strategy+business is published by the global management consulting firm Booz & Company
 
or, sign in with:
strategy and business

Leading Ideas (2007)

Below is a full article list from this issue of strategy+business.

A 21st-Century Approach to Product Launches
by Steve Silver and Jong Chow
Forget the old rules for bringing products to market. Procter & Gamble is helping to write a new playbook.
 
Lessons from the Shop Floor
by Muir Sanderson, Piyush Doshi, and Christine Korwin-Szymanowska
Service companies can cut costs by borrowing techniques from their manufacturing brethren.
 
Innovation Takes Perspiration
by Karen Otazo
To foster invention, organizations need to build in a process for experimentation.
 
Seven Counterintuitive Trends
by Dan Lewis
Everyone expects turbulence, but few people are watching the most significant pressures that will confront industry this year.
 
Getting a Return on Financial-Services Marketing
by Joni Bessler, Steven Treppo, and Ashok Notaney
The financial industry lags others in making the connection between marketing investments and returns. Three analytical tools can help financial-services companies develop the capability to see more clearly.
 
The Dignitarian Way
Author and activist Robert Fuller argues for the end of abuse of rank — at work, in society, and around the world.
 
When Addressing Climate Change Is Good Business
by Suzanne Charlé
Smart companies are working to reduce their role in global warming now to get ahead of regulators and gain a competitive edge.
 
The View from the Engine Room
Pharmaceutical executive Michel Lurquin on where manufacturing stands and where it’s going.
 
An Industry for All Seasons
by Doug Hardman, Simon Harper, and Ashok Notaney
What the apparel industry has gained in scale and scope over the past few decades it has lost in agility and speed. A new kind of product segmentation keeps painful trade-offs to a minimum.
 
The Case for Pricey Acquisitions
by Justin Pettit
High-multiple acquisition targets can be the best bargains.
 
Brownfield Transformation: 25 Years On, Fulfilling the Promise of Lean Manufacturing
by Kaj Grichnik, Christian Basedow, John Hedgcock, and John Potter
Under intensifying pressure to relocate manufacturing to areas of cheaper labor, the challenge facing many traditional manufacturing locations in the United States and Western Europe will be to transform or close.
 
Planners, Shoppers, Contenders, and Cavaliers: How Consumerism Is Changing the Health Insurance Industry
by David Knott
David Cordani, president of CIGNA HealthCare, describes how his company is responding as individuals take control of their medical benefits.
 
What’s a Chaebol to Do?
by Tariq Hussain
The family-owned conglomerates made South Korea an industrial powerhouse, but can they transform themselves and their nation’s economy again now that the rules have changed?
 
Why Neuroscience Matters to Executives
by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz
The latest research on how the brain works unearths fresh insights into effective leadership.
 
Making the Most of Customers
by Erich Joachimsthaler
The most innovative companies see consumers for who they really are.
 
Is Your Sales Force Adaptable?
by Edward Landry, Thomas Ripsam, and Bart Sayer
Here’s a five-step plan for routinely revamping a sales team.
 
The Importance of Being a Must-See Destination
by Jürgen Ringbeck and Stephan Gross
Excellent travel and tourism policies, infrastructure, and services can translate into a roaring economy.
 
Culture Change: Calling on Philosophers and Engineers
by Vinay Couto, Nikos Mourkogiannis, and Gary Neilson
By blending the poetic with the quotidian, organizational strategies and cultures can find common ground.
 
When Teams Fail: The Virtual Distance Challenge
by Edward Baker
Critical as they are, corporate teams have been a notorious weak link in the effort to get work done on time and within budget. Here’s how to measure what’s going wrong.
 
Solid Connections in a Liquid World
by Ralph Shrader
Prescriptions for how leadership and commercial relationships can excel in a fluid world.
 
Shift Worker Productivity Need Not Be an Oxymoron
by John Frehse
Employees who work nontraditional schedules can create as much value as nine-to-fivers if executives can manage their expectations and special needs.
 
The Defining Features of a Megacommunity
by Chris Kelly, Mark Gerencser, Fernando Napolitano, and Reginald Van Lee
A primer for creating successful multipartite initiatives to solve critical problems that embraces the talents of government, business, and civil society.
 
Big Impact in a Small Format
by Thomas Ripsam, Alonso Martinez, and Carlos Navarro
Large retailers are beginning to see the beauty of a tinier world.
 
How the U.S. Government Can Cut Overhead
by Kristine Rohls and Dave Mader
By using in-house agencies to provide services to other departments that need them, the federal government is saving tens of billions of dollars and learning what some in the private sector already know.
 
