HBR On Strategy

The rapid pace of technological change is making a big impact on hiring. Some organizations are dynamically securing freelance workers through platform apps like Upwork and Freelancer. Other companies are investing heavily in work enabled by artificial intelligence. John Winsor and Jin Paik say these structural changes call for a reimagining of your talent strategy—one that is open to flexible, project-based work for talent inside or outside your organization—and they explain how to go about it. Winsor is the founder and chair of Open Assembly and an executive-in-residence at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard. Paik is a cofounder and managing partner at the AI consultancy Altruistic and a visiting research scientist at Harvard Business School. Together, they wrote the book Open Talent: Leveraging the Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges and the HBR article “Do You Need an External Talent Cloud?“

Most businesses are built on a linear model: take, make, and discard. But that norm is reaching its limits, and leaders are under pressure to find smarter, more sustainable ways to operate. Weslynne Ashton is a systems scientist and professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In her masterclass at HBR’s 2024 Leaders Who Make a Difference conference, she explains how companies can shift to a circular economic strategy. One that reduces waste, reinvests in communities, and creates long-term value. She shares how businesses around the world are rethinking products, partnerships, and growth itself to build more resilient, regenerative business models.

When Ferrari, the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer, committed to achieving carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet, investors and employees applauded the new strategy. But among the company’s suppliers, the reaction was mixed. Many were nervous about how this shift would affect their bottom lines. Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun and Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna discuss how Ferrari collaborated with suppliers to work toward achieving the company’s goal. They also explore how sustainability can be a catalyst for innovation in the case, “Ferrari: Shifting to Carbon Neutrality.”

While many teams and organizations engage in scenario planning, most don’t go far enough. Arjan Singh, consultant and adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, says a more disciplined approach, borrowed from the military, can help leaders truly test how their strategies, operations, and tactics hold up against competitors, shifting market dynamics, and unexpected events. He’s helped hundreds of companies identify risks and find new ways to innovate by leading them through corporate war games, and he explains his process and results. Singh is the author of the book Competitive Success: Building Winning Strategies with Corporate War Games.

Rafi Mohammed, founder of the consulting firm Culture of Profit, says a crisis or recession is not the time to panic and slash prices. He says leaders should instead reevaluate their pricing strategy—or develop one for the first time—to better respond to customers during the slump and keep them when the economy recovers. Since this conversation took place in 2020, the crisis you'll hear them referring to is—obviously—the Covid-19 pandemic. But these lessons apply well beyond that moment—to any period of economic instability. Mohammed shares examples of companies across a variety of industries that created effective price strategies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mohammed is the author of The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow and the recent HBR article, “Setting a Pricing Strategy Amid Ever-Changing Tariffs.”

HBR editor at large Adi Ignatius speaks with Lisa Su, CEO of leading semiconductor company AMD, about the company’s evolution toward high-performance and adaptive computing, the future of AI use in different sectors, and the importance of responsible risk-taking. She advocates for fast experimentation and implementation while ensuring safety through initiatives like AMD’s Responsible AI Council, active learning within the organization and among industry peers, and the hiring of diverse talent to drive innovation. Time Magazine recently named Su their "CEO of the Year."

In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and then-CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, was facing a decision that could determine his company’s future. Should he stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of Chewy.com’s e-commerce fulfillment or take that function in house? Cohen worried that the company’s current 3PL may not be able to scale with Chewy.com’s projected growth or maintain the company’s performance standards for service quality and fulfillment. But neither he nor his cofounders had experience managing logistics, and the company’s board members were pressuring him to leave order fulfillment to the 3PL. What should Cohen do? Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeffrey Rayport discusses the options in his case, “Chewy.com (A).”

Unfortunately, you can’t set up your organization’s artificial intelligence projects like just any other IT project. By their nature, AI endeavors are quite different and suffer high failure rates. But there are proven approaches you can take to increase your odds of success. Iavor Bojinov, assistant professor at Harvard Business School and former LinkedIn data scientist, breaks down five critical steps for an AI project to turn into an effective product: selection, development, evaluation, adoption, and management. He’s the author of the HBR article “Keep Your AI Projects on Track.”

What can failures like Harley-Davidson Cologne or Cheetos Lip Balm teach us about success? Sean Jacobsohn, partner at Norwest Venture Partners and founder of the Failure Museum, takes us on a tour of notable product failures, sharing insights into why they failed and the lessons we can learn from them. Discover the six forces of failure and learn how companies can avoid making the same mistakes.

”Community” is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot in the business world. But what does it really mean to build one—and what does it take to make it last? More importantly, how can businesses create communities that drive long-term success? Matt Mullenweg, the cofounder of WordPress and the founder and CEO of Automattic, tackles these questions in this episode. He shares insights on fostering community within a firm—like hiring the right people through auditions instead of resumes—and within a customer base by encouraging engagement and feedback.

Stefan Thomke, professor at Harvard Business School, says running experiments can give companies tremendous value, but too often business leaders make decisions based on intuition. While A/B testing on large transaction volumes is common practice at Google, Booking.com, and Netflix, Thomke says even small firms can get a competitive advantage from experiments. He explains how to introduce, run, and learn from them, as well as how to cultivate an experimental mindset at your organization. Thomke is the author of the book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments and the HBR article “Building a Culture of Experimentation.”

