January 17, 2015

Top Must Read Articles and Research Papers on Strategy






HBR Articles


"What Is Strategy?" by Michael E. Porter,
"The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy,"
"Building Your Company's Vision,"
"Reinventing Your Business Model,"
"Blue Ocean Strategy,"
"The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution,"
"Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System,"
"Transforming Corner-Office Strategy into Frontline Action,"
"Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance," and
"Who Has the D? How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance."


https://hbr.org/product/hbr-s-10-must-reads-on-strategy-with-featured-article-what-is-strategy-by-michael-e-porter/an/12601E-KND-ENG

https://hbr.org/store/landing/mustreads

January 15, 2015

Narayana Rao - Core Management Books Reading and Blogging Challenge 2015




Books I am reading or read in 2015 (Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.)

1. Principles of Management by Koontz and O'Donnell - 4th Edtion and 13 Edition (Reading Completed)

2. Marketing Management by Kotler and Keller, (12,13and 14 Editions, 9th Edition by Kotler) - Currently Reading. (January 12 2015 to   )


5. Scanning the Marketing Macroenvironment - Philip Kotler's Book Chapter 
4. Managing Marketing Information and Measuring  Market Demand
3. Marketing Strategy - Marketing Process - Kotler's Description

Scanning the Marketing Macroenvironment - Philip Kotler's Book Chapter Summary





The marketing environment is constantly changing and providing new opportunities and decreasing the demand for some existing products. Marketers have to continuously monitor the environment identify the shifts in demand and make their organization adapt to the changing environment.

The chapter addresses two questions:

1. What are the key demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural developments worth noting?
2. What are the key methods for tracking and identifying opportunities in the macroenvironment?

The changes that are occurring in societies are termed as fads, trends and megatrends.

A fad is "short-lived change and it has no social, economic or political significance." Fads are unpredictable and hence only lucky organizations cash on it either because they have the product bought during the fad or they very quickly made the product and it was accepted.

Trends are changes which are more durable and hence predictable. It is observable across several market areas and consumer activities and is consistent with other significant indicators occurring or emerging at the same time.

John Naisbbit, a futurist, prefers to talk about megatrends, which are "large social, economic, political and technological changes that are slow to form, and once in place, they influence us for some time - between seven to ten years, or longer. Naisbitt identifies these trends by examining the news items in major newspapers and counting the number of times they are covered.

Marketers have to take notice of trends and megatrends as spotted by external consultants and publications and they also have to look for them. These trends and megatrends are noncontrollables in the hands of business organizations and they can only respond to them.

Kotler recommends that the firms monitor six major areas in the environment:


Demographic Environment
Economic Environment
Natural Environment
Technological Environment
Political/Legal Environment
Social/Cultural Environment


Demographic Environment


Population Growth

Population Age Mix

Ethnic Markets

In United States, there are different ethnic groups. Whites and African-Americans are the major groups.But Latinos are also a big group. Asian-Americans are now a significant group. Each ethnic group has certain specific wants for the basic needs.

Educational Groups

The population can be divided into five educational groups: Illiterates, high school dropouts, high school degrees, college degrees, and professional degrees. United States has one of the world's highest percentage of college educated people more than 35%.

Household Patterns

Geographical Shifts in Population

Shift from a Mass Market to Micromarkets

The demographic environment shows fragments of markets and hence micromarkets can be identified by monitoring demographic environment.

Economic Environment

Markets for consumer goods and capital goods require people to consume and also purchasing power with them. The total demand and demand for different categories of goods and services depend on current income, savings, credit availability, existing debt of households and firms and prices of items. Marketers have to observe trends in income and spending patterns.

Income Distribution in Societies

There are four types of industrial structures in countries: 1. Subsistence economies 2. Raw material exporting countries 3. Industrializing economies. 4. Industrial economies.

Also within a country, five different income distribution patters are identified. 1. Very low incomes for all people 2. Mostly low incomes for all people 3. Very low incomes, very high incomes   4. Low, medium and high incomes   5. Mostly medium incomes.


Savings, Debt, and Credit Availability: Countries with high savings ratios finance countries with low savings rates.