Protecting the Company Jewels in an Unprotected Country
by William J. Holstein
As governments wrestle over safeguarding intellectual property rights in China with no solution in sight, more and more companies are taking the problem into their own hands.
 
Network Effects: The Virtues of Telecom Regulation
by Bahjat El-Darwiche and Chady Smayra
A strong, competitive telecom market plays a crucial role in promoting a country's overall economic development -- but the government must first institute intelligent regulatory policies and practices.
 
Covering the Cost of War
by Art Kleiner
Robert Hormats, an international finance expert and the author of The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars, describes the problems with current U.S. fiscal policy, and how to adjust the country's spending for present and future global battles.
 
The Big Squeeze
by Chris Manning and Stephan Gross
Can traditional legacy airlines find a way out of the “no-man’s-land” between the established low-cost carriers and the premium players?
 
Technology and Its Discontents
by Edward Baker
In this interview, historian David Edgerton maintains that we will not fully understand innovation unless we rethink the history of technology and its uses.
 
Web 2.0: Profiting from the Threat
by Stefan Eikelmann, Jad Hajj, and Michael Peterson
Fresh trends in consumer behavior driven by social media pose significant challenges to companies stuck in a traditional market-to-the-masses mind-set. Here’s how to thrive on the new Web.
 
Executives without Borders
by Jonathan Ledgard
A novel proposition for saving driest Africa from total collapse.
 
Are Internet Companies Overvalued (Again)?
by Raul L. Katz and Paul Zangrilli
What we can learn from eBay’s acquisition of Skype.
 
How Causes Can Animate Companies
by Mohan Nair
Moving beyond the mission statement to find true motivation.
 
The Other Energy Crisis
by Debra Decker and Erwann Michel-Kerjan
As nuclear energy becomes a viable alternative to carbon-based fuels, security is a vital concern. Here’s how private markets might be able to help.
 
The Situational Leader
by Matthew Prewitt
Jack Stahl, a former chief executive at Coca-Cola and Revlon, discusses how great leaders balance their broad strategic missions with constant attention to organizational detail.
 
Keeping Costs Cut
by Matthew Ericksen, Elizabeth Powers, and Frank Ribeiro
When it comes time to cut costs again, look past the traditional structural approaches to the company’s DNA.
 
Fearlessness: The Last Organizational Change Strategy
by Art Kleiner
Corporate courage has faltered in the wake of September 11, 2001, and the dot-com crash. Management expert Margaret Wheatley says that leaders must face reality — and maybe abandon e-mail.
 
Saving Procurement from Itself
by Hugh Baker and Fabrice Saporito
It’s time for chief procurement officers to stop relying solely on functional depth and start increasing functional breadth.
 
Evolution on the Global Stage
by Edward Tse, Andrew Cainey, and Ronald Haddock
Their raw potential is clear, but Chinese companies will have to master the imperatives of “soft power” to reach the next level of international growth.
 
Kevin George: Unilever’s Digital Media Strategy
by Andrea Rasmussen and Carolyn Ude
Unilever’s U.S. vice president and general manager of its deodorants division discusses his company’s approach to launching new products using a variety of new media channels.
 
How Green Is My Value Chain?
by Hardin Tibbs
Transforming the value chain into a value loop can save natural resources and enhance a business’s long-term prospects.
 
Why the United States Needs an Innovation Strategy
by Amy Bernstein
Author John Kao diagnoses America’s ills as a continuing loss of innovation capacity. But, he says, there is a way to reverse that trend.
 
HP Engineers a Megacommunity
by Barbara Waugh
A multi-stakeholder effort to train engineers in Africa.
 
Keeping Marketing’s Promises
by James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II
Ads that trumpet, “We’re unique!” are meaningless if the stores say, “No, we’re not.”
 
Personal Ethics in the Corporate World
by Elizabeth Doty
How to confront the moral tensions inherent in corporate life and come out with your ethics intact.
 
Retail Banking’s Secret Weapon
by Paul Hyde and Seamus McMahon
Even as financial-services organizations are reemphasizing the local branch, they continue to overlook the performance impact of successful branch managers. A recent study reveals how banks can recruit, retain, and develop the branch managers who will be sales leaders.
 
An Inside Job: Best Practices from Within
by Lisa Kimball
The best solutions to an organization’s problems may be found among its members.
 
Why Your Next CEO Should Come from Inside
by Steven Wheeler
Harvard Business School professor Joseph L. Bower believes that only home-grown leaders have the sense of history and respect for culture to bring companies through major transitions. But not every insider is up to the job.
 
Bridging the Marketing–Sales Chasm
by Barbara Sullivan and Graham Ericksen
A common, fundamental disconnect between getting the message out and closing the deal can lead to lost sales opportunities. But it doesn’t have to.