Founded in 2014, Thinx, Inc. makes absorbent underwear that can be worn during menstruation. But the feminine care market had seen virtually no innovation in half a century because of the taboo against discussing the topic of menstruation. As a result, the startup was competing against large incumbents like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Rembrand Koning examines these strategic marketing challenges and discusses the importance of removing taboos and biases in order to bring innovation to the feminine care market in his case, “Thinx, Inc.—Breaking Barriers in Feminine Care.”

Venture capital firms notoriously embrace risk and take big swings, hoping that one startup will become a monster hit that pays for many other failed investments. This VC approach scares established companies, but it shouldn’t. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Ilya Strebulaev says that VC firms have proven best practices that all leaders should apply in their own companies. He explains exactly how VC’s operationalize risk, embrace disagreement over consensus, and stay agile in their decision-making—all valuable lessons that apply outside of Silicon Valley. With author Alex Dang, Strebulaev cowrote the new book The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth and the HBR article “Make Decisions with a VC Mindset.”

When a company, division, or product line has been struggling for some time, it can feel nearly impossible to get things back on track. But big turnarounds are possible, provided you have a team willing to work hard, be creative, and embrace change. When he was president and CEO of Marvel, Peter Cuneo oversaw the resurgence and sale of the media company, but even before that he had a long track record for turning around many types of consumer-facing businesses. He shares the strategies that work best for shaking up organizations and teams and boosting their performance. Cuneo is also the managing principal of Cuneo and Company.

The use of artificial intelligence—specifically generative AI—is growing rapidly, and tech giants like Google have an important role to play in how that technology gets adopted and developed. Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google as well as its parent company Alphabet, which he’s led as an AI-first company for several years. He speaks with HBR Editor at Large Adi Ignatius about shaping Google’s AI strategy, putting safeguards in place, and how work and leadership will change as AI advances.

Getting a big, bureaucratic organization to innovate or adopt new technologies is hard. That’s why Harvard Business School professor Maria Roche wrote a case study about U.S. Air Force Major Victor “SALSA” Lopez. He helped launch a program that uncovers ways to use AI to strengthen U.S. defense efforts. Professor Roche and Major Lopez talked about the challenges of fostering innovation within a large bureaucracy in a conversation with host Brian Kenny on Cold Call back in 2023.

Fueled by the promise of concrete insights, organizations are increasingly prioritizing data in their decision-making processes. But that process can easily go wrong. Many leaders don’t understand that their decisions are only as good as how they interpret the data. In this episode, John Hopkins Carey School Professor Michael Luca and Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson explain their framework for making better decisions by interpreting data more effectively.

Many companies, especially in the tech world, have come to embrace the idea of growth at all costs. But according to research from Gary Pisano, professor at Harvard Business School, most firms fail to consistently increase revenues and profits over the long term, adjusting for inflation. In this episode, Pisano explains why it’s important for leaders to think more strategically about not just the rate of growth they want to achieve but the direction they want to grow in and their method for doing so. Trying to grow too fast can be the downfall of many organizations. He shares examples of companies that have fallen into this trap, as well as those getting the balance right.

Imagine a company that, in a matter of weeks, can develop, prototype, build, and deliver innovative products. That’s exactly what Haier, one of the world’s largest home appliance manufacturers, achieved in 2019. When the city of Wuhan urgently needed mobile isolation wards to curb the spread of Covid-19, Haier leveraged their open digital supply chain platform. In this episode, Kasra Ferdows, an operations management professor at Georgetown University, explains how open digital platforms facilitate innovation and problem solving by making the entire supply chain more transparent to suppliers.

The insurance industry is centuries old and has historically been dominated by a few large incumbents. To buy insurance, customers usually go through a broker or an agent. But the industry is experiencing disruption from smaller tech-driven companies—known as insurtechs—that are changing how insurance is bought and sold. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Lauren Cohen explores how insurtech firm Hippo is challenging traditional insurance models. He explains how Hippo is eliminating the need for insurance agents and using AI to lower prices. He also shares Hippo’s unique approach to targeting customers who live in riskier markets and are comfortable with digital platforms.

It’s a holy grail for many businesses — the search for sustainable competitive advantage. But Chris Zook points out that it’s elusive for most companies. He notes that less than one in ten achieve profitable growth over a decade, on average. Zook is the former head of Bain’s global strategy practice and coauthor of the book Repeatability: Build Enduring Businesses for a World of Constant Change. In this episode, he shares three key principles that can help your organization find and maintain an enduring competitive advantage, with real-world examples drawn from IKEA, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Nike.

For a long time in the restaurant industry, there were two types of dining experiences: fast food or table service. But Ron Shaich, founder and former chairman and CEO of Panera Bread, managed to create an entirely new category in between the two: fast casual. That innovative idea laid the groundwork for companies like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and beyond. In this episode, Shaich breaks down his core strategies for successful innovation in the restaurant industry: figure out what your customers truly want, create a differentiated offering, execute with excellence, and focus on growth. He argues that these strategies aren’t only relevant for the food industry — they can be used to scale any type of organization.

Imagine this scenario: Your company’s executive team has just announced their new master plan for growing the business. Now it’s your job, as a mid-level manager, to put it into practice. So where do you start? In this episode, strategist Andrea Belk Olson explains how to make the most of a plan that you may or may not agree with and that you may or may not have had any input into. She also has advice about the questions you should ask yourself before taking action, how to handle resistance from people you manage, and what to do if the new strategy isn’t working well.

