Almost every other day, startups emerge and disrupt established companies because of their innovative ideas and business models. This disruption is, primarily, due to the reluctance of big companies to implement a series of strategic and organizational practices required to organize and inspire creativity. Large firms are, generally, better at implementation rather than innovation due […]
About Mark Bridges
Mark Bridges is a Senior Director of Strategy at Flevy. Flevy is your go-to resource for best practices in business management, covering management topics from Strategic Planning to Operational Excellence to Digital Transformation (view full list here). Learn how the Fortune 100 and global consulting firms do it. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by leveraging Flevy's library of best practice methodologies and templates. Prior to Flevy, Mark worked as an Associate at McKinsey & Co. and holds an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. You can connect with Mark on LinkedIn here.Author Archive | Mark Bridges
How to Conduct RACI Charting and Analysis Professionally?
Functional areas in an organization are often marred with ambiguities–some process related and other role related. The Responsibility Assignment Matrix or RACI Charting is a simple technique to resolve these ambiguities. It works collaboratively to clearly identify functional areas and roles and responsibilities in order to complete a desired activity. The RACI Acronym stands for: Responsible […]
The Secret to Unlocking Business Model Innovation (BMI)
Innovative technologies are sweeping away everything: organizations, work practices, offerings, hierarchies, and even business models. Those days are long past when business models used to stay static for years to no end. They are now under threat more so than anything else, since any technology-driven entrant can knock an established business model down in no […]
What Makes a BoD a High Performance Board?
Financial downturns and intense competition has put a lot of strain over boards and directors to perform better. The effectiveness of the board of directors varies from organization to organization. An accomplished chairman can make the board more constructive and practical by establishing high standards and helping members improve their participation. In 2013, McKinsey & […]
For a Successful Market Entry, First We Must Remove Our Cognitive Biases
New market entry provides potential opportunities for organizations to grow. But penetrating a market and establishing a new business is fraught with complications and failure. Attempts at entering a new market often fail, in fact, research suggests that for every successful market entry about 4 fail. The reasons for such high failure rates involve timing, […]
Do You Know How To Take Advantage of the “Appreciative Inquiry” Approach for Organizational Management?
The problem solving approach to organizational design and management has a number of limitations. It focuses only on what’s wrong, identifying causes, brainstorming solutions, developing action plans, and not taking into account the areas that are working well. Problem solving focuses on the past and excludes possibilities for creativity. The approach is time consuming, costly; […]
Do You Realize the Value of Developing BeCoN (Behavior, Cognitive, Network) Capital in the Digital Age?
At the pinnacle of the Industrial Revolution, not many organizations realized the complex subtleties of the Financial Capital. The organizations that were able to develop innovative methodologies to administer their financial capital outsmarted the rivals by achieving a competitive edge. At the advent of the 20th century, two more forms of capital became known and […]
How to Counter Corporate Corruption and Fraud
Expanding into new markets presents lucrative opportunities, as well as risks. Potential threats in new territories include corporate corruption, malpractices, and fraud, which most firms have to face. Corruption and fraud cover a wide array of situations, but it is the unobtrusive yet more prevalent forms of fraud and corruption that create the biggest risks […]
Building Blocks of Behavioral Strategy: How to De-Bias Your Decision Making Process
While making critical decisions, not many strategists are conscious of the impact that cognitive biases have on business decisions. These biases are part of human behavior, and can be referred to as “systematic human tendencies to deviate from rational calculations.” In strategic decision making, leaders need to recognize their own biases, as these biases influence […]
Marketing 2.0: How to Build On-demand Marketing Capabilities
The Digital Era has brought on critical challenges for companies to meet new consumer demands for marketing. Digital Marketing is undergoing transformation at an astounding rate. There is a radical shift towards “on-demand” marketing, where marketing is becoming consistent, pertinent, and receptive to customers’ demands, delivering heightened experiences literally anywhere with ease of access along […]
How Do You Establish a Strategic Management Office (SMO)?
Executing strategy the right way is not everyone’s business. The reported failure rates for strategy execution stand at 60% to 90%. A study of large organizations in eight industrialized countries by Bain and Company revealed that seven out of eight companies failed to achieve profitable growth from 1988 to 1998, and very few achieved their […]
Being Disrupted by Digital Natives? Empower Small Teams Using Agile Techniques to Remain Competitive
Digital natives are threatening the way traditional organizations do business. The dated authoritative structures and imposing mindsets of the executives of traditional companies are in stark contrast to today’s technology-savvy startups and digital-native companies. Traditional firms are running out of time to revisit their strategies and promptly transform in accordance with the rapidly evolving markets […]
