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
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
‘Backshoring’ no big trend
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. Read more
How knowledge matters at E.ON and P&G
How does knowledge matter? is the theme of the SMS conference, and there have been some great contributions. The CEO of power producer e.on explained very clearly Read more
Why has Amazon.com been so unsuccessful?
The SMS conference reminds me of a long-standing puzzle. We have known for decades that investors value growth in earnings – because they either get rising dividends or a rising stock price they can sell on. Profitability – return on sales or on assets - is only of interest insofar as it enables future earnings growth. So how come the strategy field is obsessed with ‘explaining’ why some firms are more profitable than others, when investors aren’t interested and management does not pursue it? Read more