Deloitte Review
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Introduction
Behavioral economists and cognitive scientists seem to have made a career out of showing how our judgments tend to be wrong in glaring ways. In the case of big data—the pervasive term for the expanded and growing pool of data available to power business decisions—they may once again be onto something. When it comes to identifying the right data, we’re more often impulse buyers than paragons of analytical skill.
-
The mobile chasm
Bridging the gap between expectations and the as-is
There is little argument that mobile has been transforming business models and marketplaces at a surprising rate. Yet there is a big disconnect between consumer and employee expectations and corporate mobile offerings, including those of larger companies. The full potential remains untapped, hindered in part by an assumption that mobile is next in a…
-
As one
Better collaboration where it counts the most
As any frustrated executive can vouch, the best plans count for naught if they are not implemented. Yet what exists, other than gut instinct, to inform leaders’ decisions around organizational engagement?
-
Too big to ignore
When does big data provide big value?
Much of the language surrounding big data conveys a muddled conception of what data, “big” or otherwise, means to the majority of organizations pursuing analytics strategies. Big data is shrouded in hyperbole and confusion, which can be a breeding ground for strategic errors. Big data is a big deal, but it is time to…
-
Big data 2.0
New business strategies from big data
For many businesses, research suggests that the focus on efforts related to big data has been largely on improved efficiency and operations. While those opportunities are impressive, the possibilities as to how big data might be used to ask new business questions and meet market needs can be even more intriguing.
-
Telling a story with data
Communicating effectively with analytics
Despite the respect it commands in concept, analytics can be difficult to explain and understand. As a result, analytical capabilities may not get used effectively as decision makers fall back on their intuition or experience. Yet there are approaches that can help quantitative analysts tell a story with data and tactics that can help…
-
Getting ahead of the “ripple effect”
A framework for a water stewardship strategy
Water scarcity creates risks and opportunities. While companies seek to manage and mitigate impacts such as higher water costs, disruption to water-dependent operations, regulatory and pricing changes, and loss of social license to operate, a water stewardship strategy should also help business leaders identify and pursue value-creating initiatives, from cost reduction and innovation to…
-
Finding the value in environmental, social, and governance performance
Not surprisingly, environmental, social, or governance issues can trigger a crisis that leads to fundamental changes in a company’s management, culture, and of course its financial health. As investors seek value from ESG, however, there is evidence that companies demonstrably prepared for these shocks can better mitigate downside risks, capture investor interest, and establish…
-
The profit parfait
Exploring the deeper layers of corporate profitability
In previous articles, the authors established the importance of retaining a differentiated, nonprice position in the market. Exceptional companies face a trade-off between increasing ROA through return on sales (ROS) or through total asset turnover (TAT), and the best performers systematically choose higher ROS. We now focus on the primary driver of superior profitability,…
-
Reframing the talent agenda
The shift, the race, and the riddle
Talent remains a top concern for business leaders—not the availability of workers so much as the shortage of critical skills, experiences, and specialized capabilities of leaders, managers, creators, and producers required in changing industries. Yet the employee view of this talent paradox is also revealing and points to an emerging agenda around a "war…
-
The rise of safety innovations in intelligent mobility
The pursuit of vehicle safety is a key driver in the emergence of a new stage of intelligent transportation systems, involving new technologies and business opportunities. A whirlwind of changes may disrupt industry dynamics, ushering in new players and shifting the roles of established ones. Still, there are challenges that these potentially transformative new…
-
Introduction
We often hear “technology” and “tool” used as synonyms. It’s intuitive to regard a commercial website as a digital storefront, for example, and email as an alternative to the postal system. But a better analogy, harkening back to my geology texts from college, might be eolian systems—wind, which alters landscapes slowly and can erode or empower what it touches. It can propel objects designed with it in mind. This issue of Deloitte Review features several…
-
From Mad Man to Superwoman: The legitimization of the chief marketing officer
The inevitable rise of the chief marketing officer in the age of the empowered consumer
The Chief Marketing Officer role is as high as it gets in marketing—but so are the expectations that go with it. To deliver, CMOs will need to adopt new operational frameworks for harnessing the art, science and individuals involved.
-
The price of pricing effectiveness: Is the view worth the climb?
Great companies do pricing very well, and reap the rewards. For those that don’t, however, establishing or broadening these capabilities can be a complex, risky and sometimes costly investment that requires specific skills and commitment on the part of leadership. Research suggests measures that can reduce that risk and position a company more advantageously…
-
Cloud wars: How incumbents can respond to cloud disruption
How incumbents can respond to cloud disruption
Cloud computing and fast-moving, innovative start-ups seem a natural match. Yet some very large incumbents have been using the cloud to leverage their natural advantages in relationships associated with an existing customer base, capabilities and often considerable assets, and in-house data than can be mashed with information and insights from public sources. The…
-
Cloud hits the enterprise: The scoop on software-as-a-service
Five things business leaders need to know about cloud computing and software-as-a-service
Businesses of every shape and size are using cloud and SaaS to gain rapid access to world-class IT capabilities without having to invest in acquiring, developing and maintaining their own systems and applications. Despite its technological allure, however, SaaS is not always the plug-and-play panacea imagined. How ready is your organization?
-
The engagement economy: How gamification is reshaping businesses
While elements of gamification — leaderboards, badges and levels — have appeared in a business context for years, recent technologies are driving increased interest and greater potential in this field. Real-time data analytics, mobility, cloud services, and social media platforms can accelerate and improve the outcomes of gamification, while a broader understanding of behavioral…
-
Consumerism in health care: Insights to engagement
Many of the designations in health care infer that — unlike other industries — individuals play a primarily passive or reactionary role: “patient,” “enrollee” or even “subject” in clinical trials. Yet there are signs that consumers are ready to become more active, informed decision-makers and a five-year poll of 4,000 U.S. adult consumers points…
-
The Ito Factor: The entrepreneur as MIT media lab director
In the world of digital start-ups, Joi Ito is a bona fide rock star, but the outspoken entrepreneur faces his biggest challenge yet in revitalizing MIT’s venerable Media Lab
Joi Ito is a sage voice on the Internet, web innovation and technology policy, with a keen interest in communities and the role of technology in community innovation. An early investor in start-ups such as Twitter and Flickr, he established a powerful network that saw his impact in the Valley soar. More recently, Ito…
-
Pulling ahead vs. catching up: Tradeoffs and the quest for exceptional profitability
Tradeoffs and the quest for exceptional profitability
To pull away from the pack one needs to break performance tradeoffs by getting better in several ways at once. The struggle for greatness, however, is far more complex and subtle. Prevailing over capable adversaries requires accepting and exploiting tradeoffs and very often seeking an advantage in only a very small number of very…
-
The automation evolution in manufacturing
How I learned to stop worrying and love the future of manufacturing
Emerging trends in the next phase of manufacturing’s evolution have already begun to alter the competitive landscape. Labor arbitrage is ceding center stage to emerging production technologies and the associated talent models required to realize their potential. Companies that treat manufacturing as a strategic lever, rather than solely as a cost management exercise will…
-
Decision quality: Improving value from capital allocation
Without well-developed decision systems and processes to address the complexities of capital allocation, organizations often resort to long, drawn-out debates; politicking and gaming the system; the gut instincts of a brave executive and staff; or deferring to quantitative analysis alone. With large amounts at stake, the opportunities for improved decision quality can be considerable.…
-
Growth through M&A: Promise and reality
Mergers and acquisitions can be a potent path to growth. Yet implementation complexities and the lure of immediate cost synergies often take precedence over formulating, isolating and tracking revenue metrics and growth efforts. Cost reduction goals can even conflict with revenue growth opportunities. An analysis of 100 deals with growth as the stated goal…
-
Introduction
We each have a calling. It might be revealed through the intense focus of a Formula One racing driver like 24-year-old champion Sebastian Vettel, whose mechanical intuition helped him nurse a car hobbled by gearbox problems to a second place finish in the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix. Or the intuitive directing of Clint Eastwood. Or the eye for consumer product design of the late Steve Jobs. We romanticize the accomplishments of talented individuals, but companies…
-
A delicate balance: Organizational barriers to evidence-based management
Organizational barriers to evidence-based management
For all of their promise, analytics projects are often stymied because of failures to appreciate that both data-driven analytics and expert decision-making have strengths as well as limitations; and that the strengths and limitations of each must be counterbalanced with those of the other. The image of “data mining” should give way to the…
-
The mobile elite
Tactics for growth in a 4G world
