Beth Goody/theispot.com Monitoring the right metrics can help companies closely track changes in their markets and the broader operating environment, enabling them to identify opportunities early and reduce their exposure to material risks. As extreme weather events and other environmental changes accelerate, business leaders must factor these developments into their organizations’ goals and strategies —…
Aleksandar Savic RLI could have suffered the fate of Polaroid, Blockbuster, or BlackBerry, slipping into oblivion when market changes eroded demand for their core product. Founded 60 years ago as Replacement Lens Inc., the company insured the cost of replacing lost or damaged contact lenses — then an expensive purchase. As disposable lenses became the…
Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Many executives at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) associate process automation with expensive robots and assume that it’s within reach only for large enterprises. However, possibilities for reducing the amount of human involvement in tasks extend well beyond robots and include a host of affordable approaches. In our research…
Alice Mollon / Ikon Images As home to some of the best universities and most innovative companies in the world, the U.S. has long been viewed as a global leader in science and technology. However, recent data points to a consequential shift, with concerning implications for companies that need to tap the rising generation of…
Michael Austin/thesipot.com The CEO of a fast-growing pharmaceutical startup recently forwarded us an email exchange he had had with his chief financial and chief commercial officers. It seems that the CCO had surprised both the CEO and CFO by proposing to spend more than $450,000 to retain an outside agency. The CFO immediately fired off…
Aleksandar Savic When Steve Richman became president of Milwaukee Tool in 2007, he joined an 83-year-old company selling a limited range of traditional power tools. “We were this small little company. … Our brand was your grandfather’s brand,” Richman recalled. “It was the brand of old plumbers and electricians and mechanical contractors.” With revenues under…
Patrick George/Ikon Images The Research The author analyzed data from more than 50 distinct direct mail campaigns in a variety of categories (apparel, furniture, and outdoor goods) in partnership with a direct mail agency. He applied regression and elasticity models to isolate the impact of variables such as mail volume, industry type, and brand size…
In 2001, the Chinese auto industry sold fewer than a million cars. By 2017, it was responsible for more than a third of all the cars produced or sold on earth. Quality improved, too: between 2001 and 2014, malfunction rates in domestic Chinese passenger vehicles fell by 75 percent. How did this growth happen so…
When a case reaches trial, the judge is expected to be an impartial referee who ensures that justice is served. But new research suggests that a judge’s ultimate decision is often as arbitrary as the flip of a coin—which may actually be a sign of a healthy justice system. Centuries of legal research have shown…
An entrepreneur arrives at a bank and asks for funding; a family asks for a mortgage; a medium-sized business asks for a loan. Whether the bank provides financing in each case boils down to the question of lending standards. With looser standards, the borrowers are more likely to get their money, while with tighter standards,…