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Set in early October 2017, this case follows Utz Claassen, the founder and chairman of Syntellix - a medical parts company that specialised in the research, development and sales of bio-absorbable, metallic implants. Syntellix was founded in 2008 as a spin-off from the special research division at the University of Hanover in Germany with the intention of translating the institute's theoretical knowledge of magnesium-based biodegradable implants into viable medical applications. After the successful completion of animal testing in 2010, the company began human clinical studies of its patented MAGNEZIX® alloy used in compression screws, pins and plates for the treatment of bone fractures, which had traditionally relied on steel and titanium parts. After more than five years of meticulous hard work, by 2017 MAGNEZIX® medical screws and pins have met CE-approval for human use in 30 countries. The product officially launched in Germany in September 2013. And by the end of 2016, about 25,000 successful implants had taken place across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In March 2017, Syntellix AG founded Syntellix Asia based in Singapore, where it received venture financing and government support to make inroads into the booming Asian healthcare sector. Despite such success, the biggest operational difficulty Syntellix has is to continue making its way in a market dominated by gigantic players with huge resources, infrastructure and relationship network.

In September 2016, a senior consultant at the Indore campus of the Central Institute of Management and Consulting (CIMC) was busy preparing some documents for a meeting on a transportation problem the organization was facing. CIMC Indore's chief operating officer had requested his assistance to resolve the transport department's issues. Management was incurring substantial yearly costs for maintenance related to the drivers that operated the various vehicles of the organizations. There was also a need to rationalize the workload of the drivers to avoid dissonance among employees. Following his meeting with the chief operating officer, the senior consultant saw an opportunity to reduce the annual cost of drivers, while addressing some of the dissatisfaction that was present among drivers concerning their schedules and workload.

At a time when many traditional retailers are closing their physical stores, digitally native vertical brands such as Bonobos, which specializes in men's apparel, and Warby Parker, which specializes in eyeglasses, are aggressively expanding into offline locations. In this article, the authors explore two related trends: (1) the expansion of online-first retailers into offline stores that "supercharge"customer value and (2) the transformation of stores run by traditional, offline-first retailers from fulfillment-dominant centers into experience-dominant centers. As authors David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino, and Antonio Moreno note, as digitally native vertical brands have learned to build relationships with customers, traditional retailers have been reducing their store sizes and inventories and are attempting to improve and elevate the customer experience. "Showroom experiences," they write, "create better customers." When customers are exposed to the brand in a showroom, "they are better able to resolve any uncertainty about the nondigital attributes of the retailer's product."Similarly, the authors say, "showrooms create better retailers: When customers are physically present in the retail environment, observation of their behaviors can lead to meaningful insights." The authors developed their early insights into what customers value while working closely with Bonobos and Warby Parker. Through simulations, they saw that stores with smaller footprints and a higher level of service led to better results economically -improved margins, smoother logistics, and better control of inventory. They found that, rather than being dead, physical retail stores were very much alive with a profound shift in focus -from fulfillment to experience-oriented environments. The authors conclude that online-first retailers and traditional retailers have something to learn from each other.

New emotion-sensing technologies can help employees make better decisions, improve concentration, alleviate stress, and adopt healthier and more productive work styles. But companies must address important privacy issues.

Today's retailers need to adopt a data-driven view -with the goal of understanding how website features and advances in AI will affect consumer behavior.

It's common practice to develop a handful of strategic priorities to focus strategy -but formulated correctly, they're also useful communication tools for both internal and external stakeholders. Clear, credible priorities linked to explicit metrics offer a framework for assessing progress toward the company's goals, in a way that abstractions like vision or mission cannot.

As the effects of climate change become more prominent, business needs to grapple with its own attitudes toward government. A more destructive physical environment requires a more nuanced relationship in which government is viewed as a partner in enabling and supporting markets rather than as a regulator that needs to be managed.

Most CEOs have detailed long-term plans, which are often closely held secrets out of concern that competitive advantage may be undermined by detailed disclosure. Yet disclosing a long-term plan provides an opportunity to identify financially material sustainability issues and demonstrate how the company manages business-critical issues -information that's valuable to investors.

Meeting the recommendations for disclosure put forth by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures might seem like a tough job. But if the oil & gas industry is any example, it's not as difficult as some might imagine -and there are excellent reasons for corporate boards to consider it.

As sexy as it is to speculate about new technologies such as AI, robots, and the internet of things, the focus on technology can steer the conversation in a dangerous direction. Because when it comes to digital transformation, digital is not the answer. Transformation is. In various industries, including banking, paint, and shipbuilding, digital leaders are finding that technology's value comes from doing business differently because technology makes it possible.

New studies show that companies can derive significant value from free digital goods such as open source software, especially when they pay their own employees to contribute to their creation -even if these assets become available to competitors.

