In The Coming Boom in Hybrid Cars ’in strategy+business makes out that sales of hybrid vehicles are following exactly what would be expected from ‘S-curve theory’ [?] - slow initial growth being driven by early adopters until the innovation becomes mainstream. Standard approaches have little to say about the scale or nature of change in such cases. Continue reading ‘Tipping point for hybrid cars’

Sloan Mgmt Review highlights a New York Times article on Walmart’s toughening stance on environmental sustainability. It also points out the inherent conflict in this - that W. relies on selling ’stuff’ in vast quantities. Yet even so, their leverage over suppliers may make them a very effective ‘Environmental Protection Agency’.  Continue reading ‘Wal-Mart = ‘Environmental Protection Agency’?’

When Dell decided some years ago to bring back home much of its customer support after complaints about service quality, it seemed perhaps to indicate limits to the off-shoring era. Continue reading ‘‘Backshoring’ no big trend’

Following my recent post on Tim Devinney’s great work on the realities of green consumer behaviour, see ‘Helping green products grow‘ in McKinsey quarterly. it seems there are barriers that can be broken down at each stage of the purchasing process. Coping with [or taking advantage of] green pressures is clearly going to be a key skill for strategic business management, so it’s worth checking out suggestions like these.

Interesting to hear Alan Greenspan lay the blame for the scale of US troubles right at the door of the sub-prime idiocy. Since I commented on this, others have insisted it’s much more complicated than this - maybe , but don’t underestimate the power of that much misunderstood phenomenon - tipping points. Continue reading ‘Greenspan, sub-prime and tipping points’

To look past the panic see Taking a Calmer View in strategy+business, which explains how financial institutions that move beyond short-term solutions and focus on restructuring, tightening risk, and working together with regulators might emerge from the crisis with business management strategies for sustainable growth.

Another really insightful piece - unpublished as yet … Feldstad, Gao and Burkay of BI Norwegian School of Management on how come Google and eBay - mega powerful global players in their sectors - both got killed by local rivals in China [in eBay's case, in spite of acquiring a strong local player]? In both cases, it seems, they got the ‘value network model’ wrong - well worth a visit to www.alibaba.com who saw off eBay. Here’s a summary, which will feature in 2nd edition of Strategic Management Dynamics:

Continue reading ‘Another couple of gems from SMS’

Yet another great piece at SMS - also not yet published - from Susan Segal-Horn and Alison Dean. What happens when corporate law-firms go international? Seems from in-depth research on their reports that - amongst other things Continue reading ‘De-skilling globalising law firms’

I took the trouble to post a query on one of the Academy of Mgmt discussion lists, asking what colleagues felt we had failed to do to allow professionals  to graduate with the basic strategic incompetence [as well as financial] to bring about the current global crisis. Replies so far seem to focus almost entirely on the issue of ethics - not at all on what those people actually learned or didn’t whilst in our tender care. Continue reading ‘Ethics vs. competence’

Harald Borner, global head of talent at SAP points out that they have every conceivable technology tool to collect and share knowledge, and help people find out anything they may need to know  Continue reading ‘More executive sense on ‘knowledge’’