Articles

Lessons for managers who are listening to social media.

Managers must figure out when it's best to pursue strategies of position, leverage or opportunity.

Companies experienced in analytics use are increasingly gaining competitive advantage.

"We're taking analytics from a planning perspective to a planning, execution and evolution perspective," says David Kreutter, at Pfizer Inc. As a result, analytics has become "much more operational than it's been in the past." The ways that Pfizer Inc., [link: http://www.pfizer.com/home/ ] the global pharmaceutical company, uses analytics is changing, in no small thanks to the pressure on physicians to prescribe generic rather than brandname drugs. David Kreutter, is accountable for Pfizer's U.S. commercial operations and analytics. He says that "in terms of customer analytics and commercial operating analytics, Pfizer U.S. has a strong legacy of management science in operations research support." With a team of 40-50 economists, statisticians, operations research colleagues and scientists, Kreutter says the group historically has focused on promotional tactics: understanding the effectiveness of strategies used in the field, in conversations with physicians and other players who influence whether a Pfizer drug is prescribed or not. Today, that's a little different. Today, Kreutter says his team closely track how sales representatives present material and how presentations are received. It's information, he says, that's critical. Kreutter spoke with David Kiron, executive editor at MIT Sloan Management Review, and Rebecca Shockley, the business analytics and optimization global lead for the IBM Institute for Business Value, about how the company is generating daily data reports, why precision is overvalued and what the coming generic version of the company's popular Lipitor drug has meant in terms of attention to analytics.

A look at key leadership decisions made during the 2010 mine cave-in crisis.

Statkraft, Europe's largest renewable power producer, led by Christian Rynning-Tonnesen, made a strategic decision to enlarge its portfolio of renewable technologies long before most other power companies. They first invested in understanding the political economies of target country's energy markets, then built on their established skill base in hydropower to add other technologies to their portfolio of plants. The company developed organizational structures that helped them in creating new profitable projects. Their strategy process depends on accelerated cycles of action and observation. As new strategic plans are implemented, the process of strategic exploration and invention for the next phase is already in motion. Quick feedback on what is working and what isn't ensures the company can innovate for competitive advantage. Encouraging a management style based on mutual trust and respect, rather than fear, ensured they could identify dangers, catch problems early and adapt quickly.

Students and companies have changing expectations for executive MBA programs. How should business schools respond?

A study found that certain marketing techniques can influence a company's stock market valuation.

How are companies using analytics in their decision making? To what extent are managers able to access the data they need? What are the key challenges, and how have the main business objectives changed? MIT Sloan Management Review and the IBM Institute for Business Value teamed up to ask business executives, managers and analysts to reflect on the role data plays within their organizations, and received more than 4,000 responses, representing every major industry and every region of the world. Complete results of the second annual survey are scheduled for publication in the fall 2011 issue, but this article provides some preliminary findings. A few early results stand out: Only about four in 10 respondents have access to the information they want; almost one-fifth say they have limited or no access to the data they need to be successful. The three biggest challenges people cite in using analytics are the difficulties of "integrating internal data across silos," the time and cost of performing analytics and the lack of skills to interpret and leverage the data. While the top three business objectives organizations cite for using analytics have not changed since last year's survey, their order of importance has changed: Last year, respondents said the most important objective was "innovating to achieve competitive differentiation;" this year, the No. 1 priority is "growing revenue," followed by "reducing costs and increasing efficiencies." Innovating to achieve competitive differentiation fell to No. 3. All told, the 2011 survey contained 27 questions. The charts in this preview article represent the answers to just eight of those, presented as simple raw data, clean and uncut. In the complete report, the new information will be combined and refined and, in many cases, compared to last year's data to give readers a snapshot of what's changed since our initial survey and the opportunity to benchmark their organizations in relation to their peers.

When the Gap decided to overhaul the way it interacted with critics, it launched a strategy of stakeholder engagement.