2017

article thumbnail

How Little Can You Do (& Still be Effective)

Johanna Rothman

Back in Manage It!, I suggested that for requirements, the questions should be, “How little can we do?” and still have a great product. My argument was this: the longer the project (regardless of approach), the more risk there is. Can you reduce risk by reducing the requirements? That would allow you to release earlier with less risk. Not to release a bad product.

Agile 114
article thumbnail

The World of Luxury Shopping Will Soon Look Very Different

BCG

Article Monday, April 10, 2017 Leading luxury brands may opt for more e-commerce sales instead of just opening more stores worldwide. These four imperatives will provide guidance.

Sales 112
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Design for Your Strengths

Strategy+Business

If you want to succeed at anything truly difficult, you have to design a learning process that builds on the things you do best. Through experiences such as his training in Olympic speed skating, and in his coaching of and working with others, John Coyle has come to recognize four key rules inherent in designing for your strengths: Accept your weaknesses; recognize your specific strengths; solve the right problem (which is not necessarily the problem other people have diagnosed for you); and, fi

article thumbnail

How to Improve Your Sales Skills, Even If You’re Not a Salesperson

Harvard Business

At some point in your career, even if you’re not a salesperson, you’re going to have to sell something — whether it’s your idea , your team, or yourself. So how can you improve your sales skills, especially if you don’t pitch people often? What should you focus on first? And what should you do if you lose a sale? What the Experts Say.

Sales 72
article thumbnail

PowerPoint Best Practices for Creating Stellar Presentations

Mastering data visualization in PowerPoint will help accelerate your career because it positions you as someone who can present data that drives business decisions forward. think-cell's PowerPoint Best Practices eBook was created specifically for professionals aiming to master the art and science of data-driven storytelling. What’s inside: Practical Insights: Uncover valuable tips for crafting engaging and persuasive presentations.

article thumbnail

Retail Survival 101: Treating Employees Better

1 to 1

This article appeared originally in Customer Strategist. For retailers, 2017 will be remembered as the year of store closings. Nearly 13,000 stores are expected to shut their doors this year, compared with 4,000 in 2016, Bloomberg reports. The store closings are symptomatic of a larger trend: consumers are increasingly eschewing stores for online retailers that offer virtually endless aisles and fast deliveries.Still, some retailers have managed to not only survive but thrive in the face of t.

Retail 58

More Trending

article thumbnail

MSNBC Fake Drama: Timestamp Says Maddow’s Exclusive “Scoop” Story is Full of Holes

MishTalk

Just a bit ago, I mocked MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for her convoluted allegation that Trump may have sent MSNBC fake documents implicating himself in regards to Russia. For details, please see Rachel Maddow Accuses Trump of Planting Fake Documents Implicating Trump. Glen Greenwald at The Intercept also challenges Maddow. Greenwald offers substantial evidence that Maddow’s event timeline is full of holes.

69
article thumbnail

Competing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

BCG

Article Monday, January 16, 2017. Until recently, artificial intelligence (AI) was similar to nuclear fusion in unfulfilled promise. It had been around a long time but had not reached the spectacular heights foreseen in its infancy. Now, however, AI is realizing its potential in achieving human-like capabilities, so it is time to ask: How can business leaders harness AI to take advantage of the specific strengths of man and machine?

110
110
article thumbnail

How Batteries and Solar Power Are Disrupting Electricity Markets

BCG

Focus Thursday, January 26, 2017. The battery pack may be the least glamorous component in the electricity delivery network, but it is on the verge of transforming electricity markets worldwide. Solar power produces plenty of electricity on sunny days, but not during peak usage in the evening or when the sky is cloudy. Storage systems such as lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, combined with photovoltaic (PV) generation, can address the intermittency of renewables without the expense of expanding th

Marketing 108
article thumbnail

The Most Innovative Companies: An Interactive Guide

BCG

Interactive Thursday, January 12, 2017. This interactive guide shows the changes to The Boston Consulting Group’s list of the most innovative companies. In the Stories tab, explore four categories of change in the list over time: * Steady Innovators. Companies on the list every year from 2005 through 2016. * Movers. Companies that advanced ten or more positions from 2015 through 2016. * New Entrants.

Company 84
article thumbnail

How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

article thumbnail

Looking into the Future of Artificial Intelligence

BCG

Video Wednesday, January 04, 2017. Jürgen Schmidhuber, the scientific director of SUPSI’s Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), in Switzerland, has been a leading pioneer of artificial intelligence (AI) for three decades. His work with colleagues on recurrent neural networks, including long short-term memory (LSTM), and on other mathematical models and algorithms for solving AI problems has revolutionized several fields, including machine learning, handwriting and speech rec

Video 102
article thumbnail

Innovation in 2016

BCG

Article Thursday, January 12, 2017. This article is an excerpt from The Most Innovative Companies 2016: Getting Past “Not Invented Here,” (BCG report, January 2017). Even a quick scan of BCG’s 2016 list of the 50 most innovative companies highlights the impact of the digital revolution. Long-standing tech giants hold down the top places once again, new digital disruptors such as Uber and Airbnb have joined the list, and the expanding role of digital innovation is readily apparent in the presen

Survey 80
article thumbnail

Winning in IoT: It’s All About the Business Processes

BCG

Article Thursday, January 05, 2017. The B2B market for the Internet of Things (IoT) is taking off. And huge numbers of vendors—including software, hardware, and internet companies; startups; service providers; and telcos—are jockeying for position and market share. With so much action in the IoT space, one question should be at the top of every IoT provider’s list of concerns: Where are the growth opportunities?

