Strategy Consultants Research Articles

Early Insights from Commercialization of Gene Therapies in Europe.

After years of research and development, gene therapies are now becoming a commercial reality with several products approved by European regulatory authorities [...].

Success Factors in Technology Entrepreneurship Strategy Consulting

Success Factors in Technology Entrepreneurship Strategy Consulting

Study shows benefits of mergers to maximize impact

In the quest to maximize impact and achieve long‐term mission goals in the face of financial distress, some nonprofits might want to consider combining their operations with like‐minded organizations, according to new research from the Metropolitan Chicago Nonprofit Research Project, a partnership of Mission+Strategy Consulting and the Chicago Foundation for Women.

Two approaches for sustaining growth: re-introducing the “founder’s mentality” and implementing “The Three Box” solution

Purpose The challenge of sustaining growth seems to be getting steeper and steeper. This Masterclass provides context for two recent books that have valuable insights to offer to company leaders and strategists on how to build resilience and sustain growth in increasingly dynamic and uncertain global competitive markets. Design/methodology/approach In The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth (2016), well-known Bain strategy consultants, Chris Zook and James Allen offer a strategy for consciously embedding “the founder’s mentality” into the culture of young firms as they scale or rediscovering it in mature firms that might be stalling and losing their way. For strategy and innovation guru, Vijay Govindarajan, sustaining growth increasingly requires being able to pursue simultaneously two very different types of activity and mindset – exploiting a legacy business while exploring new business opportunities. He offers a very practical framework for approaching this challenge in The Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation. Findings The “founder’s mentality” refers to “a collection of specific behaviors and attitudes best exemplified by the traits of great founders that if properly cultivated in the rest of the organization, can lead more reliably to sustainable growth.” Some young firms fail to establish a founder’s mentality from the outset, while many mature founder-led companies come to lose their sense of insurgency and other key founder’s mentality traits over time. “Just about every company, at any stage in its life, can benefit from the attitudes and behaviors that make up the founder’s mentality.” Practical implications Govindarajan argues that “asking what assumptions must be true for this idea to be highly profitable” and testing the most critical of these “as early and as inexpensively as possible” is ‘the best way to reveal an ill-conceived project. Originality/value The two books, taken together, provide a wealth of insight for leaders seeking to diagnose their firm’s growth problems and looking for potential solutions for reviving innovation and growth.

Scenarios Research and Cognitive Reframing: Implications for Strategy as Practice

This paper makes two contributions to strategic management research. It positions scenarios research as a way to connect micro, meso, and macro level cognitive framing (Cornelissen and Werner, 2014) regarding environmental uncertainties. This extends the boundaries of strategy as practice by involving extra organizational actors in strategy praxis to ascertain macro level uncertainties (Vaara and Whittington, 2012, Floyd, 2011) and by linking the complex connections between the micro, meso and macro praxis (Jarzabowski and Spee 2009). The paper considers the role of a scenarios methodology in strategic management with respect to two unrelated case studies – a real estate firm, and a trade association, with and about whom two of the researchers have a detailed knowledge since 2009. While the findings we report here must be treated as exploratory, they do conform to a pattern of findings that a broader six year old research effort has been producing (Ramirez et al, 2015). The findings also conform to the way sociology has been treating the ‘framing’ of issues since Goffman (1974) popularized the construct. As Cornelissen & Werner’s (2014) recent review of framing suggests, the field includes ‘micro’ (individual) level research concerning the cognitive frame, frame of reference, and the framing effects involved; ‘meso’ organizational) level research about what strategic frame, technological framing, and collective action framing take place; and ‘macro-level’ research at the field level including institutional frames as well as framing contexts. This paper establishes that scenarios research allows management to clearly connect what Pierre Wack (1985) famously called the 'microscope of the mind to the 'macroscope- of the world accessed with scenarios; it does so by respectively reframing roles and relationships at the micro and meso levels. This paper is also a response to the call made by Vaara and Whittington (2012) to broaden the analyses of strategy-making, moving away from a strong emphasis on the ability of individual managers or management teams to steer an organization to instead become more concerned with placing agency in a web of practices. Accordingly, Whittington et al (2003) proposed that strategy be investigated as a field or social system characterised by connections between corporate elites, strategy consultants, financial institutions, state agencies, the business media, and business schools with an emphasis on understanding how these interactions contribute to the production and consumption of particular kinds of strategy discourse. This paper establishes that taking a scenarios approach can help strategists in firms in turbulent environments (Emery and Trist, 1965) to host diverse views without having to reach agreement, and so more readily comprehend the relevance, complexity, and potential impacts of such a web of practices. By having a small set of scenarios that disagree with each other but do so within different futures, the views of “the other” (Habermas, 2000) and the connections between the web of practices can be safely explored within a “safe” transitional space (Amado and Ambrose, 2001).

