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The author left the Boston Consulting Group to join Ozon in part because she had once been an entrepreneur and missed the excitement--but mostly because she saw the company's potential to become the Amazon of Russia. Russians were going online at an extraordinary rate; if Ozon could figure out how to deliver goods in an e-commerce market, despite the country's shaky distribution systems, its growth would skyrocket. The company's success in e-commerce would hinge on logistics and customer support. It had to persuade people that they could get their goods more quickly and reliably by ordering them online and having them delivered than by hoping to find them in stock at a shop. It needed a way to safely take and process the cash that Russians usually pay with. And it had to provide personal contact with customers and harvest data about their purchases and preferences. This is the story of how Gavet and her team met those challenges.

Corporate America began to really take notice of the looming retirement crisis in the wake of the dot-com crash, when companies in major industries went bankrupt in large part because of their inability to meet their pension obligations. The result was an acceleration of America's shift away from employer-sponsored pension plans toward defined-contribution plans--epitomized by the ubiquitous 401(k)--which transfer the investment risk from the company to the employee. With that transfer has come a dangerous shift in investment focus, argues Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton. Traditional pension plans were conceived and managed to provide members with a guaranteed income. And because that objective filtered right through the scheme, members thought of their benefits in those terms. Ask a member what her pension is worth and she'll reply with an income figure: "two-thirds of my final salary," for example. Most DC schemes, however, are designed and managed as investment accounts with the goal of accumulating the largest possible pot of savings. Communication with savers is framed entirely in terms of assets and returns. Ask a saver what his 401(k) is worth and you'll hear a cash amount and perhaps a lament to the value lost in the financial crisis. The trouble is that investment value and asset volatility are simply the wrong measures if your goal is to secure a particular future income. In this article, Merton explains a liability-driven investment strategy whose aim is to improve the probability of achieving a desired retirement income rather than to maximize the capital value of the savings.

Though social and digital media are rapidly transforming marketing and new tools emerge daily, in most firms the organization of the function hasn't changed in 40 years. How should marketers revamp their strategies, structures, and capabilities to meet the new realities? To find out, the consultancy EffectiveBrands and its partners conducted a study involving 10,000 marketers from 92 countries, which examined what separated high-performing marketers from the pack. High performers, the study showed, excelled in three areas: integrating data about what customers are doing with an understanding of why they are doing it; communicating a brand purpose (the functional, emotional, and societal benefits of the offering); and delivering a "total experience" to customers. To provide this kind of experience, high performers break down silos and enlist the help of the entire organization. That means they must link marketing strategy tightly to business strategy and to other functions; inspire employees across the company with the brand's purpose; focus and align around a few key priorities; set up nimble, cross-functional teams; and build internal capabilities through extensive training at all levels. Surprisingly, few companies have been able to put all these pieces together. Only half of even high-performing organizations excel on some of these capabilities. But that shouldn't be discouraging; rather, it just illuminates where there's work to do.

The gap between marketers' aspirations and what their organizations can accomplish creates intense pressure to reshape how marketing is done. In recent years some leading companies have developed an innovative approach that focuses on the seams between marketing and the other functions it interacts with--the C-suite, IT, sales, finance, and so on. It is at these seams that communication most often breaks down and processes stall. Typically, three categories of marketing-related decisions cross organizational seams: strategy and planning; execution; operations and infrastructure. When marketing works closely with other units to execute key decisions, it can get things done far more quickly and effectively than in the past. But divergent assumptions or a lack of alignment and shared commitment between functions can get in the way. When the authors asked people in marketing and other relevant units what roles they played in a decision, the answers were all over the map. In a classic example, both marketers and product developers in one automaker's European division believed that they had the final say on which features to include in a new model. The authors provide a tool for revamping the decision process at the boundaries between functions and describe how Target, Nordstrom, and other large companies have identified important decisions at the seams and increased the impact of their marketing organizations.

