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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Nowhere is the growing interconnectedness of business more clear than in the information technology industry, where the success of any one company's innovation is dependent on the activities of a complex web of partners. Michael Cusumano of the Sloan School and Annabelle Gawer of INSEAD offer a new framework for understanding what is going on and how to orchestrate the interactions. Building on their in-depth research at Intel, a company that excels in shaping its environment, the authors show how organizations can maximize innovation. First, they say, companies must decide if they are platform leaders (companies that drive industrywide innovation for an evolving system of separately developed pieces), wannabes (companies that want to be platform leaders), or complementors (companies that make ancillary products that expand the platform's market). Managers have two major challenges: coordinating internal units that play one or more of those roles and interacting effectively with outsiders playing the same roles at different times. The authors delineate four levers of platform leadership (including productive ways to work with complementors and techniques for building a supportive internal organization) and offer practical advice to complementors as well. They provide guidelines on when to show your cards to competitors and when to hold them. As the experiences of Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, NTT DoCoMo, and others demonstrate, platform leaders need to have a vision that extends beyond their current business operations and the technical specifications of one product or one component. Complementors have an important role, but it is the platform leaders, and their decisions, that have the most influence over the innovations that complementary producers create--and the future of the industry.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. For too long, people have made unwarranted but detrimental assumptions about pricing. Changing prices, for example, has been looked on as an easy, quick, and reversible process, and new technologies have only reinforced that way of thinking. Similarly, extracting value from a product by pricing it correctly has been seen as relatively uncomplicated; the hard part is creating the valuable product in the first place. But these dismissive attitudes toward pricing miss the mark. Pricing is complex, and it's only growing more so as new tools and techniques become available. The ability to set the right price at the right time, any time--the very definition of a pricing capability--is also becoming increasingly important. In fact, in the course of working with dozens of companies in the past couple of years, the authors have spoken with several executives who believe that developing a pricing capability is essential to their business' survival. And they are backing up their views by investing in three areas: human capital, systems capital, and social capital. The authors explain the nature of these investments and how they come together to form a pricing capability that competitors will have a hard time imitating. Building such a capability requires an effort that some companies may not be in a position to undertake. Those that do take a comprehensive approach, however, can make superior pricing decisions that fit with their positioning, customers, suppliers, and evolving market conditions for years to come.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Over the past couple of decades, management innovations have pushed companies toward the ideal of the "boundaryless" organization. As a result of these changes, formal reporting structures and detailed work processes have a much diminished role in the way important work is accomplished. Instead, informal networks of employees are increasingly at the forefront, and the general health and "connectivity" of these groups can have a significant impact on strategy execution and organizational effectiveness. Many corporate leaders intuitively understand this, but few spend any real time assessing or supporting informal networks. And because they do not receive adequate resources or executive attention, these groups are often fragmented, and their efforts are often disrupted by management practices or organizational design principles that are biased in favor of task specialization and individual rather than collaborative endeavors. The authors initiated a research program two years ago to determine how organizations can better support work occurring in and through informal networks of employees; they assessed more than 40 networks in 23 organizations. They discovered in all cases that the networks provided strategic and operational benefits by enabling members to collaborate effectively; they also found that managers truly wanting to assist these groups had to overcome six myths about how networks operate. Explains the six myths and why they are harmful; in place of these assumptions, the authors offer reality checks that can be implemented to help networks become more effective.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Offering products or services alone is no longer enough: Organizations must provide their customers with satisfactory experiences. Competing on this dimension means orchestrating all the clues that people detect in the buying process. Customers always have an experience--good, bad, or indifferent--whenever they purchase a product or service from a company. The quality of the experience lies in how effectively the company manages it--in all its facets and from beginning to end. Organizations that simply tweak design elements or focus on improving isolated pockets of the customer experience--by providing a quick hit of entertainment, for example--will be disappointed in the results. An organization's first step toward managing the total customer experience is recognizing what the authors call clues: the signals or messages given off by everything involved in the buying process. Clues can include the product itself (Does it work as advertised?), the layout of a retail outlet (Are the signs easy to follow?), the salesperson's tone of voice (Did he really mean it when he said, "Have a nice day"?), and so on. Organizations that orchestrate the sum total of all the clues can create an optimal experience for their patrons. Addressing the clues that speak to emotions is especially important. Emotional bonds between companies and customers are difficult for competitors to sever. The internalized meaning and value that the clues assume can create a deep-seated preference for a particular experience--and, thus, for one company's product or service over another's. Discusses the tools that are available to help organizations rethink the signals they are sending to customers. Presents two case studies in which organizations dramatically improved their customers' experiences.

