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A selection of business articles and feeds
(see Archives for Axekap's full articles) :

» Sloan Management Review :

• “Mapping the TV Genome” at Bluefin Labs and Big Data’s Big Stats

  Big Data is now a $64 billion business, says McKinsey Global Institute. Among the start-ups in the fray: Bluefin Labs, which analyzes what we say in social media about TV.
  Published on February 2nd, 2012 by Leslie Brokaw

• The Power of Introverts, the Power of Quiet

  Susan Cain's new book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking" argues that introverted people who value quiet and solitude to be creative are as able as extroverts to be transformative leaders.
  Published on January 30th, 2012 by Leslie Brokaw

• How To Make the Chinese Supply Chain Safer

  Multinational companies such as Apple need to give their Chinese suppliers better incentives to comply with local standards in environmental and health safety, say researchers from Stanford in the new issue of MIT SMR.
  Published on January 26th, 2012 by Leslie Brokaw

• Six Ways to Tweet Smarter

  Research into the Twitter practices of 47 companies including Whole Foods, Starbucks, Nokia, and JetBlue shows that to build a better tweet, think short, punchy and newsy.
  Published on January 24th, 2012 by Leslie Brokaw

• Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point

  Get MIT SMR‘s free monthly newsletter on Sustainability & Innovation This year, most survey respondents say sustainability is on their companies’ management agendas to stay. What’s more, a substantial portion of respondents say their companies are profiting from sustainability activities. READ THE REPORT   Introduction The Sustainability Movement Nears a Tipping Point Most Managers Believe [...]
  Published on January 23rd, 2012 by lrosano

• [Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point] Introduction

  Report Home | Next Section » For the third consecutive year, MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group have conducted a survey of managers and executives from companies around the world, asking how they are developing and implementing sustainable business practices. This research report discusses our findings and offers lessons to managers who [...]
  Published on January 23rd, 2012 by Sean M. Brown

• [Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point] Section I: Sustainability Is Firmly on Managers’ Agendas

  « Introduction | Report Home | Next Section » Given the current economic outlook, one might expect most companies to be scaling back on their sustainability investments. We find the opposite to be true. Some 70% of companies that have put sustainability on their management agendas have done so in the past six years, 20% [...]
  Published on January 23rd, 2012 by Sean M. Brown

• [Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point] Section II: Ahead of the Game: The Leaders in Sustainability

  « Previous Section | Report Home | Next Section » We asked respondents to identify regions that are leaders of corporate sustainability. Their answers were revealing. On one hand, a clear majority pointed to Europe. Yet our data indicates that companies increasing their sustainability commitments the most are located in emerging economies. Respondents from countries [...]
  Published on January 23rd, 2012 by Sean M. Brown

• [Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point] Section III: A New Cohort: Harvesters Come into Focus

  « Previous Section | Report Home | Next Section » Harvesters — those who said that their sustainability-related actions and decisions added to their profits — represent 31% of total respondents to our survey, and exist in every industry covered in our survey. A typical Harvester organization looks different than a typical non-Harvester organization on [...]
  Published on January 23rd, 2012 by Sean M. Brown

• [Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point] Section IV: Lessons from the Harvesters

  « Previous Section | Report Home | Conclusion » Implementing successful sustainability agendas often demands significant organizational change. Many Harvesters have significantly altered their organizational structures, business models and operations. Organizational Structure We find that most Harvesters are not embedding sustainability-oriented resources into pre-existing organizational structures. They are instead adopting new structures, instituting new lines [...]
  Published on January 23rd, 2012 by Sean M. Brown

» Strategy on Insead Knowledge :

• Cathay Pacific takes off cautiously to brighter skies

  At its Annual General Meeting recently, IATA (International Air Transport Association) predicted that the industry will recover faster than expected, with Asia-Pacific carriers powering the upturn. INSEAD Knowledge takes a closer look at the performance of one of these airlines: the flag carrier of Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific.
  
  

• Making room for life’s unexpected setbacks

  In sports as in life, it’s perhaps best to accept that the best-laid plans can often be upset by the unexpected. That is certainly the approach that Essar Gabriel (MBA ‘96D), head of the Youth Olympic Games at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), advocates and adopts.
  
  

• Advice to direct marketers: let the people do the talking

  The explosion of social networking sites has been a boon for direct marketers. For the hundreds of millions of users of Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and so on, they are fun ways to communicate with their friends and make more friends. But for marketers they are huge databases of consumer information.

• Sustainable practices: engaging consumers and suppliers

  Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is one firm that knows very well that its environmental and economic impact extends well beyond its factory gates. This starts with the ingredients it needs for its products to the natural resources required to make the packaging, "extending all the way to the people who buy and consume our drinks and handle the packaging," says CCE Europe's Communications Director, Shanna Wendt (YMP Sep '05).

• Doing it the Chinese way: Disney's strategy for a lucrative ride in China

  Last year Beijing gave the green light for Disney to build a theme park in Shanghai which is estimated to cost $3.5 billion. The resort, which is expected to open in five or six years, will include a local version of a Magic Kingdom-style theme park, hotels and shopping areas. It will be slightly larger than Disneyland in California, taking up 1,000 acres in Shanghai’s Pudong district.

» Networking & organizations on Insead Knowledge :

• How do you measure success at the top?

  Perhaps at no other time in history has CEO compensation come under such scrutiny. What makes these business leaders, who are more often than not men, worth so much money?

• Viral marketing: tell a woman?

  Traditional marketing wisdom has it that if you want to use “word of mouth” you’d better be sure the people doing the talking are knowledgeable about the product. But a new large-scale field experiment on viral marketing by INSEAD Assistant Professor of Marketing, Andrew Stephen, puts paid to that age-old concept.

• Social media analysis: a new way of listening

  Social networking is a fast-growing online trend that is changing the media landscape, particularly in the way in which consumers and companies interact with each other. These sites enable community participation and include blogs, discussion forums, social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as consumer review sites. No editor is required, which means the content is not controlled and publishing costs are always near zero.

• Communicating your way to the top

  Good communication skills outrank other core business competencies as the number one skill for corporate recruiters looking to hire MBA graduates. That rather surprising conclusion comes not from communications specialists, but from an organisation that has all the relevant data at its fingertips, The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which runs GMAT testing for MBA applicants.

• Organise, simplify and socialise: an entrepreneur’s vision of online social networking

  With the fast-growing proliferation of social networking sites on the internet, it’s become common for many people to spend time at work and at play socialising and making new friends online. Indeed, having several social networking accounts on popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Flickr is par for the course for many, such as Singapore-based Danish entrepreneur Thorben Linneberg.