Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 5, 2017

They’re also more profitable, more innovative, and they pay better. It could be because “software development typically requires large upfront fixed costs,” meaning that firms that are already pretty large are the ones who can afford to invest in it. But why are these companies doing so well?

Document 8

Document Industry Software Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2012

In response, the management team made a counterintuitive move: It outsourced network installation, maintenance, and service to Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens, and chose IBM to build and manage its IT systems. The vendors for telecom network management were paid only for the capacity utilized by Bharti Airtel, not for the equipment.

Outsourcing 12

Outsourcing Wireless Telecommunications Core Competence 12

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 8, 2014

My driver said he’d been with Uber ever since he’d graduated from his master’s program in IT project management last year. So to cover his monthly fixed costs of student loan payments (on more than $100k in debt), rent, and health care he was driving for Uber. And I heard a very interesting story.

Long-term 10

Long-term Fixed Costs Short-term Technology 10

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Many hospitals system executives underestimate the cost of both pursuing an acquisition and managing the post-merger integration.). The advantages that hospital systems can derive from scale fall into four groups: Classic economies of scale focus on lowering the cost per unit of care delivered (e.g.,

Health Care 8

Health Care System Cost Price 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2017

However, firms can efficiently increase margin growth without much revenue growth by managing to squeeze out their fixed costs to service the same level of output. I have worked on research that has found that a strong company culture is associated with lower levels of myopic decision making, better productivity, and innovation.

EPS 9

EPS Metrics Depreciation Short-term 9

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

While Amazon’s collaboration with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase would obviously leverage the purchasing power of three massive employers and could lead to innovative insurance models, it seems that the bigger opportunity would be in improving how care is delivered to patients. Health care is similar.

Health Care 11

Health Care Retail Operations Insurance 11

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 18, 2013

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. This removed the biggest bottleneck to innovation — us. Software development" and "hardware" are bad words.

Budgeting 9

Budgeting Software Entrepreneur Fixed Costs 9

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 6, 2014

So with such a track record of strategic innovation, why has Tesco been blindsided by the hard discounters like Germany’s Aldi and Lidl? But Messieurs Barnes and Heini, joint managing directors of Aldi UK, have added more fresh products and up-market lines at prices 15-20% below those of regular UK supermarkets.

Retail 12

Retail Merchandising Discount Price 12

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 11, 2016

Managers in these companies understand that agile, fast, and lean strategies require that they think in new ways about accessing and leveraging key strategic talent and filling critical gaps in strategic capabilities. ” Most managers would never dream of treating externals like internals. Internal-external competition.

Agility 8

Agility Organization Resources Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

From my experience heading Scotland’s National Health Service from 2010 until last August (and before as its director of health care policy and strategy), I know that such constraints can unleash innovations that will lead to better care — and better health — for communities. Working under a fixed-cost ceiling was, of course, difficult.

Health Care 8

Health Care Constraint Budgeting Quality 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2018

This problem is likely to get worse as personalized medicine becomes more common, more patients get to choose between competing private health plans, and employers shrink the coverage they offer employees in order to reduce their labor costs. Low-income and disabled Medicaid recipients often choose from competing, private, managed-care plans.

Cost 8

Cost Insurance Incentives Policies 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 21, 2015

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. And SunPower, the second largest U.S. Meanwhile, utilities are not standing idle.

Energy 8

Energy Transportation Software Price 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Innovating for Value in Health Care. Exploring cutting edge ways to lower costs and improve quality. In healthcare, the need for administrative automation is viscerally felt – and the potential for alleviating burden and draining cost from the system is significant. Insight Center. Sponsored by Medtronic.

Health Care 9

Health Care Power Hotels Transportation 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 19, 2015

Hailed in the 1960s as bastions of sophisticated management, they used cheap financing to acquire, then rationalize, many family-owned firms. That gave it a steadier cash flow to cover the costs of its large fixed cost investments, but did not eliminate the unused capacity of plants dedicated to one kind of product.

Engineering 8

Engineering Learning Curve Fixed Costs Finance 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 19, 2011

Meanwhile, declines in revenue and escalating fixed costs for things like public employee pensions and health care are crippling our cities budgets. In public safety, better analysis of crime data can lead to better deployment of the public safety workforce, lowering crime and reducing cost.

Short-term 14

Short-term Budgeting Health Care Long-term 14

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

Our collective ability to equally access and innovate on internet platforms, from search and social networks, to content and commerce sites, is fundamental to continued growth. With internet innovation comes congestion. Innovation in content quality has surpassed innovation in internet delivery. It is not a given.

Fixed Costs 15

Fixed Costs Technology Efficiency Innovation 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 22, 2013

Our collective ability to equally access and innovate on internet platforms, from search and social networks, to content and commerce sites, is fundamental to continued growth. With internet innovation comes congestion. Innovation in content quality has surpassed innovation in internet delivery. It is not a given.

Fixed Costs 8

Fixed Costs Technology Efficiency Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 9, 2013

The radical democratization of business over the last decade created by open innovation, crowdsourcing, and co-creation is transforming how advertising organizations work. Typically, outdoor companies use professional athletes as field testers to help them not only test their products but also help innovate.

Advertising 10

Advertising Brand Innovation Creativity 10

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 12, 2015

Placing ads next to content helps websites recover the sizeable fixed costs of creating content. But ad blockers cut off this revenue stream and make it difficult to offset even the running cost of storing and delivering content to visitors.

Advertising 8

Advertising Content Fixed Costs Software 8