How can firms develop a competitive defense strategy that minimizes both the self-inflicted and competitor-inflicted damages of price competition? Before acting to defend market share or initiate price cuts, managers must anticipate the long-term strategic consequences and weigh them against the short-term benefits. A pricing decision should never be made simply to make the next sale or meet some short-term sales objective, but to enhance the firm's long-term ability to operate profitably. Pricing is like playing chess. Those who make moves one at a time--seeking to minimize immediate losses or exploit immediate opportunities--will invariably lose to those who envision the game a few moves ahead.

Given the growth in Asian markets, it is important for Western managers to understand what drives the success of Japanese and Korean business groups--keiretsus and chaebols. The purpose here is twofold: 1) to analyze, compare, and contrast the ownership, structure, government influence, financing, and culture of each of these two types of business groups; and 2) to analyze how each has dealt with the recent financial crisis in Asia. From this analysis emerge important lessons for strategic international management. The chaebols and keiretsus both emphasize the idea of harmony, but they have different interpretations of this concept and enact it differently. Both groups have altered their structures in response to the new global financial environment. The chaebols have taken the opportunity to solidify and expand their core business units and become more vertically integrated, whereas the keiretsus have succeeded only in the limited disposal of some nonperforming units.

Just as they can fail to recognize their weaknesses, leaders sometimes underrate their strengths--and everyone pays the price. Positive feedback can help bring executives' perceptions in line with reality.

Consumers are finding it hard to distinguish among competing products. The fault lies partly with marketers and ad agencies, but ultimately it's the CEO's job to stop brand dilution.

In this conversation, McKinsey's T. Michael Nevens takes the wraps off the "productivity paradox" and explains why competition and innovation, not IT, are the real drivers of productivity.

Business decisions based on poor valuation practices can create significant losses. Here's a straightforward set of calculations that will help your company assess the impact of its valuation decisions on shareholder returns.

David James is a professional crisis manager. For almost 30 years, his job has been to rescue companies on the brink of bankruptcy. By the time he's called in, it's usually too late to save much for the shareholders. In almost every case, however, there is still a lot to salvage: Nearly all the companies James has managed continue to operate in some form. More than 2 billion British pounds have been repaid to banks and unsecured trade creditors. And more than 30,000 jobs have been saved. The key to preserving value, James has found, is to resist the urge to try to generate cash from operating the business. In most cases, these companies have taken on far too much debt ever to sell their way out. Indeed, trying to expand operations beyond what the market would bear was what got them into trouble in the first place. James argues against waiting until the company is dead to break it up. A more effective course is to sell off valuable assets while the company is still a going concern. In vivid and sometimes hair-raising detail, James recounts how he has discovered valuable assets in unexpected places, salvaging everything from airlines to soft-drink makers to Britain's Millennium Dome. He has a routine for accomplishing this, which involves locking up the checkbook on day one and, more often than not, firing the senior management. His is a cautionary tale for top executives who, it is clear, should be concentrating their efforts on never needing to call on him in the first place.

How do game designers approach their work? Perhaps in the same way that managers should. Here, the author, an expert in board-game design and the world's foremost authority on Monopoly, translates six tenets of game design into management principles. Three tenets focus on giving players the right level of structure. First, design simple and unambiguous rules: That also holds true in business; people engage most when responsibilities, objectives, and evaluation criteria are clear. Second, avoid frustrating the casual player. Just as not every game player aspires to be a grand master, not every employee wants to think like an executive. Third, establish a rhythm so that players know intuitively whether they are at the beginning, middle, or end of the game. Managers can also engineer such shifts of momentum and motivation for workers. Three more principles focus on providing entertainment. The most important is to tune into what's happening off the board. For many people, the real joy of a great game--or a great job--comes from the larger social experience surrounding it. Another key is to offer chances to come from behind. Even struggling employees want to believe, "The odds may be stacked against me, but just one great stroke and I'm right back in it." Finally, managers, like game designers, should provide outlets for latent talents. Games themselves can be useful in the workplace. Managers may come to appreciate that games succeed depending on how well designed they are--and that many design challenges have their equivalents in the art of management.

