Crises, be they natural or man-made are an ever present threat to business. So what are companies doing to prepare for disruptions, not just those that can be addressed through disaster planning and business continuity strategies, but those truly unknown scenarios that it seems only the most resilient organizations survive?

Every good strategic leader works hard to design a business strategy that creatively serves the needs of customers in the face of tough competitors and delivers enterprise value. Business school core courses have been shaped and consulting firms created to…

Thanks for stopping by HighPoint Associates’ new HighLights blog. My colleagues and I will be using this space to share our views on the day’s biggest business issues and the critical challenges our customers face. We’ll also spend time discussing disruption, highlighting the new approaches companies are taking to solving their business challenges.

Mention strategy development and most CEOs grit their teeth, imagining months of analysis led by corps of consultants, often with significant cost and a result that doesn’t match where the company and its senior team really sees itself going. Sadly,…

A wave of changing technologies continues to bombard companies at an accelerating rate. Emerging and expanding technologies such as the cloud, big data, business analytics and intelligence, and HTML5, all will have enormous implications for how companies deploy, use and…

It’s a classic command from top management. Need to reduce overhead? Just cut 10 percent. How can a company successfully reduce costs and overhead, and keep it cut? Look no further than a process developed almost four decades ago: the…

It’s not enough to be the best at your business anymore. No matter how great your product or esteemed your expertise, to earn business today your customers want to feel that you are a “Trusted Advisor.” In his more than…

Getting good help represents a Board-level headache. Reading the financial press, it may seem that CXOs come and go with the frequency of jetliners at O’Hare International. While executive churn does not merit that comparison, C-suite turnover is commonplace, with…

Ben Bidlack’s approach to investing in brand strategy is robustly simple. Effective brands engage their internal and external audiences, transforming them into ardent fans. If brand religion is the goal, Bidlack’s approach to brand building is anything but mystical. He…

Turnaround artists are both respected and feared in the management field. You often learn a company is in trouble when the turnaround artist arrives. Everybody in the company expects a shakeup. Send out the resumes, the sheriff just rode into…