A lot of business alliances do not work. A clear example is that between French carmaker Renault and its Swedish counterpart Volvo. It worked well for a few years, but excess French government interference, but an end to this marriage of convenience. Reluctantly Renault took the decision then to ally with then struggling Japanese automotive player Nissan. The latter had then been struggling for years, so Renault decided to acquire a certain stake in it. Within a few years, Nissan was making good money again. The reasons for this successful and durable alliance may be plenty. But one area of clarity, right from the start of this merger of sorts, was that the transactional mentality would be set aside, replaced by one of mutual dependence. The corporate strategy was revisited, with points made for collaboration. A transition was also made towards a boundary- spanning alliance leadership. Common goals were thus set in. A sense of trust was built in, individually at both organizations. This also needs a cultural awareness of the other’s presence in the partnership. Periodically, all alliances need to be revisited to understand the continuing gains.

Source:https://knowledge.insead.edu/blog/insead-blog/designing-durable-alliances-lessons-from-renault-nissan-10726

Uploaded Date:22 January 2019

Arguing at the workplace is often seen in a negative light. This is especially true when teams are large, so it gets difficult to manage the situation, if things go out of hand. Yet, if the proper management training is provided to the team members, arguing can only be good for the idea- generating capabilities of the organization. It will lead to cognitive diversity, a must for curating innovations in the organization. Teams need to abide by certain ground rules to make this work. For a start, all must value the fact that everyone works for the same organization, at the end of the day. All discussions must be keeping in view facts and logic, towards the specific, relevant topic. Deviations must be at the minimum. None of the arguments must veer towards personal attacks. Ultimately, one needs to be intellectually humble.

Source:https://hbr.org/2019/01/how-to-debate-ideas-productively-at-work

Uploaded Date:22 January 2019

Behavioral economics was once deemed as off- limits for professional economists, but is now very much mainstream. It is being used in gauging investor behaviour and leveraging stock- price up- downs. A lot of decisions at the strategy level, though inadvertently allow cognitive biases to creep in. To tackle this, a behavioral strategy needs to be put in place. For drafting the corporate strategy, the company leaders need to weed out the biases inherent in themselves. This is in stark contrast to the fields of marketing and finance. To counter pattern- recognition biases, the angle of vision ofvision ought to be changed. Similarly, for action- oriented biases, one needs to embrace uncertainty. Stability biases need to be shaken up, while interest biases need be revealed openly to counter. Debates need to be depersonalized. In adopting this behavioral strategy, some steps need to be followed. Firstly, the company needs to decide, which decisions need this sort of close scrutiny. The biases need to be identified that will most affect decision- making. Tools and practices need to be taken into account which will best counter these relevant biases. These new practices now deemed appropriate must be incorporated into the formal processes.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-case-for-behavioral-strategy

Uploaded Date:22 January 2019

For any business, uncertainty always dogs their attempts at executing the corporate strategy. No form of planning can negate the effects of political turmoil, competitors’ tactics or overall economic scenario. A new book published Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds, discusses in detail methods to deal with such inherent uncertainties. Before solutions are derived, one needs to understand the common reasons for our failures are dealing with these uncertainties. One of them is that, people deliberately choose to ignore the clear signs of such uncertainty existing. Copious amounts of planning is done, with little heed to this uncertainty, until quite light, only as an afterthought. A lot of people even pretend to deal with the same, butdo not actually take honest steps in the right direction. To deal with such uncertainty, for a start, the team needs to understand the cause of the undesired outcomes. Instead of being certain of any outcome, right from the start, the planners need to be aware of probability figures. A strategy has to be curated to nullify the effects of the odds amounting to major.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-to-confront-uncertainty-in-your-strategy

Uploaded Date:22 January 2019

When Kevin Ozan took over as the CFO and Steve Easterbrook as the CEO of McDonald’s in 2015, the global fast- food giant was in a state of crisis. Its once- loyal customers were fleeing to direct competitors, sales were slagging and stores were being shut down, amidst fears of food health and hygiene. Now, more than three years on from their appointment, the company is doing way better, under this leadership team. The first step that Ozan took on being appointed as the CFO, was to revive the talent management practices that had once worked so well for the company. Not just with employees, but the idea was to retain, regain and convert customers, via a three- stage process. Thorough marketing research was conducted in the ten markets to reveal the key pain points, and they were quite diverse but also had common points in disparate areas such as Japan, Germany and the USA. Global trends also favored people moving away from the QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) format to fast- casual or fine dining options. So, a campaign titled Experience of the Future (EOTF) was launched to prise away the customers switching and to even convert those non- loyal fans. This proved to be a grand success.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/fast-action-in-fast-food-mcdonalds-cfo-on-why-the-company-is-growing-again?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=b1ea3c6f030445598f962c0b803e4618&hctky=2657824&hdpid=9379b137-9f46-49a3-809f-e63c0aa30e48

