Read All the Latest Thoughts By Howard Yu

Here’s What Boeing 777’s Engine Problem Teaches Us

Mar 02, 2021

Boeing is in the hot seat again. Its 777 airliner made an emergency landing in Moscow last Friday after the pilot saw an engine problem. This came less than a…

Animated Infographics: The Epic Quest by Visa and Mastercard To Become Future Ready

Feb 26, 2021

Fintech is all the rage. And the big accelerant for this has been the pandemic. When people shop at home, mobile payments take off. When people stop visiting banks, they…

How Radical Transparency Powers the World’s Largest All-Remote Company

Feb 22, 2021

Most of us are working remotely these days. Many of us will continue to do so permanently. Companies like Spotify, VMware, and Fujitsu have made “remote first” their workplace policy…

Two Charts That Show How China Is Using Digital Currency

Feb 18, 2021

This past week, people celebrated the Chinese New Year. Some 50,000 Beijing residents received digital pocket money from the government. Each one got 200 yuan ($31) in a virtual “red…

Remote Work Is Better For Some: Spotify And Apple Show Us Why

Feb 15, 2021

Spotify announced on Friday last week that it would be embracing remote work completely. It decided, after the COVID-19 lockdowns end, employees can choose to be in the office full-time,…

Two Charts That Show How Microsoft Got Smarter When Making Deals

Feb 11, 2021

Companies merge and split. They do that to pool resources, divest businesses that are no longer interesting, or simply increase efficiency. Microsoft, for example, bought up a lot of companies…

Here’s What You Need to Know About the Biggest IPO Since Uber

Feb 08, 2021

The bubble keeps getting bigger. Every initial public offering (IPO) since the pandemic is becoming larger than the last. Kuaishou, a Chinese social video app similar to Tiktok, went public…

One Chart That Explains How American Express Has Lost Its Charm

Feb 04, 2021

Digital Transformation Doesn’t Always Work — Here’s How American Express is Failing Travel has been hit hard. And that means American Express has been seriously damaged. It’s hard to imagine…

Subscribe or Advertise: Here’s How a Safe Internet Will Not Be Free

Feb 01, 2021

CEOs are out on a personal crusade. That’s when you know the future of their companies is at stake. For months, Facebook has been building a lawsuit against Apple over…

Two Charts That Explain How Mastercard And Visa Have Become Future-Proof

Jan 28, 2021

Originally published on Forbes Disruption is everywhere, and that includes the world of finance. 2020 was a year for fintech innovation, and Covid-19 was the accelerant. When people shop at home, electronic…

Here’s How Smart Companies Are Making the Invisible Visible and Why You Should Too

Jan 25, 2021

The world fails all the time. Even a well-run company can miss quarterly earnings. Accidents can happen inside factories. Customer data may leak. Computer servers crash. Obviously, what separates top-performing…

One Chart That Shows How China Controls the Future of the Auto Industry

Jan 21, 2021

This week we saw Tesla deliver its first Model Y compact crossover. It’s the company’s second made-in-China vehicle, after the Model 3. Investors have loved Tesla for a while now.…

How Complexity Kills a Company and How to Sidestep It

Jan 18, 2021

Here’s how a corporate death spiral begins. The first act begins with the product team. Its goal is to keep offerings attractive in the market. But in its daily work,…

One Chart Explains Who Loses the Most When Trump Delists Chinese Companies

Jan 13, 2021

The tension between the outgoing president and China is hurting an unlikely bystander: the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). On New Year’s Eve, the NYSE said it would delist three…

What Does It Mean if Your Company Expects Failures, Positively?

Jan 11, 2021

Big tech spends big. And Amazon spends the most. A fearless Jeff Bezos plows money into warehouses and data centers in the face of uncertainties. Last May, he warned an…

Two Charts That Explain Why Alibaba and Jack Ma Are in Trouble

Jan 07, 2021

Chinese big tech is in trouble these days. And it’s not only because of Trump. The White House signed another executive order this week. It’ll ban Alibaba’s Alipay, Tencent's QQ…

You Have Your New Year’s Resolution, But Have You Prioritized Enough?

