The Core Competence of the Corporation   Core competence is the collective learning in the organization, especially the capacity to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate streams of technologies. First companies must identify core competencies, which provide potential access to a wide variety of markets, make a contribution to the customer benefits of the product, and are difficult for competitors to imitate. Next companies must reorganize to learn from alliances and focus on internal development. :C.K. Prahalad ; Gary Hamel :4/1/1990 :Article

Creating Corporate Advantage   This article presents a comprehensive framework for value creation in the multibusiness company. It addresses the most fundamental questions of corporate strategy: What businesses should a company be in? How should it coordinate activities across businesses? What role should the corporate office play? How should the corporation measure and control performance? :David J. Collis ; Cynthia A. Montgomery :Harvard Business Review :5/1/1998 :Article

Technical and strategic human resources management effectiveness as determinants of firm performance   Evaluates the impact of human resource (HR) managers' capabilities on HR management effectiveness and the latter's impact on corporate financial performance. For 293 U.S. firms, effectiveness was associated with capabilities and attributes of HR staff. Also found relationships between HR management effectiveness and productivity, cash flow, and market value. Findings were consistent across market and accounting measures of performance and with corrections for biases. :Huselid, Mark A.; Jackson, Susan E. :Academy of Management Journal :2/1/1997 :Article

Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors   Now nearing its 60th printing in English and translated into nineteen languages, it has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy throughout the world. Porter's simple analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategies - lowest cost, differentiation, and focus - which bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. :Michael E. Porter :6/1/2080 :Book

Enterprise Performance Management: Strategies for Surviving in the Web-Speed Economy   Organizations profit from new markets and opportunities, yet the volatility of a web-time world revealed many companies that lacked operational maturity, companies who relied on traditional business models even as the world was fundamentally changing around them. Organizations need to overturn decades of embedded business culture to tackle the new Web-speed economy and cost/revenue models. They need to manage the total enterprise and align organization, customers and suppliers in one strategic direction, a direction established at the highest levels and cascaded throughout the organization. :Jonathan Hornby :SAS :6/1/2001 :Article

Skate to Where the Money Will Be   As products become standardized, profitability shifts to the makers of components, and as components themselves become standardized, it can shift further back in the value chain. That's predictable, but it causes a problem for incumbents. As their products become commodities and profits decline, pressure from investors to maintain ROA causes them to spin off asset-intensive units that design and manufacture components--the very places where profits are heading. :Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, Matthew C. Verlinden :Harvard Business Review :11/1/2001 :Article

Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines   To today's customers, value can mean any number of things, from convenience of purchase to after-sale service and dependability. But that doesn't mean companies have to excel at everything. A study of market leaders shows they concentrate on one of three value disciplines - operational excellence, customer intimacy, or product leadership - and align their entire operating model to serve that discipline. Companies should choose a value discipline that fits with their existing capabilities and culture and then push themselves relentessly to sustain it. :Michael E. Treacy; Frederik D. Wiersema :Harvard Business Review :1/1/1993 :Article

Bain Management Tools 2001 survey   8th annual comphrehensive global survey of use and efficacy of management tools of the past three decades. 61% of respondents were concerned about an economic slowdown in 2001. Within this context respondents opted for ìtried-and-true tools such as Strategic Planning and Benchmarking to manage costs and corporate direction. Meanwhile executives defected at up to four times the mean from new economy tools such as Corporate Venturing and Customer Relationship Management. Clearly, when times get tough we trust the familiar. :Bain & Co. :Bain & Co. :6/6/2001 :Survey

Accenture Institute for Strategic Change   Founded in 1996, produces compelling research that is new, true and relevant to executives' important problems. Conveys its ideas through research notes, working papers, articles, books, conferences and hosted client visits. Conducts original research focused on providing actionable insight and ideas into strategic business issues. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Institute is made up of experienced management researchers working in concert with business educators and executives. :Centre