Natural Environment

There are four important trends in natural environment.

1.  Shortage of raw materials
2. Increased energy costs
3. Increased pollution levels
4. Changing role of Governments in environmental protection

Technological Environment


ACCELERATING Pace of Technological Change
Unlimited Opportunities for Innovation
Varying R & D Budgets:  Japan has increased its R&D in civilian products. United spends a lot on defence research.

Political/Legal Environment


Legislation Regulating Business

It has three main purposes: to protect companies from unfair competition, to protect consumers from unfair business practices, and to protect the interests of society from unbridled business behavior.

Growth of Special Interest Groups


Social/Cultural Environment

People's view of Themselves
People's view of  Others
People's view of  Society
People's view of Nature
People's view of the Universe

High Persistence of Core Cultural Values

Shifts of Secondary Cultural Values through Time

Existence of Subcultures: Each society contains subcultures. Various groups with shared values emerge based on their special life experiences or circumstances. To the extent that subcultural groups exhibit different wants and consumption behavior, marketers have to choose different subcultures for their target markets. The same product may not appeal to all subcultures.


Reference
Marketing Management, Philip Kotler 9th Edition

2015 - Best Business Books


Tentative List based on anticipations and reviews


The Self-Made Billionaire Effect: How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value
 John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen


http://www.businessinsider.in/15-Of-The-Best-Business-Books-Coming-Out-In-2015/The-Self-Made-Billionaire-Effect-How-Extreme-Producers-Create-Massive-Value/slideshow/45375646.cms

All Time Best Management Books


Shop Management - F.W. Taylor
Scientific Management - F.W. Taylor (1911)
Principles of Industrial Engineering - C.B. Going (1921)
Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham and David Dodd
Portfolio Analysis - Harry Markowitz
Principles of Management - Harold B. Koontz and Simon O'Donnell
My Years with General Motors (1964), by Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
Marketing Management - Philip Kotler
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (1980), by Michael E. Porter
The Goal (1984), by Eliyahu Goldratt
Toyota Production System (1988), by Taiichi Ohno
Study of Toyota Production System from Industrial Engineering Point of View (1989) by Shigeo Shingo
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), by Stephen R. Covey
Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (1993), by James Champy and Michael Hammer
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (1994), by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
Emotional Intelligence (1995), by Daniel Goleman


A Time Article stated "here are 25 that changed the way we think about management"

The Age of Unreason (1989), by Charles Handy
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (1994), by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
Competing for the Future (1996), by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (1980), by Michael E. Porter
Emotional Intelligence (1995), by Daniel Goleman
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don't Work and What to Do about It (1985), by Michael E. Gerber
The Essential Drucker (2001), by Peter Drucker
The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990), by Peter Senge
First, Break All the Rules (1999), by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
The Goal (1984), by Eliyahu Goldratt
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't (2001), by Jim Collins
Guerilla Marketing (1984), by Jay Conrad Levinson
How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), by Dale Carnegie
The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), by Douglas McGregor
The Innovator's Dilemma (1997), by Clayton Christensen
Leading Change (1996), by John P. Kotter
On Becoming a Leader (1989), by Warren Bennis
Out of the Crisis (1982), by W. Edwards Deming
My Years with General Motors (1964), by Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
The One Minute Manager (1982), by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (1993), by James Champy and Michael Hammer
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), by Stephen R. Covey
The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola and other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance (2000), by Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman and Roland R. Cavanagh
Toyota Production System (1988), by Taiichi Ohno
Who Moved My Cheese? (1998), by Spencer Johnson

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2086680,00.html

January 11, 2015

Philip Kotler - Prefaces to Marketing Management - Subject Evolution


MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule





Kotler, who joined the Kellogg School faculty in 1962 and is now the  Distinguished Professor of International Marketing

Philip Kotler published his first edition in 1967. The present edition was published in 2011. In each edition, new concepts that became useful in marketing were identified and included in the book. In this note, an attempt will be made to record the new concepts that were introduced into the subject in each and edition and thus show the evolution of the subject as documented by Philip Kotler.