PA10 What i need you to know. building a collaborative communication tool.

During strategy consultation in Northern Ireland an "End of Life Care Passport" was suggested as a way to address myriad communication difficulties involved in living with evolving illness. To build a patient-owned communication tool to facilitate important conversations and capture key information as health changes. Participatory action methods used to engage service users, carers, patient advocates, and healthcare professionals. Views harnessed via: face to face, email, telephone, via series of workshops. Iterative process of drafting, dissemination, evaluation, re drafting. Pilot version launched (350 disseminated): used for a 3 month evaluative period by 3 groups: living with dementia, with motor neurone disease, with advanced respiratory illness. Feedback widely sought from participating individuals and groups. The emergent tool(1) very different from originally envisaged. Key issues include widespread rejection of "End of Life Care Passport" (felt to be professionally based perspective); very high level of engagement with the process, imperative to develop a tool which focusses on language and communication needs of patient and carers rather than professionals. Emergent tool contains ten sections and brief explanatory content. Housed as A5 portable ring binder (e-version suggested), updated collaboratively by patient, carers, key supporters, professionals. Patients and carers face multiple communication difficulties negotiating changing health. At particular risk are those with rare illness and those whose capacity is limited due to illness, language or cultural barriers. There is a role for a communication tool which houses key evolving information, is completed collaboratively and patient owned and controlled. http://www.rcgp.org.uk/rcgp-near-you/rcgp-northern-ireland/my-healthcare-passport.aspx.

The strategy consultant of the drug development playing a part of the open innovation

1990年代に医薬品業界を席巻した「ブロックバスターモデル」では，世界的な医薬品メーカー（以下，メーカー）のなかのリーダー的企業の方針に他の多くのメーカーが追随し，メーカー各社は，科学的専門性や労働生産性を高めて新製品を創製し，一定の成長を遂げてきた．しかしその一方で，創薬のアイディアが画一的になり，このビジネスモデルはやがて停滞した．次なるモデルでは，メーカー各社が広く様々な知見に触れて，創薬の方針を自ら描くこととし，多様な組織がそれぞれの得意な知識や技術を生かしつつ，新薬の創出という共通の目標に向けて緩やかに連携する「オープンイノベーション」が推進された．そのようななか，特性を異にする組織や機関の連携を保ち，効率的な創薬活動を支援するコンサルタントの役割が注目されている．このようにして，「オープンイノベーション」により医薬品産業の全体構造が変化して柔軟化し，創薬を担うプレーヤーの役割が再定義されつつある．各プレーヤーが自らの環境の変化を敏感に察知し，負うべきリスクを戦略的に判断することが，医薬品産業の再興のキーファクターになると思われる．

Middle Managers as Strategy Formulators: A Longitudinal Study of Liminal Activity

This article offers insight into how middle managers formulate strategy while working with external strategy consultants. We claim two significant contributions. First, we challenge the view that middle managers cannot be strategists because their involvement is essentially part-time. Our empirical study details how in a twenty-two month strategy formulation process a small team of middle managers were the dominant actors and deserved to be regarded as strategists, albeit temporary ones. Second, we theorize how middle managers work with external strategy consultants through focusing on liminality and their liminal actions. The construct of liminality allows us to theorize middle managers’ strategizing as tentative, identity-related actions that unfold in places where norms of work are suspended and new conventions emerge.

Knowledge Management and Organisational Learning: Objectifying a Synergetic Liaison within the Learning Organisation

The rapid evolution of our intensely connected global economy translates into the imperativeness of developing knowledge capabilities. The pioneers of knowledge management have developed valuable tools and approaches. For centuries, scientists, philosophers, and intelligent laymen have been concerned about creating, acquiring, and communicating knowledge and improving the re-utilization of knowledge. However, it is only in the last decade or so that Knowledge Management (KM) has evolved as a discipline, especially on the maps of strategy consultants and conference organizers. KM is harboured on the premise that, organizations, much like their human figments, are incapable of completely harnessing their retained knowledge. Through KM, organizations seek to acquire or create potentially useful knowledge and to make it available to those who can use it at a time and place that is appropriate for them to achieve maximum effective usage in order to positively influence organizational performance. In this context, it is opined that organizational learning (OL) is complementary to KM. OL is accountable for embedding what has been instilled into the fabric of the organization. In this endeavor, a conceptual model shall be developed which shall seek to unravel the symbiosis between KM and OL through the management of knowledge-related assets, thereby ensuring effective organization of ICT resources as well as workforce dynamics in the learning organization.