In June 2022, the first ever LIV Golf event teed off outside of London. Offering players larger prizes and more flexibility, LIV Golf aimed to disrupt the sport. In response, the PGA Tour suspended all players who participated in the LIV Golf event, escalating tensions between the two entities. This conflict culminated in LIV Golf filing an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. Then, in a surprising turn of events, the two tours announced their merger in June 2023. University of Virginia associate professor Alexander  MacKay discusses the competitive and regulatory issues at stake and whether or not the PGA Tour took the right actions in response to LIV Golf’s entry in his case, “LIV Golf.”  In this episode, he explores how a dominant organization like the PGA Tour can respond to challenges from innovative competitors. He also shares lessons from the PGA Tour’s response to LIV Golf’s market entrance and explains when it makes more sense to treat a competitor as a partner rather than an adversary.

In the last half century, relationships between employers and their employees have evolved away from being rooted in long-term loyalty to a new paradigm of short-term alliances driven by uncertainty and competition. Entrepreneurs and coauthors Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh argue that the new world of work isn’t so different from the typical conditions that many entrepreneurs operate in. And if you’re a manager, you may need a new strategy to hire and retain top talent. Casnocha and Yeh, coauthors of the book The Startup of You, explain why it’s important for your organization to build internal and external employee networks—and how to get started if you don’t already have those groups in place informally.

The consulting firm McKinsey has helped its clients navigate disruption in a wide range of industries. But what can we learn from how McKinsey itself responded to disruption in the management consulting industry in the early aughts? In this episode, the originator of disruptive innovation, the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, joined former McKinsey managing partner Dominic Barton to break down how the firm shifted its internal strategy to prioritize flexibility and efficiency.

Why did some companies thrive during the Covid-19 pandemic while others struggled? Keith Ferrazzi, founder of the consulting firm Ferrazzi Greenlight, surveyed more than 2,000 executives to learn how they changed their operations during the pandemic. The results show that some companies had already been cultivating a kind of extreme adaptability before the pandemic. That practice helped them come out on top. In this episode, Ferrazzi outlines the concrete steps organizations can take to cultivate the resilience and agility to stay competitive in the post-Covid-19 world.

Glossier launched in 2014 as an e-commerce, direct-to-consumer makeup and skincare brand aimed at millennial women. From the start, Glossier’s founder Emily Weiss built a strong digital community around her brand. But after the company received its first major round of funding, Glossier was ready to scale up its marketing spending. The challenge: How to do that while also preserving the brand’s all-important authenticity? In this episode, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jill Avery explains how to think about marketing when scaling a business. Drawing from her business case on Glossier, Avery breaks down how their management team incorporated paid micro-influencers to grow their brand value without undermining their credibility.

What does it take to succeed as a business while doing well by your employees? Harvard Business School professor emeritus Mike Beer has studied companies who invest in building long-term social value and he says they offer some key lessons for other firms. In this episode, he breaks down how these companies set their strategies for new products and services, hiring, and even how much debt to accrue by first considering their company’s larger identity and higher purpose. Beer calls this “strategic identity.” He also explains how to manage short-term pressures from Wall Street through storytelling that emphasizes long-term results.

Looking at business news over the past decade (including a few HBR articles), you might assume that just about every traditional company has fallen — or will soon fall — to competitors from the tech industry. But London Business School professor Julian Birkinshaw says that story of disruption and destruction is overblown. His research into Fortune 500 and Global 500 organizations shows that many industries haven’t been radically remade, despite the rise of a few tech giants like Amazon and Google. Birkinshaw outlines the strategies that many incumbents, like J.P. Morgan, Disney, and Proctor & Gamble, are using to survive and thrive. He breaks down the benefits and drawback of four key strategies that incumbents typically use to compete with insurgents. And he explains how you can decide which strategy best fits your organization.

If you’re a fast-growing company in an emerging economy, you need a strategy for competing in your home market in the short term. But you also need a longer-term strategy that will help you grow beyond that initial market. John Jullens says the challenge is building both strategies simultaneously. Jullens is a longtime management consultant who specializes in corporate and business unit strategy. He explains why so many companies in emerging markets make the mistake of focusing on execution and first mover advantage. Instead, he argues that companies need to lay the strategic foundations for long-term success early on or risk flaming out.

Khan Academy, the online global education nonprofit, launched in 2006 when founder Sal Khan created a few videos to help his cousin with her math homework. After a decade of growth brought Khan Academy’s user base to more than 15 million monthly visitors, Khan knew he needed expert help to formulate and lead a strategy for the organization’s future growth. He hired Ginny Lee from Intuit to serve as Khan Academy’s COO and president. Her mandate was to redefine the organization’s priorities, create a focused strategy for growth, and continue scaling the company. Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman studied the company’s growth strategy and wrote a business case study about it. He explains why it’s so important to build a well-balanced leadership team as part of your growth strategy. He also breaks down how to create processes for everything from budgeting to giving feedback.

Leadership transitions are challenging for both organizations and the leaders who must directly navigate them. But Michael Watkins says they’re also a time of incredible opportunity — especially for those leaders who understand how to handle this crucial period. Watkins is a professor of leadership and organizational change at IMD Business School. He shares a framework for selecting a transition strategy that best matches the situation you’re facing — whether you’re building a new operation from scratch or trying to turnaround a business in crisis. Watkins also explains why it’s so important to effectively assess your new leadership context and not to rely only on transition strategies that have worked for you in the past.

In 1992, Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. signed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the global business landscape began transforming. NYU-Stern professor Pankaj Ghemawat studies how companies have adjusted their strategies to that disruptive change — from rethinking their supply chains to learning to navigate unpredictable trade policy environments. He discusses how companies can plan for an evolving world of multi-country international supply chains and cross-border information flows.

