Remove Development Remove Fixed Costs Remove Industry Remove Technology
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How Industry Giants Can Create Corporate Breakthroughs

Harvard Business Review

For example, a decade ago, it''s unlikely that small-business owners would have told you that they needed a flexible way to host data and applications, one that preferably turned the fixed cost of computer hardware into a variable cost of renting capacity. Developing a breakthrough idea will never be a paint-by-numbers exercise.

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Joint Ventures Reduce the Risk of Major Capital Investments

Harvard Business Review

In many industries, the capital required to build an asset of minimum efficient scale is growing. For instance, the cost of building and equipping a leading-edge semiconductor fab has climbed to $7 billion, as the technology required to make more advanced chips is getting more complex. Dual asymmetrical joint venture.

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Why Spotify Will Kill iTunes

Harvard Business Review

And it could even be thought of as fitting; iTunes accomplished the exact same thing during its early-2000s attack on the bricks-and-mortar retail music industry. Apple set the stage to decimate Tower Records and Sam Goody before either had a clue their industry was about to revolt.

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How Companies Can Use Investors to Their Advantage

Harvard Business Review

Then a new CFO joined the company: Masashi Oka, a financial industry veteran who had played a key role in transforming Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group-owned Union Bank in the US. They had surged with the rise of digital camera only to peak in 2012, coming back down as smart phones became widely used.

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What BMW’s Corporate VC Offers That Regular Investors Can’t

Harvard Business Review

This meant that the company was leaving out huge innovation potential — thousands of startups with billions of funding — that could help BMW innovate anything from core vehicle technology (batteries, sensors, artificial intelligence software) to manufacturing innovations (internet of things, cybersecurity, robotics).

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Is Rooftop Solar Finally Good Enough to Disrupt the Grid?

Harvard Business Review

The costly and complex operations of transporting energy have made utilities natural monopolies, while regulatory barriers and the high fixed costs of building and maintaining regional electrical grid infrastructure have also kept much competition at bay.

Energy 8
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Deliver Big Impact on a Small Budget

Harvard Business Review

We didn't want to burden the organization with fixed costs. Almost everything had to be free, and the few things we paid for had to be scalable so that the unit costs would eventually approach zero. Here are the three principles that guided our efforts: People make the world go round.and technology makes it go faster.