Despite the $11 billion spent on CRM software annually, many consumer companies don't understand customer relationships at all. They aren't aware of the variety of relationship types and don't understand what kind their customers want. Through research in a wide variety of consumer industries, the authors have identified 29 types of relationships. For example, some customers want to be "best friends" with a brand; others are looking for a passionate "fling"; still others find themselves as "ex-friends" and would welcome a closer bond. To understand the current portfolio of relationships, companies must pick up on signals from multiple sources. Companies can then build a strategic mix of connections by bolstering desired relationships and shifting customers to more-valuable types. There are many issues to consider: For example, some relationship types are more profitable than others. No actions will bear fruit unless a relationship orientation pervades not just the marketing function but every aspect of the company that touches customers or affects interactions with them. Customers don't just represent the next upsell or cross-sell opportunity; they are individuals looking for a certain kind of interaction. Companies need to respond accordingly.

Marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most technology-dependent functions in business. In response, a new type of executive is emerging--the chief marketing technologist. CMTs are part strategist, part creative director, part technology leader, and part teacher. They go by various titles, but they share a common job, intersecting with four key stakeholders in the organization: (1) The CMO and other senior marketing executives. Here, the CMT supports strategy by ensuring technical capabilities and advocating for approaches enabled by new technologies. (2) The CIO and IT. The chief marketing technologist facilitates and prioritizes technology requests from marketing, translating between technical and marketing requirements and making sure that marketing's systems adhere to IT policies. (3) The marketing team. The task here is to ensure that the marketing staff has the right software and training. (4) Software and service providers. The CMT assesses how well outside vendors' technical capabilities meet marketing's needs, helps integrate the systems, and monitors their performance. A thumbnail profile of Mayur Gupta, the global head of marketing technology and operations at Kimberly-Clark, shows just how open-ended the CMT role is and why an executive fully at home in both marketing and IT is essential for the job.

More and more companies recognize the importance of corporate responsibility to their long-term success--and yet the matter gets short shrift in most boardrooms, consistently ranking at the bottom of some two dozen possible priorities. Many years ago labor conditions in Asian contract factories prompted Nike board member Jill Ker Conway to lobby for a board-level corporate responsibility committee, which the company created in 2001. In the years since, the committee has steadily broadened its purview, now advising on a broad range of issues including innovation and acquisitions in addition to labor practices and resource sustainability. A close examination of Nike's experience has led HBS professor Lynn S. Paine to conclude that a dedicated board-level committee of this sort could be a valuable addition to many if not most companies in at least five ways: as a source of knowledge and expertise, as a sounding board and constructive critic, as a driver of accountability, as a stimulus for innovation, and as a resource for the full board. In an accompanying interview with Paine, Conway discusses the committee's creation and provides an insider's perspective on what has made it so effective.

Drawing on the idea that any business model is essentially a set of key decisions that collectively determine how a business earns its revenue, incurs its costs, and manages its risks, the authors view innovations to the model as changes to those decisions: What mix of products or services should you offer? When should you make your key decisions? Who are your best decision makers? and Why do key decision makers choose as they do? In this article they present a framework to help managers take business model innovation to the level of a reliable and improvable discipline. Companies can use the framework to make their innovation processes more systematic and open so that business model reinvention becomes a continual, inclusive process rather than a series of isolated, internally focused events.

Yang assumed the reins at Lenovo (formerly known as Legend) in 2001, when the company's founder, Liu Chuanzhi, moved on to become chairman. He served as CEO for three years before succeeding Liu as chairman, and he and Liu engineered the stunning 2005 acquisition of IBM's personal computer business, which suddenly made Lenovo the world's third-largest computer maker. In 2009, after the company had begun to falter during the global recession, the board asked Yang to return as CEO, a post he's held ever since. Pursuing a strategy the company calls "protect and attack"--defending its core market in PCs (Lenovo is now the world's number one manufacturer) while moving into new growth areas such as mobile and the cloud--Yang has turned things around. Earlier this year Lenovo spent $2.3 billion to acquire IBM's low-end server business and $2.9 billion for Google's Motorola Mobility unit. He talks here with HBR's editor in chief about Lenovo's innovations, competitors, acquisitions, and more.

In March 2011 Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was devastated by three reactor explosions and three core meltdowns in the days following a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami that produced waves as high as 17 meters. The world is familiar with Daiichi's fate; less well known is the crisis at its sister plant, Daini, about 10 kilometers to the south. As a result of the storm, three of Daini's four reactors lacked sufficient power to achieve cooldown. To prevent the disaster experienced up north, the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and his team had to connect them to the plant's surviving power sources. In a volatile environment, Masuda and Daini's hundreds of employees responded to each unexpected event in turn. Luck played a part, but so did smart leadership and sensemaking. Until the last reactor went into cold shutdown, Masuda and his team took nothing for granted. With each new problem they encountered, they recalibrated, iteratively creating continuity and restoring order. Daini survived the crisis without an explosion or a meltdown.

