Operations

Boost profitability and customer satisfaction with strategies that cut subscription services’ last-mile delivery costs.

How consumer desire for sustainability is powering the first demand-driven, transformative megatrend—and how business leaders can make the most of this important moment.

Sustainability is rocking the business world as profoundly as any global trend of the past, from electrification to digitalization. But unlike previous revolutions, this one is being driven by consumers, for whom environmentally sound practices matter as much as price, quality, and brand. In The Demand Revolution, Andreas von der Gathen, Nicolai Broby Eckert, and Caroline Kastbjerg offer a strategic framework for winning these consumers—and taking advantage of the vast commercial opportunity presented by sustainability as the first demand-driven, transformative megatrend.

The first movers in the Demand Revolution will be able to create enduring competitive advantages and high entry barriers built around redesigned business model ecosystems and customer loyalty, the authors explain, but this will require a critical adjustment in thinking and approach. Companies, first of all, have to catch up with consumers, who see themselves on a demand curve far beyond what companies currently perceive. Business leaders must shift their focus from the cost of sustainability to its potential for generating growth and long-term profits. This, in turn, means recognizing that the classic adoption curves for innovations—and the strategic playbooks derived from those insights—no longer apply. The Demand Revolution shows business leaders how to look beyond easy fixes and incremental outcomes and instead pursue high-risk, high-reward moves geared toward the source of exponential growth: the world’s consumers.

OSHA’s longest-serving administrator discusses effective safety approaches and their impact on operational excellence.

Real options can help companies value resilience investments to maintain supply chain capabilities no matter the crisis.

Factory inspections yield more thorough and honest assessments when protections for auditors’ safety are in place.

Selling value requires more than quantifying benefits. It demands a deep commitment to collaborating with customers.

The dueling fortunes of two hot sauce companies demonstrate the power of strategic diversification.

A new framework can help companies fine-tune their product demand forecasting by using human and AI agents in concert.

Mandatory sustainability reporting will help companies show investors how they intend to manage risk and create value.

To comply with new sustainability rules, consumer brands need much more visibility into products’ chemical compositions.