Choosing the target market is critical for any company. It is not enough to choose a segment to penetrate; the task is to identify the competitive advantage that the company will gain in a particular market segment. This is the axis of differentiation. The choice of market, the segments, and the axes of differentiation constitute…

Last year HSM Management published a stimulating, even somewhat provocative dossier entitled “Branding is the New Marketing.” Since reading it, I have been reflecting on some of the issues raised. Two in particular: the first, “the activity of building a brand ceases to be contained by marketing and begins to contain it” and the second,…

Symbiosis is a concept found most often in biology, but it can also be applied to other areas, such as business. In biology, symbiosis is the interaction between two different organisms living in close relationship that is advantageous to both. Symbiotic relationships are an important component of life. In such relationships, organisms of different species…

Faced with the need to be flexible in order to compete, companies are seeking alternative models and organizational architectures that afford them the agility to adapt quickly to changes in their environments of concern, particularly that of digital transformation. Technological transformation and stakeholder demand challenge companies to be proactive in anticipating and respond quickly to…

One of the concepts that I find most fascinating in physics is the “singularity.” In the impossibility of predicting the future, scientists have found an expression that could describe what awaits us: the singularity. The term originated to designate phenomena so extreme that normal equations could not describe them. An example is a black hole,…

Before diving into a discussion of governance issues in family businesses, let’s begin by explaining what being a family business involves. It may appear to be a relatively simple, even obvious, concept; however, that is not the case. First, we need to look at several aspects of any business, then consider what makes a family…

One of the most complex issues for organizations is designing the configurations of their production systems. In these activities, planning and decision-making are broader in scope, involving: corporate policy choice of product lines sales and production estimates technology acquisition factors related to management and organizational structure human resources environmental factors selection of manufacturing, assembly and…

In recent years I’ve watched companies race to have a social media presence. In many cases, though, this presence does not achieve meaningful results, because it is not part of a broader strategy of integrated marketing communications; in other words, companies have a social media presence merely because it’s “the thing to do.” They know…

Management and control systems provide specific information for management purposes that enhances activities performed by a company. Performance indicators provide metrics that can guide the decision-making process, the evaluation of decision-making results, and the correction and adjustment of the management process, when necessary. It is essential that each indicator be related to other indicators, or…

A fundamental step in the process of strategic planning oriented toward results is detailing a vision of the future, a strategic vision, or simply a vision in the form of a set of objectives that translate to employees what the organization wants to pursue and intends to achieve. The strategic objectives are, therefore, the results…

An important step towards achieving a strategic dynamic in your organization is the conducting of periodic meetings for the critical analysis of organizational performance, called Monthly Management Assessments, MMAs, or Critical Performance Analysis Meetings, CPAMs. Analyzing performance critically is verifying if the results achieved in the previous month, as evidenced by the indicators, reached agreed…

Recently I have discussed, in lectures in educational settings and work meetings in the business environment, the meaning and role of the production chain and the value chain in a company’s strategy. I have encountered different ways of understanding these concepts. For some people, they have different meanings, while others treat them as equivalent, even…