Disruptive innovation has proven to be such a powerful idea that the word “innovation” is often equated with the broader idea of market disruption. But that’s not always the case. INSEAD strategy professor Renée Mauborgne says there is a way to create new markets without destroying jobs, companies, and communities. She calls this idea: “nondisruptive creation.” Mauborgne explains how some entrepreneurs and companies have been able to grow billion-dollar businesses by creating new markets rather than displacing existing ones. She points to Square, which enables credit card transactions with a mobile phone or tablet, as one prime example. Mauborgne also breaks down the key operational advantages that come with nondisruptive creation and explains how to spot a nondisruptive market opportunity and evaluate its potential.

Enel, Italy’s state-owned power company founded in 1962, was one of Europe’s largest coal users and polluters. Now it is recognized as a leader in renewable energy and has integrated sustainability into its business model and its operations. In this episode, former Harvard Business School senior lecturer Mark Kramer explains how Enel made that enormous strategic change — from its long-range planning to how it tackled the dreaded “innovator’s dilemma.” Kramer studied the company’s transformation into a renewable energy leader in his case, “Enel: The Future of Energy.”

Creating value is table stakes for any business. But is your organization also capturing the value you create? IMD professor Stefan Michel says that many businesses don’t actually know how. He studies marketing and strategy at the Switzerland-based business school. Through his research, he created a framework for defining the value of your innovations. In this episode, he explains how to apply his framework — whether you’re developing new business ideas or formulating a strategy to compete with a new entrant in your market. He also discusses how value-capture works in the real world — drawing on examples from companies like Nespresso and Google.

Climate change is causing severe weather, dangerously elevated temperatures, and water shortages around the world. Meanwhile, firms are struggling to reduce their carbon emissions while adapting their operations to these new conditions. To address both challenges at once, Harvard Business School professors Forest Reinhardt and Michael Toffel have proposed an unconventional path forward: learning from the climate change strategies of the U.S. Navy. They argue that the Navy’s scientific and sober view of the world’s changing climate offers insight that can also apply to the private sector. In this episode, you’ll learn how to balance mitigation activities in the shorter term with long-term investments that will help your organization adapt to future changes. You’ll also learn how climate change could shift demand in your markets and reshape shipping routes and affect your supply chains.

Do you know the difference between accurate forecasting and effective forecasting? Technology forecaster Paul Saffo says accurate forecasting is nearly impossible to do. But if you aim for effective forecasting, he notes, then at least you’re considering the full range of reasonable possibilities for the future, rather than jumping to one conclusion and preparing only for that outcome. In this episode, he shares his six rules for effective forecasting—from visualizing future uncertainty to discerning patterns in past data—and explains why it’s important to be your own worst critic of your forecasts.

AptDeco, a peer-to-peer marketplace for used furniture, launched in New York City in 2014. Despite its complexity and high costs, the company grew quickly. Co-founders Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis considered several different options for scaling the business—from expanding into new markets to rebranding with a sustainability focus. In this episode, Harvard Business School associate professor Ayelet Israeli and AptDeco co-founder Kalam Dennis discuss the path to scaling that AptDeco ultimately chose and what their experience can indicate about how to successfully scale a startup. They focus on how to translate early failures into valuable information that can help your business move forward and grow in the long term. They also explain how to use data and analytics to improve your value proposition.

Some managers develop strategy by focusing on problems in the present, and that’s especially true during a crisis. But Mark Johnson, co-founder of the innovation consulting firm Innosight, argues that leaders should imagine the future and then work backward to build their organization for that new reality. In this episode, he outlines the practical steps managers can take to look beyond the typical short-term planning horizon and help their teams grasp future opportunities. Johnson also shares real-world examples from Apple, Johnson & Johnson, and Intel to illustrate what can happen when leaders shift their strategic mindset to focus on the future.

Is your company’s existing growth formula finally reaching its limit? Bain & Company partner Chris Zook says you may need to redefine your core business if you want to power new growth. Zook was co-head of Bain’s Global Strategy practice for 20 years. He’s also a best-selling business author. In this episode he shares three warning signs that indicate your core business needs to be redefined, and he explains how to approach that transformation. In particular, he focuses on how to uncover what he calls “hidden assets” within your company that can offer future sources of growth.

Many people aspire to entrepreneurship. But Bill Aulet, who has advised founders for decades, warns that it remains a high-risk endeavor. Aulet is a professor of entrepreneurship at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He’s also the author of the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup. In this episode, he outlines concrete steps anyone can take to get a new venture off the ground — including intrapreneurs within large organizations. He also breaks down some of the important trends he’s seeing in entrepreneurship, like the increasing commoditization of products and lower barriers to entry, due to technology.

The Super Bowl isn’t just American football’s championship game. It’s also one of the world’s biggest stages for brand messaging. In 2024, the average 30-second Super Bowl ad cost $7 million —and that doesn’t even include production costs. So how do brand managers know if they’re getting a good return on that huge investment? In this episode, Bentley University assistant professor of marketing Shelle Santana discusses the evolution of corporate branding, using lessons from classic Super Bowl ads—like Budweiser's iconic Clydesdale horses.

Online influencers are an increasingly important way for companies to find new customers and drive sales. But if you’re a marketer hoping to target consumers, it’s important to understand how the social media industry works. In this episode, Emily Hund, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, explains that influencers grew out of Great Recession-era job cuts that forced people in creative fields to innovate. She offers advice for brands developing influencer marketing strategies. You’ll learn how to find the right influencer for your brand and how to measure success. Hund recommends starting with a small experiment to get familiar with the process before making a larger investment. You’ll also learn why longer-term creative relationships with influencers can produce stronger results than one-off endorsements.