B2B 101
article thumbnail

The Smart and Simple Way to Empower the Public Sector

BCG

Article Wednesday, January 04, 2017. Ask most people working in government agencies and NGOs why they chose their vocations, and they’ll tell you that they wanted to make a difference and thought a career in the public sector would be rewarding. But they may also say that the reality is very different. When we interview public-sector workers around the world, we commonly find people who are frustrated, unenthusiastic, and full of angst.

article thumbnail

Savings Consultants Are Needed in Today's Market More Than Ever

Savings Consultants are needed in today’s market more than ever. With an increase in expenses, businesses are looking for opportunities to save. Often unknown to businesses are savings in expense reduction, specialized tax savings, specialized savings including medical underpayments, health benefits cost reduction, zero cost processing, and more. Blue Coast Savings, with over 20 years in business, assists Savings Consultants in helping these companies move toward more profitable businesses.

article thumbnail

Building a Cyberresilient Organization

BCG

Article Monday, January 09, 2017. Despite steadily mounting evidence to the contrary, many executives seem to imagine that, in the realm of cybersecurity, a robust defense is all their company needs. But those executives may experience a rude awakening. No defense, no matter how well constructed and main­tained, is 100% impenetrable. Computer systems are subject to compromise.

article thumbnail

Finance and HR: The Executive Partnership That Transformed a Company

Strategy+Business

The relationship between a chief financial officer (CFO) and chief human resources officer (CHRO) can turn a company around. Between them, they control the major sources of capital available to a company: human, financial, and often information technology. One such collaboration took place at McGraw-Hill Companies starting in 2011, between CHRO John Berisford and CFO Jack Callahan.

Finance 76
article thumbnail

Making Seamless E-Payments a Reality

Strategy+Business

Even at a time when e-commerce and digital currency are ubiquitous, retailers and banks are still struggling to design and adopt large-scale systems that allow seamless, frictionless electronic payments.

Retail 76
article thumbnail

10 Principles for Leading the Next Industrial Revolution

Strategy+Business

How can you prepare your company -- whether it is large or small -- to play a leading role in the next industrial revolution, the one that is caused by large-scale digital technology? How can you take advantage of your existing strengths while developing the digital prowess and personal skill that you need? The following 10 principles can help senior executives navigate the opportunities and uncertainties.

article thumbnail

TOOLS and METHODOLOGIES for developing DECISION SUPPORT PACKAGES

This White Paper targets opportunities for Management to develop proficiency in the Decision Framing and Analyses element of input to Decision, & Risk Analyses for Major Project Funding Decisions.

article thumbnail

10 Principles for Winning the Game of Digital Disruption

Strategy+Business

A new wave of digital disruption will affect the business world broadly during the next few years. The future of your company depends on your ability to seize the opportunities. These principles lay out the timing, breadth, and scale of the change to come, and the most effective ways to respond.

Company 73
article thumbnail

How Leaders and Their Teams Can Stop Executive Hubris

Strategy+Business

Hubris can be very damaging to companies, especially when CEOs suffer from extreme self-confidence. It leads to poor decisions, over-aggressive acquisitions, and poor morale. The good news, however, is that hubris is an acquired trait, which means it can be managed or even headed off entirely if companies and executive teams take steps to short-circuit it.

Company 73
article thumbnail

10 Principles of Strategy through Execution

Strategy+Business

Your company's identity (what you do) and implementation (how you do it) should be closely linked. Here are the precepts to keep in mind as you bring them together: Aim high. Build on your strengths. Be ambidextrous (sophisticated at both strategy and execution). Clarify everyone's strategic role. Align structures to strategy. Transcend functional barriers.

article thumbnail

A Guide to Strategy through Execution

Strategy+Business

How to get the strategists and implementers in your company to work together effectively. For more insight, read "10 Principles of Strategy through Execution.

article thumbnail

Why You Need to Use Case Studies in Sales and Marketing (and How to Start Now)

Case studies are proof of successful client relations and a verifiable product or service. They persuade buyers by highlighting your customers' experiences with your company and its solution. In sales, case studies are crucial pieces of content that can be tailored to prospects' pain points and used throughout the buyer's journey. In marketing, case studies are versatile assets for generating business, providing reusable elements for ad and social media content, website material, and marketing c

article thumbnail

Google’s Secret Formula for Management? Doing the Basics Well

Harvard Business

Steven Moore for HBR. Google has opened its trove of management processes to one and all, for free. It might not feel that surprising — after all, Google has created plenty of free tools for the world to use, from internet search to email. Management tools may not seem that different. And it also follows Google’s many years of work in people analytics.

article thumbnail

How Future-Proof Are You?

Strategy+Business

Whether you're sinking beneath your workload or sailing through with ease largely depends on your ability to suss out subtle challenges and turn them into opportunities.

70
article thumbnail

Are CEOs Less Ethical Than in the Past?

Strategy+Business

This year's CEO Success study shows that boards of directors, institutional investors, governments, and the media are holding chief executive officers to a far higher level of accountability for corporate fraud and ethical lapses than in the past. Although the number of CEOs who are forced from office for ethical lapses remains quite small, firings for ethical lapses have been rising as a percentage of CEO successions: from 3.9 percent of all successions in 2007-11 to 5.3 percent in 2012-16.

Ethics 68
article thumbnail

The Leadership Survey

Strategy+Business

Who are the most capable leaders, and what do they do to excel at both strategy and execution? See also "Wanted: Ambidextrous Leaders.

Survey 77
article thumbnail

The Art of Remote Collaboration: How to Successfully Whiteboard with Remote Teams

Just because we're working with a distributed team doesn't mean we have to abandon time-tested tools and methods like whiteboarding. Digital look-alikes often cramp creativity and all but eliminate the humanity of shared interactions. Hardware solutions are also limiting and, of course, expensive and immobile. In an increasingly digital and remote-first world, it’s important for us to select tools and processes that allow us to mitigate if not eliminate the above problems.