With the growing ubiquity of mobile devices comes a set of unique challenges for companies riding the wireless wave of opportunity. Throw the impending arrival of the broadband 4G era into the mix and uncertainty levels are set to spike as the scramble for competitive advantage intensifies. But how can companies ride out this…
-
At the court of King Henry: A conversation with Henry Chesbrough on innovation
A visit and conversation with Henry Chesbrough on all things open innovation and the challenges of sustaining the open business model
Since Henry Chesbrough’s first book on open innovation was published in 2003, the idea has become a widely accepted model of innovation management. It is founded on the theory that companies should become adept at looking beyond their own four walls to trade unused intellectual property and source new ideas from third parties back…
-
To thine own self be true: Sustaining performance through selective change
Sustaining superior performance requires knowing what should change and what should stay the same
Case-based analysis suggests that although each of three types of strategic change—Position, Market and Competency—can succeed, changing Position brings with it the greatest risks, while changing Markets and Competencies are typically more successful paths to enduring performance. These observations can help managers see more clearly both the risks and rewards of the different types…
-
Headwinds, tailwinds and the riddles of demographics
Demographic trends and their influences on workforces vary widely between countries and regions. Different regions — even countries within regions — are in different stages with regard to current and future labor forces, suggesting that labor strategies should be tailored to the local situation. That variation brings both complexity and opportunities for companies with…
-
The talent paradox
Critical skills, recession and the illusion of plenitude
Despite high unemployment, companies are having trouble filling job vacancies, with shortages often occurring in critical, skilled roles with high barriers to entry and crucial to a company’s success. A targeted retention strategy, with an increasingly sophisticated view of what employees are looking for, what they value and why they leave, can help…
-
Is your corporate footprint stuck in the mud? Rebalancing your location portfolio
Geography is a key driver of corporate performance, affecting factors such as talent attraction and retention, operating costs, exposure to risk and shareholder value. Companies that proactively manage their global footprint — in good and not-so-good times — can gain a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate, literally positioning the organization globally…
-
Making the most of your marketing DNA
Most marketing organizations execute the same basic activities. But not all great marketing organizations make identical choices. Both the great brand-builder and the great product innovators can be great marketers, but the underlying capabilities and choices that allow each to succeed are different and not necessarily interchangeable. Knowing this can influence how a company…
-
Integrated reporting: The new big picture
Integrated reporting aims to incorporate everything from strategy through risk management; from financial reporting to the inclusion of other capitals (societal and environmental impacts), and to meet the needs of a broad a group of stakeholders. It intends to interlink these elements in a way that makes their interdependencies clear. In doing so, it…
-
Sustainability 2.0: Innovation and growth through sustainability
Using sustainability to drive business innovation and growth
Sustainability can drive innovation by introducing new design constraints that shape how key resources are used in products and processes. It can suggest areas where innovation can pay off especially well. How a company attempts to overcome these new design constraints, delivering similar levels of performance and cost at lower levels of resource usage,…
-
I have not yet begun to shop … or have I? Selling to the smartphone-enabled shopper
Smarter phones, smarter shoppers and strategies for a new consumer perspective
Smartphone-equipped consumers remain a minority, yet their attitudes and behaviors, as well as increasingly capable devices and a proliferation of mobile applications, suggest a much larger customer base in the future. For these mobile consumers, the pre-store and in-store shopping process is being redefined with a range of players vying for a prominent role…
-
Introduction
Behavioral economists and cognitive scientists seem to have made a career out of showing how our judgments tend to be wrong in glaring ways. In the case of big data—the pervasive term for the expanded and growing pool of data available to power business decisions—they may once again be onto something. When it comes to identifying the right data, we’re more often impulse buyers than paragons of analytical skill.
-
The mobile chasm
Bridging the gap between expectations and the as-is
There is little argument that mobile has been transforming business models and marketplaces at a surprising rate. Yet there is a big disconnect between consumer and employee expectations and corporate mobile offerings, including those of larger companies. The full potential remains untapped, hindered in part by an assumption that mobile is next in a…
-
As one
Better collaboration where it counts the most
As any frustrated executive can vouch, the best plans count for naught if they are not implemented. Yet what exists, other than gut instinct, to inform leaders’ decisions around organizational engagement?
-
Too big to ignore
When does big data provide big value?
Much of the language surrounding big data conveys a muddled conception of what data, “big” or otherwise, means to the majority of organizations pursuing analytics strategies. Big data is shrouded in hyperbole and confusion, which can be a breeding ground for strategic errors. Big data is a big deal, but it is time to…
-
Big data 2.0
New business strategies from big data
For many businesses, research suggests that the focus on efforts related to big data has been largely on improved efficiency and operations. While those opportunities are impressive, the possibilities as to how big data might be used to ask new business questions and meet market needs can be even more intriguing.
-
Telling a story with data
Communicating effectively with analytics
Despite the respect it commands in concept, analytics can be difficult to explain and understand. As a result, analytical capabilities may not get used effectively as decision makers fall back on their intuition or experience. Yet there are approaches that can help quantitative analysts tell a story with data and tactics that can help…
-
Getting ahead of the “ripple effect”
A framework for a water stewardship strategy
Water scarcity creates risks and opportunities. While companies seek to manage and mitigate impacts such as higher water costs, disruption to water-dependent operations, regulatory and pricing changes, and loss of social license to operate, a water stewardship strategy should also help business leaders identify and pursue value-creating initiatives, from cost reduction and innovation to…
-
Finding the value in environmental, social, and governance performance
Not surprisingly, environmental, social, or governance issues can trigger a crisis that leads to fundamental changes in a company’s management, culture, and of course its financial health. As investors seek value from ESG, however, there is evidence that companies demonstrably prepared for these shocks can better mitigate downside risks, capture investor interest, and establish…
-
The profit parfait
Exploring the deeper layers of corporate profitability
In previous articles, the authors established the importance of retaining a differentiated, nonprice position in the market. Exceptional companies face a trade-off between increasing ROA through return on sales (ROS) or through total asset turnover (TAT), and the best performers systematically choose higher ROS. We now focus on the primary driver of superior profitability,…
-
Reframing the talent agenda
The shift, the race, and the riddle
Talent remains a top concern for business leaders—not the availability of workers so much as the shortage of critical skills, experiences, and specialized capabilities of leaders, managers, creators, and producers required in changing industries. Yet the employee view of this talent paradox is also revealing and points to an emerging agenda around a "war…
-
The rise of safety innovations in intelligent mobility
The pursuit of vehicle safety is a key driver in the emergence of a new stage of intelligent transportation systems, involving new technologies and business opportunities. A whirlwind of changes may disrupt industry dynamics, ushering in new players and shifting the roles of established ones. Still, there are challenges that these potentially transformative new…
-
Introduction
We often hear “technology” and “tool” used as synonyms. It’s intuitive to regard a commercial website as a digital storefront, for example, and email as an alternative to the postal system. But a better analogy, harkening back to my geology texts from college, might be eolian systems—wind, which alters landscapes slowly and can erode or empower what it touches. It can propel objects designed with it in mind. This issue of Deloitte Review features several…
-
From Mad Man to Superwoman: The legitimization of the chief marketing officer
The inevitable rise of the chief marketing officer in the age of the empowered consumer
The Chief Marketing Officer role is as high as it gets in marketing—but so are the expectations that go with it. To deliver, CMOs will need to adopt new operational frameworks for harnessing the art, science and individuals involved.
-
The price of pricing effectiveness: Is the view worth the climb?
Great companies do pricing very well, and reap the rewards. For those that don’t, however, establishing or broadening these capabilities can be a complex, risky and sometimes costly investment that requires specific skills and commitment on the part of leadership. Research suggests measures that can reduce that risk and position a company more advantageously…
-
Cloud wars: How incumbents can respond to cloud disruption
How incumbents can respond to cloud disruption
Cloud computing and fast-moving, innovative start-ups seem a natural match. Yet some very large incumbents have been using the cloud to leverage their natural advantages in relationships associated with an existing customer base, capabilities and often considerable assets, and in-house data than can be mashed with information and insights from public sources. The…
-
Cloud hits the enterprise: The scoop on software-as-a-service
Five things business leaders need to know about cloud computing and software-as-a-service
Businesses of every shape and size are using cloud and SaaS to gain rapid access to world-class IT capabilities without having to invest in acquiring, developing and maintaining their own systems and applications. Despite its technological allure, however, SaaS is not always the plug-and-play panacea imagined. How ready is your organization?
