Aerospace sector

Competing in overcrowded industries is no way to sustain high performance. The real opportunity is to create blue oceans of uncontested market space.

Despite the enormous time and energy that goes into strategy development, many companies have little to show for their efforts. Indeed, research by the...

Many executives have grown skeptical of strategic planning. Is it any wonder? Despite all the time and energy that go into it, strategic planning most...

The airline wants customers to know that it carries millions but to feel that it looks after their individual needs.

Tried and tested strategies from professionals accustomed to crisis.

Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War, by Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch (New York: Free Press, 1990), 296 pages, $22.95. In 1950, Chinese forces staged a surprise attack on U.S. forces stationed along the Yalu River in Korea. Everyone knows what happened next: suicidal waves of fanatic Chinese troops drove the American […]

Exploring new frontiers in health care.

Photography: Amy Crilly Listen to the interview this article is based on. Download this podcast Sally Ride thought she’d grow up to be a physics professor, and she did. But before that, she became the first American woman in space. She went on to found Sally Ride Science, a company focused on improving science education […]

During his nine years as the NASA administrator, Daniel Goldin applied a management style his critics have called “pushy,” “impatient,” “aggressive,” and “predicated primarily on gut-wrenching change.” Although he had outspoken detractors, Goldin is credited with transforming NASA from a lumbering, risk-averse behemoth into a lean, fast, model government agency. The National Journal named him […]

Private space travel is just the beginning.

Successful executives who cut their teeth in stable industries or in developed countries often stumble when they face more volatile markets. They falter,...

Six ways to get started.

Even as loyalty programs are launched left and right, many are being scuttled. How can that be? These days, everyone knows that an old customer retained...

It learned to embrace open innovation, agility, and collaboration.

Every seasoned leader knows that even the most brilliant strategy is only as good as its execution. Battle plans that seem full of promise on the whiteboard can be undone in the field by clumsy operations or a missing link in the supply chain. This was the fear in some quarters last March when U.S. […]

Author’s note: Alistair Hanna, Michael Reopel, and Stuart Flack, all of McKinsey & Company, contributed to this article. The U.S. defense industry is struggling to reorganize itself for growth, if not for survival. The disappearance of the communist threat and the desperate need to revive the U.S. economy have taken the defense industry for a […]

The sky is no longer the limit for what the innovative Indian mind can achieve. Or so I thought on April 28, as I witnessed with awe and pride India's...

Usually when companies merge, they get right to work on rebranding. But after his airline Avianca merged with TACA, Villegas decided to unify the vision,...

Researchers found that service agents yield better results when they use warm language to start and end conversations, focusing on problem-solving in...

Singapore Airlines is widely regarded as an exemplar of excellence in an industry whose service standards are tumbling. What's not so well known is that...