Corporate Strategy
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- 04 Oct 2022
- Cold Call Podcast
Cold Call: Corporate Governance and Growth Strategy at Capital SAFI
Jorge Quintanilla Nielsen started the independent asset management firm Capital SAFI in 2007. Now a leader in Bolivia’s closed-end funds industry with a total of $430 million in assets under management, Quintanilla planned to expand into other countries, like Peru and Colombia. He knew that governance would be one of the main aspects potential partners would evaluate. Capital SAFI’s board had evolved over time with the establishment of a governance committee, an assessment process for the board, professional development offerings for board members, tools to manage governance risk, and succession plans for board members and company executives. Would local and foreign investors be impressed by those measures or were additional improvements needed? Professor V. G. Narayanan discusses the importance of corporate governance in his case, “Building the Governance to Take Capital SAFI to the Next Level.”
- 07 Feb 2019
- Book
How Big Companies Can Outrun Disruption
Large companies can be easy targets for disruption, but Gary Pisano says there are steps that can keep them ahead of the innovation curve. Rule 1: Don't emulate startup cultures. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Apr 2016
- What Do You Think?
As Tim Cook, How Would You Tackle Apple's Next Challenge?
SUMMING UP With Apple's technology now apparently less secure, CEO Tim Cook suddenly has some critical decisions to make. James Heskett guides us through the options and asks for suggestions. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Jun 2015
- Working Paper Summaries
Frenemies in Platform Markets: The Case of Apple’s iPad vs. Amazon’s Kindle
Frenemies are friends who are sometimes enemies. Among e-readers, Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle are frenemies in platform markets because they compete aggressively against each other yet cooperate to a certain extent. The model in this paper explains the incentives for two platforms to become frenemies when the difference in their foci for profits is sufficiently large. That competing platforms with different profit foci may have incentives to cooperate also applies in other settings such as the tablet market or e-commerce. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Dec 2014
- Research & Ideas
A Manager’s Guide to International Strategy
In a new book on international strategy, David Collis details the four strategic questions that need to be answered by managers in multinationals. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Oct 2014
- Research & Ideas
An Economic Principle For Us All: Comparative Advantage
In an update to his popular A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics, David Moss explains how the state of the macro economy affects managers, executives, students—and all the rest of us. In this excerpt, Moss illuminates David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Oct 2014
- Research & Ideas
Users Love Ello, But What’s the Business Model?
Social network upstart Ello is generating terrific buzz among users, but can its ad-free approach compete against Facebook? Professors John Deighton and Sunil Gupta provide insights into what drives social media success. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Sep 2014
- Research & Ideas
The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team
The equivalent of an entire sales force is replaced at many firms every four years, so it's critical that go-to-market initiatives remain tied to strategic goals. Frank Cespedes explains how in his book, Aligning Strategy and Sales. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Jan 2014
- Working Paper Summaries
Tommy Koh: Background and Major Accomplishments of the ’Great Negotiator, 2014
Tommy Koh is a diplomat, professor, and international lawyer currently serving as Ambassador-at-Large for the Government of Singapore. He will be the 2014 recipient of the Harvard Program on Negotiation's "Great Negotiator Award." In this paper, the authors discuss Koh's life, career, and major accomplishments as a negotiator. They summarize several of his most significant negotiations to date, exploring his successes at forging creative, lasting solutions to complex challenges and disputes. The authors discuss Koh's leadership in establishing the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (USSFTA), developing and ratifying a charter for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), resolving territorial and humanitarian disputes in the Baltics and Asia, and successfully leading two unprecedented global megaconferences: the Third U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea and the U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit. As part of the 2014 Great Negotiator Awards program, negotiation faculty and students will analyze several of these experiences in much greater depth in order to extract their most valuable lessons for theory and practice. Key concepts include: A native of Singapore, Koh's early interest in law and diplomacy led to his appointment as the youngest ambassador in the history of the United Nations. As a representative of Singapore and the United Nations, Koh has been instrumental in crafting creative agreements on complex matters of international law, environmental policy, trade, and dispute resolution. Koh's chairmanship of two global environmental megaconferences resulted in unprecedented treaties on resource allocation, human and environmental rights, and international law. Koh's successes demonstrate a profound ability to produce durable and adaptive solutions in response to a significant and noteworthy array of challenges, from international trade agreements to the restructuring of regional and global political organizations, the resolution of territorial and humanitarian crises, normalization of bilateral diplomatic relations, and the ratification of global environmental legislation. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 Oct 2013
- Research & Ideas
Missing the Wave in Ship Transport
Despite a repeating boom-bust cycle in the shipping industry, owners seem to make the same investment mistakes over time. Can other cyclical industries learn the lessons of the high seas? Research by Robin Greenwood and Samuel G. Hanson. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Sep 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
Applying Random Coefficient Models to Strategy Research: Testing for Firm Heterogeneity, Predicting Firm-Specific Coefficients, and Estimating Strategy Trade-Offs
Textbooks generally define firm strategy as a set of decisions focused on managing organizational trade-offs in order to achieve long-term competitive advantage. Although strategy models theorize why the same actions by different firms lead to different effects on firm performance, empirical work typically estimates the average effect of an action across firms. The authors discuss how Random Coefficient Models (RCMs) can close the gap between theoretical and empirical research in strategy. Among other advantages to using RCMs, researchers can make a critical distinction between firm actions (or explanatory variables) that are statistically significant and those that are strategically significant. Key concepts include: The next-generation methodology of Random Coefficient Models (RCMs) has already been used extensively in education, biostatistics, political science, and other fields to identify, model, and leverage unobserved differences at the individual level. In non-technical terms, RCMs can be described as generalized versions of standard methods such as OLS, probit, logit, multinomial logit, and so on. The application of RCMs in strategy as a discipline would significantly advance the field by allowing scholars to directly test the many strategy theories based on firm-level differences. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 04 Sep 2013
- What Do You Think?
