Remove Cost of Capital Remove Leadership Remove Operations
article thumbnail

The Real Reasons Companies Are So Focused on the Short Term

Harvard Business Review

Investors punish companies with a short-term orientation by applying higher discount rates to them, which increases the cost of capital for those companies. In contrast, companies with a long-term orientation are rewarded with a lower cost of capital, which allows them to afford more innovation—a virtuous cycle.

article thumbnail

The Case for Investing More in People

Harvard Business Review

In The Good Jobs Strategy , Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, demonstrates how the best retail companies align their customer value proposition with their operations strategy and their approach to human capital. This includes more autonomy and agility as well as inspirational leadership.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

When "Creative Destruction" Destroys More than It Creates

Harvard Business Review

My colleagues and I at Bain & Company have been tracking this for forty years, and we have never seen companies losing their leadership positions as quickly as they are today. real revenue and profit growth and earning their cost of capital has steadily declined. A similar pattern hold for airlines. And for telecom.

article thumbnail

What Shareholder Value is Really About

Harvard Business Review

A CEO's job is about resource allocation with a goal of earning a return in excess of the opportunity cost of capital. The challenge is figuring out how to allocate human and financial capital to its best and highest use for the long term. Value drivers include sales growth, operating profit margin, and investment requirements.)

article thumbnail

Is Your Business Biased Against Innovation?

Strategy Driven

The logic of NPV is to project cash flows into the future and then discount those flows back into today’s dollars at a given cost of capital. Companies that will eventually be wrecked by others’ innovations are operating on autopilot. She is a popular speaker and consults to senior leadership teams.