Asia

Three fundamental misconceptions

How an Indian hotel chain’s organizational culture nurtured employees who were willing to risk their lives to save their guests

Navigating your company’s future in China

China and India, ancient allies and modern competitors, are rebuilding economic ties after almost five decades. Consequently, multinational companies face the most challenging—and potentially rewarding—business landscape ever.

Your organization can become more decisive—and can implement strategy more quickly—if you know where the bottlenecks are and who’s empowered to break through them.

Back in the late 1970s, as a consultant to several Japanese computer giants, I read everything I could about Japanese business. It was all very interesting—interesting, but not particularly useful. When I became a line manager in 1981, I realized how little of what I’d read had any practical value. I couldn’t control interest rates, […]

Growth in China and India is real, and it’s yours for the taking.

In my recent trip to Silicon Valley, I had the privilege to meet with Carol Realini, CEO of Obopay, a mobile payment startup that is fueling a social revolution worldwide by enabling scores of unbanked people to avail of financial services for the first time in their life. Obopay’s technology allows consumers and small businesses […]

The Chinese shopper is finally becoming more like her counterpart in the rest of the world — at least, in some ways. Our recent research suggests that people in China are making fewer visits to stores and are spending more on each shopping trip. For instance, in 2010, Chinese shoppers went to a store every […]

After many shorter stints abroad, and extensive experience in China, Linda Myers took a job in human resources with Korean firm SK Holdings - but was...

The typical large business 20 years hence will have fewer than half the levels of management of its counterpart today, and no more than a third the managers. In its structure, and in its management problems and concerns, it will bear little resemblance to the typical manufacturing company, circa 1950, which our textbooks still consider […]

Most companies serving the Chinese market have focused on the top-tier cities in China, where much of the country’s economic progress has been concentrated. With annual growth rates of Browse the entire HBR List.Listen to the podcast.Take the poll. about 10%, cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Tianjin are home to just over 6% […]

The visibility of female leaders makes a difference.

The U.S. may be the world’s leading innovator, but it won’t be for long if investors, regulators, and the legal establishment continue to penalize companies for risk taking, says Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness. Recently, the council’s National Innovation Initiative, a leadership network of CEOs and university presidents, released a report in […]

New books explore the threats and opportunities.

When the Gallup Organization applied Six Sigma principles to sales and service groups at several companies, it learned how much performance variation exists between seemingly similar work groups. Managing that variability can raise overall performance by orders of magnitude and can create organic growth.

When the leaders of small and midsize companies that are outgrowing their home markets contemplate expanding abroad, the prospect of having to contend with two sets of formidable competitors often gives them pause. One set is multinational companies, which have extensive resources, strong brands, and economies of scale. The other is local players in the […]

How the most successful companies are finding and serving India’s hard-to-reach customers

Years ago, while visiting friends in the United States, I happened to see the classic children’s film The Wizard of Oz. Near the end, Dorothy at last appears before the all-powerful wizard—a terrifying image of smoke and light. Only when her dog, Toto, tugs at a curtain over to one side does she see a […]

If you’ve not yet heard of telemedicine or think that it’s not a great way to deliver quality health care, you may want to read this. Telemedicine, made possible by the availability of mobile networks, is revolutionizing health care. But not in the U.S. You have to look to India, where telemedicine is already widely […]