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Multichannel retailing is growing explosively, moving proactive retailers to reinvent the role of traditional stores and fulfillment. Walmart, for example, is experimenting with smart phone checkout, while Macy’s offers in-store customers the ability to have items delivered from a different location when not available at the point of purchase. Getting fulfillment right is much more mission-critical in a multichannel setting compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar one. <br><br>Multichannel fulfillment leaders follow three core fulfillment-related practices: 1. Define customer strategy and fulfillment solution simultaneously (and iteratively). Establishing a clear vision of the customer promise is the first step to breakthrough fulfillment. Promised delivery speed, by category, dictates many distribution-network and store-role requirements. 2. Harness flexible, “no-regrets” fulfillment-solution activation. Built-in flexibility must allow for the evolution of target customers, products, speed, etc. A “no-regrets” fulfillment build-out ensures adaptability and helps stage the development of the system over time. Fulfillment leaders can help ensure solution agility by using external partners (e.g. third-party logistics providers). 3. Use metrics and incentives aligned with multichannel fulfillment. Multichannel financial incentives should be established, and the adoption of shared financial performance across channels is a must. A balance must be struck between growth and profit, and leading multichannel key performance indicators should be defined, as they track fulfillment-system success more proactively than financial metrics.

Globalization has created new opportunities and new threats. As sourcing from around the world has made supply chains longer and more complex, the volatility inherent in production has significantly increased. The average risk management process begins by creating basic awareness, and the use of heat maps (two-dimensional representations of scenarios and consequences) is widespread. However, many dimensions can be at play and the consequences of oversimplification can be devastating. Hazardous events can strike several firms simultaneously, and two forms of dependencies can be distinguished: 1) structural within industries and 2) events that hit groups of firms independently or all at the same time. This article traces the development of a useful heuristic in which a network model was progressively refined to depict interconnected activity in an industrial system over time. The authors show that it is not sufficient to look at individual profiles of disruptions, because they may come in “multi-packs.” Furthermore, backup suppliers do not necessarily mitigate single-source risk. Although a model is never the “answer” to a manager’s problem, even those with limited access to data will find that sources like iSuppli are affordable and adequate for analysis. Finally, managers should not look at businesses separately, but rather develop an enterprise-wide view of the total risk exposure.

In a recent survey of millennials in which Deloitte asked about the primary purpose of business, the most frequent response was “to improve society.” For any business enterprise, taking on social troubles comes with risks, but potential payoffs are huge. This article looks at how the solution economy is eroding the border between public and private sectors and discusses how businesses can best find opportunities in social challenges. It examines projects such as Unilever’s Project Shakti in India, which addresses sanitation needs while lifting women and families out of poverty, and Coca-Cola’s installation of the Slingshot, a water purification unit, in many rural parts of the world.<br><br>The authors identify six key features of successful, multi-rational business strategies. <ol><li>When entering the solution economy, everyone should use a wide lens to assess the target markets and what they offer in terms of problem solving.</li><li>Disruptive technologies are key to success.</li><li>Keep the door open to new business models (e.g. franchising tailored specifically to underserved markets through partnerships with local entrepreneurs and community groups). </li><li>Reputation, public data and citizen ingenuity can offer non-financial but tangible ways of fueling innovation. </li><li>Think about creating platforms that exchange public value. </li><li>Multi-rational strategies require multi-lateral relationships.</li></ol>

PyCon, a developer conference for a computing language community, implemented a code of conduct in response to allegations of sexism and misogyny in the tech community. Later, when a female attendee at a PyCon conference overheard inappropriate sexual jokes, she posted a picture on Twitter of the audience members responsible. One of them was fired from his job and the individual responsible for the tweet — a developer evangelist for an email company — received harassment and death threats, and her company’s website was disabled. The issue divided the tech community and her company fired her soon after. <br><br>“Donglegate” illustrates the need for appropriate mechanisms for reporting wrongdoing, as well as the need for people to feel confident that reporting bad behaviour will get results. When acting as a whistleblower, one must consider the repercussions. In the age of smart phones, expectations about privacy should be re-conceptualized to protect reputations and data. The authors provide three steps to achieve this: 1) Leaders need to develop guidelines for internal stakeholders about how and when information is shared. 2) Because it is almost impossible to control all potential exposures, leaders should be proactive and ensure that they have less to hide. 3) It is essential to plan for the times when, despite all efforts, negative information gets released.

