HBR On Strategy

Khan Academy, the online global education nonprofit, launched in 2006 when founder Sal Khan created a few videos to help his cousin with her math homework. After a decade of growth brought Khan Academy’s user base to more than 15 million monthly visitors, Khan knew he needed expert help to formulate and lead a strategy for the organization’s future growth.

He hired Ginny Lee from Intuit to serve as Khan Academy’s COO and president. Her mandate was to redefine the organization’s priorities, create a focused strategy for growth, and continue scaling the company.

Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman studied the company’s growth strategy, and wrote a business case study about it. He explains why it’s so important to build a well-balanced leadership team as part of your growth strategy. He also breaks down how to create processes for everything from budgeting to giving feedback. .

Key episode topics include: strategy, leadership and managing people, operations and supply chain management, digital learning, growth strategy.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original HBR Cold Call episode: Can Khan Academy Scale to Educate Anyone, Anywhere? (2019)

· Find more episodes of Cold Call

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

Leadership transitions are challenging for both organizations and the leaders who must directly navigate them. But Michael Watkins says they’re also a time of incredible opportunity — especially for those leaders who understand how to handle this crucial period.

Watkins is a professor of leadership and organizational change at IMD Business School. He shares a framework for selecting a transition strategy that best matches the situation you’re facing — whether you’re building a new operation from scratch or trying to turnaround a business in crisis. Watkins also explains why it’s so important to effectively assess your new leadership context and not to rely only on transition strategies that have worked for you in the past.

Key episode topics include: strategy, strategic planning, leadership transitions.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Picking the Right Transition Strategy (2008)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

In 1992, Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. signed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the global business landscape began transforming.

Pankaj Ghemawat, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, studies how companies have adjusted their strategies to that disruptive change — from rethinking their supply chains to learning to navigate unpredictable trade policy environments. He discusses how companies can plan for an evolving world of multi-country international supply chains and cross-border information flows.

Key episode topics include: strategy, competitive strategy, business history, globalization, technology and analytics.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: Globalization: Myth and Reality (2017)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

Disruptive innovation has proven to be such a powerful idea that the word “innovation” is often equated with the broader idea of market disruption. But that’s not always the case.

INSEAD strategy professor Renée Mauborgne says there is a way to create new markets without destroying jobs, companies, and communities. She calls this idea: “nondisruptive creation.”

Mauborgne explains how some entrepreneurs and companies have been able to grow billion-dollar businesses by creating new markets rather than displacing existing ones. She points to Square, which enables credit card transactions with a mobile phone or tablet, as one prime example.

Mauborgne also breaks down the key operational advantages that come with nondisruptive creation and explains how to spot a nondisruptive market opportunity and evaluate its potential.

Key episode topics include: strategy, innovation, disruptive innovation, growth strategy, entrepreneurs and founders.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: Disruption Isn’t the Only Path to Innovation (2023)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

Enel, Italy’s state-owned power company founded in 1962, was one of Europe’s largest coal users and polluters. Now it is recognized as a leader in renewable energy services and has integrated sustainability into its business model and operations.

In this episode, former Harvard Business School senior lecturer Mark Kramer explains how Enel made that enormous strategic change — from its long-range planning to how it tackled the dreaded “innovator’s dilemma.”

Kramer studied the company’s transformation into a renewable energy leader in his case, “Enel: The Future of Energy.”

Key episode topics include: strategy, change management, leadership and managing people.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original Cold Call episode: How a Coal Polluter Became a Renewable Energy Leader (2018)

· Find more episodes of Cold Call

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

Creating value is table stakes for any business. But is your organization also capturing the value you create?

IMD professor Stefan Michel says that many businesses don’t actually know how. “Many companies spend a lot of time on innovating, in a sense that they create more value for customers,” he argues. “What they often miss is to think about how to capture that value.”

Michel studies marketing and strategy at the Switzerland-based business school. Through his research, he created a framework for defining the value of your innovations.

In this episode, he explains how to apply his framework — whether you’re developing new business ideas or formulating a strategy to compete with a new entrant in your market. He also discusses how value-capture works in the real world — drawing on examples from companies like Nespresso and Google.

Key episode topics include: strategy, innovation, value-based pricing, pricing, value capture, Nespresso, Google, new revenue streams, growth strategy.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Focus More on Value Capture (2014)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

Do you know the difference between accurate forecasting and effective forecasting?

Technology forecaster Paul Saffo says accurate forecasting is nearly impossible to do. But if you aim for effective forecasting, he notes, then at least you’re considering the full range of reasonable possibilities for the future, rather than jumping to one conclusion and preparing only for that outcome. “If you head straight towards accurate forecasting, you may end up in a much worse situation by overlooking things that eventually come to pass,” Saffo argues.

In this episode, he shares his six rules for effective forecasting—from visualizing future uncertainty to discerning patterns in past data—and explains why it’s important to be your own worst critic of your forecasts.

Key episode topics include: strategy, strategic planning, risk management, decision making and problem solving, forecasting, technology.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: Six Rules for Effective Forecasting (2007)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

AptDeco, a peer-to-peer marketplace for used furniture, launched in New York City in 2014. Despite its complexity and high costs, the company grew quickly. Co-founders Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis considered several different options for scaling the business—from expanding into new markets to rebranding with a sustainability focus.

In this episode, Harvard Business School associate professor Ayelet Israeli and AptDeco co-founder Kalam Dennis discuss the path to scaling that AptDeco ultimately chose and what their experience can indicate about how to successfully scale a startup.

They focus on how to translate early failures into valuable information that can help your business move forward and grow in the long term. They also explain how to use data and analytics to improve your value proposition.

Key episode topics include: strategy, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial business strategy, marketing, furniture, analytics, start-up, scaling, growth strategy.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original HBR Cold Call episode: How to Scale a Startup Marketplace for Used Furniture (2022)

· Find more episodes of Cold Call

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

Some managers develop strategy by focusing on problems in the present, and that’s especially true during a crisis.

But Mark Johnson, co-founder of the innovation consulting firm Innosight, argues that leaders should imagine the future and then work backward to build their organization for that new reality.

In this episode, he outlines the practical steps managers can take to look beyond the typical short-term planning horizon and help their teams grasp future opportunities. Johnson also shares real-world examples from Apple, Johnson & Johnson, and Intel to illustrate what can happen when leaders shift their strategic mindset to focus on the future.

Key episode topics include: strategy, innovation, decision making and problem solving, growth strategy, crisis leadership, managing teams.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: To Build Strategy, Start with the Future (2020)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

· Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org