-
The engagement economy: How gamification is reshaping businesses
While elements of gamification — leaderboards, badges and levels — have appeared in a business context for years, recent technologies are driving increased interest and greater potential in this field. Real-time data analytics, mobility, cloud services, and social media platforms can accelerate and improve the outcomes of gamification, while a broader understanding of behavioral…
-
Consumerism in health care: Insights to engagement
Many of the designations in health care infer that — unlike other industries — individuals play a primarily passive or reactionary role: “patient,” “enrollee” or even “subject” in clinical trials. Yet there are signs that consumers are ready to become more active, informed decision-makers and a five-year poll of 4,000 U.S. adult consumers points…
-
The Ito Factor: The entrepreneur as MIT media lab director
In the world of digital start-ups, Joi Ito is a bona fide rock star, but the outspoken entrepreneur faces his biggest challenge yet in revitalizing MIT’s venerable Media Lab
Joi Ito is a sage voice on the Internet, web innovation and technology policy, with a keen interest in communities and the role of technology in community innovation. An early investor in start-ups such as Twitter and Flickr, he established a powerful network that saw his impact in the Valley soar. More recently, Ito…
-
Pulling ahead vs. catching up: Tradeoffs and the quest for exceptional profitability
Tradeoffs and the quest for exceptional profitability
To pull away from the pack one needs to break performance tradeoffs by getting better in several ways at once. The struggle for greatness, however, is far more complex and subtle. Prevailing over capable adversaries requires accepting and exploiting tradeoffs and very often seeking an advantage in only a very small number of very…
-
The automation evolution in manufacturing
How I learned to stop worrying and love the future of manufacturing
Emerging trends in the next phase of manufacturing’s evolution have already begun to alter the competitive landscape. Labor arbitrage is ceding center stage to emerging production technologies and the associated talent models required to realize their potential. Companies that treat manufacturing as a strategic lever, rather than solely as a cost management exercise will…
-
Decision quality: Improving value from capital allocation
Without well-developed decision systems and processes to address the complexities of capital allocation, organizations often resort to long, drawn-out debates; politicking and gaming the system; the gut instincts of a brave executive and staff; or deferring to quantitative analysis alone. With large amounts at stake, the opportunities for improved decision quality can be considerable.…
-
Growth through M&A: Promise and reality
Mergers and acquisitions can be a potent path to growth. Yet implementation complexities and the lure of immediate cost synergies often take precedence over formulating, isolating and tracking revenue metrics and growth efforts. Cost reduction goals can even conflict with revenue growth opportunities. An analysis of 100 deals with growth as the stated goal…
-
Introduction
We each have a calling. It might be revealed through the intense focus of a Formula One racing driver like 24-year-old champion Sebastian Vettel, whose mechanical intuition helped him nurse a car hobbled by gearbox problems to a second place finish in the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix. Or the intuitive directing of Clint Eastwood. Or the eye for consumer product design of the late Steve Jobs. We romanticize the accomplishments of talented individuals, but companies…
-
A delicate balance: Organizational barriers to evidence-based management
Organizational barriers to evidence-based management
For all of their promise, analytics projects are often stymied because of failures to appreciate that both data-driven analytics and expert decision-making have strengths as well as limitations; and that the strengths and limitations of each must be counterbalanced with those of the other. The image of “data mining” should give way to the…
-
The mobile elite
Tactics for growth in a 4G world
With the growing ubiquity of mobile devices comes a set of unique challenges for companies riding the wireless wave of opportunity. Throw the impending arrival of the broadband 4G era into the mix and uncertainty levels are set to spike as the scramble for competitive advantage intensifies. But how can companies ride out this…
-
At the court of King Henry: A conversation with Henry Chesbrough on innovation
A visit and conversation with Henry Chesbrough on all things open innovation and the challenges of sustaining the open business model
Since Henry Chesbrough’s first book on open innovation was published in 2003, the idea has become a widely accepted model of innovation management. It is founded on the theory that companies should become adept at looking beyond their own four walls to trade unused intellectual property and source new ideas from third parties back…
-
To thine own self be true: Sustaining performance through selective change
Sustaining superior performance requires knowing what should change and what should stay the same
Case-based analysis suggests that although each of three types of strategic change—Position, Market and Competency—can succeed, changing Position brings with it the greatest risks, while changing Markets and Competencies are typically more successful paths to enduring performance. These observations can help managers see more clearly both the risks and rewards of the different types…
-
Headwinds, tailwinds and the riddles of demographics
Demographic trends and their influences on workforces vary widely between countries and regions. Different regions — even countries within regions — are in different stages with regard to current and future labor forces, suggesting that labor strategies should be tailored to the local situation. That variation brings both complexity and opportunities for companies with…
-
The talent paradox
Critical skills, recession and the illusion of plenitude
Despite high unemployment, companies are having trouble filling job vacancies, with shortages often occurring in critical, skilled roles with high barriers to entry and crucial to a company’s success. A targeted retention strategy, with an increasingly sophisticated view of what employees are looking for, what they value and why they leave, can help…
-
Is your corporate footprint stuck in the mud? Rebalancing your location portfolio
Geography is a key driver of corporate performance, affecting factors such as talent attraction and retention, operating costs, exposure to risk and shareholder value. Companies that proactively manage their global footprint — in good and not-so-good times — can gain a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate, literally positioning the organization globally…
-
Making the most of your marketing DNA
Most marketing organizations execute the same basic activities. But not all great marketing organizations make identical choices. Both the great brand-builder and the great product innovators can be great marketers, but the underlying capabilities and choices that allow each to succeed are different and not necessarily interchangeable. Knowing this can influence how a company…
-
Integrated reporting: The new big picture
Integrated reporting aims to incorporate everything from strategy through risk management; from financial reporting to the inclusion of other capitals (societal and environmental impacts), and to meet the needs of a broad a group of stakeholders. It intends to interlink these elements in a way that makes their interdependencies clear. In doing so, it…
-
Sustainability 2.0: Innovation and growth through sustainability
Using sustainability to drive business innovation and growth
Sustainability can drive innovation by introducing new design constraints that shape how key resources are used in products and processes. It can suggest areas where innovation can pay off especially well. How a company attempts to overcome these new design constraints, delivering similar levels of performance and cost at lower levels of resource usage,…
-
I have not yet begun to shop … or have I? Selling to the smartphone-enabled shopper
Smarter phones, smarter shoppers and strategies for a new consumer perspective
Smartphone-equipped consumers remain a minority, yet their attitudes and behaviors, as well as increasingly capable devices and a proliferation of mobile applications, suggest a much larger customer base in the future. For these mobile consumers, the pre-store and in-store shopping process is being redefined with a range of players vying for a prominent role…
-
Introduction
On a rainy Saturday I was watching some older episodes of the BBC automotive program, Top Gear, from 2004. When it came time to flash their Web address onscreen, the hosts fawned and stumbled over the program’s then-new URL as though they were unveiling something that was—to use the descriptor they typically apply to the latest pavement-warping exotic car—truly epic. Accelerate to the present and there seems to be the same dash of magic…
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Making sense of social data
We create data constantly, leaking information about our actions, whereabouts and characteristics. Increasingly, these data are stored, analyzed and put to use to understand us and our behaviors at an extraordinarily granular level — and forcing executives to rethink how they understand, reach and even influence their customers.
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Gold rush: Protecting value in the digital world
The scramble to claim and protect value in the digital world
With the press of a key or swipe of a card, personal information moves from the physical to the digital world, where ownership and the use of these data are not always well defined. How business leaders and citizens treat the ownership and use of this ocean of data will be discussed in boardrooms…
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Growth’s triple crown: Growth, profits and returns?
When it comes to exceptional performance, the best companies don't make tradeoffs. They break them.
It is tempting to assume that, as companies grow, they will see a decline in profitability, shareholder returns, or both. What if we could find and learn from companies that have delivered superior growth, league-leading profitability and shareholder returns at the same time? What does it take to win growth’s “triple crown”?