Although systematic preparation is a key factor in negotiation success, negotiators often become ensnared in their own planning. Negotiators sometimes do not reveal what they really want, fail to discern hidden agendas, or dwell on arguments of little importance. This article proposes viewing negotiation as a paradox called structured spontaneity. It explains how three fundamental levels of awareness exist in every negotiation. Positions are what the other side claims it wants, often in the form of a simple demand; Interests may underlie these stated positions; and Perceptions reflect how the negotiating partner sees the world. Building on this, the authors propose an “improvisational iceberg” with three more levels. Head is where the discovery of the other side’s position takes place; Heart is where we invite connections between interests and keep open minds; and Core constitutes business philosophy and corporate culture. Structured spontaneity in negotiations can be taught through improvisation training. In switch games, actors play out improvised scenarios and swap roles; in wordless negotiation, participants try to convey what they want non-verbally; in monologues, negotiators tap into the Core of the other side. Ultimately, improvisational training for negotiators is about the tension between strategic preparation and willingness to follow the other side in a new direction on short notice.

This article highlights the four key interrelated areas in which brand addiction can be planned: product, rewards, price and communications. Historically, marketers have focused on more traditional, obvious benefits of products. However, reward systems such as loyalty programs are useful in increasing differentiation and encouraging consumer habituation. Intrinsic consumer rewards (e.g. personal satisfaction) stand in contrast to extrinsic rewards (e.g. point systems), but when consumers repeatedly modify their behaviours in order to, for example, achieve more points, they may convert extrinsic rewards into intrinsic ones. Firms have long used discounting and loss leaders to attract business and, in going a step further, a “free price” for a product may help to foster product addicts. Here, consumers can pay in other ways, such as through attention, referrals or feedback. Furthermore, firms are increasingly using communications strategies to support the repetition of modified purchasing behaviours. Ultimately, the key is to conceive of the four elements of planning brand addiction in new ways, starting with a meaning for the product that goes beyond the main product benefit the customer derives, and then using the communications strategy to support the repetition of modified purchasing behaviours and to bring forth a new consumer consciousness.

This article explores how service-company attempts to win market share by offering numerous customer options can be counterproductive and can create consumer anxiety. The authors research the product offerings at major North American banks and find a large range between one bank offering four credit cards and another offering 29. They define “productization” as when service organizations add value by providing products that complement their service offerings. Unfortunately, productization is often left unchecked, resulting in product bias in a firm’s innovation strategy and the proliferation of products. Excessive complexity produced by productization hinders employees’ ability to manage service encounters, and productization as a differentiator is unlikely a defensible position. <br><br>When considering productization in a service environment, firms should remember that product satisfaction should be subordinate to good service and that a product’s capability and reputation should complement the service delivery and customer perception of the service. To better serve customers, firms should a) review the vision and direction of the organization, b) reduce complexity by understanding what type of customer is served, c) eliminate products that do not support the vision, complement the service or appeal to the identified customer, d) apply freed resources to train front-line employees and e) guard against the introduction of inappropriate new products and services.

Say-on-pay votes give shareholders a valuable opportunity to express their views on executive compensation. The goal of say-on-pay is to increase the accountability, transparency and performance linkage of executive pay and improve communication between shareholders and boards of directors. Among major Western nations, Canada is an outlier in not having adopted mandatory say-on-pay. About 60 per cent of Canada’s 100 largest companies have adopted say-on-pay, and the authors find that, on average, adopters are significantly larger than non-adopters in market capitalization and assets. They also find that the majority of non-adopters are family firms and that non-adoption prevails most in certain industries such as real estate. Stock-based compensation represents the greater proportion of pay for mandatory say-on-pay adopters, while cash compensation represents the greater proportion for non-adopters. The authors argue that stock-based compensation better aligns the interests of management and shareholders, and that the presence or absence of a say-on-pay vote is generally consistent with a firm’s overall governance strength. All but the most egregious pay packages are typically approved in say-on-pay voting, with negative votes providing a benchmark for what practices are deemed unacceptable. By not mandating say-on-pay votes, Canada is falling behind in corporate governance practices.

Consumers used to rely mainly on manufacturers' product information, delivered through marketing materials, but online reviews and peer-to-peer information are increasingly influential. Companies should closely track the sources of information their customers turn to and find the combination of marketing channels and tools that will successfully steer their buying decisions.

A large-scale experiment by two California academics indicates that employees who operate under noncompete agreements are significantly less motivated and get worse results.

To meet the challenges of a complex world, strategic planners need to understand the differences between the four elements of VUCA--volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. A guide to identifying, getting ready for, and responding to events in each category.

When a travel company tried cutting office overhead by allowing call center reps to do their jobs at home, it realized some unexpected results.

The "dependency ratio" assumes that every adult below age 65 contributes to society, and everybody above 65 is a burden. The author argues that education and health are important factors in addition to age.