The Leader as Chief Strategist

Modern academic links between leadership and strategy were forged in the early 1960s with the heightened application of strategy to business planning. These links were soon dissolved by the strategy consultants who came to dominate the field of business strategy in the mid-1960s. The consultants dismissed the role of leadership in strategic planning in favor of objective analyses of the external environment that eliminated any need for leadership skills, judgment, values, or intuition. Failures to implement strategy in the 1980s led to limited roles for leaders in implementing strategies they had no role in creating, but the gulf between leadership and strategy has steadily widened. This paper traces the consequences of this widening gulf for teaching leadership and strategy in the classroom. It explores how an integrated approach to teaching leadership and strategy would better prepare today’s students for the challenges they will face as future business leaders.

다문화사회에서의 정보격차해소를 위한 플랫폼 전자정부 구축 연구

2020년 무렵 한국사회는 급속한 정보통신기술(ICT)발전에 따른 디지털 양극화의 심화문제와 함께, 100만 명에 이르는 본격적인 다문화사회가 시작될 것으로 예상되는 점에서, 본 연구는 이러한 시대도래에 적합한 정보격차를 해소하는 다문화정책에 대한 논의를 전개하였다. 따라서 이러한 새로운 패러다임 변화환경 아래에서의 한국 다문화 가족 관련 정보서비스가 확대 및 강화되는 미래전략방향을 탐색하였다. 본 논문에서는 이를 위해 바람직한 미래상을 시나리오플래닝을 통하여 고찰하여 보고 이의 달성을 위한 향후 추진방향을 모색하였다. 그 결과 ICT에 기반을 둔 데이터 서비스통합형의 개방된 플랫폼 전자정부 구축이 향후 한국 다문화사회에 있어서의 바람직한 미래상으로 제시되었다. The 2020 Digital polarization in accordance with rapid information and communication technology (ICT) development arises as an important issue in the society of the time in S. Korea. And at that time of 2020 S. Korea society due to the multicultural families of nearly one million people are expected to start full-scale multicultural society. So this study has been developed ways to bridge the gap as the digital divide with a discussion of multicultural society policy relevant to advent of the era of the informatization. Also under changing environment of this new paradigm, this study proposed that the future strategic direction like expanded and enhanced information services relevant to multicultural families in S. Korea. So this study focused on the strategy consulting of multicultural society policy with e-Government of S. Korea by the application of 'scenario planning' as a foresight method. As a result, A desirable future vision of multicultural society policy with e-government in S. Korea is to build 'open platform' based on ICT-integrated data services.

The Leader as Chief Strategist

Modern academic links between leadership and strategy were forged in the early 1960s with the heightened application of strategy to business planning. These links were soon dissolved by the strategy consultants who came to dominate the field of business strategy in the mid-1960s. The consultants dismissed the role of leadership in strategic planning in favor of objective analyses of the external environment that eliminated any need for leadership skills, judgment, values, or intuition. Failures to implement strategy in the 1980s led to limited roles for leaders in implementing strategies they had no role in creating, but the gulf between leadership and strategy has steadily widened. This paper traces the consequences of this widening gulf for teaching leadership and strategy in the classroom. It explores how an integrated approach to teaching leadership and strategy would better prepare today’s students for the challenges they will face as future business leaders.

Leading in uncertain times

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide an interview Charles-Edouard Bouée, Chief Operating Officer, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, and author of Light Footprint Management. Design/methodology/approach – Provides an interview Charles-Edouard Bouée, Chief Operating Officer, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, and author of Light Footprint Management. Findings – Discusses the Light Footprint (LFP) approach to management, which is prevalent in Chinese businesses as a response to the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment they operate in. Originality/value Originality/value – Outlines the etymological origins of strategy, the differences between Chinese and western management styles. Opines that the LFP management style, which grew out of American military doctrine, will allow organizations to adapt and thrive during times of uncertainty.

Value Creation Recreated & Why EVAA is Fundamentally Flawed

Economic Value Added (EVA™) and competing metrics are a leitmotif for management, strategy consultants and Wall Street. Such metrics, the synthesis of MM resolving the empirical result.

