Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The goal of strategy is profitable growth, meaning economic value above the firm’s cost of capital. Smartly reducing assets devoted to activities that earn less than their cost of capital requires good links with evolving market realities. ( Isn’t that a function of risk parameters and the debt-to-equity ratio?

Debt to Equity Ratio 11

Debt to Equity Ratio Cost of Capital Strategy Incentives 11

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 10, 2011

When executives evaluate a potential investment, whether it's to build a new plant, enter a new market, or acquire a company, they weigh its cost against the future cash flows they expect will spring from it. It's the opening paragraph of a Harvard Business Review article called "What's Your Real Cost of Capital?"

CAPM 15

CAPM Cost Discounted Cash Flow Cost of Capital 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2015

The way to do that is to build market share in international markets at a level of profitability that is higher than the cost of capital. This is the oldest play in the short-term profitability book: raise prices to earn more in the short-term by harvesting market share.

EPS 8

EPS Short-term Cost of Capital Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 16, 2015

” A quarter century later, not much seems to have changed: fewer than five out of the 100 CEOs on HBR’s 2014 list of best-performing CEOs even mention “return on capital” on their official biography — and none of those five lead companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) or in the EuroStoxx50.

CEO 8

CEO ROIC Cost of Capital Merton 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 16, 2012

Strategic cash provides more flexibility concerning the timing and pricing of potential acquisitions; having cash on hand is the best insurance that CFOs will be able to respond with alacrity to opportunities and not be subject to the vagaries of the financial markets. Facilitate Investments. Arguments Against Strategic Cash.

Company 15

Company Cost of Capital Finance Long-term 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2017

Invest human capital just like you invest financial capital. For financial capital, the business world has developed concepts such as the opportunity cost of capital, which is reflected in a company’s weighted average cost of capital.

Human Capital 15

Human Capital Management Company ROCE 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 26, 2015

Managing death more effectively can provide numerous benefits: It can boost profits significantly, lower the cost of capital, and reduce complexity in operations, which can improve the performance of concepts that are in the early and midlife stages. There are individuals — and even firms — that specialize in liquidations.)

Retail 8

Retail Cost of Capital Price Discount 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

The cost of capital is at historic lows, averaging below 6% for most large U.S. Indeed, for most companies, the value of accelerating growth greatly exceeds the value of returning capital to shareholders. Indeed, for most companies, the value of accelerating growth greatly exceeds the value of returning capital to shareholders.

Supply Chain 9

Supply Chain CEO Discount Retail 9

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2017

This has been a remarkable year for the markets. Investors punish companies with a short-term orientation by applying higher discount rates to them, which increases the cost of capital for those companies. This means they generate less revenue, profit and market value per dollar of R&D. MirageC/Getty Images.

Short-term 8

Short-term Decentralization Company Trends 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 20, 2018

Activist hedge funds have become capital market and financial media darlings. The Economist famously called them “capitalism’s unlikely heroes” in a cover story, and the FT published an article saying we “should welcome” them. akindo/Getty Images. But they are utterly reviled by CEOs.

Hedge 8

Hedge TSR Company Sample 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

of the world market, and the second-largest beef producer and consumer. These values can be estimated credibly and cost-effectively, and we set about applying them to the Brazilian beef sector. Brazil’s Beef Industry. Brazil is the world’s biggest beef exporter, with 19.6% Marfrig stands to gain between $1.3

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Net Present Value Retail Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

The key argument for fossil fuel divestment is that the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants are not being accurately priced by the market. Private equity funds do this best, buying up cash rich companies that are undervalued by public markets.

Finance 8

Finance Cost of Capital Constraint Price 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2017

What if concentrated market power of a few companies in an industry has made these companies more profitable than usual? For instance, Home Depot, despite a painful housing market–led recession, retained most of its hourly workers and their benefits in 2008–2009. Overly optimistic financial statements.

EPS 9

EPS Metrics Depreciation Short-term 9

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

The key argument for fossil fuel divestment is that the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants are not being accurately priced by the market. Private equity funds do this best, buying up cash rich companies that are undervalued by public markets.

Finance 8

Finance Cost of Capital Constraint Price 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2017

The marketing, underwriting, and servicing of SME loans have largely taken a backseat. New digital entrants have spotted the market opportunity created by these dynamics, and the result is an explosion in online lending to SMEs from fintech startups. Banks’ cost of capital is typically 50 basis points or less.

Banking 12

Banking Stage-Gate Credit Scoring Competitive Advantage 12

Harvard Business Review

MAY 25, 2018

Mr. Rockefeller’s business strategy was to vertically integrate every aspect of the oil business (exploration, development, logistics, marketing) to assure an ongoing competitive advantage. Likewise, the airlines have demonstrated that well-constructed alliances can be a powerful way to build market position and capitalize on scale.

Incubator 8

Incubator Insurance Cost of Capital Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Alfred Rappaport's article, " Stock Market Signals to Managers ," in the November-December 1987 issue of the Harvard Business Review, provides managers with a clear method for understanding how price reflects the market's expectations about the company's future financial performance. But very few executives or investors do.

Price 8

Price Analysis Cost of Capital Disruptive Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

Forget the deficit, monetary policy, stimuli, stock markets, corporations, taxes — that stuff makes my head spin (and apparently the economy as well). Banks aren't looking for cheaper capital; they are looking for lower risk. Most importantly, the answer to most problems is usually simple.