In the last year, war broke out, the economy took a nosedive, and an alarming number of businesses went belly up. Thus, it is with some urgency that we bring you this year's list of the seven best new business ideas to help you find your way through these complex times. History Returns. Many thought that the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the beginning of a new world order, one in which history didn't matter. But September 11, 2001, put an end to that theory. And it raised serious questions about globalization, security, and strategy. Enter the Everyday Leader--at Last. CEOs are used to getting all the glory, but leaders outside the limelight--middle managers and tempered radicals--are beginning to receive the attention they deserve. The Internet Is Not About You. The real value of the Internet may lie less in connecting individuals than in connecting databases, servers, and devices--a web not of people but of machines. Mind Your Behavior. Behavioral scientists are beginning to be able to predict accurately the ways individuals and crowds will respond to stimuli, and the implications for business are profound. Don't Delight Your Customers Away. Companies have wooed and coddled customers for too long. The truth is, people delight in being teased and are repelled by those who try too hard to befriend them. Games Are for Losers. Financial game playing and verbal politicking are seriously damaging businesses. Honesty is more than an admirable virtue; it's the foundation of every lasting enterprise. Three Cheers for Creativity (Sometimes). Creativity and best-practice replication are fundamentally different undertakings. Managers who mix the two achieve creativity that is merely incremental and replication that is sadly inept.

Executives who want to make their organizations better corporate citizens face many obstacles: If they undertake costly initiatives that their rivals don't embrace, they risk eroding their company's competitive position. If they invite government oversight, they may be hampered by costly regulations. And if they adopt wage scales and working conditions that prevail in the wealthiest democracies, they may drive jobs to countries with less stringent standards. Such dilemmas call for clear, hard thinking. To aid in that undertaking, Roger Martin introduces the virtue matrix--a tool to help executives analyze corporate responsibility by viewing it as a product or service. The author uses real-life examples to explore the forms and degrees of corporate virtue. Martin uses the virtue matrix to examine why the public clamor for more responsible corporate conduct never seems to abate. Another issue the author confronts is anxiety over globalization. Finally, Martin applies the virtue matrix to two crucial questions: What are the barriers to increasing the supply of corporate virtue? And what can companies do to remove those barriers?

Cultural differences can influence business negotiations in unexpected ways, as many a hapless deal maker has learned. But the differences extend well beyond surface behaviors, such as proper table manners and the exchange of business cards--and even beyond deeper cultural characteristics, such as attitudes about relationships and deadlines. Indeed, there's another, equally treacherous aspect to cross-border negotiation: the ways that people from different regions come to agreement or the processes involved in negotiations. Decision-making and governance processes can vary widely from culture to culture, not only in terms of legal technicalities but also in terms of the behaviors and core beliefs that drive them. Numerous promising deals have failed because people ignored or underestimated the powerful differences in process across cultures. In this article, James Sebenius offers ways in which negotiators can prepare for such cultural differences. A useful approach, he says, is to map out the decision-making process--including who's involved, what formal and informal roles people play, and how a resolution is actually reached. With that knowledge, you can design a strategy that anticipates obstacles before they arise. Those negotiations that might otherwise have failed because people ignored or underestimated powerful disparities in process will, in the end, yield a meaningful "yes."

Large companies have long sensed the potential value of investing in external start-ups, but more often than not, they fail to get it right. Remember the dash to invest in new ventures in the late 1990s and the hasty retreat when the economy turned? This article presents a framework that will help a company decide whether it should invest in a particular start-up by first understanding what kind of benefit might be realized from the investment. The framework--illustrated with examples from Intel, Lucent, and others--explains why certain types of corporate VC investments proliferate only when financial returns are high, why other types persist in good times and in bad, and why still others make little sense in any phase of the business cycle. The framework describes four types of corporate VC investments, each defined by its primary goal--strategic and financial--and by the degree of operational linkage between the start-up and the investing company. Driving investments are characterized by a strong strategic rationale and tight operational links. Enabling investments are also made primarily for strategic reasons, but the operational links are loose. Emergent investments, which are characterized by tight operational links, have little current--but significant potential--strategic value. Passive investments, offering few potential strategic benefits and only loose operational links, are made primarily for financial reasons. Passive corporate VC investments dry up in a down economy, but enabling and driving investments usually have more staying power. That's because their potential returns are primarily strategic, not financial. In other words, they can foster business growth. Emergent investments may make sense even in a weak market because of their potential strategic value--that is, their ability to help companies identify and spark the growth of future businesses.