Jan 04, 2021

The afterglow of the holidays will fade by end of this week. The to-do list will grow longer. You still have your New Year’s resolution in mind. But instead of…

Tech Giants Are Monopolies, But How Far Could They Go? Look To China

Dec 29, 2020

Everyone makes predictions. It’s a sport that’s especially tempting as 2021 dawns. Will the market crash? Are there wars looming? Will tech giants get even bigger? No one raised an…

How To Understand The Biggest IPO Of 2020

Dec 17, 2020

The strange year of 2020 is even stranger when Airbnb went public. Its initial public offering has become the largest IPO of the year. When travel and hospitality are being…

Is Airbnb’s IPO listing this week worth your investment?

Dec 10, 2020

The travel experience company has its fair share of knocks this year, but it has some solid fundamentals. Two of the most anticipated IPOs are rounding out 2020. Airbnb and DoorDash are…

Who’s Ready for Fintech? Here are Three Charts That Explain

Dec 02, 2020

Fintech is All the Rage 2020 has been a year for fintech innovation. And the big accelerant has been COVID-19. When people shop at home, electronic payments take off. When…

How To Think Clearly During The Pandemic? Downplay Your Identity

Nov 20, 2020

How to Think Clearly During the Pandemic? Downplay Your Previous Identities

Opinions. Everyone’s got one. Here is one revelation for me about COVID-19: Your personal opinions can be easily swayed by your identities. We act not on facts—rather, we choose our…

Why Your Company Emphasizes Experimentation When Shared Priorities Should Come First

Nov 17, 2020

Strategy is about making tradeoffs. Without making tough choices, a team ends up making a millimeter of progress in a million directions. The only way to win is to generate…

Here’s Why Your Company Can Easily Hire The Wrong Person To Lead A New Business

Nov 10, 2020

Be very careful that the person in charge of a new business is responsible for its immediate need, not the forecast. Everyone knows the impetus for growth. Every company wants…

A Blockbuster IPO Delays, What Happens To Fintech And Ant Exactly?

Nov 05, 2020

Clarity matters, especially during turbulent times. Almost buried in the main news this week is the world’s largest stock listing getting shut down right before its launch. Ant Group, the financial technology…

When You Shouldn’t Keep Your Options Open for Innovation

Oct 28, 2020

Big companies have everything they need to innovate. They have R&D labs. They can hire talent. They buy startups. But all of that is the easy part. The issue is…

“Be prepared” Is A Good Motto For Companies

Oct 21, 2020

The coronavirus crisis has shown that firms who bounce back first are the ones who have embraced digital transformation. Chance favors the prepared. And that includes times of crisis. One…

Not Excited About The New iPhone 12? Apple Is Prepared

Oct 15, 2020

Originally published on Forbes Apple brought all its usual glamor to the unveiling of its latest iPhones 12 on Oct 13. There was breathless exclamation over new colors. There were speeches…

Here’s Why You Should Watch Ant Group’s IPO: The Hottest Startup in the World

Oct 06, 2020

There is no point in looking at e-commerce without mentioning Amazon. By the same token, there is no point in looking at the fintech scene without mentioning Ant Group. Yes,…

Sleeping On A Problem Is The Best Way To Solve It

Sep 16, 2020

Never stay awake on a problem: Sleep on it

“Creativity is just connecting things,” Apple’s Steve Jobs once commented. “When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it,…

Why Walmart Wants to Buy TikTok? Live Streaming E-Commerce Is The Future

Sep 07, 2020

A new form of e-commerce has been born in China. Video stars now promote products during the coronavirus lockdowns. The U.S. retail giant can do the same if it acquires…

Curiosity Lost? Here’s How to Stimulate It

Aug 25, 2020

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Albert Einstein Curiosity is the engine of achievement. It drives our knowledge forward. It tempts us into dangerous and forbidden…

Governments are Cracking Down on TikTok and WeChat. Here’s What Smart Managers Can Learn From That.

