See, we invest our profits in innovation to create delightful products that customers buy—which generate profits that we invest in innovation!” Who could argue with that? Indeed, the merit of self-reinforcing systems seems so obvious that businesspeople instinctively describe their […]

The mobile carrier is competing by adding value.

A man once worked on the 89th floor of the Empire State Building. One muggy August day, he began to imagine how nice a breeze in his face would feel. When he opened the window, he suddenly realized he could probably get the world’s best breeze in the face—simply by jumping out and falling face […]

The ousted J.C. Penney chief understood the importance of intuition.