We'd like to think that no smart, upstanding manager would ever overlook or turn a blind eye to threats or wrongdoing that ultimately imperil his or her business. Yet it happens all the time. We fall prey to obstacles that obscure or drown out important signals that things are amiss. Becoming a "first-class noticer," says Max H. Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School, requires conscious effort to fight ambiguity, motivated blindness, conflicts of interest, the slippery slope, and efforts of others to mislead us. As a manager, you can develop your noticing skills by acknowledging responsibility when things go wrong rather than blaming external forces beyond your control. Bazerman also advises taking an outsider's view to challenge the status quo. Given the string of ethical failures of corporations around the world in recent years--from BP to GM to JPMorgan Chase--it's clear that leaders not only need to act more responsibly themselves but also must develop keen noticing skills in their employees and across their organizations.

The soccer superstar talks about becoming an informal team leader, why he came out of retirement to join the New York Cosmos, and what he thinks about money in sports.

Alaix began his career in finance and then spent years running businesses within large pharmaceutical companies. He was heading the animal health division at Pfizer when the company decided to spin off the division in an IPO and make him the CEO. Alaix knew that sophisticated external communication skills would be especially important in the months leading up to the IPO: He would be telling the company's story to analysts and potential investors, and their opinion of its strategy would have a direct impact on the value of the stock offering. He had about two years in which to pursue an aggressive training program and gain the skills he hadn't previously developed. Working with the HR department, he defined a development plan and then identified a mentor--the former CEO of a big European company. He used two communications trainers to help him hone his message and sharpen his delivery--and then practiced for interviews and road show pitches over and over again. Finally he met monthly with Pfizer executives and internal board members to learn the art of dealing with directors.

How can a person who seems so qualified for a position fail miserably in it? How can someone who clearly lacks relevant skills and experience succeed? The answer is potential, the ability to adapt and grow into increasingly complex roles and environments. For the past several decades, organizations have based their hiring decisions on competencies. But we have entered a new era of talent spotting. Geopolitics, business, industries, and jobs are changing so rapidly that it's impossible to predict the capabilities employees and leaders will need even a few years out. The question now is not whether people have the right skills; it's whether they have the potential to learn new ones. Research points to five markers of potential: a strong motivation to excel in the pursuit of challenging goals combined with the humility to put the group ahead of individual needs; an insatiable curiosity to explore new ideas and avenues; keen insight into connections that others don't see; a strong engagement with work and people; and the determination to overcome obstacles. Once organizations have hired true high potentials--a challenge, given the increasing scarcity of senior talent--and identified the ones they already have, it's crucial to focus on retaining them and on helping them live up to their potential by offering development opportunities that push them out of their comfort zones.

Sixty months after the 2008 recession ended, the economy was still sputtering, producing disappointing growth and job numbers. Corporations seemed stuck: Despite low interest rates, they were sitting on massive piles of cash and failing to invest in new initiatives. In this article, a leading innovation expert and his HBS colleague explore the reasons for this sluggishness. The crux of the problem, they say, is that investments in different types of innovation have different effects on growth but are all evaluated using the same (flawed) metrics. "Performance-improving innovations," which replace old products with better models, and "efficiency innovations," which lower costs, don't produce many jobs. (Indeed, efficiency innovations eliminate them.) "Market-creating innovations," which transform products so radically they create a new class of consumer, do generate jobs for their originators and for the economy. But the assessment metrics that financial markets--and companies--use always show efficiency and performance-improving innovations to be better opportunities. This is the capitalist's dilemma: Doing the right thing for long-term prosperity is the wrong thing for investors, according to the tools that guide investments. Those tools, however, are based on an unexamined assumption: that capital is scarce, and that performance should be assessed by how efficiently companies use it. The truth is, capital is no longer scarce, and our tools need to catch up to that reality.

