Category: Strategy

Strategy

Why Clay Christensen and Michael Porter Could Both be Wrong About the Future of Higher-Ed

The Stand Off: There has been a lot of buzz around Harvard Business School starting their own version of MOOC, HBX, and the debates and arguments between two of the best minds in strategy in the world today – Clay Christensen & Michael Porter. By creating HBX, Harvard finally decided to bet on Porter’s strategy, that the core business strategy of a firm should remain unchanged and every part of the business need to reinforce this core strategy. There has been a lot of debate about who among the titans has got this right. Both could be wrong In my […]

Strategy

Lessons in Designing Strategy from Planning a Road Trip

Yesterday, one of my friend approached me seeking help in planning a road trip across my home state (Rajasthan, which shares a border with Pakistan). So, we did what everyone in such a situation does. We researched all the cities and listed down a long list of places of interest in the state; we researched about the weather during his visit; options for stay; possible routes; places to eat, etc. We then wanted to decide on all the options and found out that the entire exercise was overwhelming to say the least. There were just so many decisions that needed […]

Strategy

Guest Post: How Amazon Wins: Low Prices Don’t Require Bad Customer Experiences

In 2005 CustomerThink gave Amazon.com a customer-centric leadership award. In an acceptance letter, Craig Berman, Amazon’s director of platform and technology communications, said: It is simply in our DNA to approach our business by starting with the customer and working backward, and for the past ten years we have stayed laser-focused on this core principle. In the following years, Amazon.com has shown that customer-centricity is more than a slogan. The company keeps innovating to serve existing customers by expanding what it sells and how consumers access its content (e.g., Kindle). But it has also been a pioneer into new markets […]

Strategy, Uncategorized

Is Organizational Velocity the Ultimate Competitive advantage?

I have noticed that all large organizations that fail, have one thing in common: They fail because they are not able to change how they run their business fast enough with the changing business environment. Until last century, the change in the environment was slow and took a long time to take root – so, organizations had the crucial element of time on their side and could re-invent themselves to stay relevant or die a long & painful death. The convergence of internet, mobile, and a change in the demographic of the consumer has meant that organizations today don’t have […]

Strategy

Strategy to Action: Put Away the Strategy Slides

Phillip Kotter recently published a blog – “Forget the Strategy PowerPoint” on HBR where he speaks about how should a CEO communicate or cascade the organizational strategy, so that the entire organization not only understands the strategy but is also enthused by it. He introduces the concept of “Big Opportunities” and while communicating this to be able to connect to hearts and minds of the employees.  Even before we start talking about how to communicate the strategy to all employees, I would even want to take a step back and think if this is truly necessary at all. In my opinion, […]