Vijay Govindarajan's Blog

The house that students built

2012-02-14T17:29:54Z

When Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar wrote a blog entry on Harvard Business Review in August 2010 mooting the idea of a “$300-house for the poor”, they were merely expressing a suggestion.

“Of course, the idea we present here is an experiment,” wrote Prof Govindarajan, a professor of international business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and Mr. Sarkar, a marketing consultant who works on environmental issues – an almost apologetic disclaimer for having such a “far-out” idea. Who could create a house for $300 and if it was possible, why hadn’t it been done before?

Read entire post at Financial Times.com>>

Profitable Audacity: One Company's Success Story

2012-01-26T13:42:30Z

The sharp recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis and the uncertainty created by the 2011 debt crisis have fundamentally reset the world. The new reality is austerity. But that should only be fiscal reality. Businesses, sitting on trillions in cash, seem to be using the economic environment as an excuse to build into their business a kind of strategic austerity that is inappropriate. In fact, when there are severe resource constraints, it is more important than ever to maintain audacious goals.

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

Video: The $300 House at the Thinkers50

2011-12-07T01:24:36Z

Tea with The Economist

2011-12-07T01:22:26Z

What the rich world can learn from the poor and why it's so hard to put ideas into practice >>

World Business Forum: The 3-Box Strategy Explained

2011-12-07T01:15:29Z

As I explained in an earlier post, strategy is about transformation. In this video at the World Business Forum, I explain how the 3-Box strategy works:

Thinkers 50 Ranking and Award

2011-11-17T14:42:04Z

The Thinkers 50 announced their bi-annual ranking of Management Thinkers recently. It is humbling to be ranked number 3 along side great management thought leaders as well as to receive the Breakthrough Idea Award for the $300 House Initiatiive. These recognitions are motivators to work even hard to justify these honors. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

Only the CEO Can Make the Big Bets

2011-11-09T17:30:27Z

You have probably heard the Wayne Gretzky quote about skating to where the puck will be a hundred times at least. But did you ever see it as the central metaphor for what truly innovative organizations must do?

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

Five Steps to Long-Term Growth

2011-09-30T17:15:36Z

We believe this is the time for real leaders to come forward. This is the time for long-term thinking. The best time to prepare for expansion is during recession. Every recession is followed by growth. But how do you get started? Here are five steps.

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

Vision Statement: The $300 House

2011-09-21T17:55:15Z

It’s the ultimate bottom-of-the-pyramid challenge: How do you create a well-designed, safe, and affordable house for the world’s poorest people?

When Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar posed that question in an HBR.org blog post in August 2010, they offered their own simple sketch of a possible solution—and wondered if a version of it could be mass-produced for $300. Since then the $300 house has become a full-fledged movement.

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

The Three-Box Approach to Business Model Reinvention: Putting the Idea into Practice

2011-09-21T17:41:19Z

The three-box approach is not reserved for those in the C-suite or for multinational companies. In fact it can be applied in any organizational setting: non-profit, for profit, in a factory or in a service organization, in a big conglomerate or a small family-run business.

To give readers a sense of how to apply the approach to their own setting, we interviewed Vijay Govindarajan and Brian Goldner, the CEO of Hasbro, Inc.

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

Transforming Your Organization With the 3 Box Approach

2011-09-16T21:10:53Z

We published the article article, "The CEO's Role in Business Model Reinvention," in January-February 2011 Harvard Business Review. The article urged forward-looking CEOs to manage reinvention with a "three-box approach": manage the present (box 1), selectively forget the past (box 2), and create the future (box 3). Leaders need to operate in all three boxes simultaneously. That's easier said than done, for the CEO must not only balance resources across the three boxes but also know what to destroy and what to create.

Brian Goldner, the CEO of Hasbro, Inc., was the chief architect of Hasbro's turnaround strategy in 2000, which focused on leveraging the company's core brands, reducing costs, and lessening its reliance on its licensed business. To do this, he relied and continues to rely on the three-box approach. In this edited conversation with HBR, Govindarajan and Goldner talk about how executives can implement the approach: http://hbr.org/hbrg-main/resources/pdfs/extras/transforming-your-organization-with-the-three-box-approach.pdf

How to Build a Reverse Innovator

2011-09-06T20:56:50Z

In recent years Stanford University's BioDesign program has sent teams of engineering, business, and medical students into hospitals, hoping to identify medical problems that new devices could help solve. The students observe medical procedures, come up with ideas, and develop prototypes for the best ideas.

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

Should You Launch in Emerging Markets First?

2011-08-24T14:08:34Z

Startups usually launch their products first in wealthy countries. Launching first in an emerging market is seen as a nonstarter because of commercial, regulatory, and political risks. This is starting to change: Pricewaterhousecoopers recently reported that faster approvals overseas are encouraging startups to enter the U.S. market last in some cases.

Read full post at Harvard Business Review>>

The First Two Steps Toward Breaking Down Silos in Your Organization

2011-08-10T19:18:20Z

When we ask executives, What is the number one innovation killer at your company?, one of the first words we always hear, always, is "silos!" Recently, one executive even muttered, "fortresses."

Business silos, just like agricultural silos hold something important and make it hard to get at. That's good when you're protecting wheat and corn from rain & snow. But it's bad when you're trying to innovate across departments and divisions.

Read entire post at Harvard Business Review>>

Under Fire, Microfinance Faces Falling Out of Favor

2011-08-02T20:47:05Z

Microfinance has come under fire in the past 18 months, triggered in part by SKS Microfinance's IPO. Critics complain that the institutions supporting microfinance have become too greedy, and many are using this as an argument to deeply regulate or, even more, cut support to microfinance operations.

It's worth taking a step back and remembering how this movement got started, and what it can accomplish.

Read the entire post at Harvard Business Review>>