Aug 10, 2020

Businesspeople have long despised politics. But “politics” is now shaping strategy. It affects boardrooms as much as assembly lines. The Trump administration is turning up the heat on TikTok and…

The Personal And Professional Importance Of Having A Fluid Identity

Aug 03, 2020

Smart leaders read. They read a lot. Bill Gates reads about 50 books a year. Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi read 10 textbooks on one holiday. Nike founder Phil Knight…

Four Top Tech CEOs Testify In Washington Now. Here’s How This May Affect Your Tech Life

Jul 29, 2020

Originally published on Forbes Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai are set to speak before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel on Wednesday. The session…

Netflix Is Managing Expectations While Winning The Streaming War

Jul 17, 2020

“Under promise, over deliver”—this is ageless wisdom in managing expectations of the financial market and it seems to be Netflix’s strategy. Yesterday Netflix announced it has added more than 10 million subscribers in the three…

Why Some Retailers Are Thriving Amid Disruption

Jun 29, 2020

Retailers that successfully adapt to the pandemic’s social-distancing requirements offer a model for making a quick digital pivot. A crisis reveals as much as it devastates. Retailers that were struggling…

Ocean Park could take a few survival lessons from Disney

Jun 15, 2020

A crisis reveals as much as it devastates. As Ocean Park reopened this weekend, Disney is keeping an eye on the situation – the Magic Kingdom is likely to take…

What’s Happening With Contact Tracing?

Jun 04, 2020

New Zealand’s last hospitalized COVID-19 patient headed home on May 27. It was also the fifth consecutive day the country reported no new coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, in the US, long-shot technology is viewed as the only escape. And that escape took the form of contact tracking delivered by Silicon Valley.

How Your Business Can Transform

Jun 01, 2020

I have a great deep dive conversation with Marco Montemagno, a digital entrepreneur and broadcaster. We discussed the strategies that businesses – especially tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook – have…

4 Tips for Helping Teams Maximize Digital Tools During the COVID-19 Crisis and Beyond

May 27, 2020

As longtime advocates of digital work tools have found, the platforms that allow distributed workforces to function during a crisis can boost productivity, even during periods of normal business activity.…

Virtual meetings are about to turn the art of management into a scalable science

May 11, 2020

We see computers everywhere except in the productivity statistics, economist Robert Solow once said. Indeed, while the internet age has given us mobile phones, cloud computing, Skype, and social media, economic…

Big Tech Are Soaring, But Disney Serves As A Reality Check On COVID-19 Crisis

May 05, 2020

Disney is giving us a reality check this week. Last week’s earnings announcements among the tech giants were exuberant. Each made robust gains in sales, prompting a bewildered Paul Krugman to conclude in the New York Times that “the stock…

How Apple And Amazon Are Winning Through The COVID-19 Fallout

May 01, 2020

A crisis can distract as much as it can reveal. This week has seen earnings announcements from Big Tech: Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. In the depths of fear and confusion, the market…

Leading In Turbulent Times Webinar Series: Rapid Resilience

Apr 24, 2020

A huge thank you to all attendees that tuned into our webinar at IMD Business School. What a crowd! We had a record number of registrations and more than 900…

In a Crisis, Ecosystem Businesses Have a Competitive Advantage

Apr 23, 2020

Most companies cannot quickly change their business model to open up new revenue streams. Different firm activities are interlocked with one another via standard procedures. There’s a high cost to…

Commentary: How Zoom-Working Will Change Companies Forever

Apr 20, 2020

Virtual meetings are here to stay. It’ll upend how all corporate decisions are made from here on. HONG KONG: Like thousands of other professors, the executive education programmes I teach…

Profit Gets in the Way of US Covid-19 Fight

Apr 14, 2020

Not enough financial incentive for firms to ramp up production of masks United States President Donald Trump sees every development as a triumph. After he signed a Defence Production Act…

3M Makes A Lot Of Masks But Trump Can’t Increase Its Supply

Apr 03, 2020

Late on Thursday night, Trump announced he had signed a Defense Production Act to compel 3M to produce face masks, specifically for the N95 respirator. The Defense Production Act, which was passed in 1950,…

How Autonomy Creates Resilience in the Face of Crisis

Mar 23, 2020

One Chinese manufacturing giant quickly rebounded from the coronavirus. Here’s what you can learn from its org chart. The outbreak of COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of the global supply…

