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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Not long ago, companies had to rely in large part on surveys and focus groups to understand what customers liked and didn't like about their products. In recent years, social media and online ratings have given businesses new ways to learn about customers'opinions about their products. Today, however, some of the products themselves -- at least those devices that are part of the connected world of the Internet of Things -- are starting to provide unprecedented levels of information that can be used to improve both the products and the customer experience. In particular, information from connected devices offers companies three tremendously important core pieces of contextual information that were previously unavailable: where the products are being used, how they are being used, and which customers are using them at any given time. Going forward, the authors expect that companies that manufacture smart, connected products will have an advantage in the market. For instance, a company does not have to wait until a customer calls with a complaint to know that a product connected to the Internet of Things is not working correctly; the product has already communicated the information. With this advance knowledge, the company can report an issue to a customer and seek to address it before it becomes a bigger problem. This service call could also turn into a sales call if the company adds a new feature that gives the product additional capabilities.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. GE has bet big on the Industrial Internet - the convergence of industrial machines, data, and the Internet. The company is putting sensors on gas turbines, jet engines, and other machines; connecting them to the cloud; and analyzing the resulting flow of data. The goal: identify ways to improve machine productivity and reliability. This MIT Sloan Management Review case study looks at how this traditional manufacturer is remaking itself into a modern digital business.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. The 2016 Data & Analytics Report by MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS finds that analytics is now a mainstream idea, but not a mainstream practice. Few companies have a strategic plan for analytics or are executing a strategy for what they hope to achieve with analytics. Organizations achieving the greatest benefits from analytics ensure the right data is being captured, and blend information and experience in making decisions.

Not long ago, it was generally accepted that nice guys and gals finish last in the cutthroat world of big business. Over the past decade, the social enterprise movement has changed the way many people view the end game of capitalism. Nevertheless, the idea that jerks make better CEOs survived the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, Ivey Business School research on leader character has demonstrated that long-term sustainable success is best gained through company executives having a balance of personality traits including compassion, humility, and empathy. In other words, putting a jerk at the helm of a company isn’t advisable even if they have excellent experience, drive, and competencies. <br><br> There is a persistent notion among entrepreneurs that the right “Startup DNA” is comprised of characteristics such as resilience and the ability to accept risk, along with arrogance and the ability to be a huge jerk. But what if billionaire jerks had reined in their inner boor when bringing ideas to market? According to Ivey Professor Ann Frost, many of the world’s successful jerks might be richer if they had played nice, or at least nicer. When venture capitalists invest in start-ups, they spend a lot of time with the management team they’re betting on. VCs also typically add founders of their new portfolio companies to their CEO networks, which tend to function better when members comfortably share ideas instead of aggressively clashing over egos. As such, some VCs have “no A-holes” policies, meaning having a bad reputation can limit one’s ability to strike a favourable deal before negotiations even begin. “The goal [of negotiations] is really finding common ground,” says Professor Frost. “And nobody wants to share ground with a jerk, so they are inclined to make them pay.” While conflict over ideas generally leads to superior outcomes, interpersonal conflict leads to the A-hole tax.

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has become a prominent management theory that firms can use to analyze resources as potential sources of competitive advantage. Theorists have suggested sponsorship of sport properties as one such resource, yet specific cases of sponsorship's role in a firm's achievement of a sustained advantage over competitors have yet to be explored. This article illuminates the case of Visa's longstanding global sponsorship of the Olympic Games, which was initiated and leveraged to counteract competitor American Express' advantage with global business travelers. Evidence is presented that supports Visa's achievement of a competitive advantage during the term of the sponsorship. The case is then used to develop a conceptual model based on the RBV to identify the key characteristics of sponsored properties capable of assisting the sponsoring firm in achieving a sustained competitive advantage. From a managerial perspective, the model is designed to assist marketing managers tasked with the identification and evaluation of potential sponsorship properties.

Social media networks have become essential to the modern business world and are especially vital for sports firms and athletes. Social media networks are new channels for firms to connect with their audience and establish a social customer relationship. For sports firms, athletes play a special role, as they are the firms' ambassadors and the focus of virtual communities of fans. For most athletes, social media is a powerful tool to take advantage of their time in the spotlight. However, social media has much more potential. This work analyzes the social media profile and content created by six well-known sports figures--Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant--to develop a model (STAR) for social media use. The adoption of this model can enhance fan engagement online and therefore increase athletes' and firms' brand value and connectivity with consumers.

Sports performance is not the unique ingredient of a sports star's market value. Some gifted players are undermined by weak media exposure while some less talented players who actively engage in social media and attract fans in millions benefit from exorbitant contracts. This research conceptualizes the effect of social media in the sports business and analyzes the recipes that lead to high market value for sports stars. This study uses qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) on a sample of 95 top soccer players in Europe. The empirical results reveal that sports performance and social media activity are both necessary but insufficient conditions for a high market value condition. This research provides a roadmap for managers and sports stars to navigate in the social media arena.