How Relevant is Long-Range Strategic Planning?
Summing Up: Jim Heskett's readers argue that long-range planning, while necessary for organizational success, must be adaptable to the competitive environment. What do YOU think? Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Aug 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market
Patents and patent enforcement strategies have become an essential part of firms' competitive strategies: They are used as isolating mechanisms to protect intellectual property or as defense mechanisms to help obtain access to external innovations. Using data from the global smartphone market, the authors of this paper investigate the effect of escalated patent litigations—the so-called patent war—on firm strategy. The smartphone industry is a classic example of a business ecosystem, as participants in this industry are highly interconnected and this interconnectivity means that effects on some ecosystem participants are likely to extend to affect the rest. The authors' findings show that the efficacy of patent enforcement systems across markets plays a significant role in firm strategy during patent wars, and ultimately shapes the global competitive landscape. As the patent war intensifies, smartphone vendors, even those not directly involved in patent litigations, gradually shift their business foci to markets with weaker intellectual property (IP) rights protection. This shift, however, is attenuated for vendors with stronger technological capabilities and is more pronounced for vendors whose home markets have weak IP systems. Together, these changes shape the competitive landscape for platform competition. Key concepts include: This study enhances our understanding of patents, patent enforcement strategies, and the dynamics of patent wars in platform competition. Patent strategy and its enforcement are becoming increasingly important for value appropriation by innovators, similar to marketing and pricing. Firms use markets with strong IP protection as a natural battleground for their patent enforcement strategies, which leads to increased litigation risk for other participants in those markets. As the patent war intensifies, smartphone vendors focus their businesses more on markets with weak IP protection than on those with strong IP protection, even when they are not involved in patent litigation themselves. This effect is more pronounced for vendors with weak technological capabilities, and vendors that come from countries with weak IP systems. Consistent with the shift at the vendor level, Android market share grows faster in weak IP countries than in strong IP countries as the patent war intensifies. Interestingly, this result suggests that the patent war intended to hamper the proliferation of Android phones may have merely shifted the sales of Android phones to weak IP countries. Consequently, the Android system has flourished in weak IP countries. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Aug 2013
- Research & Ideas
Read All About It: Digital CEO Buys Traditional Media!
At 136 years old, the Washington Post has reported on critical news events over the decades. Now the sale of the Post to Jeff Bezos is itself a game changer, for digital media. Harvard Business School strategy experts Bharat Anand and David Collis read between the lines. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Jan 2013
- Research & Ideas
Three-Dimensional Strategy: Winning the Multisided Platform
Done right, companies competing as a multi-sided platform often win with higher percentage profit margins than those enjoyed by traditional resellers. The problem is that a winning strategy is far from self-evident. Professor Andrei Hagiu explains the potential and the pitfalls for life as an MSP. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 Dec 2012
- What Do You Think?
Should Managers Bother Listening to Predictions?
Summing Up Should we use predictions at all when planning for the future? Jim Heskett's readers offer a variety of opinions. What do YOU think? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Aug 2012
- Research & Ideas
Strategic Intelligence: Adapt or Die
In his new book, Strategic IQ, Professor of Management Practice John R. Wells explains why adapting to changing circumstances isn't only smart, it's also a matter of survival. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 16 Jul 2012
- Research & Ideas
Book Excerpt: ‘The Strategist’
It's time for CEOs to start reclaiming strategy as a key executive responsibility, argues Cynthia A. Montgomery in her new book, The Strategist. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 11 May 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Creating an R&D Strategy
This note by Gary P. Pisano provides a framework for designing an R&D strategy. It starts with the simple notion that a strategy is a system approach to solving a problem. An R&D strategy is defined a coherent set of interrelated choices across decision concerning: organizational architecture, processes, people, and project portfolios. To illustrate the framework, we use examples of three pharmaceutical companies and examine how their different R&D strategies were rooted in different assumptions about the core driver of R&D performance. This suggests that the very first question to be answered in strategy development is: What's our shared understanding of the root cause of the problem we are trying to solve? Key concepts include: A good strategy provides consistency, coherence, and alignment. The "game plan" for an R&D organization can be broken down into 4 strategic levers: architecture, processes, people, and portfolio. Together, decisions made in each of these categories constitute the R&D strategy. R&D performance results from the interaction of many different decisions and choices, including the size and location of R&D facilities, the division of labor between various groups, the choice of technologies used inside the R&D organization, the selection of personnel, the allocation of resources, the design of processes for managing projects, and other factors. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Can Business Transform Primary Health Care Across Africa?
mPharma, headquartered in Ghana, is trying to create the largest pan-African health care company. Their mission is to provide primary care and a reliable and fairly priced supply of drugs in the nine African countries where they operate. Co-founder and CEO Gregory Rockson needs to decide which component of strategy to prioritize in the next three years. His options include launching a telemedicine program, expanding his pharmacies across the continent, and creating a new payment program to cover the cost of common medications. Rockson cares deeply about health equity, but his venture capital-financed company also must be profitable. Which option should he focus on expanding? Harvard Business School Professor Regina Herzlinger and case protagonist Gregory Rockson discuss the important role business plays in improving health care in the case, “mPharma: Scaling Access to Affordable Primary Care in Africa.”