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Mind the gap: Why businesses should care about income inequality
What business needs to know about income inequality
There is a widening gap between the affluent and everyone else in the US. Trends suggest the affluent will be able to spend more while the rest of the population may be seriously constrained, with widespread leveraging of home values now a memory. What are the implications for companies that sell goods and services…
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Ecosystems for innovation: An interview with U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra
An interview with U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra
The advent of new digital infrastructures is enabling small groups of individuals with small investments to make a big impact, challenging traditional models of innovation. Among the prominent figures in the innovation space is US CTO Aneesh Chopra, who shares his views on the role of technology in enabling innovation.
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Evolve or fail: How security can keep pace with strategy
Is your security capability evolving with your business strategy?
With policies in place for technology governance, risk and compliance, many business leaders have assigned responsibility for security to IT, confident that their fiduciary and legal obligations are being met. But a compliance oriented approach to enterprise and IT risk may overlook many of the threats that matter most.
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Government and the publicly accountable enterprise: Citizen intervention in a connected age
How citizens are defining the next age of intervention
An explosion of mobile communications and social media is empowering citizens to define the next age of intervention and set new standards for public accountability. The light of transparency has never been brighter nor has the tolerance for misinformation ever been lower.
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Brand resilience
Protecting your brand from saboteurs in a high-speed world
With the continued ascent of social media and mobile technologies, brand sabotage incidents seem poised to increase. Building a great and resilient brand now requires playing aggressive defense, as well as offense. Building the capabilities to detect, respond to and recover from incidents of brand sabotage is emerging as a priority.
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I’m OK, you’re OK … but will we be all right? Innovations in addressing health care reform
With the U.S. health care system undergoing massive change, some stakeholders are taking bold, innovative steps
While the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act remain a hot topic, the law is in some ways merely the tipping point for an industry under pressure from a variety of economic, demographic and competitive stressors. A closer look at how early innovators are tackling the dramatic change may be instructive.
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Moving target: The life sciences marketplace after health care reform
Life sciences, health care reform and the new marketplace
For life sciences companies, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act brings direct impacts. However, indirect impacts related to the changing nature of their relationships to other sectors and the choice and consumption of their products could be an even greater catalyst for transformation.
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The innovator’s manifesto: A problem of prediction
An excerpt from the forthcoming book, The Innovator's Manifesto
Disruption, as originally described by Clayton Christensen, is a theory of innovation—of how particular types of new products and services achieve success or dominance in markets, often at the expense of incumbent providers. But is disruption just another theory, or does it promise predictability?
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Tearing up the box: Rethinking innovation in emerging markets
Rethinking innovation in emerging markets
For emerging markets, the real value of innovation is its ability to create prosperity. Prosperity transcends economic growth to establish social stability, educational attainment and increased quality of life, resulting in a kind of virtuous cycle. This creates a foothold for further economic development.
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Introduction
In the strategy and operations space, the cost of guessing wrong is rising. Or, as our colleagues in the renascent field of analytics suggest, the cost of guessing at all is one we should be ready to put behind us. While there is comfort in intuition, a better answer is out there: Not acting on it represents an opportunity lost, and potentially money left on the table. In this issue of Deloitte Review, we consider…
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Did you say free? How to make money by giving stuff away
What it takes to win in a world where “free” is the optimum point
Free is well on its way to becoming a sustainable business model for companies that make money by giving something away. Beyond the gimmickry and the academic discussion, companies that are serious about testing the waters of Free often benefit from a set of rules and principles important to its successful application. …
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Smarter moves: Improving the value of global mobility
Improving the value of global mobility by aligning strategy, investments and operations
Growth can hinge on penetrating and scaling operations in rapidly growing and emerging markets unlocked by globalization — a challenge when critical market and production opportunities and key talent are oceans away. Yet many companies continue to handle international assignments in ways similar to how they operated decades ago.
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Beyond the numbers: Analytics as a strategic capability
The business landscape is rapidly changing thanks to big computing, big data and correspondingly robust machine learning and optimization techniques. Forward-thinking companies that embrace analytics early can change the competitive dynamic by executing their core competencies and strategies better than their competitors.
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Caught in the middle: Analytics for managing improper payment risk
How government contractors—and other businesses—can use analytics and continuous monitoring to address improper payment risk across the value chain
The U.S. government now uses sophisticated analytics to identify and investigate improper payments. By adopting similar tools and processes, companies doing business with the government can reduce the risk of improper payments caused by the misdeeds of subcontractors or employees. Moreover, these tools can help any company to identify improper or erroneous payments in…
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Common good: Lord Stephen Green on corporate social responsibility
An interview with Lord Stephen Green, UK Minister for Trade and Investment
Corporate social responsibility is not some kind of appendage that has to do with the philanthropic budget. It is the very essence of what the business is about and needs to be thought of as such in terms of the governance and the culture that the leaders are responsible for maintaining within the company.…
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Rank ignorance: Why corporate performance rankings are meaningless
To get beyond the myths told of champions born of randomness we need an entirely new way to think about corporate performance
The intent of performance rankings is to identify which companies have demonstrated exemplary performance. But to understand the relative performance of individual companies, we must strip away the influence of factors that obscure the contributions of firm-level attributes. Otherwise, it is nearly inevitable that we will derive general principles from what are fundamentally idiosyncratic…
-
The great debate: Inflation, deflation and the implications for financial management
Executives must bet on whether the economy, their industry and their business will experience rising prices or the balance sheet and operational effects of deflation. The decision is made still more difficult by the simple fact that few senior managers have had to deal with either high inflation or deflation in their careers.
-
The corporate lattice: Rethinking careers in the changing world of work
A strategic response to the changing world of work
The hierarchical structure of the corporate ladder governs how information flows and whose ideas matter, defining career success as a linear climb to the top. The ladder’s one-size-fits-all approach assumes employees are more alike than different, and want and need similar things to deliver results. But the workplace isn’t what it used to be.
-
Diversity as an engine of innovation
Retail and consumer goods companies find competitive advantage in diversity
As the retail consumer landscape evolves, diverse communities represent a larger and more important part of total buying power. Forging connections with those communities effectively and for the long term depends, to a significant degree, on having an employee population that reflects the population overall, as well as specific communities served.
-
Beyond the contract: Driving value from the renegotiation process
Strategic outsourcing demands a core competency in maintaining an extended network of suppliers, distributors and other partners. The recent downturn has put the focus on contract costs — understandable, but also problematic, as it overlooks the renegotiation process as a key opportunity to reassess operational efficiencies, a valuable process in its own right.
-
Red ink rising: Navigating the perils of public debt
Money has been spent that has not been earned, and promises made that cannot be met. This will challenge democratic governance models in many countries, requiring systemic, structural changes to bend the government’s cost curve down. Getting from here to there requires the navigation of three distinct phases in a long journey to fiscal…
-
Introduction
Finding Our Red Balloons A decade back, technology was more about solving process problems – the systems integration discipline takes its name from a specific challenge. But the wish list was longer: better platforms for delivering and collecting information; better wireless capabilities for commerce and communication; better and more varied sensors to monitor supply chains. For the most part, that wish list has been fulfilled. If there is a theme to this issue, it is about…
-
Charging ahead: Battery electric vehicles and the transformation of an industry
Battery electric vehicles and the transformation of an industry
Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but his Model T influenced manufacturing for generations. The advent of the battery electric vehicle—sometimes viewed as an incremental change to an iconic product—may reshape the value chain and perhaps society.
-
The battle for brands in a world of private labels
Many consumers sense little difference between the quality of national brands and their private label counterparts as retailers focus on store brands and consumer product companies cede connections to retailers and customers. Yet there are strategies available to national brands that may level the playing field.
-
Integrating distressed assets
Creating value from a mix of opportunity and risk
As the economy improves, the move to purchase assets in default or under bankruptcy protection has become an attractive path to growth. Often significantly discounted, they can represent the deal of a lifetime. But they also present a unique set of hazards.
-
A roadmap for sustainable consumption
While there are strategically rewarding moves that individual companies can make with regard to sustainability, sustainable consumption will require many companies innovating and collaborating across value chains and engaging consumers in a redefinition of value.
-
A profitable shade of green: Compounding the benefits of sustainability
Compounding the benefits of carbon management and sustainability measures
The momentum behind sustainability, carbon intensity and resource scarcity seems here to stay. Proactively embracing sustainability and carbon management is no longer a philosophical or political debate. It is a strategic decision. Moreover, it can be a profitable one.
-
Risk intelligent decision making
Ten essential skills for surviving and thriving in uncertainty
Conventional risk management has focused on avoiding the risks to a business strategy, rather than understanding and managing the risks of the strategy itself. While the protection of existing assets is necessary, a diet of pure risk aversion likely will lead to extinction.