More and more companies are turning to pricing algorithms to maximize profits. But many are unaware of a big downside. Marco Bertini, a marketing professor at Esade Business School in Barcelona, says constant price shifts can actually hurt the perception of your brand and its products. He warns that employing AI and machine learning without considering human psychology can damage your relationship with customers. In this episode, he outlines the steps you can take to avoid these pitfalls, including some basic guardrails, overrides, and communication tactics. He also shares real-world examples of companies that are using dynamic pricing to smooth demand and provide better customer experiences.

In 2010, Japan’s largest e-commerce platform Rakuten was rapidly expanding into global markets when CEO Hiroshi Mikitani made a surprising announcement: Rakuten’s internal language would be changing to English. That meant that all meetings, emails, and other communications would have to be conducted in English. The company’s employees had two years to become proficient in the language or be demoted. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley discusses her case, “Language and Globalization: ‘Englishnization’ at Rakuten,” and explains why Mikitani introduced this new mandate and what results it achieved.

Managing rapid growth is a huge challenge for young businesses. Even start-ups with glowing reviews and skyrocketing sales can fail. That’s because new ventures and corporate initiatives alike must sustain profitability at scale, according to Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeffrey Rayport. He has researched some of the biggest stumbling blocks to long-lasting success and he explains how to successfully transition out of the start-up phase. Rayport argues that success has a lot to do with an organization’s cash flow and its ability to meet growing demand. But it also involves something he calls “profit market fit,” which is when an enterprise becomes financially sustainable.

What do LEGO, GoPro, and CarMax have in common? Wharton professor David Robertson says they all have a similar strategy for growth that involves building families of complementary innovations around a core product or service. It’s an approach to innovation that’s neither disruptive nor incremental, but rather somewhere in the middle. And Robertson argues it’s a strategy that any company, no matter the industry, should consider. In this episode, you’ll learn how to use customer feedback to identify a product or service that can anchor a family of complementary innovations as well as how to prepare for common challenges.

It’s an idea that’s a non-starter at many organizations: collaborating with a competitor. But Yale School of Management professor Barry Nalebuff says leaders who refuse to consider teaming up with other companies—even when there are clear mutual benefits—may be leaving value on the table. In this episode, you’ll learn how companies like Apple, Ford, Google, and others have analyzed and capitalized on what Nalebuff calls “co-opetition” opportunities. You’ll also learn how to think strategically about which tasks work well for these collaborations and how to mitigate your organization’s risk through time-tested tools like contracts, performance guarantees, and conditional penalties.

As the chair and CEO of Sodexo, the France-based food services and facilities management company, Sophie Bellon leads one of the largest employers in the world, with front-line workers in nearly 50 countries. Managing that workforce—and the supply chains that enable them to do their jobs—is a complex undertaking that involves balancing both global strategy with local execution. In this episode, Harvard Business Review executive editor Alison Beard sits down with Bellon to discuss her approaches to talent management, environmental sustainability, and supply chain resilience—all while driving future growth.

In early 2015, Microsoft’s senior leaders were facing a set of difficult decisions. The firm had been struggling to innovate and grow as fast as its competitors. Now they were considering new opportunities that would yield higher growth but lower margins—like shifting away from perpetual licensing to focus on subscription sales. Harvard Business School professor Fritz Foley studied this period of transformative change at Microsoft for a business case study he wrote. In this episode, he shares how Microsoft’s leaders analyzed different options and worked to get both investors and employees on board with new ideas about growth. He also explains how the company’s risk-averse culture evolved in order to execute such a huge transformation.

It’s a dilemma facing more and more brands: Should your business sell on Amazon? It’s the most visited e-commerce platform in the U.S. and the dominant retailer in 28 other countries. But that reach comes at a price. Harvard Business School associate professor Ayelet Israeli says there are downsides for many Amazon sellers, like costs, competition, and the lack of data. In this episode, Israeli offers a scorecard that can help you decide, step by step, whether or not the Amazon marketplace is right for your business.

Companies of every size across the world are basing more of their work around projects, but research shows that nearly two-thirds of those efforts fail. Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez has studied projects and project management for decades. He argues that at least some of the blame for these failures lies with executives who misunderstand the fundamentals of projects and fail to dedicate enough of their time to those they sponsor. In this episode, he explains how to get better outcomes from project-based work and avoid common pitfalls.

Booking.com was founded by a Dutch university student in 1996. It grew slowly for almost a decade. But by 2011, the company was generating more than a billion dollars in profits annually — making it the most financially successful digital travel market, at the time. The secret to that accelerating growth was the company’s use of large-scale testing and experimentation. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke explains how the company created and sustained a culture of innovation that challenged conventional assumptions about management and process.

So much has been written about how to future-proof a strategy. But Peter Scoblic says that too many companies still rely on short-sighted strategies that don’t effectively plan for different potential future scenarios. Scoblic is a co-founder and principal of the consultancy Event Horizon Strategies. In this episode, he explains how thoughtful and ongoing scenario-planning exercises can help organizations decide which investments will allow them to thrive in varying circumstances and navigate many types of crisis.

As the CEO of one of the largest energy holding companies in the U.S., Lynn Good is leading Duke Energy’s aggressive transition to renewables and net zero emissions. It’s a complex undertaking that involves short-term planning and long-term advances in technology as well as managing a wide range of stakeholders. In this episode, HBR editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius sits down with Good to discuss her strategy for Duke’s clean energy transition.

