Women hold just 4.4% of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies, and this number is set to drop when Carol Meyrowitz steps down as CEO of TJX Companies, Inc. and moves into the role of executive chairperson. Looking globally, just 8% of companies with revenues of at least $500 million have a female CEO. Here’s the thing
Why airing metrics out in the open could be the next big content marketing trend. We’ve talked a lot about data in the last few years. Companies have been grappling with the sheer number of numbers available to analyze, and they’ve struggled to decipher which offer actionable business intelligence. Still, they plan to pour more
All executives understand the significance, for their company and for their career, of creating and implementing strategy. Because of the significance of strategy, and because strategy forces executives to confront the future, many find it scary. Savvy executives understand that not all business challenges can be resolved from inside their organization. Savvy executives rely on
Understanding your financial metrics at a granular level is important in that it allows for a true understanding of what is happening, and what is not. It enables you to drill down and appreciate, for example, similarities, differences, and outliers. Being informed at a granular level enables better decision-making when it comes to determining how
Although our economy has rebounded since the 2008 downturn we have come to realize that the days of abundant resources are gone. Our current and future economic reality consists of scarce resources and a shrinking opportunity base. Managers face the challenge of expanding their business and reducing their spending, while still making meaningful progress now
Being in the strategic advisory space, I get a lot of exposure to various business strategies, strategic plans, and sales plans, both internally to organizations and from outsiders looking to raise money or gain influence. When it comes to strategic planning, too often there is “creative accounting.” That is, the artful creation of financials that match and make numerical
Before you finalize your budget, take inventory. What do you really need? A friend recently shared a story with me. Her company had been subject to budget cuts over the past several years. Each year the question wasn’t if there would be cuts, but rather how much would be shaved off an already tight budget.
The sharing of tangible and intangible assets will increasingly become a fundamental feature of successful businesses. Few developments of late are as intriguing as the rise and disruptive impact of the collaborative economy. In a very short time, services that we may have thought of as permanent fixtures of our business and personal lives have
How to increase prices and retain customers Companies raise prices all the time. There are various reasons, explanations, and results. Sometimes companies disclose the changes, but sometimes customers and clients never even catch wind of a change. Let’s have a look at the causes, the perception, and the actions to take. Why? Usually there’s an
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics. David Chadwick is an MBA student at the University of New Hampshire with a background in retail store management and electrical engineering. If technology continues to
The inability to delegate effectively is a principal reason why executives fail. According to London Business School Professor John Hunt, only 30% of managers think that they are able to delegate well. Among these individuals only one-third are considered to be good delegators by their subordinates. For many managers there is a fear of delegation
You might be surprised to find currently untapped financial gains just by putting employee happiness at the top of your priority list. The way we work has fundamentally changed. There’s no doubt it is still evolving, but what we know about the way we work is that it can no longer be summed up by
