Amongst the continuing stream of articles on this, some good ones [I've left out some bad or downright dangerous ones] include: Continue reading »
Mar 052009
McKinsey Qtly survey finds that firms can easily anticipate what competitors will do next. Another article explains how to get inside competitors’ heads. .. but I’m still puzzled so little is written in this or any other strategy sources about what to actually do against competitors. It was a key part of my strategy role in practice, makes a huge difference to what can be achieved – and it’s fun!
Feb 132009
Experienced execs may have a good feel for how their particular industry may evolve during the downturn and recovery – e.g. consumer sectors tend to fall first, but recover earlier also. McKinsey have mapped the decline and recovery of different sectors in previous recessions, which might give useful pointers for what to look out for in your industry so your strategy can respond at the right time.
Feb 092009
McKinsey quarterly urges executives to embrace transparency if they want to help investors make investment decisions – presumably to invest in their firms. There’s a problem though … Continue reading »
Jan 042009
Though I have heard of game theory being used in a few particular and special cases (e.g. the auctioning of 3G cellphone licenses) I have not seen anything of it being used in general strategic management or business planning. The strategy textbooks dismiss it as too uni-dimensional and limited to special cases to be useful, and I can find virtually no articles in e.g. Harvard Business Review or McKinsey Quarterly giving any encouraging cases where it has been helpful. (Though I did see on 12manage reference to a strategy+business article on Barry Nalebuff).
Does anyone know otherwise?
Dec 292008
More from McKinsey Quarterly on the crisis A new era for management. Links in this intro article seem not to work, so here are direct links to articles I found useful, plus one on consumer sectors that may do better or worse than others. Continue reading »
Dec 152008
The world’s biggest basic materials firms are suffering along with others as the world economy collapses, and the Economist points out that taking on loads of debt to grow and acquire others did not help. But these industries have always suffered cyclicality, even when not buffeted by extreme market conditions. Pity is that we have known how to steer away from these dangers for many years. Seems to me the same principles would have been useful to a great many other firms over the last 5-6 years. Here’s the essentials and an article that explains more … Continue reading »
More from McKinsey on this, including a review on some useful thinking from last time. Continue reading »
I’ve been posting on strategy in the downturn for a while now, but what makes me really angry is the strategic incompetence that led to this mess [search 'incompetence' for previous posts on this]. But now I’m puzzled – Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Strategy+Business, Economist, etc, etc, are full of advice from strategy experts on how to survive the problem, so I wondered how much they warned folk before that this was likely to happen? .. and how much advice they offered on how to make sure your organization would avoid trouble in the first place? Continue reading »
Nice example of what looks like a strategically sound business [Lufthansa] pouncing on valuable resources shaken loose when a feeble competitor [Alitalia] stumbles. The Economist reports they will be offering new services to eight other European cities from under-served Milan. Continue reading »
