Category: strategy
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To Straighten a Bent Stick, You Must Bend It the Other Way
The above saying is actually from an old Chinese idiom. I have thought about it a lot, and have struggled with that too. Finally, I have concluded that it is true. Here are some of my thinkings that help me arrive at the conclusion. Imagine a bent metal tube—perhaps from a bicycle frame or a…
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SOLAH: The 5 Functional Pillars of Every Business
I have always been pondering about how to convey the essence of a business. There are many aspects to a business, and it seems in business schools we tend to either say everything is important, or say a particular area is the most important. To me, that is the wrong idea. My sense is that…
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Why the US is still the engine of the world economy
Recently I listened to a podcast between its host Barry Ritholtz and Torsten Slack, chief economist at Apollo, which gave me some fresh insights on why the US economy is firing on all cylinders despite the political turmoil going on. Also, he shed lights on why China is not going to be able to a…
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The American Civil War was a War on Supply Chains
I love to look at the Early Modern Period and the Modern Age through a capitalist lense. I see the significance of capitalism in almost every turn of historical events when I read the excellent book “Americana: A 400-year history of American Capitalism” by Bhu Srinivasan. After I read the chapter on the American Civil…
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An successful entrepreneur is a technician, manager and entrepreneur in one
A lot of people start their own businesses because they like doing a particular thing (baking, cooking, designing, selling), but very often they realize there are so many things beyond doing that one thing – like book keeping, sales and marketing, customer service – that they are quick overwhelmed. That is also the reason a…
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Shakespear in Business
Photo credit: Bookstore at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 2019 “ We at the height are ready to decline.There is a tide in the affairs of menWhich, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are we now afloat,And we must…
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Platform or Specialization? Maybe it is both
I have been pondering with a “barbell effect” in the ongoing economy. Take Amazon as an example. It is obviously dominating the e-commerce world, and it is continuously growing. But is it a winner-take-all situation? Actually no. We see a plethora of e-commerce platform thriving all at the same time, such as Pinterest, Shopify, Temu……
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Will Robots kill human jobs? Yes and No
I have been long perplexed by this question of whether automation and robots will replace human workers. My intuition is that while they will no doubt replace many jobs, they will also create more jobs in other areas. That intuition was confirmed after I read a paper by Acemoglu, Koster and Ozgen (2023), but the…
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How do sustainable supply chains improve the continuity of supply and protect the environment?
Photo: Woods in Sherborn, MA, Summer 2023. Recently I was asked by my School’s PR people to reflect on a few questions regarding the relationship between business practices and sustainability. They asked some excellent questions, which prompted me to write something down. Below is the first part. The question is: How do sustainable supply chains…
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Tesla’s ticking time bomb?
It was reported by WSJ that Tesla is halting its production at its plant in China. There are multiple reasons, according to the report, but one of the main reason was due to the waves of covid infections that have been hitting its workers and suppliers in China. This incident brings forth a more concerning…
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China’s recent covid debacle reveals incompetent and factious management
As of the Christmas Day of 2022, some 250 million people in China are estimated to have caught the Covid virus within a short period of 20 days (according to FT). I am not political scientist, so I will not say anything on the political side of things. Instead, I would like to talk about…
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How large is the supply chain economy? The answer may surprise you
Recently I have been working on a book about the “supplychainification” of economies around the world – If you have never heard about the word “supplychainification”, no worry. I have not either. My collaborators and I invented it, and I will explain it in a separate article. In here, I answer a even simpler (but…
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What will happen to Zoom?
This is just a reflection of evaluating the long-term prospect of a company. As we all know, Zoom has been a huge successful company, boosted by the good timing of the covid pandemic. It has an easy-to-use video communication product with good overall quality. Its revenues has been growing strongly, even after the peak of…