When it comes to solving complicated problems, the default for many organizational leaders is to take their time to work through the issues at hand. Unfortunately, that often leads to patchwork solutions or problems not truly getting resolved. Entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author Anne Morriss offers a different framework. In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem and explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership.

One of the world’s largest automotive glass producers, Fuyao Glass, must decide where to fulfill its upcoming contracts. One option is their U.S.-based factory, where production rates are lower. The other is an older factory in China that produces below the cost target, but also incurs extensive shipping costs and requires a far greater amount of inventory holding. Drawing on his case study, “Fuyao Glass America: Sourcing Decision,” Harvard Business School professor Willy Shih explains how to account for product life cycles and the length of your inventory pipelines when you select a manufacturing location. He also discusses how to assess other possible risks that could cause delays or increase your production costs—like customs delays and labor strikes.

The secret to success for many Silicon Valley tech companies isn’t necessarily that they’re ultra-nimble start-ups, or that they’re led by tech-savvy geniuses. Andy McAfee says their success often has more to do with a specific type of corporate culture that focuses on finding unconventional solutions to hard business problems. McAfee is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and he’s the author of The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset That Drives Extraordinary Results. In this episode, he explains why business leaders need to think more like geeks, and why it’s important to center your culture on company norms, rather than organizational structure.  He also offers tips for finding that delicate balance between human judgement and data-driven insights.

In the 1990s and 2000s, video game developer Epic Games had a string of mid-size successes. But the release of Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017 changed the company’s path forever. The game was a blockbuster. By 2019, Fortnite had registered more than 250 million users, with 10 million concurrent users. But Fortnite’s phenomenal success raised a new question for Epic: How could they turn this singular hit into a series of growth opportunities? In this episode, Harvard Business School associate professor Andy Wu explains why Epic monetized Fortnite through micro-transactions within the game, rather than charging a fee for the game itself. He also discusses how Epic’s creation of a platform, the Epic store, and a premium subscription service built on Fortnite’s success and helped to distinguish their brand from other free-play games.

So much has been written about Amazon’s outsized growth. But Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta says it’s the company’s unusual approach to strategy that has captured his scholarly attention. In this episode, he shares how Amazon upended traditional corporate strategy by diversifying into multiple products serving many end users, instead of having a narrow focus. Gupta argues that some of Amazon’s simplest business strategies — like their obsession with customers and insistence on long-term thinking — are approaches that companies, big and small, can emulate.

Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation inspired a generation of entrepreneurs and businesses, ranging from small start-ups to global corporations. But three decades after the theory was introduced, debates have emerged around how it should be applied — especially within technology start-ups that have driven so much economic growth since 2000. In this episode, a panel of expert scholars discuss the legacy of disruptive innovation, and how the common perception of disruption has drifted away from its original meaning.

In February 2013, U.S. Airways announced that it would merge with American Airlines to create the world’s largest airline. During the acquisition, then-CEO Doug Parker and his board had transformative decisions to make. How should two large corporations merge their operations? Which members of each company’s C-suites should stay? How fast should they move on these changes? Parker knew that these strategic decisions would send important signals to employees, customers, and competitors. In this episode, Harvard Business School senior lecturer David Fubini breaks down the strategy underlying this historic airline industry merger.

Is your growth strategy working consistently? Strategy expert Ken Favaro says creating and sustaining growth isn’t rocket science. However, you do have to understand the difference between “organic” growth and “inorganic” alternatives, which come through a merger or acquisition. In this episode, Favaro argues that it’s important to focus on creating incentives for organic growth within your organization. He also explains why you should avoid typecasting your business units as “cash cows” or “growth engines” if you want them to achieve ongoing growth.

For more than a century, the pharmaceutical company Roche has been headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. It’s one of more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies who have long been based there. Howard Yu, Lego Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD Business School in Switzerland, says that this industrial cluster is a unique example of enduring competitive advantage. In this episode, you'll learn how these historic companies began as makers of chemical dyes and later evolved into microbiology. You’ll also learn how to repackage your company’s existing knowledge to pioneer new products and services. And you’ll learn why persistence and experimentation over the long term are pre-requisites for innovation.

Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati says the most successful start-ups have one thing in common: a soul. “Soul” goes beyond culture, purpose, or even the founder. It’s about having three things: strategic business intent, a strong connection to customers, and a stellar employee experience. Gulati argues that if you don’t preserve these elements as you scale, you’ll lose what makes your company special. In this episode, he explains how to define the specific problem your company solves and how to bring the voice of customers into your organization and ensure that your employees feel connected to them.

We all know Silicon Valley’s mantra: fail fast, fail often. But when is it OK to fail in the real world? Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson says it depends on how and why you fail. She’s an expert on psychological safety, and she explains the difference between good and bad types of failures. (One has to do with experimentation, while the other is rooted in inattention or lack of training.) Edmondson also explores the downsides of not experimenting enough because your team fears failure.

Investor and author William Thorndike studied eight CEOs who outperformed the market and their peers. The group included big names, like Warren Buffet and Katharine Graham, but also other leaders who are virtually unknown today. Thorndike noticed that these eight iconoclastic leaders all took a similar approach to capital allocation. They focused on investing their companies’ profits to repurchase their own stock when prices were optimal. But they generally avoided very large acquisitions, accruing debt, and paying dividends. In this episode, you’ll learn how effective capital allocation strategies, like the ones used by these leaders, can generate wealth for shareholders.

