Two categories of "investments" in your innovation portfolio merit extra attention. Here's how to leverage them for success.
(An erroneous fact about the founding of Chipotle has been removed in the third paragraph on page 2.) We should have anticipated the question. Last time, we talked about how to construct your innovation portfolio. And as you will recall, we said the analogy to keep in mind is personal financial planning.Just as you divide your personal
holdings among various asset classes-stocks, bonds, and cash-you want to divide your innovation efforts among different approaches. And then we rattled off the four to use:... [O.K., a bunch of readers said, "This makes sense to us. But where should we focus our attention?" Well, with the caveat that no two companies are the same, we'd have
to say...]
Read the articleBack to top
While the EU hesitated on a remedy for Greece's debt woes, a virus spread.
• "Time to think of policy options of the last resort"
For months the top leaders of the European Union resisted the idea of a bailout for Greece, wringing their hands over the estimated $61 billion cost. While the jawboning continued, the infection took hold. Bond vigilantes drove the Greeks' borrowing costs into the double digits. Investors, fearing a contagion in Europe's southern tier,
dumped the stocks and bonds of Portugal and Spain. As it spread, markets started to...
Read the articleBack to top
Tempted to abandon budgeting altogether, companies have instead taken it to a new level.
"When you realize that the net you're building is 20 yards behind you, it becomes a lot easier to decide to fly without it." So says Kurt Kuehn, CFO of shipping giant UPS. He's describing the company's new view of budgeting, planning, and forecasting. "Normally, we are very obsessive about building good and accurate plans," he says, but
as the recession dragged on, "we realized that trying to build a forecast was almost a waste of time. We didn't have enough precedent or trends to do anything viable." The past two years have turned budgeting inside out at most companies. As sales fell and markets dried up, spending levels had to be continuously revised, and visibility was
almost nonexistent. Companies tried all manner of workarounds and improvisation, and most came away with the same conclusion:...
Read the articleBack to top
13 Bankers versus One Professor The politics surrounding 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, by Simon Johnson.
The author of a new book on financial reform makes a case for breaking up the nation’s largest banks.
"This is about power and control and who decides your future," Simon Johnson warned for at least the second time on Friday. He had just returned to the campus of MIT’s Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts, having been in New York hours earlier to deliver a similar message on The Today Show.
Both appearances were part of an intensive launch of his latest book, 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, co-authored with former McKinsey consultant James Kwak. The "13 bankers" of the book’s title refers to the financial-industry luminaries who were summoned to the White House on
March 27, 2009, in a mostly futile effort to enlist their help in solving the very economic crisis they had been so instrumental, in Johnson’s view, in creating. "We’re all in this together," President Obama told the assembled bankers. The statement was more apt than Obama intended, Johnson contends. Wall Street bankers
have become...
Read the articleBack to top
Low taxes, warm sunshine and deep discounts on real estate. No wonder IRS data shows the wealthiest among us are headed south.
Surprise: America's wealthy like warm weather and low taxes. That's the takeaway from IRS data, analyzed by Forbes, on moves between counties. We looked for counties that the rich are moving to in big numbers. Topping the list:...
Read the articleBack to top
Anyone starting out in business might find them useful.
Harvard captures the imagination like few other institutions. World leaders from President Barack Obama to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon are Harvard graduates. Business titans like Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs are too. I've found the academic
training I received at graduate school there invaluable--but I learned even more outside the classroom than in it. Here are three key lessons that helped my career that Harvard didn't teach me in the classroom...
Read the articleBack to top
How to Communicate in a Crisis Basic management plans can improve any crisis, and help you recover from a potential tragedy.
A guide to emerging with reputation intact after a crisis threatens your company. Most business owners behave suspiciously like ostriches when it comes to the topic of crisis planning. Either they think nothing bad will ever happen to (or around) their business or they assume that whatever the crisis is, it will be so unexpected that planning won’t do much good. Wrong! Particularly in
today’s 24/7 world of communications, where Twitter means that you might find out about a problem FROM your customers or clients, being prepared to address a challenge quickly in a crisis is the key to maintaining trust. And though technology means that the ways you can communicate will continue to
change, there are some hard and fast rules about communicating in a crisis that will always hold true...
Read the articleBack to top
Dealing with a toxic resume Positive steps you can use to overcome a company name with a bad reputation on your resume.
Jennifer Baty (@jenbaty), a portfolio analyst with fifteen years of experience, has been unemployed for eight months, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been busy.
Since leaving Chicago-based Moore Financial, she's been taking more finance courses, doing freelance consulting, and pulling out all the stops looking for a job. That means using not only the usual methods -- personal contacts, job boards and LinkedIn -- but also the latest and reputedly hottest route to a job, Twitter. Baty has landed
interviews at...
Read the articleBack to top
Too many investors may be taking big chances with their money because they aren't considering the most important asset of all: themselves.
Sit back for a moment and ponder something unpleasant: How would a large, sustained drop in the stock market affect your personal finances? More specifically, imagine the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting 6500-its March 2009 level-and staying there. I suspect that most of you are thinking about the wretched blow this would deal to your
retirement savings and stock portfolio. And it no doubt would. But here's my advice: Think more broadly. Most important, think about how such a drop would affect your paycheck and your career. It will depend on the person, of course. Earnings in some professions are tightly linked to the stock market-an investment banker, say, or portfolio
manager or financial adviser-while others, such as hospital nurses or tenured professors, are relatively immune to these zigs and zags. Most people will fall somewhere in between...
Read the articleBack to top
3 Reasons to Fire a Prima Donna You will always get more from your team than you will from one person who shuts down your team.
If you’re a leader who employs a prima donna (one who produces great results but alienates everyone), what should you do?
It’s simple. Bite the bullet and fire that person. Here are three reasons why you should:...
Read the articleBack to top
Forward to a Friend:
Do you have a friend that would like to receive FinanceWatchsm?
Perhaps you know a peer within your organization, or associate at a partner company that would
benefit from applying to receive this publication. Inviting a friend to experience the benefits
of joining the BusinessWatch Network is easy! Just FW: this newsletter to the person you know who
may have an interest and ask them to click here http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com Your friend will be glad you did!
If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from FinanceWatchsm
simply change your status
for email address $EMAIL, or send a letter requesting opt-off to:
The BusinessWatch Network Privacy Mailbox, 1321, Marblehead, MA. 01945
DISCLAIMER: FinanceWatchsm and the BusinessWatch Networksm are service marks of DMS.
All other trademarks or service marks contained in this email are the property of their respective owners.
At the time of publication, all links in this e-mail functioned properly. However, since many links point
to sites other than businesswatchnetwork.com, some links may become invalid as time passes.
DMS Inc. supports the DMA Privacy Promise and
Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice. We are committed to the proper use of
email and to protecting consumers from fraudulent or inappropriate
offers. Privacy Policy
DMS Inc. supports the DMA Privacy Promise and
Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice. We are committed to the proper use of
email and to protecting consumers from fraudulent or inappropriate
offers.