-
Geeks, tweets and cash: A conversation with Riley Crane of MIT Media Lab
A conversation with Riley Crane of MIT Media Lab
Social media have emerged as a boardroom topic: there is a vague sense that something important is happening. Yet for business leaders several fundamental questions remain around social media and more broadly around the use of online social networks in enabling business models.
-
It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world: The rationality of reckless risk-taking
How rational managers came to be seen as reckless risk-takers … but have been behaving sensibly all along
A steady drip of research that mis-specifies the role of individual and group decision-making as a determinant of firm-level risk has combined with a surge in behavioral economics to place far too much emphasis on managers. The answer may lie with more structural elements.
-
Tailored to the bottom line: People management practices and profitability in manufacturing
People management practices and profitability in manufacturing
People are billed as companies’ most important asset, yet people management practices are more often an afterthought than a core strategy linked to business performance. Recent research suggests that the most profitable large companies share three practice areas that set them apart.
-
Good medicine or a bitter pill? Implications of health care reform for businesses in America
Implications of health care reform for businesses in America
The full implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and other legislative and regulatory initiatives affecting health care, will unfold over the next decade and beyond. But the journey to a new health care system has begun, with enormous implications for American businesses.
-
Signal strength: The rise and promise of asset intelligence
The rise and promise of asset intelligence
From factory floors to finished goods, almost anything now can produce signals about its status and become a trusted element in business operations. But can asset intelligence deliver on its promise, or will it bring more information than anyone can possibly manage?
-
Three levels of pull: How serendipity can lead to success
Adapted from The Power of Pull
Our economy is chock-a-block with businesses that maximize efficiency at scale. They presume predictability to mass-produce and mass-market products. Yet this “push” view is no longer a path to leadership. Rather than scalable efficiency, we need scalable connectivity, learning and performance. Rather than push, we need institutions that pull.
-
Introduction
Behavioral economists and cognitive scientists seem to have made a career out of showing how our judgments tend to be wrong in glaring ways. In the case of big data—the pervasive term for the expanded and growing pool of data available to power business decisions—they may once again be onto something. When it comes to identifying the right data, we’re more often impulse buyers than paragons of analytical skill.
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The mobile chasm
Bridging the gap between expectations and the as-is
There is little argument that mobile has been transforming business models and marketplaces at a surprising rate. Yet there is a big disconnect between consumer and employee expectations and corporate mobile offerings, including those of larger companies. The full potential remains untapped, hindered in part by an assumption that mobile is next in a…
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As one
Better collaboration where it counts the most
As any frustrated executive can vouch, the best plans count for naught if they are not implemented. Yet what exists, other than gut instinct, to inform leaders’ decisions around organizational engagement?
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Too big to ignore
When does big data provide big value?
Much of the language surrounding big data conveys a muddled conception of what data, “big” or otherwise, means to the majority of organizations pursuing analytics strategies. Big data is shrouded in hyperbole and confusion, which can be a breeding ground for strategic errors. Big data is a big deal, but it is time to…
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Big data 2.0
New business strategies from big data
For many businesses, research suggests that the focus on efforts related to big data has been largely on improved efficiency and operations. While those opportunities are impressive, the possibilities as to how big data might be used to ask new business questions and meet market needs can be even more intriguing.
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Telling a story with data
Communicating effectively with analytics
Despite the respect it commands in concept, analytics can be difficult to explain and understand. As a result, analytical capabilities may not get used effectively as decision makers fall back on their intuition or experience. Yet there are approaches that can help quantitative analysts tell a story with data and tactics that can help…
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Getting ahead of the “ripple effect”
A framework for a water stewardship strategy
Water scarcity creates risks and opportunities. While companies seek to manage and mitigate impacts such as higher water costs, disruption to water-dependent operations, regulatory and pricing changes, and loss of social license to operate, a water stewardship strategy should also help business leaders identify and pursue value-creating initiatives, from cost reduction and innovation to…
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Finding the value in environmental, social, and governance performance
Not surprisingly, environmental, social, or governance issues can trigger a crisis that leads to fundamental changes in a company’s management, culture, and of course its financial health. As investors seek value from ESG, however, there is evidence that companies demonstrably prepared for these shocks can better mitigate downside risks, capture investor interest, and establish…
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The profit parfait
Exploring the deeper layers of corporate profitability
In previous articles, the authors established the importance of retaining a differentiated, nonprice position in the market. Exceptional companies face a trade-off between increasing ROA through return on sales (ROS) or through total asset turnover (TAT), and the best performers systematically choose higher ROS. We now focus on the primary driver of superior profitability,…
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Reframing the talent agenda
The shift, the race, and the riddle
Talent remains a top concern for business leaders—not the availability of workers so much as the shortage of critical skills, experiences, and specialized capabilities of leaders, managers, creators, and producers required in changing industries. Yet the employee view of this talent paradox is also revealing and points to an emerging agenda around a "war…
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The rise of safety innovations in intelligent mobility
The pursuit of vehicle safety is a key driver in the emergence of a new stage of intelligent transportation systems, involving new technologies and business opportunities. A whirlwind of changes may disrupt industry dynamics, ushering in new players and shifting the roles of established ones. Still, there are challenges that these potentially transformative new…
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Introduction
We often hear “technology” and “tool” used as synonyms. It’s intuitive to regard a commercial website as a digital storefront, for example, and email as an alternative to the postal system. But a better analogy, harkening back to my geology texts from college, might be eolian systems—wind, which alters landscapes slowly and can erode or empower what it touches. It can propel objects designed with it in mind. This issue of Deloitte Review features several…
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From Mad Man to Superwoman: The legitimization of the chief marketing officer
The inevitable rise of the chief marketing officer in the age of the empowered consumer
The Chief Marketing Officer role is as high as it gets in marketing—but so are the expectations that go with it. To deliver, CMOs will need to adopt new operational frameworks for harnessing the art, science and individuals involved.
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The price of pricing effectiveness: Is the view worth the climb?
Great companies do pricing very well, and reap the rewards. For those that don’t, however, establishing or broadening these capabilities can be a complex, risky and sometimes costly investment that requires specific skills and commitment on the part of leadership. Research suggests measures that can reduce that risk and position a company more advantageously…
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Cloud wars: How incumbents can respond to cloud disruption
How incumbents can respond to cloud disruption
Cloud computing and fast-moving, innovative start-ups seem a natural match. Yet some very large incumbents have been using the cloud to leverage their natural advantages in relationships associated with an existing customer base, capabilities and often considerable assets, and in-house data than can be mashed with information and insights from public sources. The…
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Cloud hits the enterprise: The scoop on software-as-a-service
Five things business leaders need to know about cloud computing and software-as-a-service
Businesses of every shape and size are using cloud and SaaS to gain rapid access to world-class IT capabilities without having to invest in acquiring, developing and maintaining their own systems and applications. Despite its technological allure, however, SaaS is not always the plug-and-play panacea imagined. How ready is your organization?
