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The belief that leaders should find the "best" industries and move their company into them is misguided; in almost every case, a bigger opportunity lies in rising to the top of the industry you're in.

New research concludes that publicly traded Chinese companies in safety-regulated industries with C-suite executives who previously served in a high-level government position suffer worker fatalities at five times the rate of "unconnected" companies.

The traditional marketing mix--product, place, price, promotion--yields narrow strategies that are increasingly at odds with the imperative to deliver solutions. Marketers need to adopt a new framework focused on solutions, access, value, and education--SAVE.

New research from the UK shows that people are less likely to choose the highest-rated option in a quality ranking when it appears first on the list. So which option will they probably be drawn to? One that falls in the middle.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on his deep conviction that business leadership should not be only about maximizing profits for shareholders, but also about deliberately pursuing the many other positive impacts good businesses can have on their stakeholders.

Robert B. Zoellick, a former president of the World Bank Group who has held senior posts at the State and Treasury departments and the White House, offers seven points of advice for private sector executives who are invited to take high-level government posts.

A study from BBDO and AOL offers important insights to advertisers hoping to reach consumers through their smartphones. For starters, "mobile" doesn't always mean on the go; most smartphone use happens at home. And users' number one activity isn't shopping or socializing but relaxing.

Like Apple did, Makerbot Industries offered its first product in the form of a kit. Enthusiasts, who wanted to build their own 3D printer and enter the brave new world of personal manufacturing could create any object in their imagination-as long as it was no bigger than a coffee cup. The founders of Makerbot--Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer and Zach Smith--were each passionate to bring affordable 3D printing to the masses. Moreover, they would not betray their commitment to open technology and open innovation. Above all else, they wanted to make their 3D printers understandable to and modifiable by users. They did this by keeping every aspect of their 3D printers' hardware and software open and adaptable. Through the creation of Thingaverse.com (a universe of things), an expanding army of Makerbot enthusiasts could upload, share and modify a growing array of 3D objects including toys, small inventions, medical devices and even architectural models. What advantages did Makerbot's strategy of openness bestow? How was Makerbot positioned for future battles in the emerging personal manufacturing industry with Hewlett-Packard and others? Lastly, how did Makerbot turn a unique research endeavor into a powerful idea attracting venture funds from Jeff Bezos, The New York Times and venture capitalists?

Decision Support, Analytics, and Business Intelligence is an eight-chapter book written by Daniel J. Power, Professor of Management Information Systems at the College of Business Administration at the University of Northern Iowa, and published by Business Expert Press in 2013. This revised and expanded edition targets MBA students and management professionals who need to quickly grasp the basics of analytics, business intelligence, and computerized decision support. Major topics include: modern decision support systems (DSS), business intelligence and data driven support systems, predictive analytics and model-driven support, as well as identifying opportunities for decision support. The author addresses 61 of the most fundamentally relevant concepts needed to build a solid understanding of the rapidly changing realm of computerized decision support. The 8th and final chapter examines the continuing impacts technological developments will exert on DSS. The author compares two types of evaluation activities - formative vs. summative evaluation - to be carried out during and after completing a project. The potential ethical issues associated with building and using DSS, the role of project champion, and the expectations in next-generation decision support are also explored