First Edition


Kotler's big idea in 1967 was that companies ought to be driven by customers and markets, rather than by the intuition of marketing executives. He went on to bring analytical thinking into the marketing field to add to the rich description of markets.

Kotler's stated that  marketing needed more logical processes for making decisions and he based his textbook on ideas synthesized from economics, behavioral science, management theory and mathematics.

Kotler had been trained as an economist at the University of Chicago and MIT. As a result, he introduced mathematical models to help companies allocate marketing resources, including setting the size and goals of the sales force. The companies need a process for making decisions about how many salespeople to hire, how much to spend on advertising, how much to spend on sale promotion which was not available. Kotler filled the gap.

Kotler's original goal was to write a textbook to use in his own classes but  he was delighted and surprised to see his become a big success.



9th Edition 1997


National economies are undergoing rapid and often wrenching transformation due to two main forces. One is globalization, the explosive growth of global trade and international competition. The other force is technological change. This decade has seen remarkable advances in the availability of information and the speed of communication, in new materials, in biogeneric advances and drug; in electronic marvels.

Companies operate in a Darwinian marketplace where the principles of natural selection lead to "survival of the fittest." Marketplace success goes to those companies best matches to the current environmental imperatives-those who can deliver what people are ready to buy. Individuals, businesses, cities, and even whole countries must discover how they can produce marketable value - namely, goods and services that others are willing to purchase.

Apart from globalization and technological change, giant retailers are emerging, private store brands are becoming acceptable, consumers are becoming more value and price sensitive, new retail formats are emerging, importance of mass marketing and advertising is diminishing and erosion of brand loyalty is taking place.

Marketing management developed in business and management theory  has to be clearly understood by marketing managers, persons from other departments, and company top management and entrepreneurs, public policy makers and consumers. Marketing is an orderly insightful process for thinking about and planning for markets. The process starts with researching the market place to understand its dynamics. The marketer uses research to identify opportunities - that is, to find individuals or groups of people with unmet needs  or a latent interest in some product or service. Then only, a target market is selected and a market mix is developed to optimize the long run performance way of the organization satisfying the needs of target segment customers. The marketing process is applicable to more than just goods and services. Anything can be marketed, including ideas, events, organizations, places, and personalities. Still, marketing starts with a search for opportunities. It is only when there is a need in the market, a solution can be created and marketed.

Current Emphases in Marketing Practice

1. A growing emphasis on quality, value and customer satisfaction.
2. A growing emphasis on relationship building and customer retention
3. A growing emphasis on managing business processes and integrating business functions.
A growing emphasis on:
4. Global thinking and local market planning.
5. Building strategic alliances and networks
6. Direct and Online marketing
7. Services marketing
8. High-tech industries
9. Ethical marketing behavior

9th Edition provides perspective on marketing solutions to the above emphases. But fundamental features of the book remain intact. They are:

1. A managerial orientation.
2. Analytical approach
3. A basic disciplines perspectives - Underlying Marketing Management are: Economics, Behavioral Sciences, Management Theory, and Mathematics.
4. Universal application of marketing thinking to products and services, consumer and business markets, profit and non-profit organizations, one country and multinational companies, end product or intermediate product companies, and low-tech and high-tech companies.
5. Comprehensive coverage: The book covers all the topics that an informed marketing manager needs to know. It covers the main issues in strategic, tactical and administrative marketing.

New to the Ninth Edition

1. A new chapter Chap 23. Managing Direct and Online Marketing added.
2. Expanded emphasis on the themes: Global marketing, marketing and technology, socially responsible/ethical marketing, and marketing's interaction with other departments.
3. New and expanded material on value marketing, brand building and equity, the war between national and store brands, geodemographics, database marketing, customer lifetime value, mass customization, integrated marketing communications, co-brading, major account management, marketing reengineering, category management, word-of-mouth marketing, market logistics, relationship marketing, loyalty marketing, competitive benchmarking, and imitation strategies.


14th Edition 2011


Thee new areas are emphasized in this new edition.
The rise of sustainability and green marketing, Increased development of computing power, internet and mobile and marketing during recessions.