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The engagement economy: How gamification is reshaping businesses
While elements of gamification — leaderboards, badges and levels — have appeared in a business context for years, recent technologies are driving increased interest and greater potential in this field. Real-time data analytics, mobility, cloud services, and social media platforms can accelerate and improve the outcomes of gamification, while a broader understanding of behavioral…
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Consumerism in health care: Insights to engagement
Many of the designations in health care infer that — unlike other industries — individuals play a primarily passive or reactionary role: “patient,” “enrollee” or even “subject” in clinical trials. Yet there are signs that consumers are ready to become more active, informed decision-makers and a five-year poll of 4,000 U.S. adult consumers points…
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The Ito Factor: The entrepreneur as MIT media lab director
In the world of digital start-ups, Joi Ito is a bona fide rock star, but the outspoken entrepreneur faces his biggest challenge yet in revitalizing MIT’s venerable Media Lab
Joi Ito is a sage voice on the Internet, web innovation and technology policy, with a keen interest in communities and the role of technology in community innovation. An early investor in start-ups such as Twitter and Flickr, he established a powerful network that saw his impact in the Valley soar. More recently, Ito…
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Pulling ahead vs. catching up: Tradeoffs and the quest for exceptional profitability
Tradeoffs and the quest for exceptional profitability
To pull away from the pack one needs to break performance tradeoffs by getting better in several ways at once. The struggle for greatness, however, is far more complex and subtle. Prevailing over capable adversaries requires accepting and exploiting tradeoffs and very often seeking an advantage in only a very small number of very…
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The automation evolution in manufacturing
How I learned to stop worrying and love the future of manufacturing
Emerging trends in the next phase of manufacturing’s evolution have already begun to alter the competitive landscape. Labor arbitrage is ceding center stage to emerging production technologies and the associated talent models required to realize their potential. Companies that treat manufacturing as a strategic lever, rather than solely as a cost management exercise will…
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Decision quality: Improving value from capital allocation
Without well-developed decision systems and processes to address the complexities of capital allocation, organizations often resort to long, drawn-out debates; politicking and gaming the system; the gut instincts of a brave executive and staff; or deferring to quantitative analysis alone. With large amounts at stake, the opportunities for improved decision quality can be considerable.…
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Growth through M&A: Promise and reality
Mergers and acquisitions can be a potent path to growth. Yet implementation complexities and the lure of immediate cost synergies often take precedence over formulating, isolating and tracking revenue metrics and growth efforts. Cost reduction goals can even conflict with revenue growth opportunities. An analysis of 100 deals with growth as the stated goal…
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Introduction
We each have a calling. It might be revealed through the intense focus of a Formula One racing driver like 24-year-old champion Sebastian Vettel, whose mechanical intuition helped him nurse a car hobbled by gearbox problems to a second place finish in the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix. Or the intuitive directing of Clint Eastwood. Or the eye for consumer product design of the late Steve Jobs. We romanticize the accomplishments of talented individuals, but companies…
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A delicate balance: Organizational barriers to evidence-based management
Organizational barriers to evidence-based management
For all of their promise, analytics projects are often stymied because of failures to appreciate that both data-driven analytics and expert decision-making have strengths as well as limitations; and that the strengths and limitations of each must be counterbalanced with those of the other. The image of “data mining” should give way to the…
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The mobile elite
Tactics for growth in a 4G world
With the growing ubiquity of mobile devices comes a set of unique challenges for companies riding the wireless wave of opportunity. Throw the impending arrival of the broadband 4G era into the mix and uncertainty levels are set to spike as the scramble for competitive advantage intensifies. But how can companies ride out this…
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At the court of King Henry: A conversation with Henry Chesbrough on innovation
A visit and conversation with Henry Chesbrough on all things open innovation and the challenges of sustaining the open business model
Since Henry Chesbrough’s first book on open innovation was published in 2003, the idea has become a widely accepted model of innovation management. It is founded on the theory that companies should become adept at looking beyond their own four walls to trade unused intellectual property and source new ideas from third parties back…
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To thine own self be true: Sustaining performance through selective change
Sustaining superior performance requires knowing what should change and what should stay the same
Case-based analysis suggests that although each of three types of strategic change—Position, Market and Competency—can succeed, changing Position brings with it the greatest risks, while changing Markets and Competencies are typically more successful paths to enduring performance. These observations can help managers see more clearly both the risks and rewards of the different types…
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Headwinds, tailwinds and the riddles of demographics
Demographic trends and their influences on workforces vary widely between countries and regions. Different regions — even countries within regions — are in different stages with regard to current and future labor forces, suggesting that labor strategies should be tailored to the local situation. That variation brings both complexity and opportunities for companies with…
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The talent paradox
Critical skills, recession and the illusion of plenitude
Despite high unemployment, companies are having trouble filling job vacancies, with shortages often occurring in critical, skilled roles with high barriers to entry and crucial to a company’s success. A targeted retention strategy, with an increasingly sophisticated view of what employees are looking for, what they value and why they leave, can help…
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Is your corporate footprint stuck in the mud? Rebalancing your location portfolio
Geography is a key driver of corporate performance, affecting factors such as talent attraction and retention, operating costs, exposure to risk and shareholder value. Companies that proactively manage their global footprint — in good and not-so-good times — can gain a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate, literally positioning the organization globally…
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Making the most of your marketing DNA
Most marketing organizations execute the same basic activities. But not all great marketing organizations make identical choices. Both the great brand-builder and the great product innovators can be great marketers, but the underlying capabilities and choices that allow each to succeed are different and not necessarily interchangeable. Knowing this can influence how a company…
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Integrated reporting: The new big picture
Integrated reporting aims to incorporate everything from strategy through risk management; from financial reporting to the inclusion of other capitals (societal and environmental impacts), and to meet the needs of a broad a group of stakeholders. It intends to interlink these elements in a way that makes their interdependencies clear. In doing so, it…
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Sustainability 2.0: Innovation and growth through sustainability
Using sustainability to drive business innovation and growth
Sustainability can drive innovation by introducing new design constraints that shape how key resources are used in products and processes. It can suggest areas where innovation can pay off especially well. How a company attempts to overcome these new design constraints, delivering similar levels of performance and cost at lower levels of resource usage,…
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I have not yet begun to shop … or have I? Selling to the smartphone-enabled shopper
Smarter phones, smarter shoppers and strategies for a new consumer perspective
Smartphone-equipped consumers remain a minority, yet their attitudes and behaviors, as well as increasingly capable devices and a proliferation of mobile applications, suggest a much larger customer base in the future. For these mobile consumers, the pre-store and in-store shopping process is being redefined with a range of players vying for a prominent role…
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Introduction
On a rainy Saturday I was watching some older episodes of the BBC automotive program, Top Gear, from 2004. When it came time to flash their Web address onscreen, the hosts fawned and stumbled over the program’s then-new URL as though they were unveiling something that was—to use the descriptor they typically apply to the latest pavement-warping exotic car—truly epic. Accelerate to the present and there seems to be the same dash of magic…
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Making sense of social data
We create data constantly, leaking information about our actions, whereabouts and characteristics. Increasingly, these data are stored, analyzed and put to use to understand us and our behaviors at an extraordinarily granular level — and forcing executives to rethink how they understand, reach and even influence their customers.
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Gold rush: Protecting value in the digital world
The scramble to claim and protect value in the digital world
With the press of a key or swipe of a card, personal information moves from the physical to the digital world, where ownership and the use of these data are not always well defined. How business leaders and citizens treat the ownership and use of this ocean of data will be discussed in boardrooms…
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Growth’s triple crown: Growth, profits and returns?
When it comes to exceptional performance, the best companies don't make tradeoffs. They break them.
It is tempting to assume that, as companies grow, they will see a decline in profitability, shareholder returns, or both. What if we could find and learn from companies that have delivered superior growth, league-leading profitability and shareholder returns at the same time? What does it take to win growth’s “triple crown”?
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Mind the gap: Why businesses should care about income inequality
What business needs to know about income inequality
There is a widening gap between the affluent and everyone else in the US. Trends suggest the affluent will be able to spend more while the rest of the population may be seriously constrained, with widespread leveraging of home values now a memory. What are the implications for companies that sell goods and services…
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Ecosystems for innovation: An interview with U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra
An interview with U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra
The advent of new digital infrastructures is enabling small groups of individuals with small investments to make a big impact, challenging traditional models of innovation. Among the prominent figures in the innovation space is US CTO Aneesh Chopra, who shares his views on the role of technology in enabling innovation.
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Evolve or fail: How security can keep pace with strategy
Is your security capability evolving with your business strategy?
With policies in place for technology governance, risk and compliance, many business leaders have assigned responsibility for security to IT, confident that their fiduciary and legal obligations are being met. But a compliance oriented approach to enterprise and IT risk may overlook many of the threats that matter most.
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Government and the publicly accountable enterprise: Citizen intervention in a connected age
How citizens are defining the next age of intervention
An explosion of mobile communications and social media is empowering citizens to define the next age of intervention and set new standards for public accountability. The light of transparency has never been brighter nor has the tolerance for misinformation ever been lower.
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Brand resilience
Protecting your brand from saboteurs in a high-speed world
With the continued ascent of social media and mobile technologies, brand sabotage incidents seem poised to increase. Building a great and resilient brand now requires playing aggressive defense, as well as offense. Building the capabilities to detect, respond to and recover from incidents of brand sabotage is emerging as a priority.
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I’m OK, you’re OK … but will we be all right? Innovations in addressing health care reform
With the U.S. health care system undergoing massive change, some stakeholders are taking bold, innovative steps
While the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act remain a hot topic, the law is in some ways merely the tipping point for an industry under pressure from a variety of economic, demographic and competitive stressors. A closer look at how early innovators are tackling the dramatic change may be instructive.
