Own the Future 50 Ways to Win from The Boston Consulting Group

The world faces social, political, and economic turmoil on an unprecedented scale?along with unsettling levels of turbulence and volatility. Market leadership today is less of a predictor of leadership tomorrow. Therefore, senior executives today must strive to own the future.

In Own the Future, The Boston Consulting Group, one of the world?s most prestigious and innovative management consulting firms, offers a roadmap. Drawing on the firm?s experience advising organizations on how to achieve and sustain competitive advantage, this book offers 50 ideas to help readers chart their organization?s path to future leadership. The articles are organized along ten attributes critical to success in the current environment?adaptive, global, connected, sustainable, customer-first, fit to win, value-driven, trusted, bold, and inspiring.

The future may be unknowable, but The Boston Consulting Group offers insights from its 50 years of practice on how readers can position their organization to win?to change the game and to own the future.

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

IAdaptive 7

1 Why Strategy Needs a Strategy 11
Martin Reeves, Michael Deimler, Claire Love, and Philipp Tillmanns

2 Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage 19
Martin Reeves and Michael Deimler

3 Systems Advantage 27
Martin Reeves and Alex Bernhardt

4 Adaptive Leadership 33
Roselinde Torres, Martin Reeves, and Claire Love

5 Competing on Capabilities 41
George Stalk, Jr., Philip Evans, and Lawrence E. Shulman

IIGlobal 53

6 Globality: The World beyond Globalization 55
Harold L. Sirkin, Jim Hemerling, and Arindam K. Bhattacharya

7 The New Global Challengers 61
Marcos Aguiar, Arindam K. Bhattacharya, Thomas Bradtke, David C. Michael, Tenbite Ermias, Whitney Haring-Smith, David Lee, Michael Meyer, Andrew Tratz, Masao Ukon, and Bernd Waltermann

8 Winning in Emerging-Market Cities 67
David Jin, David C. Michael, Paul Foo, Jos´e Guevara, Ignacio Pe˜na, Andrew Tratz, and Sharad Verma

9 What the West Doesn’t Get about China 75
George Stalk, Jr. and David C. Michael

10 The African Challengers 81
Lionel Ar´e, Sami Chabenne, Patrick Dupoux, Lisa Ivers, David C. Michael, and Yves Morieux

IIIConnected 89

11 The Digital Manifesto 91
David Dean, Sebastian DiGrande, Dominic Field, and Paul Zwillenberg

12 Data to Die For 99
Simon Kennedy and David Matheson

13 The Collision of Power and Portability 105
Philip Evans

14 China’s Digital Generations 3.0: The Online Empire 111
David C. Michael, Christoph Nettesheim, and Yvonne Zhou

IVSustainable 117

15 The Benefits of Sustainability-Driven Innovation 119
David Kiron, Nina Kruschwitz, Martin Reeves, Knut Haanaes, and Eugene Goh

16 Creating Practical Consumer Value from Sustainability 125
Knut Haanaes, Catherine Roche, Jonathan Sharp, and Marty Smits

17 Potential Impacts of the New Sustainability Champions 131
David C. Michael, Kim Wagner, Knut Haanaes, Eugene Goh, Diederik Vismans, Jeremy Jurgens, and Lyuba Nazaruk

VCustomer First 135

18 Breaking Compromises 137
George Stalk, Jr., David K. Pecaut, and Benjamin Burnett

19 Brand-Centric Transformation: Balancing Art and Data 143
Dylan Bolden, Antonella Mei-Pochtler, Rohan Sajdeh, Gaby Barrios, Erin George, Keith Melker, and Deran Taskiran

20 Unlocking Growth in the Middle: A View from India and China 151
Zhenya Lindgardt, Christoph Nettesheim, and Ted Chan

21 Treasure Hunt 159
Michael J. Silverstein

VIFit to Win 169

22 High-Performance Organizations 171
Vikram Bhalla, Jean-Michel Caye, Andrew Dyer, Lisa Dymond, Yves Morieux, and Paul Orlander

