In uncertain times, organizations must develop adaptive strategy, says The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). BCG’s Strategy Institute emphasizes the “growing importance of adaptability.” This eBook “offers insights into how companies can sharpen their edge by accelerating the clock speeds of their strategies to match those of their markets.” Get this eBook free until April 6.

Article written for www.annarborbusinessmagazine.com

The housing market appears to be on the mend. Sales are up, foreclosures are down, inventory has shrunk, interest rates are lower, and buyers are out looking for purchases.

While this is good news, some concerns still persist, particularly with hesitant home sellers and tighter loan qualifications for prospective home buyers. Sellers are tepid, not sure if now is the right time to sell. And a number of buyers are finding it difficult to get a loan, due to higher loan thresholds and increased attention to the process of verifying the supporting financial documents. Read more…

It all starts with the customer. Few industries are as competitive as the banking industry. All banks work with the “commodity” of currency and, therefore, must compete on other value offers. This Boston Consulting Group article by Andy Maguire, Ian Wachters, Ian Walsh, and Nicole Mönter explore three key questions: What exactly is customer-centricity and why should retail banks care? What do retail-banking customers really want? And are any patterns of customer-centric banking emerging?

Customer strategy is useless, of course, if it’s not well executed. Turning ideas and plans into actions and reality is the gritty stuff of solid execution. Booz & Company authors Ilona Steffen, Niko Canner, and Gary Neilson have this thought-provoking piece on how to execute strategy in a new world. Their approach seeks to help you “how to uncover serious obstacles preventing your company from meeting its goals, how to change decision rights, and how to improve the flow of information to effectively implement your strategy.”

Author Walter Kiechel takes a look at the early roots of the “strategy revolution” that defines business strategy as we know it today. He does this by profiling several strategy thinkers who developed this field, with a particular emphasis on Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group, but also discusses Bill Bain (Bain & Company), Fred Gluck (McKinsey & Company), Michael Porter (Harvard Business School), and others. “What companies didn’t have before the strategy revolution,” explains Kiechel, “was a way of systematically putting together all the elements that determined their corporate fate.” This book will broaden your thoughts about strategy while learning a little more about some key thinkers in the field.

Here is a statistic that may surprise you: 1 in 10 people who are employed in the U.S. are employed by a nonprofit organization. The roughly 1.6 million registered nonprofits in the U.S. employ approximately 13.5 million people. As a comparison, this number is higher than the number of people employed in the entire U.S. finance sector, including insurance and real estate.

And while the organizations are nonprofits, they are certainly not non-revenue. With estimated total combined assets of $4.3 trillion, U.S. nonprofits have roughly $750 billion in annual revenue and account for approximately 5.5% of the total U.S. GDP. Add to this number the estimated $170 billion in annual value contributed by over 8.1 billion annual service hours provided by U.S. nonprofit volunteers and you see a nonprofit sector that contributes almost $1 trillion to the U.S. economy.
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Have you attended a Detroit Economic Club (DEC) meeting? Take this feedback survey to help shape future plans and initiatives of your DEC. Baker Strategy Group is a DEC Partner and is conducting this survey on behalf of the DEC.

Here’s a note from Steve Grigorian, COO of the DEC:

The Detroit Economic Club is committed to being a world-class organization and is
constantly looking for ways to add value and improve the quality of the club. To do that, we need to know what you think.

Please take a few minutes to respond to the following questions. Your feedback will be considered in future plans and initiatives of your Detroit Economic Club.

Follow this link to the Survey:
Take the Survey
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This study draws on insights from the 2011 Thriving Schools program.  As part of the Thriving Schools program, this study looks specifically at feedback from parents of elementary school children who attended a Michigan public school in 2010-2011. The Thriving Schools program gath-ers feedback from various school stakeholders regarding their experience with the school.

Background

The Thriving Schools program began in 2006 with 1 private school in Ann Arbor. As part of a larger strategic planning effort, the school board conducted a survey to gather feedback from school stakeholders (parents, teachers, school board, etc.). This feedback was then incorporated into the school’s strategic planning process with great success. Since then, we have conducted this program for over 100 schools and gathered over 10,000 responses.
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Article written for www.annarborbusinessmagazine.com

It’s that time of year again. Company executives pull out the annual budget and begin planning next year’s budget. At its worst, the budgeting process is a tedious process that consumes a good deal of the company’s productive resources creating an updated version of last year’s document that will not be thoroughly reviewed again until the following year.

At its best, though, the budget—and the budgeting process—can be instrumental in crystalizing strategy and sharpening plans for operations and marketing. For the budget to work, say planning experts, it must be connected to the overall strategy and company plans.
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Article written for www.annarborbusinessmagazine.com

On July 1 of this year, Alison Davis-Blake became the new Edward J. Frey Dean of U-M Ross School of Business. Prior to her appointment, Davis-Blake was the dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, where she was the Investors in Leadership Distinguished Chair in Organizational Behavior. We recently had the chance to talk to Dean Davis-Blake about Ross and its unique approach to action-based learning.
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