Communications chapter was updated with emphasis on social media landscape and communication environment. New forms of communication have emerged: experiential, entertainment and viral marketing. Mass communication was earlier a privilege of companies and journalists. Now, customers report their experience to other customers through emails, blogs and podcasts. Company cannot control all the conversation about their products in mass media any more.

Companies are responding through new technologies to provide more customization, and more dialogue. Market is now company wide undertaking. Return on marketing investment is being emphasized. Even its effect of share holder is being examined.  Holistic marketing is the new concept to be practiced by marketing managers to succeed in this new age.

The book provides detailed description of marketing tasks and retains the core ideas of the first edition of the book.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=VBKlBAAAQBAJ





January 10, 2015

Strategic Management Update 2014

MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule



2014
December 2014
The Concept of Dynamic Capability for Managing Technology and Change
Mohamad Faizal Ahmad Zaidi , and Siti Norezam Othman
Strategic Management Quarterly
June 2014, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 93-108
Published by American Research Institute for Policy Development
The article has number of grammatical mistakes, but the idea of the paper is good.
http://aripd.org/journals/smq/Vol_2_No_2_June_2014/5.pdf




October 2014



Putting Sales at the Center of Strategy
Frank V. Cespedes
Frank Cespedes is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and author of Aligning Strategy and Sales (Harvard Business Review Press, forthcoming).
OCTOBER 2014  HBR ISSUE

Research reveals four steps companies can take to improve the alignment between strategy and sales.
1. Communicate the Strategy
2. Continually Improve Sales Productivity
3. Improve Human Performance
Companies need to understand which sales skills are most important to their particular strategy and work to upgrade them.
4. Make Strategy Relevant
Most C-suite executives know value-creation levers, but too few understand and operationalize the sales factors that make strategies successful. The strategists have to conceive the objections of potential customers and prepare answers and activities to provide acceptable answers.
https://hbr.org/2014/10/putting-sales-at-the-center-of-strategy




Strategic Management: Executing and Crafting Research and Development Strategy in Organizations
1. Syeda Ataat Zahra and 2 . Dr. Fareeha Zafar
1 University of Derby, UK, Working at Government College Lahore.
2 M-Phil (Business Administration), Kinnaird College For Women, Lahore, Pakistan
Universal Journal of Education and General Studies (ISSN: 2277-0984) Vol. 3(2) pp. 024-029, October, 2014
Available online http://www.universalresearchjournals.org/ujegs



June 2014

How to Lead Strategic Change without Inciting Mutiny
Quy Huy, Insead
http://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/how-to-lead-strategic-change-without-inciting-a-mutiny-3426

What is Strategy Execution - AMA brief
http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/What-Is-Strategy-Execution.aspx

April 2014

Leveraging Current Global Trends for Growth
Interview with Mauro Guillen, Professor, Wharton
Video embedded in the article
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/leveraging-global-trends-growth/


February 2014

The People Part of Successful Strategy Implementation
http://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/the-people-part-of-successful-strategy-implementation-3167

January

The Big Lie of Strategic Planning
HBR Article Jan - Feb 2014
Roger L Martin
http://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-planning/ar/1


Building a Game-Changing Talent Strategy
Douglas A. Ready, Linda Hill, Robert J. Thomas
Douglas A. Ready is a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the founder and president of ICEDR.

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Robert J. Thomas is the executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance and professor at Brandeis University International Business School. He is the author or co-author of eight books on leadership and organizational change, including Crucibles of Leadership (Harvard Business Press, 2008), Geeks and Geezers (with Warren Bennis, Harvard Business Press, 2001) and Driving Results through Social Networks (with Rob Cross, Jossey-Bass, 2009).

Black Rock Asset Management, Tata Group (India), and Envision Energy (China) are covered in the article.

HBR JANUARY 2014 ISSUE
https://hbr.org/2014/01/building-a-game-changing-talent-strategy

2013

Innovation in Business Models - Chris McKenna - Said School of Business
_____________________

_____________________

What is Strategy - Porter's Lecture in 2012

_____________________

_____________________


Basics of Strategic Management


Chapter Summaries of Thompson and Strickland Book