The topic of business growth is a fascinating one. I will try to build the argument in this article that if a firm is not growing, it is dying.
Author Archive for Adam Newdow
What Is The Meaning of Dynamic In Business?
Dynamic defined as an adjective is – “(of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress”. As a noun it is defined as – “a force that stimulates change or progress within a system or process”.
The Curious Nature of Business Goals
Achievement oriented business people love goals. Ask a salesperson to go sell widgets. Now have an agreement with that person to go sell ten widgets in three months. This simple change in approach and language makes all the difference to that salesperson’s focus and motivation.
Why There Are So Many Frameworks for Competitive Strategy?
there is a good reason for so many approaches and frameworks. We will not discuss various frameworks in depth here. I have my own called the Business Performance Engine that I have written about in this series of articles. Our purpose here is why there are so many frameworks.
Why Do Competitive Strategies Fail?
We normally like to think about what causes competitive strategies to be successful. But a discussion of what causes them to fail can complement our understanding about what a good competitive strategy is and why a clear competitive strategy is so important for the for-profit firm.
The Basics of Competitive Strategy Revisited
As I have written in this series, the field of competitive strategy seeks to understand why some firms continuously out-perform their rivals in terms of sustainable competitive advantage and superior financial performance. Why does Amazon continue to amaze nearly everyone in terms of continual superior performance and increases in its stock price? And recall Amazon almost went bankrupt early in its history. The answer lies in large part on a clear conception of competitive strategy. The clear conception also unfolds as a story that evolves and changes as the competitive landscape changes. But this is key: the unfolding story needs to be aligned and consistent with the clear conception. Stories that flip-flop with no unifying theme usually leads to bad performance over time. Proper alignment of the unfolding story to the clear conception in turn allows a keen focus on operations excellence, which keeps the organization grounded in initiatives that are doable and that allow the firm to win.
What Is the Most Important Functional Area in a Business?
Marketing, sales and human resources are just three of the usual many functional areas. Of course all of the functional areas are important all of the time. And in some time periods one or two of the functional areas become more important to solve a problem, crisis or seize an opportunity. What do you feel is the most important functional area in your business or in any for-profit firm?
What Is Value?
This is a slightly updated article from 2016. I think it is a good one and worth your time to read. The Diamond-Water Paradox is posed early on to sophomore students in an economics course. The question is: why is water, which is required to maintain human life, of much lower value to people than diamonds are? Why are we usually willing to pay very little money for one glass of water and a great deal of money for one diamond, which is not required to maintain human life?
Running Government Like A Business: How I Would Advise President-elect Trump
I am going to take somewhat of a detour from the purpose of this series of articles that discusses points of view and frameworks to aid in the growth of the market value of for-profit firms. However, readers will see that the extent to which government can be an enabler of free enterprise, this article does contribute to that purpose.
Four Kinds of Barriers in the Established Firm
What keeps you up at night? Chances are it is the nagging things that are being delayed for seemingly no reason or things that are putting your business at risk. Some of these risk factors simply need to be insured or you have to self-insure them via some kind of reserve fund in case something goes wrong.
How Is Your Firm Doing? A Self-Interview Guide For Senior Management
I know this will seem arrogant, but after thirty-five years of being honored to work for and with numerous CEOs in a host of industries, coupled with my academic research, I have five questions that in one hour can tell you how your firm is doing and what needs to be worked on next.
Shareholders, Customers or Employees: Which Is More Important? Part 2
This is Part 2 of an article I published last week for Linked In and last month for website readers. I felt it was important to start this discussion as we are in a new round of some experts providing confusion around which group is more important for the for-profit firm: shareholders (or owners in the private for-profit firm), customers or employees? If you missed it the article can be found in the archives of this newspaper or at my website cited below.