Best Practice Does Not Equal Best Strategy   Benchmarking is an important way to improve operational efficiency, but it is not a tool for strategic decision making. When competitors all try to play exactly the same game, declining margins are bound to follow. "As a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press." Warren Buffett :Philipp M. Nattermann :McKinsey Quarterly #4 :6/1/1999 :Article

Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System   As companies transform themselves to compete in the world of information, their ability to exploit intangible assets is becoming more decisive than their ability to manage physical assets. Traditional management systems rely on financial measures, which bear little relation to progress in achieving long-term strategic objectives. The scorecard introduces four new processes that help companies connect long-term objectives with short-term actions. :Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton :Harvard Business Review :6/1/1996 :Article

The Discipline Of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market   The premise of the book is that successful companies direct all of their efforts towards operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy. As customers' demands for the highest quality products, best services, and lowest prices increase daily, the rules for market leadership are changing. Once powerful companies that haven't gotten the message are faltering, while others, new and old, are thriving. In disarmingly simple and provocative terms, Treacy and Wiersema show what it takes to become a leader in your market, and stay there, in an ever more sophisticated and demanding world. :Michael Treacy, Treacy & Company LLC and Fred Wiersema, Ibex Partners :Perseus Press :6/1/1996 :Book

Competitive Intelligence Resource Index   Online community for Competitive Intelligence and Strategic Planning Professionals worldwide. Competia offers focused, highly practical articles that will inform readers of the latest tools, techniques and products to help them develop into superb business and competitive intelligence analysts. Competitive Intelligence Review - leading journal of the CI profession, Intelligence Online / Intelligence Newsletter. :Portal

Building Competitive Advantage Through People   Today's scarce, sought-after strategic resource is expertise, which comes in the form of employees. In addition to issues of company structure and who should be involved in strategic decision making, there are questions of how the value that companies create should be distributed, now that employees, as well as shareholders, control a scarce resource. HR managers must acquire and retain highly skilled employees, embed individual-based knowledge in the company and create an engaging, motivating and bonding culture. :Christopher A. Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal :Sloan Management Review :1/1/2002 :Article

Baldrige Organizational Profile Self-Assessment and Action Planning for Business   The online Organizational Profile is a snapshot of your organization, the key influences on how you operate, and the key challenges you face. The first section, Organizational Description, addresses your organization's business environment and your key relationships with customers, suppliers, and other partners. The second section, Organizational Challenges, calls for a description of your organization's competitive environment, your key strategic challenges, and your system for performance improvement. If you identify topics for which conflicting, little, or no information is available you can use these topics for action planning. :Association

Mercer TalentSuite   An integrated, modular suite of enterprise software applications that revolutionizes the way your organization manages and leverages talent. Using competencies, it helps organizations specify successful performance and apply these standards to hiring, promoting, managing, and rewarding employees. And its easy-to-use, configurable software modules can be deployed rapidly, extending from a sole office across a global enterprise. :Consulting

Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence 2003   Provides a systems perspective for understanding performance management. They reflect validated, leading-edge management practices against which an organization can measure itself. With their acceptance nationally and internationally as the model for performance excellence, the Criteria represent a common language for communication among organizations for sharing best practices. The Criteria are also the basis for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award process. :Article

Gaining Advantage Over Competitors   A concept central to strategy is that of a "sustainable competitive advantage," a special asset or competence that enables a company to earn supercompetitive profits for an unusually long time. But what, exactly, is a sustainable competitive advantage, and how can a company know that it has one? :The McKinsey Quarterly :The McKinsey Quarterly, Number 3 :6/1/2000 :Article

Revisiting Reengineering   Heralded as the corporation's savior, BPR was later condemned as a heartless, failed management fad. The radical redesign of corporate processes (from order-taking to procurement, from product development to customer service) with the goal of dramatic breakthroughs in performance. The management fad with the greatest reputation for arrogance is also the one most prone to mea culpas by its leaders. But perhaps evangelists like Michael Hammer needed to go even farther. :Art Kleiner :Booz Allen & Hamilton :6/1/2000 :Article

