Articles

Between 1991 and 2001, the average number of joint-venture deals announced each year increased from 1,000 to 7,000. Executives are clearly setting great store by these temporary partnerships as a way of achieving both short-term and longer-term goals. As with any type of alliance, however, success can be elusive, and a poor relationship between the partners is often at the root of difficulties within a venture. A negative cycle frequently develops in which poor partner relations lead to poor performance, which in turn puts the partner relations under greater pressure. In the course of her work with executives from joint ventures and their parent companies, the author identified five minefields that can explode and damage the relationships in an otherwise fruitful operation. Since joint ventures are here to stay -- they are still sometimes the only way for a company to enter a new market or to gain access to key technology or people -- managers must learn to avoid the minefields if they are to realize the full potential of these strategic partnerships.

Many companies have embraced the notion that to operate effectively in today's economy, it is necessary to become a knowledge-based organization. But few truly understand what that means or how to carry out the changes required to bring it about. Perhaps the most common misunderstanding is the view that the more a company's products or services have knowledge at their core, the more the organization is, by definition, knowledge based. But products and services are only what are visible or tangible to customers -- they're the tip of the iceberg. Like the iceberg, most of what enables a company to produce anything lies below the surface, hidden within the so-called invisible assets of the organization -- its knowledge about what it does, how it does it and why. In the course of working with more than 30 companies over the past eight years, the author found that a knowledge-based organization is made up of four elements. Each one forms a basis for evaluating the degree to which knowledge is an integral part of the organization and the way it competes. Executives who understand how the four elements interact will be able to start changing their companies to take advantage of the intellectual assets hidden below the surface.

Conceptual frameworks provide insight into creating marketing strategies targeted at groups.

What kinds of companies and products can benefit most from the use of new information technologies (NIT), such as the Internet, broadband networks and mobile communications? Books and airline tickets sell readily over the Web whereas automobiles do not. Furthermore, what types of business transformations does NIT enable? A company might, for example, use NIT to eliminate middlemen, such as distributors, that separate it from its customers (called classic disintermediation). Or, instead of getting rid of middlemen, it might choose to embrace them (remediation). Or it might build strategic alliances and partnerships with new and existing players in a tangle of complex relationships (network-based mediation). All three mediation strategies depend on various factors, such as a product's customizability and information content. By fully understanding those drivers of NIT, companies can begin to predict the potential transformations of their industries, especially in terms of how products are marketed and sold. To that end, the authors have developed a systematic framework that identifies which drivers are important for each of the three mediation approaches. Using this tool, companies can determine both the optimum ways to transform their businesses and the NIT investments required to accomplish such changes.

Disruptive innovation has usually been considered by established businesses as an attack that must be met through defensive measures. And indeed, disruptive technologies and business models have toppled many established industry leaders and will likely continue to do so. The real story behind disruptive innovation, however, is not one of destruction, but of its opposite: In every industry changed by disruption, the net effect has been total market growth. Moreover, disruption can be a powerful avenue for growth through new market discovery for incumbents as well as for upstarts. There are several keys to the successful navigation of this growth path. The first is recognizing that disruption is not an immediate phenomenon -- it can take years and even decades before the upstart business encroaches heavily on the established market. The second is finding the new customers who are eager to be served by the disruption. The third key is building an organization that is capable of serving the new customers. The author explains each aspect in detail, drawing on extensive research involving online newspapers, minicomputers, cardiology and semiconductors.

A misapplied bottom-up approach can often lead to unintended consequences.

A trend toward fewer managerial layers may be a response to technological and environmental change.