College students are inseparable from their smartphones, and heavily engaged in Snapchat. This social media app allows low-consequence expression: messages disappear within 10 seconds to 24 hours of their receipt, depending on the content. Because college students seem strongly attracted to Snapchat, the implications for brand managers interested in reaching this target market deserve exploration. Four focus groups of self-described heavy users show that this media app allows college students to enter the virtual Snapchatverse and find a sweet spot of acquaintances. The sweet spot is associated with feelings of relatability, inclusion, and effortlessness and has the potential to produce empowering experiences. The verbal protocols of college students suggest that Snapchat is an ideal social media for developing acquaintance brands: brands that aim to make themselves part of an inclusive, feel-good experience or highly relatable acquaintances.

While social media can have significant benefits for organizations, the social media presences and postings of employees can be problematic for organizations. This is especially true when employees have connections to co-workers and managers. Workers posting content deemed inappropriate or detrimental to the organization has led to a significant number of workers being fired for their social media behavior. To avoid such situations, organizations should create social media policies to guide employee content. Organizational implementation of social media policy is on the rise, but serious questions remain as to how to make it effective. One crucial question is how well employees know and understand their employer's policy. In this article, we discuss how to communicate social media policies to workers and help their understanding. To inform our recommendations, we draw on exploratory data from a sample of young adult workers regarding their knowledge of their own company's social media policies.

With the advent of big data, the Internet of Things, cognitive computing, and social media, it is becoming more difficult to argue that one could not have known or at least have considered more alternatives, particularly negative unintended consequences that happen in addition to the intended positive ones. Organizations too often make a decision that will produce a positive consequence and then focus on how to implement it, rarely stepping back to ask ''What else could happen?'' Any decision changes the system in which it exists. The longer the time required to implement a decision, the more systemic changes can alter the effects of the decision on the system. Decisions to implement Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability initiatives usually involve many different stakeholders and may involve systems in which organizations have little expertise or experience. A major negative unintended consequence, even for a CSR initiative, can damage the stakeholders' trust in the organization. This article proposes a 5-step process to answer the question ''What else could happen?'' in order to identify possible unintended negative consequences, thereby helping organizations support their commitment to people, planet, and profit.

High-reliability organizations operate in highly regulated sectors in which the main concern is ensuring the safety of people and goods. Despite high levels of formalization, organizations have to be sensitive to contingent situations and ready to face the unexpected, so the role of the people in command remains crucial. When unanticipated events and contingencies arise, organizational improvisation comes into its own. Improvisation is the deliberate fusion of design and execution in a novel production entailing the cognitive, rational, and event intuitive interpretation of prescribed rules and standards of conduct at various levels of aggregation. Standardization and improvisation are often represented as two conflicting demands rather than as necessarily interdependent; hence, the possible presence of improvisation in high-reliability organizations has been left underexplored. While most of the extant studies on improvisation have stressed the wisdom of improvised choices, not all improvisations are so successful. In this article we illuminate the dark side of organizational improvisation by analyzing the notorious case of the sinking of the Costa Concordia. The case shows how conformity to the formal adoption of standards and compliance to them can provide a shelter under which impromptu adaptation can be pursued, expressing the negative side of improvisation.

Many retail and restaurant companies adopt international expansion as a strategy to take advantage of business opportunities presented by target markets. Common objectives include increasing revenue, escaping a hypercompetitive or saturated home market, entering an emerging or lucrative market, and leveraging domestic capabilities in a bordering country. Success in international expansion is not guaranteed, however; the business world is littered with failures. In this article, we examine the international expansion failures of five service companies that opened physical facilities in a foreign country: Target, Tim Hortons, Best Buy, Tesco, and Walmart. While a variety of factors led to these failures, some common causes have been identified. These include a lack of understanding of the purchasing characteristics of consumers, underestimation of the local competition, supply chain issues, and poor strategic decisions regarding facility location and the rate of expansion. Not all international expansions are failures, though, and herein we also present the success stories of Aldo, Carrefour, and Nordstrom. These companies understood customer preferences and focused on location issues and their supply chains. Based on the aforementioned failures and successes, we offer guidance for companies looking to expand their business operations via a physical presence in a foreign country.

Traditionally, firms have tried to listen to primary stakeholders (e.g., customers, suppliers, creditors, employees) but have paid little attention to the concerns of secondary stakeholders (e.g., the general public, communities, activist groups). This is because primary stakeholders were perceived to have power, legitimacy, and urgency behind their requests, while secondary stakeholders had little or no leverage. With the coming of the Internet and social media this asymmetry of influence has changed. Today, secondary stakeholders have to be managed as adroitly as primary stakeholders. In this installment of Marketing & Technology, we show managers how social media and the Internet have amplified the influence of secondary stakeholders, and offer guidance on how to manage these groups effectively.

Professional service firms are facing new competitive challenges in a global market with more value-focused clients, service commoditization, regulatory changes, and new Internet-enabled business models. They increasingly need to improve competitiveness through sustained innovation of the value they provide and the efficiency with which they provide it. But how can firms establish an effective and sustainable innovation system? This Executive Digest shares a best practice model for innovation based on academic research and honed by a decade of practical experience in application across professional service firms in consulting projects. This work covers how to develop innovation strategies by establishing processes and organization to support innovation, providing innovation training, developing new services, and re-engineering existing services. The author, Alastair Ross, details the practices required and shares some of the challenges encountered in realizing them. This article draws heavily on his latest book, Innovating professional services: Transforming value and efficiency.