Uploaded Date:22 January 2019

A lot of business strategists make one crucial mistake while planning out their corporate strategy. They must plan according to their strengths, rather than constantly fighting to set back their weaknesses. This will also help in spelling out what the brand needs to compete for and shape its future accordingly. To do this, first of all, the brand has to accept its inherent weaknesses. Only then, must the specific strengths be clearly spelt out. This will help leverage these super- skills. The corporate training programmes then arranged, need to further build on these strengths to design for the future. Instead of trying to solve everything at once, the right problem needs to be identified before rectifying.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Design-for-Your-Strengths?gko=6fc72

Uploaded Date:10 January 2019

There are some crucial questions that C- suite members need to probe themselves on, when trying to get above- average returns from the market. First of all, they need to assess where is this growth going to emanate from. For this, they need to capture authentic business intelligence. Granular bits of data need to be collected post the proper customer segmentation. Next up, the executive needs to plan for the present as well as future growth streams. This has a three- stage journey, beginning with investing on the right resources. This would not alone be enough, as it has to be backed up by the right performance. Only then can customer- centric design be curated by the firm. To actually implement this growth machine, the entire strategy needs to be well aligned. This must start with the right talent recruitment, so that all key positions get filled up. The communication used also needs to emphasize growth instead of mere productivity.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/growing-faster-than-the-market

Uploaded Date:10 January 2019

A study conducted by the CIO magazine in 2017 confirmed that about a third of all CRM (Customer Relationship Management) projects fail. A number of reasons have been cited for the same. The common ones being data integrity issues, technology adaption or being over- budget. Today CRM tools are being used to muster a number of fronts such as progress reporting, improve business intelligence, predict the project completion dates and much more. The demands on the software tools are too much. Instead, marketers need to rethink the role of the CRM tools as a revenue source. The right corporate training need also be provided by the managers for their subordinates to improve process, not for inspection of work. Finally, the marketing and sales efforts need to be aligned on the same page.

Source:https://hbr.org/2018/12/why-crm-projects-fail-and-how-to-make-them-more-successful?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Uploaded Date:10 January 2019

Design has now become an essential part of business. The aesthetic appeal of several brands has enabled the same to rise above their competitors. The McKinsey Design Institute (MDI) has thus been curated to cater to the design thinking needs of various businesses. Four major values have been identified which business need while finalizing their design strategies. They must understand that the talent recruitment to be done for this, must be from a diverse professional background. The leadership behind this initiative hasto have an analytical bent of understanding. The iteration or testing has to be continuous a process. Ultimately, it all boils down to the user experience. It has to be easy to use and implement. A strong correlation has been found between the business performance and the scores attested by the MDI. This is true across the industries surveyed which are- retail banking, medical technology and for consumer goods.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design

Uploaded Date:07 January 2018

There is much debate on the role of the board in setting the corporate strategy. Some say that the board must do the entire thing, others say that it must be those in the management as they handle the business on a regular basis. Yet others feel that the CEO must put in the proposal, merely to be given final approval by the board. The best method though would be somewhere in between. It needs to be a three- step process. At the first stage, the CEO must look out for the board’s suggestions before proposing one himself/herself. Next, the CEO must address the board on strategic possibilities. These need to be scrutinized in detail by the board. Once this is done, the CEO must put in the final strategic choice to the board, for approval. This strategy setting may also be a litmus test for the CEO, as failure to set the right one, would simply mean, a new one would be required.

Source:https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-boards-role-in-strategy

Uploaded Date:07 January 2019

2018 was a tough year for several diversified companies, witnessing several breakups. Examples of large companies witnessing breakups or spinoffs include the likes of Kraft, Alcoa, HP, AP Moller- Maersk and Siemens. This is a trend long foreseen by experts in the fields of finance and corporate strategy. They predicted the doom of ultra- diversified companies. They have argued for divestiture whenever the businesses within a portfolio do no correspond with one another. However, before jumping into the bandwagon and calling the concept of conglomerates as dead, one has to look at several of them, still thriving. The Mahindra Group and Alphabet are such examples.

Source:https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/a-new-playbook-for-diversified-companies/

Uploaded Date:31st December 2018