We highlight 20 ideas just bubbling up to the surface in 2006. Howard Gardner contends that the ability to synthesize information will be the most valued trait for leaders. Dan Williams explores how body area networks can lower health care costs and improve safety. William McDonough describes China as a seedbed for environmental innovation. Nitin Nohria and Thomas A. Stewart say the next frontier for business will be managing incalculable uncerta...

With the best of intentions, companies up and down supply chains experiment with isolated efforts to improve sustainability-only to encounter a long string of unanticipated consequences, often in the form of financial, social, or environmental costs. That's partly because most firms respond in a piecemeal way to pressure from customers, shareholders, boards, employees, governments, and NGOs. For instance, they demand that suppliers change their m...

Peter Senge, the author of The Fifth Discipline and The Necessary Revolution, talks about the challenges of leading organizations at a time when their supply chains need to be radically transformed. The first challenge is building an understanding of the larger system in which any organization exists. The second is learning to work with parties throughout that system, such as NGOs that can provide access to crucial knowledge and expertise. The th...

In the 1990s, Hewlett-Packard's PC business was struggling to turn a dollar, despite the company's success in winning market share. By 1997, margins on its PCs were thin, and some product lines had not turned a profit since 1993. The problem had to do with the PC industry's notoriously short product cycles and brutal product and component price deflation. A common rule of thumb was that the value of a fully assembled PC decreased 1% a week. In su...

The 2008 crash hit cross-border business hard. The value of international trade was projected to decline by as much as 9% in 2009. Foreign direct investment has plunged even more: After dropping 15% in 2008, it fell by more than 40% in 2009. Though we may have reached the bottom, the prospects for the medium term don't look promising. For much of the next decade, we can reasonably expect to see weak global growth, pressures from overcapacity, per...

Describes Ford's examination of its supply chain to evaluate whether the company should "virtually integrate" on the Dell Computers model.

Bose Corp. is evaluating an unusual plan to manage relationships with vendors that supply components for Bose speakers. The company must decide: 1) which planning and ordering activities should be performed by Bose and which can be performed by vendors, 2) how much access vendors should have to Bose computer systems and facilities, and 3) how to adapt vendor relations as the company grows or as markets change. Students are asked to consider both ...

Describes a supply chain with very quick (i.e., two week) response times and allows students to explore how such short response times are achieved. Allows students to explore why other supply chains, with much longer response times, might not be able to replicate this performance.

Distribution center operations (from order taking to order fulfillment) and the importance of attending to process details at Arrow Electronics, a large distributor of electronic components and computer products are described. The case also details the actions the company takes to achieve and maintain accurate inventory records and the importance of inventory record accuracy to the company's strategy.

In the early 1990s, grocery suppliers and retailers joined forces to streamline operations--an initiative called "efficient consumer response." Today, suppliers feel like they're not getting their fair share of the profits from ECR. But they stand to lose more if they give up on it, the authors say.