Chinese firms are reinventing their business models, their corporate cultures, and themselves, becoming global competitors who increasingly offer knowledge rather than cheap labour in their quest to join the ranks of the “world′s best” companies.
This book offers a compelling profile of the most ambitious of these emerging Chinese competitors, the Haier Corporation (the world′s largest manufacturer of home appliances), and shares insights on how one organization has repeatedly reinvented its business model and corporate culture in an effort to sustain its success.
Reinventing Giants provides an exclusive look within the Haier Corporation and shows how managerial accountability and responsibility have been repositioned at every level of the organization, with the core value of market–centricity, while aligning strategy on each level of management. It includes actual work reports that show this process in detail from the ground up.
Axiom Business Book Awards 2014
Category: Corporate History/Milestone
Silver medal
Category: Corporate History/Milestone
Silver medal
Optimizing omnichannel assortments and inventory provisions under the multichannel attraction model
Summary
Assortment optimization presents a complex challenge for retailers, as it depends on numerous decision factors. Changes in assortment can result in demand redistribution with multi-layered consequences. This complexity is even more pronounced for ...
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Are you up for the challenge of a downturn? Here’s how to ensure you are
Summary
Is your team ready for tough times? Ask these 7 critical questions to assess resilience, redefine success, and lead through uncertainty with purpose.
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Can you rely on AI? - AI Trust Checklist
Summary
Use our AI Trust Checklist to avoid bias, hallucinations, and deepfakes. Practical tips to build trust in your AI systems.
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Candles Killer: Lighting up the world at the bottom of the pyramid
Summary
Shenzhen Power-Solution (SPS), founded in 2009 in China as an entrepreneurial venture, disrupted traditional lighting markets in African villages with its flagship product, Candles Killer. This solar lamp, priced under $5, replaces hazardous kerosene lamps and has an optimized design (9 components, water-bottle stands). The candles killer solar lamp addresses the critical need for affordable, safe and sustainable lighting for people at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP), a huge market that multinationals struggle to reach. By achieving both low cost and differentiation, SPS created a blue ocean market. The company has made remarkable progress in its mission to provide solar lighting to underserved communities: by 2023, it illuminated over 55 million people across 7.8 million households in 66 countries. Beyond social impact, SPS achieved environmental sustainability at scale, reducing cumulative carbon emissions by 6.7 million tons, the equivalent of planting 368 million evergreen trees. Candles Killer's success led SPS to expand its product line into a solar home system for phone charging and multi-bulb lighting. SPS also introduced Solar Media, a platform with pre-loaded content (medical tips, farming methods, education) to share vital knowledge in remote regions.
Reference
IMD-2661
Copyright
©2025
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Shenzhen Power-Solution
Industry
Energy;Utilities, Electricity Supply;Consumer Goods, Consumer Electronics
Available Languages
English
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License to operate: Wall Street’s check on America first policy
Summary
On 12 May 2025, China and the United States released a joint statement that ended the recent escalation in tariffs. For 90 days each agreed to lower their tariffs by 115%. This only applies to import taxes imposed since 2 April 2025—all prior tari...
Copyright
©2025
Copyright owner
External Copyright
Available Languages
English
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CR Beer’s bold bet - China's Biggest Brewery
Summary
How CR Beer, the brewer of Snow beer and the exclusive Chinese partner of Heineken, redefined its legacy by shifting from mass‑market volume to premium innovation and Baijiu diversification under the bold leadership of CEO Hou Xiaohai.
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Essential interpersonal skills for effective leadership
Summary
This note provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and developing the core interpersonal processes essential for effective leadership. It identifies and explores seven key processes: Communication, Visioning, Alliance Building, Persuasion, Exercising Power, Negotiation and Conflict Management. Each process is examined in detail, along with its supporting skills and practical applications. The note emphasizes how these processes interconnect and build upon each other to create a robust leadership framework. Communication establishes a foundation of trust and clarity, which enables visioning to align teams toward common goals. Alliance building creates strategic partnerships that support the vision, while persuasion deepens these alliances. Power leverages these relationships to direct resources and maintain momentum, negotiation harmonizes diverse interests, and conflict management ensures disagreements don't disrupt progress. The note also identifies five core supporting capabilities that enable effective engagement in these processes: Mindful Presence, Emotional Intelligence, Communication Mastery, Strategic Thinking and Adaptability. These capabilities form a progressive framework that allows leaders to navigate complex situations, connect meaningfully with others and make informed strategic decisions. Comprehensive and practical, this note serves as both a theoretical framework and an actionable toolkit for leaders seeking to enhance their interpersonal effectiveness. It includes an extensive reading list organized by process, providing resources for deeper exploration of each area.
Reference
IMD-7-2641
Copyright
©2025
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Available Languages
English
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Six strategies for making better decisions under pressure
Summary
This note presents a comprehensive framework for improving decision-making capabilities in high-pressure, high-stakes environments. It introduces six evidence-based strategies that help leaders maintain clarity, focus and effectiveness when facing complex decisions under stress. The note explores each strategy in detail: managing emotional responses, strengthening situational awareness, training for cognitive agility, using structured decision-making models, enhancing decision speed and practicing under pressure. For each strategy, it provides specific tools and practical applications, illustrated through the case study of AcuWave, a mid-sized consumer electronics firm navigating challenging product launch decisions. Key tools examined include emotional self-regulation techniques, the OODA loop for situational awareness, pre-mortem analysis for cognitive agility, weighted decision matrices for structured decision-making, the 40-70 rule for balancing speed and accuracy, and crisis simulations for practical application. The note emphasizes that effective decision making under pressure integrates emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility, and structured processes. This practical guide serves as a valuable resource for leaders seeking to develop more robust decision-making capabilities in fast-paced business environments. By implementing these strategies, leaders can improve their ability to assess high-stakes situations quickly, make sound judgments with confidence, and maintain team effectiveness even under volatile and uncertain conditions.
Reference
IMD-2676
Copyright
©2025
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Available Languages
English
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Seminal contributions and future directions in international business political behavior and nonmarket strategy: A tribute to Jean Boddewyn
Summary
Purpose
Jean Boddewyn’s (1929–2022) work in international business political behavior launched a stream of research at the intersection of international business (IB) and strategic management that is now referred to as international nonmarket str...
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David Bach: Why we all benefit from America’s top universities
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In the latest episode, IMD President David Bach explains the vital importance of the partnership between the US government and the elite research universities, what we can learn from the vibrancy of the Middle East, and why Ted Lasso is a better l...
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