BCG’s Competing for Advantage
The Global Advantage Diamond from BCG looks useful to diagnose competitive advantage in rapidly developing economies (RDEs). It maps four issues – market access, resource access, local adaptation and network coordination – to produce a diamond map relative strengths of you and competitors. Read more
Thriving under adversity
Some useful tips in this article from BCG, some simple, some complex [and some over-complicated by trying to force them into a 'evolution' analogy]. Especially good to see its focus on exploiting opportunity, and good not to see some of the bad or dangerous ideas I have mentioned previously.
Do take care, though – few are universally applicable, so you will need to assess how appropriate each is to your specific situation.
More items on strategy in the crisis
Amongst the continuing stream of articles on this, some good ones [I've left out some bad or downright dangerous ones] include: Read more
Beware new challengers
BCG reports on the companies from rapidly developing economies who are growing fast to join the ranks of the multinational elite. Read more
Seize Advantage in a Downturn
More (mostly) helpful advice re the downturn from HBR is Seize the advantage in a downturn in which David Rhodes and Daniel Stelter of BCG offer thoughts to stabilize your business and find opportunities … but beware! Read more
Other consultants’ warnings on the downturn
I realise I’ve focused on what McKinsey has had to say on the downturn, and especially on the failure to warn of the subprime nonsense, so thought I should check out the other big consulting firms. Not so easy, as they mostly don’t publish their own views quite so firmly or accessibly as happens with the McK Quarterly.
Why am I banging on about this? If those advisors had been urging caution when it was obvious trouble could be building, and their clients had listened and acted, then much of the over-commitment that made the boom-to-bust so serious would never have occurred. What, for example, would have happened had these firms all blown the whistle on the subprime bubble early in 2006? The world might have been a very different and happier place than it now is. So what did the consultants have to say on this and the impending downturn generally?