GDP 14

GDP Planning Cost of Capital Banking 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 4, 2012

Investors reward companies (such as Apple and Kimberly-Clark ) whose current performance or guidance for the future exceeds market expectations, and they punish companies (as they did Starbucks and Procter & Gamble ) whose performance or guidance fails to meet expectations. FD) constraints.

CFO 13

CFO Metrics Price Depreciation 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 27, 2012

We have been studying companies that seem to be able to endure and adapt for longer periods of time, and have come to the conclusion that the extinction of once-great innovators is less often caused by technological or market evolution, and more often by self-inflicted wounds and slow cycles of decision and adaptation.

Creativity 15

Creativity Long-term Kotter Cost of Capital 15

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 23, 2015

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. To get a higher return than the average competitor, you must have an advantage or you must compete in an unusually attractive sector. Competition Strategy'

Strategy 8

Strategy Porter Price Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 3, 2011

Second, he or she needs to understand how capital markets work. Companies that manage for shareholder value, the thinking goes, do whatever it takes to engineer an ever-higher market price. A CEO's job is about resource allocation with a goal of earning a return in excess of the opportunity cost of capital.

Short-term 14

Short-term Long-term Price CEO 14

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 21, 2015

In fact, determining price is one of the toughest things a marketer has to do, in large part because it has such a big impact on the company’s bottom line. As she explains in her “ Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Pricing and Profitability Analysis ,” there are five zones of elasticity. What is price elasticity?

Price 8

Price Debt to Equity Ratio Marketing Net Present Value 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 13

Industry Company GDP Bottom-up 13

Harvard Business Review

JULY 31, 2017

Digital technology has been roiling markets and disrupting companies for more than two decades, but despite that lengthy history, incumbents are still struggling to enact and deliver on digital transformations. In effect, incumbents are losing because they’re playing defense.

Strategy 8

Strategy ROI Technology Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

The rest of the companies, more than 2,400, simply do not have a strategy that effectively outperforms the market. To stimulate strategic thinking, answer this question honestly: When you look objectively at your assets, capability and market position is there any reason to believe you can create disproportionate value?

Strategy 8

Strategy McKinsey Strategic Planning Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 15, 2013

At many companies the total cash investment in acquisitions, R&D, and fixed assets has not earned back its cost of capital after adjusting for the time lag in realizing incremental benefits. It was the first time a vice chair would be based in an emerging market.

P&L 8

P&L Fixed Assets Charan Delegation 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 22, 2015

Marketers often have to make the call on whether a certain marketing investment is worth the cost. Can you justify the price tag of the ad you want to buy or the marketing campaign you’re hoping to launch next quarter? The variable costs to make each pair of flip flops are $14.00. How do you calculate it?

Payback Period 8

Payback Period Fixed Costs Analysis Price 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 14, 2013

Europe''s $100 billion carbon market, an innovative force in the powerful carbon-reduction approach known as cap and trade, has ceased to function the way it''s supposed to. And it''s all because of a failure of political will in Europe to override the market''s built-in lack of flexibility and fix the imbalance between supply and demand.

Price 9

Price Energy Politics Marketing 9

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Marketing is in the midst of an ROI revolution. The arrival of advanced analytics and plentiful data have allowed marketers to demonstrate return on investment with a degree of precision that’s never been possible before. To date, however, the reality of marketing analytics has fallen short of the promise.

CFO 8

CFO Short-term Long-term Benchmarking 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

Managed by Q, a cleaning and office services company in New York City, decided to pay employees higher wages than the prevailing market rate. In turn, the company is achieving lower levels of employee and customer churn, and correspondingly lower employee hiring and customer acquisition costs.

Human Capital 15

Human Capital Kaizen Agility Energy 15

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Today, only 9% of businesses in the world have achieved even a modest level of sustained, profitable growth over the past decade on average (5.5%, earning cost of capital) and that is declining — even though virtually all the businesses aspire to something like this or more.

Competitive Advantage 15

Competitive Advantage Porter Goleman Emotional Intelligence 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 10, 2017

For any business to succeed over the long term, it must earn a return that exceeds its cost of capital. It is through continuously making incremental progress in lowering costs and increasing revenues that firms achieve competitive advantage in their industry. Here are four things leaders can do. Build for the Few, Not the Many.

Innovation 8

Innovation P&L ROI Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 27, 2015

Companies in the top one-fifth of profitability earn, in aggregate, about 70 times more economic profit (accounting profit less cost of capital) than those in the middle three-fifths combined, according to McKinsey’s database of 3,000 large, publicly listed, nonfinancial U.S. Consider what’s happening among corporations.

ROIC 8

ROIC McKinsey GDP Company 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 18, 2015

We also know that private equity funds have outperformed public equity markets over the last three decades , even after the fees they charge are accounted for. Rather, they rely on internal rates of return and multiples of invested capital. Our results on capital structure are more consistent with academic theory and teaching.

CAPM 8

CAPM Discounted Cash Flow Company Rate of Return 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Take, for instance, a group of companies that currently have high returns on invested capital (ROIC). If you follow that group over time, you would see their ROICs revert back toward the cost of capital. In determining the ultimate amount of pay, the vagaries of the market overwhelmed the performance of the executives.

Skills 15

Skills ROIC Sports Cost of Capital 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

Without external markets to please, they can take a long-term perspective and make decisions on the basis of sustainable economic value. 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.

Long-term 8

Long-term Short-term Reputation Incentives 8