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. New markets and new possibilities for expansion and acquisition make the global competitive landscape more dynamic, creating both threats and opportunities. The task of the global strategist involves not only identifying where to leverage a company's existing strengths but also how to enhance and renew its capabilities. The authors argue that the risks of global expansion can be greatly reduced by taking a systematic approach to the decision-making process about entering a new country. They conclude that the experience of many global companies suggests that expensive mistakes are often made when companies don't ask certain key questions before they make such internationalization decisions. By better understanding the nature of their own competitive advantages and how those advantages might fit into or be augmented by a new market, companies can greatly improve their chances of success. The authors illustrate their argument by drawing on the examples of companies such as CEMEX, Telefänica, Accor, Wal-Mart and IKEA. The authors propose two tests for the global strategist, one to use when a company is considering replicating a successful strategy in a new country, and the other to use when a company is seeking to acquire a new capability in a new market.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. These days, 3-D printing is much in the news. Also known as "additive manufacturing"or "rapid prototyping,"3-D printing is the printing of solid, physical 3-D objects. Unlike machining processes, which are subtractive in nature, 3-D printing systems join together raw materials to form an object. Some see 3-D printing and related technologies as having transformative implications. "Just as the Web democratized innovation in bits, a new class of 'Äòrapid prototyping'technologies, from 3-D printers to laser cutters, is democratizing innovation in atoms,"Wired magazine's longtime editor-in-chief, Chris Anderson, stated in his new book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. "A new digital revolution is coming, this time in fabrication,"MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld wrote in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. But in addition to 3-D printing's technological implications, recent evolutions in 3-D printing offer important management lessons for executives about the changing face of technological innovation -and what that means for businesses. In this article, the authors examine the rapid emergence of a movement called open-source 3-D printing and how it fits into a general trend toward open-source innovation by collaborative online communities. They then discuss how existing companies can respond to -and sometimes benefit from -open-source innovation if it occurs in their industry.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Too often, conventional approaches to organizational transformation resemble the Big Bang theory. Change occurs all at once, on a large scale, and often in response to crisis. Yet we know from a great deal of experience that Big Bang transformation attempts often fail, fostering employee discontent and producing mediocre solutions with little lasting impact. Instead of undertaking a risky, large-scale makeover, organizations can seed transformation by collectively uncovering "everyday disconnects"-the disparities between our expectations about how work is carried out and how it is actually is. The discovery of such disconnects encourages people to think about how the work might be done differently. Continuously pursuing these smaller-scale changes -and then weaving them together -offers a practical middle path between large-scale transformation and smallscale pilot projects that run the risk of producing too little too late. The author has found that organizations take three approaches to discovery that are both particularly effective for uncovering everyday disconnects in the organization's work and seeding transformation from the bottom up. These techniques can be used together. The three techniques are: 1. Work Discovery Instead of assuming that you know how work is designed, examine it firsthand as it is actually conducted. Determine how to turn the (inevitable) surprises you uncover into assets. 2. Better Practices Instead of simply adopting the best practices of other organizations, screen the way work gets done in your organization through those best practices to generate new ideas. In other words, use best practices to generate even better practices. 3. Test Training Instead of locking down standard operating procedures during training, experiment with other, potentially better possibilities for changing the way the work will get done. Use training for testing these possibilities.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Although the initial concept for the human cloud was to create an eBay-like marketplace for talent and labor, there were obstacles. The simple auction model seemed ill-suited for large, complex undertakings. The model was also often perceived as too risky by managers, who had a hard time developing "virtual"rapport with workers. Today, four new human cloud models have developed, each aiming to overcome these problems in a distinct way: 1. The Facilitator model connects suppliers and buyers directly through a bidding process but offers increased visibility into the supplier's identity and work processes. Elance and oDesk are examples of this model. 2. The Arbitrator model enables buyers to compare the inputs of multiple providers before choosing which to purchase. Arbitrator platforms such as CrowdSpring and InnoCentive follow this approach. 3. The Aggregator model breaks down a job, such as proofreading, translation, transcription or tagging, into tiny bits of work -microtasks -and finds workers willing to complete these tasks, sometimes in the context of a game. Platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk and CrowdFlower offer such capabilities. 4. The most sophisticated model, the Governor, provides project management, supplier certification and quality control to assure qualified coordination and management of complex projects. The authors note that harnessing the human cloud's power will -as with earlier outsourcing waves -require hard work and learning. Buyers may find it helpful to think about managing a human cloud initiative much the same way that they manage the main phases of any outsourcing engagement.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. It's difficult to start a venture that gains traction with paying customers, but it's even harder to grow beyond certain levels of sales. Why? The authors point out that, as ventures grow, their complexity increases. Not only are there more "moving parts,"but interdependencies are more difficult to manage. The original business model must deal with new products or markets. Early leadership behaviors that worked in establishing the business are often not adequate to manage and grow it. SG&A (selling, general and administrative) costs often accelerate faster than revenues. The result: Each year thousands of promising ventures are either forced to go out of business or operate in small niches because they are unable to scale their sales activities. The authors illustrate with the example of a real company in the payroll services business. After a period of rapid growth, "BusinessProcessingCo."saw its revenue growth stall and the SG&A burden become untenable. The company had a costly ad hoc process for evaluating opportunities, forecasting and business development initiatives. The leadership team was unable to define its core customers. As the authors explain, different customers come with different transaction costs for the seller. This affects "upstream"capacity utilization in two respects: the product mix of the selling company (what kind of capacity is utilized) and how capacity is utilized (for example, production lines in manufacturing and the types of people and skills in a service business). The selection of customers also affects "downstream"after-sale economics and organizational requirements. The article discusses the importance of customer selection and how intelligent opportunity management can help companies scale their selling initiatives. It concludes with a general framework for helping executives analyze sales productivity and pipeline value.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Results from the fourth year of MIT Sloan Management Review's research collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group have found that managers who say sustainability has caused their organization to change its business model are also more likely to say that the organization's sustainability activities have added to profits. Respondents to the survey who not only changed their business model because of sustainability but also generated profits from their sustainability-related activities and decisions -"Sustainability-Driven Innovators"-represented 23% of the survey pool. The survey results suggest that business model change, top management support, collaboration with customers and having a business case are associated with creating economic value from sustainability activities and decisions. Ninety percent of all managers who said their companies have all these characteristics also say that their sustainability activities add to their profits. The authors'research suggests several ways in which companies can become more effective at connecting business model change with sustainability-based profits. Based on the behavior of Sustainability-Driven Innovators, they make three recommendations for how managers can improve their odds of profiting from their sustainability activities. First is to be prepared to change the business model, which may involve extensive corporate change, require significant top management attention and entail setting multiyear goals. Second is to learn how your customers think about sustainability and understand what they are willing to pay for in connection with sustainable products or services. The final recommendation involves increasing collaboration both internally and externally with customers, businesses and groups beyond the boundaries of the organization to improve operations and competitive advantage.

