Harvard Business Review

APRIL 16, 2015

Unless your company’s return on capital exceeds its cost of capital, no amount of revenue growth can create value. For the many firms whose cost of capital and return on capital are roughly equal, in fact, the only path to value creation is to increase return on capital.

CEO 8

CEO ROIC Cost of Capital Merton 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 3, 2011

Critics imply that managing for shareholder value is all about maximizing the short-term stock price. Companies that manage for shareholder value, the thinking goes, do whatever it takes to engineer an ever-higher market price. Value drivers include sales growth, operating profit margin, and investment requirements.)

Short-term 14

Short-term Long-term Price CEO 14

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

In research for our book, Time, Talent and Energy, my co-author Michael Mankins and I found that such investments do indeed pay off: The top-quartile companies in our study unlocked 40% more productive power in their workforce through better practices in time, talent and energy management. For knowledge workers, time is incredibly scarce.

Human Capital 15

Human Capital Kaizen Agility Energy 15

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation and resist pressure from analysts and investors to focus excessively on meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations. In this case its capital charge is $800 times 8%, or $64. This has long seemed intuitively true to us.

Long-term 8

Long-term EPS Short-term Management 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 25, 2018

To analyze the superstar dynamics of firms, our metric was economic profit, a measure of a firm’s profit above and beyond opportunity cost. (To To do this, we take the firm’s returns, deduct the cost of capital, and multiply by the firm’s total invested capital.)

Industry 15

Industry Company GDP Bottom-up 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

There is a fascinating relationship between executives and the stock prices of the companies they manage. Rappaport showed that, in setting a price, the market offers a clear signal that can inform operational and financial decisions. Next, compare the expectations of the market with those of management.

Price 8

Price Analysis Cost of Capital Disruptive Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 18, 2015

What have been less explored are the specific actions taken by private equity (PE) fund managers. In a survey of 79 PE firms managing more than $750 billion in capital, we provide granular information on PE managers’ practices and how firms’ strategies relate to the characteristics of their founders.

CAPM 8

CAPM Discounted Cash Flow Company Rate of Return 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Another pervasive reason is that senior executives are trained as operators, not innovators. And there’s a fundamental conflict between innovation and optimizing an existing operation. To close the gap, we need to treat innovation differently than we do normal operations. Here are four things leaders can do.

Innovation 8

Innovation P&L ROI Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

For slaughterhouses and retailers (Brazilian operations), we also projected positive benefits: $20 million to $120 million (0.01% to 0.1% These values can be estimated credibly and cost-effectively, and we set about applying them to the Brazilian beef sector. of revenues) and $13 million to $62 million (0.01% to 0.7% of revenues).

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Net Present Value Retail Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

Good analysis in the hands of smart managers does not automatically yield great strategy. Managers appear to be most at risk of doing too little, not too much. Companies run by decisive CEOs rack up more economic profit — what’s left of operating profit after the cost of capital is subtracted – than competitors do.

Strategy 9

Strategy McKinsey Strategic Planning Cost of Capital 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 23, 2015

“These ideas are more than 30 years old,” managers complain. The basic principles are: If you want to earn above the cost of capital (if you want to create value), you must get a higher return on your efforts than the average competitor. “Isn’t there anything more recent?” Competition Strategy'

Strategy 8

Strategy Porter Price Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 9, 2015

But before anyone writes a check, you need to calculate the return on investment (ROI) by comparing the expected benefits with the costs. Analyzing ROI isn’t always as simple as it sounds and there’s one mistake that many managers make: confusing cash and profit. Financial analysis Project management'

ROI 8

ROI Analysis Rate of Return Net Present Value 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 25, 2018

” Another is, “How will a company like that ever be managed?” These new organizations are likely to operate quite differently from traditional corporations. The most successful will develop clear joint goals and an entrepreneurially enabled management style that focuses more on outcomes than on control.

Incubator 8

Incubator Insurance Cost of Capital Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

“Stakeholder theory” or “triple-bottom-line thinking” will just leave management dazed and confused because it is unclear how these multiple objectives should be traded off. But organizations have to deal with competing priorities all the time. This works regardless of which variable you choose to maximize.

Objective 8

Objective Cost of Capital Bottom-up Environment 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2017

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.

Short-term 8

Short-term Decentralization Company CEO 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 31, 2015

While consumers are rightfully worried that their personal information may be compromised, shareholders and companies’ management have a wider set of concerns, including loss of intellectual property, operational disruption, decreased customer trust, tarnished brand, and loss of investor commitment.

Price 8

Price Long-term Banking Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

Most firms cite opportunities to reduce friction and costs. After all, most financial intermediaries themselves rely on a dizzying, complex, and costly array of intermediaries to run their own operations. If the world of venture capital can change radically in one year, what else can we transform?

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 21, 2016

These require sophisticated, sustainability-based management. Yet executives are often reluctant to place sustainability core to their company’s business strategy in the mistaken belief that the costs outweigh the benefits. This can disrupt a firm’s ability to operate on schedule and budget.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Price Loyalty Efficiency 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

As a result, family equity can come at a very low cost of capital, where businesses can meet the annual needs of their shareholders without having to worry about paying back the principal. ” There is often a personal connection between the family and the communities in which it operates; reputations matter to families.

Long-term 8

Long-term Short-term Reputation Incentives 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Creating transparency into its operations is the starting point for marketing to help CFOs understand where and how value is being gained or lost, which makes budgeting discussions much more productive. Bringing everyone into line is essential, but not necessarily easy or quick.

CFO 9

CFO Short-term Long-term Benchmarking 9

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2015

A major challenge for all retailers is managing the closures in a way that maximizes revenues and profits. Our studies of a wide range of retailers have found that companies often have the most difficulty managing death. Over time, retailers have identified and adopted many innovative ideas to manage these complex tasks.

Retail 8

Retail Cost of Capital Price Discount 8

Strategy Driven

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

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. Yet for the small handful of companies that have managed to drive growth consistently – even through tough times – the payoff is great. How do they do it?

Innovation 50

Innovation NPV Business Model Constraint 50