Over and over again, executives make decisions that aren't in their companies' best interests, in response to pressure from Wall Street. Though many believe this happens because firms have a "fiduciary duty" to maximize shareholder returns, U.S. executives do not, as a matter of law, have any such obligation. Yet it's hard for them to resist demands from a quarter that has amassed such a huge and disproportionate share of power. In the past few decades, as legislation that put controls on Wall Street was largely undone, the size and profits of the financial sector grew enormously. That increased its influence, particularly its ability to sway the government by spending billions of dollars on lobbyists and political contributions. Even after the financial crisis, Wall Street was able to slow down and weaken new regulations meant to rein in its risky practices. This "financialization" of the economy has serious downsides: It increases volatility, inhibits growth, and misallocates resources, such as talent and capital, away from wealth creation and toward wealth distribution. It distorts thinking. Restoring the balance of power is critical to the competitiveness and the health of the rest of the economy. Limits on the size and leverage of banks and changes to the tax code could promote better equilibrium--but courage will be needed to put such reforms in place.

Managers and academics often lament that Wall Street's short-term focus makes it impossible for corporations to plan for the long run. Palmisano disagrees. Yes, there are some on Wall Street, such as the sell-side analysts who dominate quarterly earnings conference calls, who can't see more than a few months out. But CEOs shouldn't participate in those calls anyway, he believes. They should instead focus their energies on the institutional investors who will embrace the long view if they are given ways to judge a company's progress. In this edited interview with one of HBR's executive editors, Palmisano describes how IBM's top management made significant changes to how the firm set goals and communicated them to investors. "The model," a rolling multiyear road map for earnings growth and cash generation, included an emphasis on R&D investment even during downturns, a plan for execution that involved every unit in the organization, and a shift toward long-term compensation. Transparency and open dialogues with large shareholders were also key. The CEO is a steward, Palmisano argues, charged with protecting a company and its returns for decades to come. But that vision need not clash with success on the visible horizon; during Palmisano's tenure, IBM's stock price soared.

Almost every retailer looks to Google to refer customers, and it's rare to find a manufacturer whose products aren't sold on Amazon. But these platforms can capture a disproportionate share of the value a company creates: Buy an app on iTunes, and Apple takes 30%. The author presents four strategies to help businesses reduce their dependence on powerful platforms: (1) Exploit the platform's need to be comprehensive. American Airlines' strong coverage of key routes made its presence on the travel website Kayak indispensable to Kayak's value proposition. As a result, AA negotiated a better deal; (2) Identify and discredit discrimination. Public complaints that eBay was giving search prominence to suppliers who advertised on the site forced a reversal of the policy; (3) Create an alternative platform. When MovieTickets was on the verge of dominating phone and online ticketing, Regal Entertainment and two other large theater chains formed Fandango; and (4) Deal more directly. People ordering takeout through online platforms like Foodler and GrubHub have often already chosen their restaurant. Restaurants that deal directly can exit the platform.

How can leaders build an organization that is capable of innovating continually over time? By creating a community that is both willing and able to innovate. To be willing, the community must share a sense of purpose, values, and rules of engagement. When Luca de Meo was Volkswagen's head of marketing communication, he fostered a sense of purpose in his team by asking its members to reflect on what being part of VW meant to them; strengthened their shared values by encouraging them to use the brand's three components--innovation, responsibility, and value--to guide their work; and built significant responsibility and autonomy into their rules of engagement. To be able, companies must generate ideas through discourse and debate; experiment quickly, reflect, and adjust; and make decisions that combine disparate and even opposing ideas. Bill Coughran, an SVP of engineering at Google, employed these capabilities both to solve the company's near-term data storage needs and to make progress toward a next-generation solution.

A health care revolution is underway, and doctors must be part of it. But many are deeply anxious and angry about the transformation, fearing loss of autonomy, respect, and income. Given their resistance, how can health system leaders engage them in redesigning care? In this article, Dr. Thomas H. Lee, Press Ganey's chief medical officer, and Dr. Toby Cosgrove, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, describe a framework they've developed for encouraging buy-in. Adapting Max Weber's "typology of motives," and applying behavioral economics and other motivational principles, they describe four tactics leadership must apply in concert: (1) Engaging doctors in a noble shared purpose; (2) Addressing their economic self-interest; (3) Leveraging their desire for respect; and (4) Appealing to their sense of tradition. Drawing from experiences at the Mayo Clinic, Geisinger Health System, Partners HealthCare, the Cleveland Clinic, Ascension Health, and others, the authors show how the four motivational levers work together to bring this critical group of stakeholders onboard.