In 2020, Kwame Spearman left his consulting job in New York City to take over an iconic independent bookstore, the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado—his hometown. Spearman saw an opportunity to reinvent the local business to build a community space after the pandemic. But to keep the store successful, he had figure out how to compete with online retailers and big box stores, amid technological change and shifting business models. In this episode, Harvard Business School associate professor Ryan Raffaelli explain how to set sustainable wages for employees and why community engagement is a key part of the store’s strategy for growth.

Does your company have a strategy for working with investors? Whether your company is big or small, IBM’s former CEO Sam Palmisano says it’s essential to build relationships with your shareholders before there’s a specific problem to address. In this episode, you’ll learn how to communicate with your investors to meet their needs — without needing to change your strategy.

Efficiency is usually something businesses strive for, but is it possible to be too efficient? Strategy expert Roger Martin warns that an obsession with eliminating inefficiencies in U.S. companies has come with many social and economic costs—from staffing to wages and even corporate debt levels. But he argues that it’s not too late for businesses to change their priorities. In this episode, he helps leaders understand how to shift their strategic thinking and stop pursuing efficiency at all costs.

When Hubert Joly became CEO of Best Buy in 2012, online retailers like Amazon were exploding in popularity, and Best Buy was facing a sea change. But Joly famously turned around the struggling electronics retailer by changing the organization’s holistic strategy. In this episode, you’ll learn how Joly re-defined Best Buy’s purpose and aligned incentives with that larger strategy. You’ll also learn how he found mutually beneficial ways for the company to work with competitors and suppliers, including Amazon, the e-commerce giant that once threatened the company’s survival.

Careem launched as the “Uber of the Middle East” in Dubai in 2012, with a mission to make life and work better for drivers in the region. Despite technical, cultural, and financial pressures, Careem eventually became the Middle East’s first unicorn start-up, valued at more than a billion dollars. It was acquired by Uber in 2019 for $3.1 billion. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Shikhar Ghosh explains how the company scaled its operations and expanded from Dubai into Africa and South Asia, without an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ghosh studied Careem for a business case study he wrote, “Careem: Raising a Unicorn.”

Have you ever put a lot of time and energy into strategy work, but instead of finding clarity, ended up even more overwhelmed by conflicting priorities? Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee says it doesn’t have to be this way. He argues that all companies should simplify and focus on two value drivers: customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. In this episode, he offers step-by-step guidance for implementing a value-based strategy in your organization, using a “value map.”

The Swedish furniture maker IKEA found huge success producing quality furniture at affordable prices. But in 2017, the company was at a crossroads. Its beloved founder had died, and the exponential rise of online shopping posed a new challenge. In this episode, Harvard Business School professors Juan Alcacer and Cynthia Montgomery break down how IKEA developed, selected, and embraced new strategic initiatives, while fortifying its internal culture. They explain how the company reworked its franchise agreements to ensure consistency among its global stores. They also discuss how IKEA balanced global growth with localization, developing all-new supply chains.

Do you know who your “superconsumers” are, and why they’re so important for your strategy decisions? Growth strategy expert Eddie Yoon says they’re your most passionate, most valuable customers—not just because they spend more than average, but because their insight can help you improve your products and services. In this episode, you’ll learn how to define your superconsumers and use their insights to attract new users to your products and services, with plenty of real-world examples, from Velveeta cheese to vitamins and video games.

Rohit Gera had turned his family’s boutique real estate development firm into a dynamic housing solutions innovator for urban Indian families. But as he prepared to retire, Gera had to decide who would take over for him. Should he define a strategy for future growth and pick a successor who would enact it? Or should he identify his replacement and allow them to set the company’s new strategy? And should Gera’s replacement come from within his family or not? In this episode, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Christina Wing is joined by Gera to discuss her case, “Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads.” She and Gera explain how to select a growth strategy for the future. They also discuss best practices for ensuring a successful leadership transition in a family business.

In 2023, TikTok became the fourth largest social network by number of users, behind Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Meanwhile, competition in the market for short-form videos intensified. Instagram introduced Reels and YouTube launched Shorts—innovations that imitated TikTok’s approach. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee discusses imitation as a competitive strategy among the leading social networks.

As interest rates have risen in recent years, venture capital funding has dried up. How can founders grow their companies in this new environment? In this episode, a founder who grew a $600 million company using just $10,000 of his own money, shares his strategy. Mike Salguero is the CEO and founder of the meat subscription service ButcherBox. He explains how he formulated a growth strategy that had a laser focus on costs and creatively leveraged the marketing power of influencers.

In 2023, the auto industry went through huge changes in pursuit of lower carbon emission. Some automakers announced their plans to stop selling vehicles with internal combustion engines. In contrast, BMW decided to pursue a more flexible decarbonization strategy. Their plans include gasoline and diesel-fueled internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrid EVs, and battery EVs. The goal is to reduce lifecycle emissions across BMW’s supply chain, their production, and tailpipe emissions. In this episode, Harvard Business School assistant professor Shirley Lu explains how BMW analyzed its sustainability goals alongside market-based risks to formulate their decarbonization strategy. She also discusses how the company’s leadership presented their strategy to skeptical stakeholders.

ChatGPT dominated news headlines in 2023. But generative AI isn’t just a hack to boost productivity. Many businesses are exploring its potential to create new products and services, which requires entirely new strategic work. In this episode, HBR editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius, Microsoft’s head of strategy Chris Young, and Harvard Business School professor Andy Wu lay out Gen-AI’s emerging value chains and break down the competitive risks and tradeoffs that businesses should consider as they incorporate this new technology.