Where Clayton Christensen Taught What Others Could Not

Mar 06, 2020

Harvard Business School professor and businessman, Clayton Christensen, known by many as the “godfather” of disruptive innovation, died in January at the age of 67. “Why do so many great…

Fighting Huawei Distracts From Investing in Real Science

Mar 02, 2020

How can America regain its technological sovereignty? The big-picture concept, described by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, is to have all the U.S. 5G architecture and infrastructure principally supplied by…

Why Visa And Mastercard Are Today’s Most Exciting FinTech Innovators

Jan 31, 2020

In the world of the platform economy, the big get bigger. It’s the winner who takes all. That’s why investors were all turning their attention last Thursday as Visa announced…

When Showing Real Commitment Makes A Difference

Jan 11, 2020

If companies can build believability with clear evidence, then trust will quickly follow You can’t manage what you can’t measure. It happened like this. A chief executive saw that selling…

Giving people space to be creative and understanding why humans play – the building blocks of LEGO Group’s success

Dec 17, 2019

I had the great pleasure of discussing with the Executive Chairman of The LEGO Group Jørgen Vig Knudstorp on his idea about navigating waves of disruption, and the need to…

Commentary: Underwhelming AirPods Pro? Here’s why Apple users remain incredibly loyal

Nov 16, 2019

Much has been said about Apple’s unexciting progress with the AirPods Pro and the iPhone 11. So why are Apple fanboys and girls still so devoted? IMD Business School’s Howard…

Even Facebook’s Libra can’t escape the fintech establishment

Nov 06, 2019

It’s hard to believe regulators can learn faster than entrepreneurs, but they do. Back when Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April 2018, Senator Orrin Hatch (a Republican from Utah) interrogated Facebook’s…

How Some Companies Beat the Competition…for Decades and Even Centuries

Jul 25, 2019

The average lifespan of companies is becoming shorter. For them to survive the competition it is important to learn to jump across knowledge disciplines and create new knowledge about how…

Commentary: Big Tech’s growth spurt may be coming to an end

Jul 05, 2019

Apple’s launch of ‘Sign in with Apple’ heralds the start of the end of radical innovation in Silicon Valley. LAUSANNE, Switzerland: Silicon Valley’s reputation as a bastion of creativity, innovation…

The Shadow Of Regulation Looms Large Over Big Tech

Jun 07, 2019

It was once hard to see governments taking on the likes of Facebook and Google, but not now At anyone’s political height, it’s hard to imagine how they might fall.…

Why Uber’s business model could come undone after its IPO

May 11, 2019

Nothing new can come from a situation without suffering. If any new understanding about the nature of platform companies is to materialize in 2019, it will be because of the…

Commentary: Why Jewel Changi Airport should be enjoyed in person – not through a smartphone

May 04, 2019

Technology can make our lives better so why is it making us sadder and lonelier instead? SINGAPORE: The new experience provided by Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport, which opened this month is…

How To Successfully Leap Toward A New Form Of Knowledge

May 01, 2019

Many of today’s business leaders are increasingly facing the threat of their core businesses being encroached upon by upstarts outside of their industries. Despite their best efforts to instill innovation,…

How the Crackdown on Huawei Will Force China to Become Self-Sufficient

Mar 23, 2019

It’s common knowledge that while humans now live longer, companies die faster. The average life-span of companies listed in Standard & Poor’s 500 was 61 years in 1958. It’s now less than 18…

Data Analytics, Not Innovation, Makes Tech Giants “Giant”

Feb 07, 2019

Facebook’s decision to integrate WhatsApp and Instagram is About expanding its "network effect" Internet companies are often dubbed the “fruit flies” of the business world. Change is rapid, life cycles…

What Big Consumer Brands Can Do to Compete in a Digital Economy

Dec 07, 2018

PRASATPORN NILKUMHAENG/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES

No industry is failing faster than retail. Just last month, the 125-year-old Sears—once the world’s largest retailer—filed for bankruptcy. The public has more or less come to expect the shuttering…