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Moving target: The life sciences marketplace after health care reform
Life sciences, health care reform and the new marketplace
For life sciences companies, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act brings direct impacts. However, indirect impacts related to the changing nature of their relationships to other sectors and the choice and consumption of their products could be an even greater catalyst for transformation.
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The innovator’s manifesto: A problem of prediction
An excerpt from the forthcoming book, The Innovator's Manifesto
Disruption, as originally described by Clayton Christensen, is a theory of innovation—of how particular types of new products and services achieve success or dominance in markets, often at the expense of incumbent providers. But is disruption just another theory, or does it promise predictability?
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Tearing up the box: Rethinking innovation in emerging markets
Rethinking innovation in emerging markets
For emerging markets, the real value of innovation is its ability to create prosperity. Prosperity transcends economic growth to establish social stability, educational attainment and increased quality of life, resulting in a kind of virtuous cycle. This creates a foothold for further economic development.
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Introduction
In the strategy and operations space, the cost of guessing wrong is rising. Or, as our colleagues in the renascent field of analytics suggest, the cost of guessing at all is one we should be ready to put behind us. While there is comfort in intuition, a better answer is out there: Not acting on it represents an opportunity lost, and potentially money left on the table. In this issue of Deloitte Review, we consider…
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Did you say free? How to make money by giving stuff away
What it takes to win in a world where “free” is the optimum point
Free is well on its way to becoming a sustainable business model for companies that make money by giving something away. Beyond the gimmickry and the academic discussion, companies that are serious about testing the waters of Free often benefit from a set of rules and principles important to its successful application. …
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Smarter moves: Improving the value of global mobility
Improving the value of global mobility by aligning strategy, investments and operations
Growth can hinge on penetrating and scaling operations in rapidly growing and emerging markets unlocked by globalization — a challenge when critical market and production opportunities and key talent are oceans away. Yet many companies continue to handle international assignments in ways similar to how they operated decades ago.
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Beyond the numbers: Analytics as a strategic capability
The business landscape is rapidly changing thanks to big computing, big data and correspondingly robust machine learning and optimization techniques. Forward-thinking companies that embrace analytics early can change the competitive dynamic by executing their core competencies and strategies better than their competitors.
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Caught in the middle: Analytics for managing improper payment risk
How government contractors—and other businesses—can use analytics and continuous monitoring to address improper payment risk across the value chain
The U.S. government now uses sophisticated analytics to identify and investigate improper payments. By adopting similar tools and processes, companies doing business with the government can reduce the risk of improper payments caused by the misdeeds of subcontractors or employees. Moreover, these tools can help any company to identify improper or erroneous payments in…
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Common good: Lord Stephen Green on corporate social responsibility
An interview with Lord Stephen Green, UK Minister for Trade and Investment
Corporate social responsibility is not some kind of appendage that has to do with the philanthropic budget. It is the very essence of what the business is about and needs to be thought of as such in terms of the governance and the culture that the leaders are responsible for maintaining within the company.…
-
Rank ignorance: Why corporate performance rankings are meaningless
To get beyond the myths told of champions born of randomness we need an entirely new way to think about corporate performance
The intent of performance rankings is to identify which companies have demonstrated exemplary performance. But to understand the relative performance of individual companies, we must strip away the influence of factors that obscure the contributions of firm-level attributes. Otherwise, it is nearly inevitable that we will derive general principles from what are fundamentally idiosyncratic…
-
The great debate: Inflation, deflation and the implications for financial management
Executives must bet on whether the economy, their industry and their business will experience rising prices or the balance sheet and operational effects of deflation. The decision is made still more difficult by the simple fact that few senior managers have had to deal with either high inflation or deflation in their careers.
-
The corporate lattice: Rethinking careers in the changing world of work
A strategic response to the changing world of work
The hierarchical structure of the corporate ladder governs how information flows and whose ideas matter, defining career success as a linear climb to the top. The ladder’s one-size-fits-all approach assumes employees are more alike than different, and want and need similar things to deliver results. But the workplace isn’t what it used to be.
-
Diversity as an engine of innovation
Retail and consumer goods companies find competitive advantage in diversity
As the retail consumer landscape evolves, diverse communities represent a larger and more important part of total buying power. Forging connections with those communities effectively and for the long term depends, to a significant degree, on having an employee population that reflects the population overall, as well as specific communities served.
-
Beyond the contract: Driving value from the renegotiation process
Strategic outsourcing demands a core competency in maintaining an extended network of suppliers, distributors and other partners. The recent downturn has put the focus on contract costs — understandable, but also problematic, as it overlooks the renegotiation process as a key opportunity to reassess operational efficiencies, a valuable process in its own right.
-
Red ink rising: Navigating the perils of public debt
Money has been spent that has not been earned, and promises made that cannot be met. This will challenge democratic governance models in many countries, requiring systemic, structural changes to bend the government’s cost curve down. Getting from here to there requires the navigation of three distinct phases in a long journey to fiscal…
-
Introduction
Finding Our Red Balloons A decade back, technology was more about solving process problems – the systems integration discipline takes its name from a specific challenge. But the wish list was longer: better platforms for delivering and collecting information; better wireless capabilities for commerce and communication; better and more varied sensors to monitor supply chains. For the most part, that wish list has been fulfilled. If there is a theme to this issue, it is about…
-
Charging ahead: Battery electric vehicles and the transformation of an industry
Battery electric vehicles and the transformation of an industry
Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but his Model T influenced manufacturing for generations. The advent of the battery electric vehicle—sometimes viewed as an incremental change to an iconic product—may reshape the value chain and perhaps society.
-
The battle for brands in a world of private labels
Many consumers sense little difference between the quality of national brands and their private label counterparts as retailers focus on store brands and consumer product companies cede connections to retailers and customers. Yet there are strategies available to national brands that may level the playing field.
-
Integrating distressed assets
Creating value from a mix of opportunity and risk
As the economy improves, the move to purchase assets in default or under bankruptcy protection has become an attractive path to growth. Often significantly discounted, they can represent the deal of a lifetime. But they also present a unique set of hazards.
-
A roadmap for sustainable consumption
While there are strategically rewarding moves that individual companies can make with regard to sustainability, sustainable consumption will require many companies innovating and collaborating across value chains and engaging consumers in a redefinition of value.
-
A profitable shade of green: Compounding the benefits of sustainability
Compounding the benefits of carbon management and sustainability measures
The momentum behind sustainability, carbon intensity and resource scarcity seems here to stay. Proactively embracing sustainability and carbon management is no longer a philosophical or political debate. It is a strategic decision. Moreover, it can be a profitable one.
-
Risk intelligent decision making
Ten essential skills for surviving and thriving in uncertainty
Conventional risk management has focused on avoiding the risks to a business strategy, rather than understanding and managing the risks of the strategy itself. While the protection of existing assets is necessary, a diet of pure risk aversion likely will lead to extinction.
-
Geeks, tweets and cash: A conversation with Riley Crane of MIT Media Lab
A conversation with Riley Crane of MIT Media Lab
Social media have emerged as a boardroom topic: there is a vague sense that something important is happening. Yet for business leaders several fundamental questions remain around social media and more broadly around the use of online social networks in enabling business models.
-
It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world: The rationality of reckless risk-taking
How rational managers came to be seen as reckless risk-takers … but have been behaving sensibly all along
A steady drip of research that mis-specifies the role of individual and group decision-making as a determinant of firm-level risk has combined with a surge in behavioral economics to place far too much emphasis on managers. The answer may lie with more structural elements.
-
Tailored to the bottom line: People management practices and profitability in manufacturing
People management practices and profitability in manufacturing
People are billed as companies’ most important asset, yet people management practices are more often an afterthought than a core strategy linked to business performance. Recent research suggests that the most profitable large companies share three practice areas that set them apart.
-
Good medicine or a bitter pill? Implications of health care reform for businesses in America
Implications of health care reform for businesses in America
The full implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and other legislative and regulatory initiatives affecting health care, will unfold over the next decade and beyond. But the journey to a new health care system has begun, with enormous implications for American businesses.
-
Signal strength: The rise and promise of asset intelligence
The rise and promise of asset intelligence
From factory floors to finished goods, almost anything now can produce signals about its status and become a trusted element in business operations. But can asset intelligence deliver on its promise, or will it bring more information than anyone can possibly manage?