23 Shaping Up: The Delayered Look 179
Ron Nicol

24 Getting More from Lean: Seven Success Factors 183
Pascal Cotte, Adam Farber, Amyn Merchant, Petros Paranikas, Harold L. Sirkin, and Michael Zinser

25 The Demand-Driven Supply Chain 189
John Budd, Claudio Knizek, and Bob Tevelson

26 Pricing Fluency 195
Sylvain Duranton, Jean-Manuel Izaret, and Rich Hutchinson

27 The IT Organization of the Future 201
Jeanne W. Ross, Stephanie L. Woerner, Stuart Scantlebury, and Cynthia M. Beath

VIIValue-Driven 207

28 The Experience Curve Reviewed 211
Bruce Henderson

29 The Rule of Three and Four: A BCG Classic Revisited 215
Martin Reeves, Michael Deimler, George Stalk, Jr., and Filippo L. Scognamiglio Pasini

30 The CEO as Investor 221
Gerry Hansell and Dieter Heuskel

31 Focusing Corporate Strategy on Value Creation 227
Jeffrey Kotzen, Eric Olsen, Frank Plaschke, Daniel Stelter, and Hady Farag

32 Powering Up for Postmerger Integration 235
Jean-Michel Caye, Jeanie Daniel Duck, Daniel Friedman, Dan Jansen, Joe Manget, Alexander Roos, and Peter Strüven

33 Resilience: Lessons from Family Businesses 243
Nicolas Kachaner, George Stalk, Jr., and Alain Bloch

VIIITrusted 251

34 Social Advantage 253
Martin Reeves, Dieter Heuskel, and Thomas Lewis

35 From Reciprocity to Reputation 259
Philip Evans

36 The Return of the Politician 263
Dieter Heuskel and Martin Reeves

37 Collaboration Rules 267
Philip Evans and Bob Wolf

IXBold 275

38 Thinking in New Boxes 279
Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny

39 Rethinking Scenarios: What a Difference a Day Makes 285
Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny

40 Business Model Innovation: When the Game Gets Tough, Change the Game 291
Zhenya Lindgardt, Martin Reeves, George Stalk, Jr., and Michael Deimler

41 The Deconstruction of Value Chains 299
Carl W. Stern

42 Time-Based Management 303
Thomas M. Hout and George Stalk, Jr.

43 The New ‘‘Low Cost’’ 307
Nicolas Kachaner, Zhenya Lindgardt, and David C. Michael

44 The Hardball Manifesto 315
George Stalk, Jr. and Rob Lachenauer

45 Leading Transformation 319
Andrew Dyer, Grant Freeland, Steve Gunby, and Cynthia Blendu

XInspiring 325

46 Jazz vs. Symphony 327
John S. Clarkeson

47 Probing 331
Jonathan L. Isaacs

48 Smart Simplicity 335
Yves Morieux

49 Strategic Optimism: How to Shape the Future in Times of Crisis 343
Hans-Paul Bürkner

50 Lessons from My Three Decades with the Change Monster 349
Jeanie Daniel Duck

Contributors 355

Index 365

MICHAEL DEIMLER is a senior partner and managing director in BCG’s Atlanta office and was the global leader of BCG’s strategy practice from 2005 to 2012. He coedited The Boston Consulting Groupon Strategy (Wiley). He holds an MBA from The Wharton School.

RICHARD LESSER is the president and chief executive officer of BCG. Before that, he was the firm’s regional chairman of North and South America. He is based in New York and also has an office in Beijing. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

DAVID RHODES is the chairman of BCG’s global practices. He is a senior partner and managing director in BCG’s London office and coauthor of Accelerating out of the Great Recession: How to Win in a Slow-Growth Economy. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

JANMEJAYA SINHA is the chairman of BCG’s Asia Pacific region. He is based in Mumbai and holds a PhD from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.