How Businesses Can Keep Up In A Rapidly Changing World

Aug 24, 2018

To gain any groundbreaking insights into marketing, consumer psychology, popular art, or even a mobile app’s user interface, an innovator is still necessary to synthesize human experience, newspaper articles, and…

For Some Platforms, Network Effects Are No Match for Local Know-How

Jul 26, 2018

When is it possible for David to beat Goliath in the platform economy? On March 25 mighty Uber bowed out of Southeast Asia by selling its operation in several countries…

The Revolutionary Approach Honda Took to Rise Above Competition

Jul 24, 2018

A bold decision always looks good—until it is wrong. To facilitate evidence-based decision-making, managers must carry out frequent experimentation to diminish the dark space of ignorance and to arrive at…

Why Business Leaders Need to Embrace Artificial Intelligence

Jul 10, 2018

The upshot is that artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive computing can exert either a complementary effect or substitutional pressure. But that outcome is not predetermined.

These Dueling Piano Companies Can Teach Business Leaders How To Handle Copycats

Jul 02, 2018

When industry knowledge matures, copycats always catch up. Because latecomers often inherit a lower cost structure without the legacy assets, they exert competitive pressure on industry pioneers. That’s why Steinway can’t compete…

The One Decision P&G Made That Transformed Their Industry Forever

Jun 25, 2018

When the first boxes of P&G’s Tide detergent went on sale in 1946, it was the first synthetic detergent that could deep-clean clothing—removing mud, grass, and mustard stains “without making…

Steve Jobs Used This Trick To Time Apple’s Strategic Moves Perfectly

Jun 19, 2018

To come up with an integrated strategy, every effective leader must begin with the big questions: What world am I living in? What are the biggest trends in this world?…

How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied

Jun 12, 2018

Outlasting competition is difficult. Doing so over decades or a century often seems impossible. Since the great Industrial Revolution, every country that has become rich started by copying others: the French copied the British, the Americans copied the Germans, and the Japanese pretty much-copied everybody else.

Trade wars are good? Not for the U.S. or Trump

Jun 09, 2018

The public should know this by now; whenever the U.S. administration is in deadlock at home, it has historically looked for sideshows abroad, to create an external crisis, a shifting backdrop so for the public to focus on a new dramatic event.

How Trump Understands China’s ZTE Better Than Congress Does

Jun 08, 2018

The U.S. Congress was not impressed. They were not impressed by the latest lift on ZTE ’s ban from buying American technologies, even with strings attached.

GDPR isn’t enough to protect us in an age of smart algorithms

May 31, 2018

Europe’s new privacy law comes with teeth. Within hours of the General Data Protection Law (GDPR) coming into effect, an Austrian privacy campaigner used the new EU legislation to file a…

The Ultimate Question for Xiaomi

May 23, 2018

Whether Xiaomi can achieve a $100 billion valuation depends on if it can destroy an industry as fast as Google. Earlier this month on May 3, Xiaomi—the world’s fourth-largest mobile…

What Netflix Has That Google And Facebook Don’t

Apr 18, 2018

A subscription model is what's helped the online streaming giant to stay true to its customers. “It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand…

The Only 2018 Resolution You Need Is This Productivity Hack

Dec 31, 2017

Here is a radical approach to keep your new year's resolution. Preserve willpower in a distracted world. Between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, between the maple-syrup-glazed roast turkey and the lemon…

How The Narrative Of Google And Facebook Comes Undone Right Before 2018

Dec 24, 2017

It has been a tough year, full of bad news, but none of it exposes tech giants more than the latest FCC ruling right before 2018. It’s hard to think of…

Ditched By Disney, Netflix Races To Become Content King

Aug 09, 2017

It's been a busy week for Netflix NFLX +0.22%. On Tuesday, Netflix found itself cornered by Disney, who announced it will remove its movies from the streaming behemoth by launching its own direct-to-consumer services.

Why M&A Strategy (And Your Retail Experience) Just Changed Forever—Amazon Swallows Whole Foods

Jun 19, 2017

Last Friday, Amazon.com AMZN +0.62% sent another shock wave rippling through all retailers. The e-commerce giant announced the intention to purchase health foods grocer Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Share prices for Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Costco all tumbled.