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 13

Supply Chain CEO Discount Retail 13

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 11

P&L Fixed Assets Charan Delegation 11

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 11

EPS Metrics Short-term Depreciation 11

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 11

Price Energy Politics Marketing 11

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. MirageC/Getty Images. The S&P and the Dow indexes are up 18% and 19%, respectively. Why do these shifts occur?

Short-term 8

Short-term Decentralization Company CEO 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

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. Sponsored by DXC Technology. Insight Center. Crossing the Digital Divide. How the best companies get up to speed.

Strategy 8

Strategy ROI Technology Cost of Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

To wit, 45% of financial intermediaries , such as payment networks, stock exchanges, and money transfer services, suffer from economic crime every year; the number is 37% for the entire economy, and only 20% and 27% for the professional services and technology sectors, respectively. How technology is transforming transactions.

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8

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

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 Company GDP 8

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.

Innovation 8

Innovation P&L ROI Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 2, 2014

Back in the ‘60s, people developed the capital asset pricing model [CAPM] as a way to do that. You’d have this beta with the market, so you have the riskless rate plus beta times the equity premium. It’s not something that necessarily resonates a lot with people in the markets or people in the world.

CAPM 10

CAPM Discount Price Finance 10

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 21, 2016

Today’s executives are dealing with a complex and unprecedented brew of social, environmental, market, and technological trends. 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.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Price Loyalty Efficiency 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2013

Competitive products came on the market, but none were as popular as the Express. Terranola’s market cap skyrocketed to $8.1 It seemed that many market players, notably Jeremiah Hughes, thought the Terranola story was too good to be true. ExSolv claimed to have a technology for extracting oil from sand. Doom and Gloom.

Case Study 8

Case Study Hedge CFO PR 8