The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy: Carl W. Stern & Michael S. Deimler

Classic Concepts and New Perspectives

The Collection of the best thinking from one of the most innovative management consulting firms in the world For more than forty years, The Boston Consulting Group has been shaping strategic thinking in business. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry.

Here's a sampling of the provocative thinking you'll find inside: "You have to be the scientist of your own life and be astonished four times:at what is, what always has been, what once was, and what could be. "The majority of products in most companies are cash traps . . . .[They] are not only worthless, but a perpetual drain on corporate resources." "Use more debt than your competition or get out of the business." "When information flows freely, reputation, more than reciprocity,becomes the basis for trust." "As a strategic weapon, time is the equivalent of money, productivity,quality, even innovation.""When brands become business systems, brand management becomes far too important to leave to the marketing department." "The winning organization of the future will look more like a collection ofjazz ensembles than a symphony orchestra." "Most of our organizations today derive from a model whose original purpose was to control creativity." "Rather than being an obstacle, uncertainty is the very engine of transformation in a business, a continuous source of new opportunities." "IP assets lack clear property lines. Every bit of intellectual property you can own comes with connections to other valuable innovations."

About the Author

Carl W. Stern has been a director since 2011. Mr. Stern is Chairman of The Boston Consulting Group Inc. ("BCG"), a global management consulting firm that advises clients on issues of direction and performance. He joined BCG in 1974. He began as a consultant in the San Francisco office, transferred to London in 1978, and led the firm's Chicago office from 1981 to 1991. He headed BCG's Americas region from 1991 to 1997. In 1997, Mr. Stern was elected President and Chief Executive Officer, a position he held through 2003. He has since served as Chairman of the BCG board. Mr. Stern serves on the boards of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and the Friends of the World Food Program. The board concluded that Mr. Stern should be a director of the company because he has more than three decades of experience in the field of corporate strategy, including assisting clients throughout the world to develop competitive strategies and to shape their corporate portfolios. Mr. Stern was recommended to the board by a third party consultant. Principal Occupation: Chairman of The Boston Consulting Group, Inc.

Mike Deimler came to The Boston Consulting Group in 1990. From 2005 until 2013, he was the global leader of BCG's Strategy practice, guiding the firm’s considerable investment agenda and training curriculum related to strategy. He has significant experience advising clients on a broad range of classic and emerging strategy topics, including business model innovation, growth strategy, strategies for complex and uncertain environments, and strategies for innovation and intellectual property. Mike is the principal editor of a 2013 book on the attributes required to win in today's turbulent business environment. In 2005 he coedited the bestselling book The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy, a curated compilation of BCG’s best thinking on strategy topics. Mike is also coauthor of numerous BCG publications. Mike devotes substantial time to advising nonprofit organizations on strategy and direction. These include Feeding America, the Boy Scouts of America, the Piedmont Park Conservancy, and Opportunity International.