A good leader owns the problem when things go wrong.

A look at the many possible steps involved in human-centered design.

When Birnbaum joined SodaStream, in 2007, it was a sleepy company whose managers liked to boast that they had an 85% share of the "home carbonation business." He and his all-new management team brought enthusiasm and vision--and shortly began talking about a new cola war to grow SodaStream's share of the $260 billion global soda business. The ad they created for the 2013 Super Bowl reached more than 100 million viewers--but in an unexpected twist, an ad that never even got on the air garnered more attention. The original spot (called "Game Changer"), which took a direct shot at Coke and Pepsi, was rejected by CBS. The legal wrangling that followed generated headlines around the globe--newspapers in countries that don't even air the Super Bowl began doing stories on it. And the controversial ad has been viewed more than 5 million times on YouTube. From a marketing standpoint, it was a great investment.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, there has been widespread agreement on the need for public companies to build value for the long term. Nonetheless, because of pressure from financial markets, a detrimental focus on short-term performance persists. Reversing this trend, the authors say, depends on the leadership of major asset owners such as pension funds, insurance firms, and mutual funds. They should act by taking four practical, proven steps: 1 Define long-term objectives and risk appetite, and invest accordingly. Major asset owners should set a multiyear time frame for creating value, decide how much underperformance they can tolerate in the short term, and then align their investments with this agenda. 2 Practice engagement and active ownership. Big investors should cultivate ongoing relationships with the companies they invest in, collaborating with management to optimize corporate strategy and governance. 3 Demand long-term metrics from companies to improve investment decision making. Rather than focusing on quarterly financial statements, investors should seek to obtain and analyze data that indicate a company's long-term health. 4 Structure institutional governance to support a long-term approach. Big investors must have competent board members committed to investing for the long term, as well as policies and mechanisms to translate this philosophy into action.

Leaders can do few things more important than encouraging helping behavior within their organizations. In the highest-performing companies, it is a norm that colleagues support one another's efforts to do the best work they can. That has always been true for efficiency reasons, but collaborative helping becomes even more vital in an era of knowledge work, when positive business outcomes depend on high creativity in often very complex projects. A help-friendly organization has to be actively nurtured, however, because helpfulness among colleagues does not arise automatically: Competition, pride, or distrust may get in the way. The trickiness of this management challenge-to increase a discretionary behavior that by definition must be inspired-makes all the more impressive what the design firm IDEO has already achieved. Its help-seeking and help-giving culture is behind the firm's success. But how has IDEO managed to make helping the norm? To answer this question, the authors spent two years observing, interviewing people, and conducting surveys at one office of the firm. They discovered four keys to building a help-friendly organization that leaders of other organizations could learn and apply to similar effect.

When most of the world's financial services giants were stumbling and retrenching in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, the asset management firm BlackRock was busy charting a course for growth. Its revenues, profits, and stock price all performed consistently through this tumultuous period. The authors looked at BlackRock and other game-changing companies-the Mumbai-based global conglomerate Tata Group, and Envision, an entrepreneurial alternative energy company based in China-and found significant commonalities. These three companies demonstrate the essential attributes of a game-changing organization: They are driven by purpose, oriented toward performance, and guided by principles. In the process of conducting interviews with these companies, the authors discovered a fourth thread that weaves them even more tightly together: Each is supported by a game-changing talent strategy. But, they write, the path to such a strategy seems rife with complexity and ambiguity. How can both strategy and execution be consistently superior? How can they support a collective culture yet enable high potentials to thrive as individuals? How can the strategy be global and local at the same time? And how can its policies endure yet be agile and constantly open to revitalization? BlackRock's approach provides the answers.

When Netflix executives wrote a PowerPoint deck about the organization's talent management strategies, the document went viral-it's been viewed more than 5 million times on the web. Now one of those executives, the company's longtime chief talent officer, goes beyond the bullet points to paint a detailed picture of how Netflix attracts, retains, and manages stellar employees. The firm draws on five key tenets: Hire, reward, and tolerate only fully formed adults. Ask workers to rely on logic and common sense instead of formal policies, whether the issue is communication, time off, or expenses. Tell the truth about performance. Scrap formal reviews in favor of informal conversations. Offer generous severance rather than holding on to workers whose skills no longer fit your needs. Managers must build great teams. This is their most important task. Don't rate them on whether they are good mentors or fill out paperwork on time. Leaders own the job of creating the company culture. You've got to actually model and encourage the behavior you talk up. Talent managers should think like businesspeople and innovators first, and like HR people last. Forget throwing parties and handing out T‑shirts; make sure every employee understands what the company needs most and exactly what's meant by "high performance."