Integrating entrepreneurship and strategic management actions to create firm wealth.   Many of the activities that organizations engage in to create wealth take place within 6 domains: innovation, networks, internationalization, organization learning, top management teams and governance, and growth. Importantly, the entrepreneurship and strategic management literatures have insights for entrepreneurs and general managers about the value to be gained by paying attention to these 6 domains. :R Duane Ireland; Michael A Hitt; S Michael Camp; Donald L Sexton; :Academy of Management Executive Journal :2/1/2001 :Article

MIT Industrial Performance Centre   Dedicated to the study of industries throughout the world. Interdisciplinary teams of scholars work to observe, analyze and report on strategic, technological, and organizational developments in a broad range of industries and their implications for society and the global economy. Seeks to help leaders better understand global industrial developments and to work with them to develop practical new approaches for strengthening public policies, business strategies, technical practices, and educational programs. :MIT/Sloan :Archive

Manufacturing.Net   Combines the industry's most comprehensive product and supplier databases with news, original editorial content, and powerful search and retrieval capabilities. Contains a wealth of information for manufacturing professionals in an easily accessible format. It includes up-to-date product information, economic statistics and industry-specific news and research. 23 Magazines contribute content on Design, Processing and Automation, Plant Operations/MRO and Supply Chains plus manufacturing Yellow Pages. :Association

Industry Week Research and Benchmarking   Business tools to compare your company's financial performance across 14 measures such as return on assets and debt-to-equity by conducting a free benchmark at Benchmarkreport.com. Track current practices of American manufacturers. Purchase IW's Benchmarking Products to obtain performance data from thousands of American manufacturing facilities. Benchmarking Tool Kit, Best Plants Performance Benchmarks, E-business Benchmarking Database and Value-Chain Database. :Archive

IndustryWeek's Best Practices in management and manufacturing   It's editorial mission is to root out and illustrate best management and manufacturing practices. IW 1000: Top Global Manufacturers, IW 1000: Industry Benchmarks, Census of Manufacturers, World's Best-Managed Companies: Four-Time Winners, America's Best Plants: 1995-1999 :Portal

Strategy at the Edge of Chaos   "Fishbowl" economics once provided the basis of corporate strategy, but no longer. New theories show that markets are "complex adaptive systems." Can managers be more than blind players in an evolutionary business game? :Eric D. Beinhocker :McKinsey Quarterly :6/1/1997 :Article

Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness   Based at the Harvard Business School and led by Michael Porter, the Institute is dedicated to the study of competition and its implications for company strategy; the competitiveness of nations, regions, and cities; and the relationship between competition and society. The Institute seeks to develop new theory, assemble bodies of data to test and apply the theory, and disseminate its ideas widely to scholars and practitioners in business, government, and non-governmental organizations such as universities, economic development organizations, and foundations. :Harvard Business School :Institute

Turning Capabilities into Advantages   Research into companies that succeed in sustaining growth for long periods reveals that they think broadly about capabilities. Some rely on operational skill, the narrow definition of capability. But a surprising number from our sample thrived by employing distinctive competencies that allow growth to not only make more money from existing businesses, but also to extract greater value from new opportunities. :Mehrdad A. Baghai, Stephen C. Coley, David White :The McKinsey Quarterly, 1999 Number 1, pp. 100-109 :6/1/1999 :Article

MoreBusiness.com   By entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs portal of easy-to-use resources for the small business entrepreneur. Includes links to free software, how-to articles, templates, worksheets, current news clips and more. :Portal

Entrepreneur magazine and Entrepreneur.com   Entrepreneur Media Inc. is an organization of people dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs worldwide to start and grow successful companies. Through a full range of products and services, we provide entrepreneurs with the relevant information they need to make informed decisions. Entrepreneur magazine and Entrepreneur.com combine to reach nearly 5 million viewers each month, which makes us the number-one gateway to the small-business market. :Portal