Articles

Innovation is the mandate of the day, and it has companies increasingly looking outside of their own organizations for new ways to grow. At the same time, shrinking federal research budgets are forcing universities to find alternate sources of funding for their research efforts. Consequently, just as companies are searching for new capabilities, sources of knowledge and means of growth, universities are feeling the urge to come down from the ivory tower to do business with corporations in order to keep their labs open. The convergence of these circumstances results in an unprecedented opportunity for successful partnerships between universities and corporations, and universities are making this easier every day. Recent years have seen a steep increase in the number of university-sponsored industrial or corporate liaison programs aimed at increasing university funding from private sources. But, given their differing needs, universities and corporations approach collaboration from different perspectives. How can managers reconcile the various needs of the two types of institutions? Drawing upon 20 years of experience as a corporate liaison officer, the author examines how best to manage relationships between companies and universities. He suggests that one point of common ground in corporate and academic partnerships is mutual respect for the use of the scientific method to solve problems. In such a context, academics feel more comfortable entering into dialogue with corporations without fear of "selling out," and corporate interests shed their aversion to so-called "pure" research. This allows both parties to follow the author's advice of shifting from a transactional approach to a relational approach. He examines three case studies and identifies three key factors in their success: The relationships moved beyond short-term vendor relationships to become lasting partnerships that built new capabilities for the companies; senior management was highly involved; and the companies involved the university in their strategy, not merely in technical tasks or isolated business problems.

Many companies have established technology-based platforms or virtual customer environments to partner with their customers in innovation and value creation. In pursuing such initiatives, most companies seem to focus primarily on customers' innovative contributions, paying limited attention to customers' interaction experiences in the VCE. But the VCE experience has broader and more profound implications -- particularly for customer relationship management. In this article, the authors offer a framework to help companies understand and evaluate customers' VCE experience profile. The authors describe five customer roles in innovation and value cocreation: product conceptualizer, product designer, product tester, product support specialist and product marketer. Each role has something to offer. However, depending on the customer innovation role, the nature of the customer interactions and the technologies used in the VCE will vary. The VCE customer experience is made up of four components: the pragmatic experience (its ability to provide information), the sociability experience (how it promotes group discussion), the usability experience (defined by the quality of the human-computer interactions) and the hedonic experience (relating to mental stimulation and entertainment). Drawing on examples from companies including Microsoft, SAP, Samsung, BMW, Volvo and Ducati, the authors suggest strategies and practices to enhance customer experiences in VCEs and ensure favorable outcomes in terms of both innovation management and customer relationship management. Designing and implementing the right system can help companies improve innovation and customer relationship management. Therefore, managers should view their VCE initiatives as an integral part of their overall innovation and customer strategies. What's more, the costs of implementation can vary widely. Therefore, companies need to be careful about selecting and implementing a portfolio of strategies and practices that meets the needs of the types of customers they want to engage in value cocreation.

Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe are delivering strong revenue and profit growth.

It has become accepted wisdom in the corporate world that at one time or another every business will be forced to make radical changes. In fact, there is a blossoming industry of consultants and advisors who are equipped to help companies execute and survive these inevitable upheavals. But the authors propose that there is a better way to ensure that your company doesn't get ripped apart by radical change: Make sure it never needs it. What CEOs don't realize, say the authors, is that they could prevent their businesses from confronting the risks of wholesale change if they knew enough to identify and make smaller changes before too much friction builds up inside the company. Leaders and their management teams must be alert to -- and willing to confront -- early signs that the company's internal culture is not consistent with how it used to be, or how the leadership thinks of it. Making preemptive moves is never easy, because the signs are subtle and do not show up in traditional financial metrics. Shoring up a company's sagging identity is almost never a financial priority on par with, say, buying a new piece of equipment. The authors explain which indicators CEOs should monitor and take seriously (turnover rates, for example, or changes in the profile of new hires) so that they can make rational decisions as they are warranted, rather than waiting until panic sets in and countless changes are unavoidable. Such incremental shifting poses its own challenges: It's hard to convince others to join the movement when the culture in question looks healthy, but doing so will spare the company from the tough task in the future of having to reinvent itself. Given the choice, wouldn't most leaders prefer a low-level struggle with change rather than a fierce smackdown?

Strategy is a mechanism through which a company makes sense of the world around it. It is a collection of ideas about how the company intends to win, the source code upon which everything else depends. Because strategy can only capture a company's best thinking at a given point in time, the author argues that strategy, much like a software program, needs to be updated and refined as people gain new experience and knowledge. With traditional approaches to strategy development, the author argues, planning is optimized for the original targets; it is difficult to change directions once implementation is under way. Adaptive processes, by contrast, help companies create and adapt strategy quickly and iteratively, so that people can effectively triage issues and allocate resources in changing environments; they are optimized to identify the best ideas and to ensure that individuals throughout the organization have access to the latest version so that everyday actions can be aligned with the most important strategic insights. Since people throughout the organization play roles in the company's strategic success, strategy development needs to tap into ideas from everywhere. This requires opening up the process to people throughout the organization, permitting extensive face-to-face collaboration, and arranging for individuals other than senior executives to facilitate important strategic discussions. Drawing extensive comparisons with software development and using examples from companies including Metrowerks and Shamrock Foods Co., the author focuses on three major themes: having an iterative, or "spiral," approach versus a linear approach; organizing the strategy-making process around people rather than processes; and the recognition that in strategy there is no such thing as a "silver bullet." Most managers operate in settings that are too dynamic and complex for simple success recipes. Instead of seeking long-term sustainable advantage, good managers need to create sustaining advantages on an ongoing basis.

The dangers associated with China’s ascendance are exaggerated.

Competing in China is the only option for multinationals that want to build or preserve their global position.

Does vertical integration make sense, particularly when an industry is moving offshore to regions of cheaper labor?