Pencil-maker Faber-Castell has been in business since 1761, but it is still innovating and adopting new technology. In this episode, Harvard Business School associate professor Ryan Raffaelli discusses his case, “Faber-Castell.” He explains how the company balances stewardship of its brand with innovation and evolution, and how leaders there decide when—and when not to—adopt new technologies. Plus, he breaks down Faber-Castell’s “generational” approach to formulating strategy to sustain their business for the longer term.

When companies cut costs, they tend to trim spending across the board. But Cesare Mainardi, former CEO of global management consultancy Booz & Company, says that cost cutting should be a careful, strategic process. In this episode you’ll learn how to ensure that your company’s strategic capabilities aren’t negatively affected by necessary cuts. You’ll also learn how top leadership can work with teams to understand the trade-offs involved in reducing costs.

Are you considering a refresh of your brand? Roger Martin, one of the world’s leading thinkers on strategy, says you should probably rethink that. In this episode, he explains how customer habits build “cumulative advantage” for brands — and why that’s so important, yet fragile. Martin also offers real-world examples of brand updates gone wrong (and right) — from laundry detergents to social media platforms and even the iPhone.

Jorge Quintanilla Nielsen started the private asset management firm Capital SAFI in 2007 — and planned to expand from Bolivia across South America. As a private firm, Capital SAFI isn’t required to have a board. But in order to attract new customers, Nielsen knew he needed to strengthen the firm’s governance. In this episode, you’ll learn how Nielsen selects board members and holds them accountable in their roles. You’ll also learn how Capital SAFI’s board guides the firm’s growth, risks, and overall strategy.

In addition to traditional and emotional intelligence, Pauline Brown argues that great leaders also need to develop what she calls aesthetic intelligence. They need to understand how their products make their customers feel. Brown was formerly chairperson of the luxury goods company LVMH, which includes brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Sephora, and Hennessy. In this episode, she explains how companies—like Starbucks, Airbnb, and, of course, Apple—use aesthetics to set their products apart.

Many founders try to emulate startups that have already become successful. But Thales Teixeira says that approach, which often involves trying to do too much, too quickly, can lead to failure. In this episode, you’ll learn how to find customers who aren’t being served by existing businesses and how to work with early adopters to improve your product and service. You’ll also learn when to focus on developing your technology and when to make key hires — with real-world examples from Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix.

As the former CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi played an important role in shaping the company’s global strategy. Perhaps most notably, she introduced design thinking into the company’s innovation process. In this episode, Nooyi explains how design thinking shifted the culture at PepsiCo to ultimately make the company’s operations more centralized and coordinated.

Direct-to-consumer businesses play an outsize role in disrupting industries. But after that initial disruption, industry competitors often adapt. Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger and co-founder and CEO of RSE Ventures Matt Higgins studied the teledentistry company SmileDirectClub and wrote a case study about its challenges as it scaled. In this episode, they explain how the company expanded to own an entire category of dental care products.

Who are your primary customers? Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons says that’s the most important question of your strategy — and the hardest to answer. In this episode, you’ll learn how to accurately define your primary customers — using factors like your firm’s culture, your core capabilities, and where you get the most profit.

What can we learn from fast-moving companies — like Amazon, Google, and Alibaba — about how to organize to promote strategic growth? University of Michigan business professor Dave Ulrich went inside these companies to study how internal organization helps them stay nimble, innovative, and market-oriented.

Wolters Kluwer started in the 1830s as a publishing house. But the Dutch multinational corporation has grown into a global, information services company and now earns more than 90 percent of its revenue from digital products. In this episode, chair and CEO Nancy McKinstry discusses how she successfully shifted the company’s strategy to focus on digital products.

OXXO was the dominant convenience store chain in Mexico—until its chief rival doubled in size almost overnight. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Tatiana Sandino explains how OXXO CEO Eduardo Padilla responded to this strategic challenge by focusing on operations and the company’s culture.

To many people, strategy is a total mystery. But Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee says strategy doesn’t have to be complicated if you focus on creating value.

Major strategy shifts need time to play out. Customers have their habits, employees are used to doing things a certain way, and fine-tuning a plan takes time in the market. But what if you don’t have the luxury of waiting years to know if your strategy really is working? In this episode, expert guests debate a fictional case study about a struggling retail chain’s attempt to rebrand.

As technology changes everything, how can existing businesses create innovation and change from within? Harvard Business School fellow Karen Mills studied how one 200-year-old regional bank in the U.S. used intrapreneurship to develop a completely automated small business lending product to compete with online lenders. Mills breaks down Eastern Bank’s strategy for innovation -- from its early partnership with a fintech entrepreneur to its eventual spinoff of the online lending platform it developed in-house.

When was the last time you practiced your critical thinking skills? Helen Lee Bouygues, an expert in business transformation, says many business problems are really about simple errors in critical thinking. In this episode you’ll learn how to practice your critical thinking skills. Bouygues outlines three key components of critical thinking: questioning your assumptions, reasoning through logic, and diversifying your thought process.

Harvard Business School senior lecturer Derek van Bever and former lecturer Stephen P. Kaufman studied global brewing company Molson Coors, as it prepared to enter the cannabis beverages business in 2019. Molson Coors initially planned to slowly test a few products in a small market to see if there might be a viable business. But ultimately the company decided to take a more aggressive and expensive strategy, with the aim of seizing first-mover advantage. Kaufman and van Bever explain how Molson Coors formulated that strategy.