Despite all of the time, money, and energy that executives pour into corporate change programs, the stark reality is that few companies ever succeed in genuinely reinventing themselves. That's because the people at those companies rarely master the art of transformational learning--that is, eagerly challenging deeply held assumptions about a company's processes and, in response, altering their thoughts and actions. Instead, most people just end up doing the same old things in superficially tweaked ways. Why is transformational learning so hard to achieve? HBR senior editor Diane Coutu explores this question with psychologist and MIT professor Edgar Schein, a world-renowned expert on organizational development. In sharp contrast to the optimistic rhetoric that permeates the debate on corporate learning and change, Schein is cautious about what companies can and cannot accomplish. Corporate culture can change, he says, but this kind of learning takes time, and it isn't fun. In this article, he describes two basic types of anxiety--learning anxiety and survival anxiety--that drive radical relearning in organizations. Schein's theories spring from his early research on how American prisoners of war in Korea were brainwashed by their captors. Heavy socialization is back in style in U.S. corporations today, Schein says, even if no one is calling it that.

The collective behavior of people in crowds, markets, and organizations has long been a mystery. Why, for instance, do employee bonuses sometimes lead to decreases in productivity? Why do some products generate a tremendous buzz, seemingly out of nowhere, whereas others languish despite multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns? How could a simple clerical error snowball into a catastrophic loss that bankrupts a financial institution? Traditional approaches like spreadsheet and regression analyses have failed to explain such "emergent phenomena," says Eric Bonabeau, because they work from the top down, trying to apply global equations and frameworks to a particular situation. But the behavior of emergent phenomena, contends Bonabeau, is formed from the bottom up--starting with the local interactions of individuals who alter their actions in response to other participants. Together, the myriad interactions result in a group behavior that can easily elude any top-down analysis. But now, thanks to "agent-based modeling," some companies are finding ways to analyze--and even predict--emergent phenomena. This article discusses emergent phenomena in detail and explains why they have become more prevalent in recent years. In addition to providing real-world examples of companies that have improved their business practices through agent-based modeling, Bonabeau also examines the future of this technology and points to several fields that may be revolutionized by its use.

For most companies, organization design is neither a science nor an art; it's an oxymoron. Organizational structures evolve in fits and starts, shaped more by politics than by policies. Although most executives can sense when their organization designs are not working well, few take meaningful action, partly because they lack a practical framework to guide them. The authors of this article provide just such a framework; they present nine tests that can be used either to evaluate an existing organization design or create a new one. Four "fit" tests offer an initial screen: The market advantage test asks whether a design directs sufficient management attention to the company's sources of competitive advantage; the parenting advantage test determines whether the design gives enough attention to the corporate-level activities that provide real value to the company; the people test shows whether the design reflects the employees' strengths; and the feasibility test looks at constraints that may impede implementation. Five "good design" tests can help a company refine its prospective design. The specialist cultures test ensures that there's sufficient insulation for units that need to be different from the prevailing culture; the difficult-links test determines whether a design offers solutions for potentially problematic unit-to-unit links; the redundant-hierarchy test asks whether the design has too many parent levels; the accountability test looks at whether every unit has suitable controls; and the flexibility test ensures that the design lets the company adapt to change. Once a design is altered, the tests should be repeated. Organizational decisions are inevitably complex, and tweaking one part of the design may produce unanticipated consequences elsewhere.

The ponderous U.S. Postal Service transformed itself into a competitive business--for a while. By 1999, the agency had recorded four years of surpluses totaling more than $5 billion and was crafting a strategy for success in the new economy. In a symbolic victory, the agency's own Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France. Eighteen months later, the Postal Service was struggling to stay afloat. The tragic events of September 11--and those that followed--only exacerbated the situation. How did such an optimistic scenario turn sour so quickly? Robert Reisner, the Postal Service's former vice president for strategic planning, recounts what it felt like to see the turnaround stall, and he offers four lessons on how to prevent change initiatives from faltering. The author offers some general insights into how an organization can keep a turnaround on track: Don't miss your moment. Precious momentum is lost when you fail to capitalize on fleeting market opportunities or high morale within your organization. Connect change initiatives to your core business. Promising programs can wither if they are not integrated into your mainstream operations. Don't mistake incremental improvements for strategic transformation. Operational success can blind you to the need to reinvent the business. Be realistic about your limits and the pace of change. Raising expectations that can't be met, at least at the moment, can undermine changes that are achievable.