"Investments in scale used to make a lot of sense,"argues author Hemant Taneja. They supported the development of cars, airplanes, radio, and television, and built out the electric grid and telephone system. But with the emergence of mobile, social, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence in recent years, Taneja argues that business logic has shifted toward what he describes as "the economics of unscale,"which allows for mass customization for increasingly narrow markets. Because companies can stay nimble and focused by easily and instantly renting scale, they can adjust quickly to changing demand and conditions with little cost and relatively little effort. According to Taneja, large corporations are taking note. Traditionally, Procter & Gamble Co. invented most of its new products in-house. But in recent years it has started to tap into ideas from outside inventors who submit ideas via the internet. Other large companies, including General Electric Co. and Walmart Stores Inc., are tapping into new, unscaled businesses as well. Taneja presents three recommendations to large companies seeking to remain relevant. His first recommendation is to become a platform. Operating a platform can be enormously profitable because the companies that operate on the platforms come to depend on them for their success. The author's second recommendation is to instill a product focus. Big companies, he argues, get sidetracked on issues that have little to do with making great products. But in an unscaled era, this can create openings for focused small competitors. His third recommendation is to find growth opportunities through what he calls "dynamic rebundling."The winners in the unscaled economy, he writes, "make every customer feel like a market of one."Products and services that are tailored to individuals will often have an advantage over mass-market products and services, Taneja says.

Considering the increasing pace of technological change and volatility in many industries, the need for corporate transformation is rising. Unfortunately, the chance of successfully achieving it is falling.

Launching a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing platform is not easy. Online support forums have two distinct segments: those who seek product support, and those who provide it. Knowledge seekers are hesitant to ask questions if knowledge contributors are few and far between, and knowledge contributors will not sign up if there are not enough problems to solve. It is a classic chicken or egg challenge that can be effectively addressed by seeding the platform with expert knowledge.

Using examples from companies the authors have studied or advised, the article describes a four-step process for leveraging technology that involves: (1) characterizing the technology, (2) identifying potential applications, (3) choosing from among the identified applications, and (4) selecting the best entry mode. The first step involves "de-linking"the technology from the specific products in which it is currently used. To do this, the authors explain, companies need to identify the functions the technology can perform. A good characterization can broaden the scope of the potential opportunities and allow people to focus clearly on the technology's abilities and limits. In many settings, this step requires extensive testing and R&D investment. As they explain, "You can't look for new applications until you know what your technology can do vis-à-vis what competing solutions do." Once companies have specified what the technology is, they can begin exploring new settings where it might be applied. Although the authors recommend starting with desk research, the biggest benefits often come from getting out of the office and interacting with people. Trade shows, they say, provide an excellent way to see firsthand where the technology and its alternatives might be applied, and to hear about the pain points of the existing technologies. Another approach is to tap into communities of problem-solvers who might be able to provide suggestions. Although identifying opportunities with the most promise may appear to be straightforward, in practice, the authors note, it can be more involved. Companies often underestimate the challenges of applying the technology, which may be revealed only by building early prototypes. In bringing technology to new markets, the goal should be to find new application areas where your technology performs better on existing performance dimensions, introduces a new performance dimension, or delivers the desired outcome at a lower cost.

This puts even the best incumbent companies in a weak position when the market finally embraces the new technology, something the authors call the "hybrid trap." This article takes a close look at the auto industry's transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs) and compares it to precedents in other industries. Several incumbent automakers, such as General Motors Co. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd., entered the EV market early, but they backed away from these projects in favor of continued emphasis on established engine technology. Gradually, most of them focused on hybrid cars that combined old and new technologies. This opened the door to new competitors, notably Tesla Inc., which focused solely on the EV technology. By mid-2017, nearly every old-line engine producer was playing catch-up on EV technology, working to release new electric models in the next two to five years. Although it is too early to know if Tesla will be successful in the long run, the Tesla example, in the authors'view, points to a fundamental weakness in how incumbents respond to industry transformations. In the 1960s, U.S. electronics companies responded to the introduction of Japanese transistor radios by developing products that blended transistor technology with traditional vacuum tubes. In the early 1990s, Kodak Ltd. tried to sell a "film-based digital imaging"product, which merged film photography and digital technology. And a decade ago, BlackBerry Ltd. tried to respond to the challenge of the iPhone by releasing a phone that had both a touchscreen display (like the iPhone) and a traditional keyboard (like earlier BlackBerry phones). The answer for incumbents, the authors write, isn't to walk away from products based on the old technology and jump headlong into the new. But they need to take precautions so that the company's legacy operations don't hamper their ability to pursue new technology.

Research shows that most organizations fall far short when it comes to strategic alignment. The authors'analysis of 124 organizations revealed that only 28% of executives and middle managers responsible for executing strategy could list three of their company's strategic priorities. How do leaders close this dangerous strategic-alignment gap?

As the digital revolution rages on, every business leader must become technology literate. This guide provides executives with an introduction to the technologies that are transforming our world.

The 2018 Data & Analytics Global Executive Study and Research Report by MIT Sloan Management Review finds that innovative, analytically mature organizations make use of data from multiple sources: customers, vendors, regulators, and even competitors. The report, based on MIT SMR's eighth annual data and analytics global survey of over 1,900 business executives, managers, and analytics professionals, explores companies leading the way with analytics and customer engagement.