Innovative companies fund internal research and development to gain an edge in the marketplace. They also work closely with their suppliers in an effort to offer greater functionality and performance for their customers. However, some critical new product insights don't come from suppliers and customers working together but from the customer's customers. When suppliers and customers cooperate, the authors write, they can "tweak"the technology to provide big gains in value for the customer's customers. In contrast to recent research on how suppliers and customers cooperate to save on costs, the authors examine the innovation process to understand how to achieve outcomes for the end user that otherwise would not occur. Drawing on numerous examples from technology companies, they look at how suppliers and customers become open to tweaking the supplier's offering to better serve the customer's customers; what makes for successful tweaking; and various ways parties can share the fruits of collaboration so that everyone benefits. Although some progressive suppliers and customers saw the potential benefits of working together, many of the businesses the authors examined regarded this kind of cooperation as a last resort. Small suppliers saw large prospective customers as slow to make decisions and overly aggressive about claiming intellectual property that came out of collaborations; large customers also tended to withhold information about how they used the suppliers'technologies and their customers'applications. However, the authors found that some technology businesses consciously seek opportunities to cooperate with their customers and customer's customers. This was particularly true with small and medium-sized companies. The authors explore two key issues: the extent to which contact between the supplier and the customer's customer needs to be direct; and how businesses bridge across different partial understandings to improve their chances of success.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In the perennial tug of war between manufacturers and retailers, retailers seem to be winning. Today's retail industry is more concentrated than ever -in many industries and markets, a handful of retailers account for a majority of the sales. Their ability to control market access and influence consumer buying behavior means that manufacturers need retailers more than ever. And just imperatively, the authors argue, they need to understand what makes retailers tick. As retailer influence has grown, they note, power has moved downstream. For example, Wal-Mart's sale are approximately 4.5 times greater than those of its largest supplier, Procter & Gamble. Consolidation and the global scale of retailers have reduced the number of "buying points"that manufacturers can develop. Yet neither side is satisfied with the current system. Many retailers have difficulty converting trade promotion into profits. Rather than building longer-term partnerships with suppliers and nurturing store and shopper loyalty, retailers tend to compete on price and fritter away the trade support they extract from manufacturers. What can be done to improve the situation? While manufacturers are locked into large fixed investments and wedded to products and brands with long payback cycles, retailers have a variety of ways of making money. The particular approach, or the mixture of approaches, that a retailer selects defines the retailer's business model and how it differs from competitors. The article highlights four different retail business models, as exemplified by Tesco, which connects with consumers through its loyalty program; Loblaw, which relies heavily on private labels; Costco, which gets its suppliers to finance its inventory; and Wal-Mart, which focuses closely on margins.

The authors argue that strategy can be defined and created using a simple framework that entails answering five questions - the same five questions, no matter the type, size or context of the organization.

Thriving employees are less susceptible to stress and burnout - and much healthier, overall. When employees are thriving, they are not satisfied with the status quo, and behave proactively to co-create their job environment in ways that enable more thriving. The authors describe three individual and three organizational enablers of thriving, including providing decision making discretion and minimizing incivility.

The search for the secrets of high performance organizations has been intense, yielding countless best-selling books and imitators in the process. However, a newer quest has emerged on the organizational front, for something that cannot be as easily imitated: high integrity. Before you can increase integrity in your organization, the author argues, you must familiarize yourself with the obstacles in your way. These obstacles include greed, fear and rationalization. Once all of this is taken into account, he provides four concrete steps for leaders to take.