How to Prepare for a Black Swan in strategy+business offers good advice to assess exposure to disruptive events, but misses key elements a strategy can and should cover. In summary, the advice is [1] map the firm’s operations, supply-chain and sales channels [2] list potential disruptions [3] ask ‘what if’ these…

It Makes Sense to Adjust in strategy+business describes a simple process that any decently-led organisation should be using: “sensing” to detect changes and assess their likely impact, then “adjusting” policies to keep the strategy and performance on track. Some sensible examples illustrate the approach, such as anticipating staffing needs in…

We’ve seen a few gung-ho CEOs mess up, especially but not exclusively in banking, but ‘Boards of Prevention‘ in strategy+business asks what the heck the supervisory Board is doing to let such nonsense happen. If they are not warning about risk, they are just overhead. Though the article largely focuses on risk in banking, some simple…

strategy+business explains how IT works best when tied closely to business goals, which using an Enterprise Architecture  helps ensure. Though the article explains little of what exactly an EA is, there’s plenty on the Web about it, including professional training and certification. An EA seems to rely on having a sound foundation of an…

I’ve posted before on how often firms over-expand and over-extend themselves*. Growth through Focus in strategy+business warns of the same danger, and explains how “companies should follow a seven-step strategy for achieving more with less”. *Search in this blog for ‘expand’ and ‘extension’ for some posts on this issue.

Mintzberg’s keynote role at a conference on the MBA is a worry, but his latest foray into strategy is too serious to let pass. In Management by Reflection in S+B he continues his age-old mantra that teaching MBAs to work stuff out is pointless if not dangerous. He once sneeringly noted that…