Are you one of those strategic planners who rely on Excel spreadsheets? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Excel is and remains fairly popular in strategic planning. However, there is no denying – Excel is not the perfect solution for this purpose. There are some significant risks and downsides. In this article, I discuss the […]
The Boston Box, also known as Growth-Share-Matrix
The Boston Box is a well-known tool for corporate portfolio management. It is striking for its simplicity. All information needed is easily obtainable and the conclusions are straightforward. However, it is exactly this simplicity that makes the Boston Box – or Growth-Share-Matrix – a false friend. This article explains the theory, discusses strategies to be […]
Management By Simplicity
Sometimes, management and strategy seem to be fairly complicated issues: everything is complex, interdependent, dynamic … Popular writers as well as business schools keep telling us how difficult it is to get all these things right. Everything else will lead to failure. Our guest author Praveen Kumar. S shares some stories about businesses with very […]
Internal Communication of Change
In this paper I will discuss one specific reason for failure of effective internal communication of change. My hypothesis is that change is communicated by the wrong people. It is not that these people are unwilling or not experienced enough. But that they are too deeply into the issue. Hence, they simply don’t know how […]
Early indicators in business – use with care!
Early indicators are a popular tool when it comes to planning and forecasting in business. “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future” , as Nobel laureate Nils Bohr once said. Hence, managers and planners desperately search for some early signs that help to improve the quality of the guess about the future. […]
Thoughts on the Lifecycle of Corporations
Presumably, a description of all existing companies by age would look similar to a typical population pyramid (without latest effects of excessive aging of populations in some economies). Experience shows that the time span of successful corporate activity is not endless in most cases. Of course, there are many corporations with a history of 50 […]
When Consulting Projects Go Sideways
Every consultant has at least one project horror story, though some of us have seen more than others. You may call it the project from hell, the death march, or the one that ended up in the ditch. If you haven’t experienced a project that’s gone sideways, consider yourself in the lucky minority. When a […]
Management models and tools – what they can do and what they cannot do
Management models and tools – as the SWOT or the 7s-Model – are discussed controversially. Some people use them as important tools for analyzing businesses and developing strategies. Others call them “buzzwords”, used by consultants to boost their profile. The truth about the value of management models probably lies somewhere in between. So what should […]
The Worst Thing about Best Practices
A colleague asked me to review a client proposal and, at first glance, it looked like a winner. The proposal was short, and it laid out the client’s problem in clear, crisp language. Plus, the team was a great match for the project. I thought, how refreshing — a jargon-free, informative proposal. Then I read […]
Market Segmentation – Why is it Important?
Market segmentation is an important basis of many successful marketing strategies. Carefully chosen segments allow tailoring the marketing mix to more individual customer needs. Thus, they help to invest marketing spending more effectively. This article explains what market segmentation is, it discusses why it is important and what advantages it yields. Finally, the article provides […]
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