Innovative marketers can now leverage augmented reality to craft immersive brand experiences, create more interactive advertising, and enable consumers to experience products and spaces in novel ways. Augmented reality (AR) is the practice of displaying digital information over people's real-time view of objects, people, or spaces in the physical world. While AR can play a valuable role in integrated marketing programs, little is known about the practice and how to execute effective AR programs in the marketplace. We address this gap by presenting a framework that describes the active and passive ingredients of augmented reality. We then describe the basic design decisions that marketers need to make when planning an augmented reality campaign. In addition, we explain how understanding and addressing the dynamics between various active and passive AR ingredients can help marketers to optimize their AR campaigns and enhance various types of consumer engagement: user-brand engagement, user-user engagement, and user-bystander engagement. Through our framework and analysis, we develop eight actionable recommendations--described with the acronym ENTANGLE--marketing managers can use to design immersive AR experiences that maximize consumer engagement.

For any service company that bills on a recurring basis, a key variable is the rate of churn: How many customers cancel? Firms with high churn spend a lot trying to replace defectors with new customers. New research by Georgia State University's V. Kumar shows that they might be better served by smart strategies aimed at getting the right former customers to come back. Working with data on more than 53,000 customers who left a telecom company, Kumar and his colleagues found that companies can benefit by answering four questions on the basis of customers' prior behavior and their reasons for leaving. How likely is a given customer to come back? How long will a reacquired customer stay, and how much will he or she spend? Which people should get which incentives to return? And which win-back strategy is the most profitable and will be best for the company overall? By targeting their offers accordingly, companies can significantly increase their win-back rates.

A quick wit may be the key to personal appeal, shows a new study out of the University of Queensland.

During the 2000s, in one of the largest commodity booms in history, Rio Tinto allowed itself to be swept up along with other mining companies in the mad rush for growth. Although the smart allocation of capital had traditionally been a strength at the 140-year-old company, Rio Tinto suffered multibillion-dollar write-downs of two of its boom-time acquisitions, and in 2012 it reported a net loss for the first time in 25 years. Early in 2013 the board of directors called on Walsh to take over as CEO. He knew that to succeed in such a turbulent environment, he would need to reconnect Rio Tinto with its core balance-sheet discipline and put it back on a path of measured, sustainable growth. He and the CFO decided to focus on three initiatives: tighten up investment decisions, allowing only the best projects to proceed; run the entire organization for cash; and drive efficiency throughout the company by cutting costs, exiting businesses, and rationalizing the workforce. But they also chose to pull best practices from other industries and fully harness the efficiency gains from new technology.

Social media was supposed to usher in a golden age of branding. But things didn't turn out that way. Marketers originally thought that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter would let them bypass mainstream media and connect directly with customers. Hoping to attract huge audiences to their brands, they spent billions producing their own creative content. But consumers never showed up. In fact, social media seems to have made brands less significant. What happened? The issue is, social media has transformed how culture works, in a way that weakens certain branding techniques. It has united once-isolated communities into influential "crowdcultures." Crowdcultures are very prolific cultural innovators. Their members produce their own content--so well that companies simply can't compete. Consider that people making videos in their living rooms top the charts on YouTube, which few companies have managed to crack. While they diminish the impact of branded content, crowdcultures grease the wheels for an alternative approach, "cultural branding." In it, a brand sets itself apart by promoting a new ideology that springs from the crowd. Chipotle did this successfully when it made two short films critiquing industrial food, tapping into a movement that began in the organic-farming subculture and blew up into a mainstream concern on social media. Other good examples come from personal care. Axe revived its brand by becoming an over-the-top cheerleader for the "lad" crowd that arose as a response to politically correct gender politics. Dove championed the other side of the divide, with campaigns that spoke to crowdculture concerns about unhealthy beauty standards for women. Brands succeed when they break through in culture, and crowdcultures are a great vehicle for doing that. But firms can't identify the critical opportunities by relying on traditional segmentation and trend reports.

Why do so many promising start-ups go off the rails? Often they have trouble scaling. Founders may resist imposing discipline for fear of losing agility and control--but the price may be chaotic operations and unpredictable performance. Drawing on extensive case studies and 75 years of research, the authors outline four activities that can help companies handle greater complexity as they seek new avenues for growth. Firms should: (1) Hire specialists in functions such as sales, HR, marketing, R&D, and manufacturing. This lets them tackle work more efficiently and catalyzes future growth by creating slack in the rest of the organization. (2) Add management structure. A few people at the top can't effectively supervise everyone's increasingly specialized daily work--and it's hard for employees to stay focused and engaged without guidance and processes. (3) Establish a framework of plans and goals. Otherwise, improvisation may amount to aimless riffing. (4) Sustain the culture. Articulate the founding values in mission statements and job descriptions, and hire and reward for cultural fit. Between the extremes of ad hoc and prescriptive organizing lies a useful middle ground--and leaders who can find it gain an important edge on their rivals.