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While the internet age has given us mobile phones, cloud computing and social media, economic productivity in the world’s richest countries has been dismal.

In the depths of fear and confusion, the market has shown just how immune these tech giants are to the financial fallout of COVID-19.

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 switching internal operations. The result is like a pyramid: sturdy and impressive, but rigid and brittle. Coronavirus has exposed the vulnerabilities of companies whose competitive …

In a Crisis, Ecosystem Businesses Have a Competitive Advantage Read More »

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 have either been cancelled or migrated over to Zoom, under the shadow of a pandemic. Just the other day, one of my class participants, John, …

Commentary: How Zoom-Working Will Change Companies Forever Read More »

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 to compel 3M to produce face masks on April 2, he confirmed last Tuesday that 3M will import 166.5 million N95 respirators from its other …

Profit Gets in the Way of US Covid-19 Fight Read More »

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, grants the president the power to expand industrial production of key materials or products for national security and other reasons. “We hit 3M hard today …

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

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 chain and, in turn, many companies’ organizational structures. In their pursuit to become ever more efficient, bear fewer costs, and eliminate redundancies, many organizations have …

How Autonomy Creates Resilience in the Face of Crisis Read More »

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 companies fail?” Professor Christensen asked during one of his doctoral seminars. I was one of the dozens of wide-eyed first-year students in the class who …

Where Clayton Christensen Taught What Others Could Not Read More »

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 its quarterly earnings. Processing some $3 trillion in transactions the last quarter, Visa has been the largest U.S. card network, vying with Mastercard for the top spot. …

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

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 licensed software in boxes no longer worked. Revenue growth had stalled and was improved only marginally by a price increase. The user population didn’t grow, …

When Showing Real Commitment Makes A Difference Read More »