Economic benefits of standards

This paper summarizes the results of a project undertaken by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to assess the economic benefits of standards through case studies in over 20 countries worldwide. The methodology has been developed in 2009 by ISO in cooperation with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and continuously refined to determine and quantify the benefits that result from the use of standards for standards-using organizations. The paper starts with an overview of how the case studies have been organized, followed by an introduction to the methodology and concludes with a summary of the main findings.

Research on Network Learning Mechanism of Enterprise Network Resource Coordination

Enterprise network belongs to complex adaptive system. The coordination of enterprise network resource refers to the rules that enterprise network members are able to comply with and unity action in order to achieve the expected goal. The rules mainly include opportunity discovery mechanism, communication mechanism, strategy consultation mechanism and the network learning mechanism. Network learning in the process of enterprise network resource coordination is in order to achieve sustainable development the behavior subject in the network would access to network resource in a larger limit, actively adjust itself to accommodate the other behavior subjects, and commonly adjust the network resource coordination rules to adapt to external environment. Therefore, network learning mechanism in the process of enterprises network resource coordination is the study of the summary of experience and lesson to the coordinated activity afterwards of the network behavior subjects, through summing up, modify, perfect and discover the new rules. It can divide into two stages: credit assignment stage and new rules discovery stage.

Deus ex machina? Career progress and the contingent benefits of knowledge management systems

Knowledge management (KM) systems are increasingly common in firms which promote self-managed careers and autonomy, such as professional service firms. Yet, whether or not KM systems provide real benefits is underexplored. Our focus is on the impact of KM use on the career progress of service professionals. We use recorded logs of employee KM system use and career progress data over a two-year period within a strategy consultancy to study the effect of KM use on career advancement speed. We present a contingency-based model to KM use effectiveness, showing that, although KM use generally boosts career progress speed, (a) benefits vary by seniority (more junior employees benefit more), (b) benefits vary by knowledge type (encyclopedic vs. social), with social knowledge use mattering more to career progress, and (c) those service professionals who tap a wider range of knowledge sources progress faster in their careers. We also find mediating effects, specifically that KM system use operates partly by accelerating the development of task-related skills. We draw the conclusion that KM systems contain neither a magical Deus ex machine for boosting employee performance and progress but nor do they warrant excessive skepticism, rather their impact on careers is contingent on employee needs.

CEO Tenure and R&D Investment

This study examines the curvilinear CEO tenure–R&D investment relationship and the moderating influence of board capital on this relationship, thus making two major contributions. First, the finding of an inverted-U CEO tenure–R&D investment relationship enriches our understanding of how the CEO life cycle affects corporate investment decisions, particularly R&D. Second, the evidence of positive moderating effects of board human and social capital suggests that boards affect managerial choices through their human and social capital, thereby providing insight into how boards influence CEOs’ decision-making capabilities and, consequently, their R&D investment decisions. One important implication is that to encourage CEOs to invest in R&D, shareholders in the electronics industry and firms competing in innovation through R&D spending may consider appointing more directors with greater human and social capital to the Board because they will provide CEOs with ongoing advice and essential resources for R&D. The implications for strategy consultants are also discussed.

Strategy consultants doing strategy: How status and visibility affect strategizing

Strategy consultants form a highly influential group of strategy practitioners, yet surprisingly neglected within strategy studies. Therefore, we aim to contribute our own understanding to the term, strategy consultants and discuss the characteristics of strategy work. We do this from the perspective of strategy-as-practice and direct our attention to the praxis and practices of strategy consultants. Our study builds upon extensive empirical material, including first hand observations of strategy consulting work being performed. Based upon results from a grounded theory analysis (early- and intermediate stages), we claim that strategy consulting work differs substantially depending on the roles that are constituted by the interaction and relation with the client. We suggest four metaphors to categorize these roles and discuss their characteristics and implications for strategizing activities. Key words: Strategy, strategy-as-practice, strategy consultants, metaphors.

Research on Communication Mechanism of Enterprise Network Resource Coordination

The coordination mechanism of enterprise network resource refers to the rules which the enterprise network members are able to comply with and unity action in order to achieve the expected goal. The rules mainly include: opportunity discovery mechanism, communication mechanism, strategy consultation mechanism and the learning mechanism of enterprise network, as well as the evaluation of coordination effect. Communication is the basic premise of coordination. According to the types of enterprise network, there are mainly three kinds of basic types in enterprise network communication, which is communication based on the core enterprise, communication without core enterprise and Communication of chain. Communication in the enterprise network resource coordination process refers to the transmission and exchange of activities knowledge and information among the behavior subjects in order to realize the goal of sharing resource. Influence factors of communication in enterprise network resource coordination include the number of communication subjects, the type of communication ways, communication language, culture and roles.