-
Three levels of pull: How serendipity can lead to success
Adapted from The Power of Pull
Our economy is chock-a-block with businesses that maximize efficiency at scale. They presume predictability to mass-produce and mass-market products. Yet this “push” view is no longer a path to leadership. Rather than scalable efficiency, we need scalable connectivity, learning and performance. Rather than push, we need institutions that pull.
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Introduction
Life after the Great Recession likely will be quite different. And perhaps it should be. In The Long Unwinding Road, we look at the imbalances that shaped the global economy until recently. The recalibration of consumer borrowing, saving and spending worldwide suggests that the rules for consumer businesses, in particular, will change, with government policy playing a key role. Moreover, the role of government has expanded. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act presents opportunities and…
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Stimulus spending and transparency: A false sense of security?
Many companies may underestimate the government’s intent to show accountability to the electorate and to weed out fraud. Whether by miscalculation or simple misunderstanding of how far government mandates extend, failure to comply could leave unsuspecting companies vulnerable.
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Survival of the fattest? The good, the bad and the misguided mediocre
Over the last 40 years, a gradual shift in the shape of winning and losing has been playing out. The best-performing firms have seen their profitability surge. The worst performers are doing worse than ever. In the middle, however, performance is in decline even as the asset base controlled by ever more mediocre firms…
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The long unwinding road: Global consumers and the economic unbalance
Global consumers and the economic unbalance
“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” wrote economist Herbert Stein. In some ways, that describes the borrowing-saving imbalance in the global economy. While it may not stop soon, it is unlikely to increase and may wane. There are several scenarios through which the imbalance might be corrected, and the unwinding of…
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If We Can Put a Man on the Moon: Getting Things Done in Government
An excerpt from a new book on getting big things done in government
Government is taking a larger role in commerce, and new roles in automobile manufacturing, finance and potentially health care. Media coverage focuses on partisan disagreements that impede government action. There are approaches, however, that can enable the two camps to constructively work through differences, and these strategies can also be helpful when competing visions…
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On public-private partnerships: A conversation with Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley
A conversation with Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley
In April 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton established the Global Partnership Initiative and subsequently appointed Elizabeth Frawley Bagley as the first Special Representative for Global Partnerships. The goal: to enhance the ability of the State Department to work with foundations, corporations and non-governmental organizations on issues of common importance to the public…
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Money and borders: Cross-border investments in a changing global marketplace
Cross-border investments in a changing global marketplace
Governments appear to have become bigger players in economic affairs, and we may be entering an era in which nationalist ambitions will make globalization more difficult to manage. What is clear is the need for companies and funds pursuing cross-border investments to adapt their investment strategies and operations to function effectively at the intersection…
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Post merger integration: Hard data, hard truths
Much common wisdom surrounding post merger integration is anecdotal, at best. An empirical examination of one of the world’s largest PMI databases suggests a set of risk factors that help define risk profiles, with each profile having a unique statistical likelihood of success and failure even before any integration measures have been implemented. These…
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Talking about whose generation? Ages and attitudes among the global workforce
Why Western generational models can't account for a global workforce
Differences between generations can affect the way organizations recruit and build teams, deal with change, motivate and manage people, and boost productivity and service effectiveness. Yet global companies often oversimplify their talent strategies, basing decisions on an incomplete picture of their global workforces by assuming the same generations exist across the countries where they…
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Lock it up or set it free? Risk intelligent data and intellectual property protection
A risk intelligent approach to data and intellectual property
Businesses collect mountains of data and spend vast sums storing and protecting them. Yet excess data carry a steep price tag for storage, maintenance and protection, and incalculable potential costs in terms of liability. Similarly, most companies guard their intellectual property at great expense. Yet many efforts to safeguard intellection property are ineffectual or…
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Introduction
Predicting the future is a fool’s errand. Preparing for it, however, is everyone’s business. While there is much to learn from the next hundred postmortems on the real estate boom and credit behaving badly, there are green shoots among the financial burn — signs of what may be coming next. The world after the current economic contraction promises to be a different and exciting place. Before we overindulge in cheer, though, our chief economist brings…
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How profitable are your customers … really?
No company can afford a flawed understanding of customer profitability, least of all in a recession when the margin for error is whisper-thin. Now may be a good time to invest in changes that can not only deliver a badly needed revenue boost and also position your company advantageously for an economic recovery.
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Platforms and the open door in wireless and beyond
High stakes in platform leadership may rewrite the rules for value capture in wireless — and beyond
Some of the world’s best companies made their name with closed, proprietary business models. But, as open innovation has gone from a trickle to flood stage, platform ownership and new ways of capturing value are challenging entire industries to rethink how they innovate and make money.
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The open-minded professor: Eric von Hippel on open innovation
An interview with Eric von Hippel
Professor Eric von Hippel of MIT’s Sloan School of Management is known for pioneering research that has prompted a major rethinking of how the innovation process works. Scott Wilson of Deloitte Research met with von Hippel to find out how established companies are — or could be — managing in the face of the…
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Where did our employees go?
Examining the rise in voluntary turnover during economic recoveries
Nowhere to run to, the song says, and that would seem to be a reason to put talent retention strategies on hold in a recession. A recent study, however, suggests a worrisome trend accompanying economic recoveries, and a new set of problems that could hobble companies when they can least afford it.
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Solar’s push to reach the mainstream
The race to grid parity and the push to expand global adoption
After decades relegated to powering calculators, parking meters and roadside telephones, solar energy is positioned to deliver abundant clean energy at an industrially scaled level. Yet without more dramatic action by governments and solar companies, solar’s great potential will go unrealized.
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China: Still manufacturing’s shining star?
For the past decade, China’s economic ascent has owed its existence to low production costs and a vast supply of labor. But its future appeal for manufacturers may hinge more on its growing domestic market and talent base.
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IFRS Roadmap: Planning a Safe, Economical Trip
With IFRS conversions underway in many countries, and pending in others, executives may flash back to Sarbanes-Oxley, with its rapid and often difficult implementation. Yet IFRS need not be a rerun and with proper planning now may be comparatively economical as well as beneficial to a business.
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Introduction
Through the lens of traditional business strategy, emerging markets look more like a quagmire than an opportunity. Transport costs are high; delivery schedules are precarious; electricity can be a luxury; and red tape comes by the spool. If not for labor arbitrage, it would be tempting to sit on the sidelines. But waiting has its costs. In Necessity Breeds Opportunity, we consider whether these constraints can also frame innovation and lead to competitive advantage. Moreover,…
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Necessity breeds opportunity: Constraints, innovation and competitive advantage
From immense, untapped markets, to roads that would make a grown logistics director cry, emerging markets are a study in dichotomy. But the constraints that can frustrate can also frame innovation and lead to competitive advantage.
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Beyond reproach: The anti-corruption compliance imperative
Why compliance with anti-corruption laws is increasingly critical for multinational businesses
For much of the last 25 years, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been on the books and in the background. More recently, its enforcement has begun to be felt worldwide, and multinational business leaders will need to consider the implications.
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Rethinking emerging market strategies
From offshoring to strategic expansion
A decade ago, offshoring was synonymous with labor arbitrage, and decisions often could be made on the back of an envelope. Increasingly, however, expansion into emerging markets requires a broader look at the value chain. From market expansion to engineering and rapid product development, the opportunities are both greater and more complex.
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Irrational expectations: Statistical thinking for better decisions
How statistical thinking can lead us to better decisions
Predictive analytics is emerging as a practical discipline, one that can help business leaders make better decisions. In a world whose complexity in many respects has moved beyond our cognitive abilities, numbers are nothing to fear. In fact, they may be your greatest ally.
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The responsible and sustainable board
In economic downturns, good intentions can be sidelined in the name of short-term cost cutting. In the case of corporate responsibility and sustainability (CRandS), a board might be tempted to hit the pause button and wait for brighter days. But a combination of impending regulation and pervasive expectations suggests that the time for CRandS…
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Innovation state: Nurturing bold ideas in government
Adapted from The Public Innovator's Playbook
Innovation is often viewed as the province of the private sector, but the current economic climate presents an unprecedented need — and opportunity — for government to innovate in the face of crucial challenges. We preview an excerpt from The Public Innovator's Playbook, a forthcoming handbook from Deloitte Research on how the public sector…
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Talent AND work: Playing to your strengths
The match between talent and strategy is often interpreted as a need to recruit the right bodies to fit the strategy we had in mind. Often overlooked, however, are the benefits of changing the way work is defined given the team already on the ground.