Business Thinking

How do you get better at understanding — and therefore doing — business?

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The Tatas: When Virtue Works

Why are the Tatas so much less corrupt than their contemporaries? How is their conglomerate still intact after five generations? The answer to an Asian conglomerate mystery, and Part 13 of the Asian conglomerate series.

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Putting the Jobs to be Done Interview to Practice

Things we wished someone told us, before we put the JTBD interview to practice.

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Tycoon Succession

Most Asian conglomerates are family-controlled businesses. Succession in any family business is a tricky thing. We look at a few cases as part of the Asian Conglomerate Series.

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The Art of the Asian Joint Venture

How Robert Kuok used the joint venture to expand his business empire ... and what this tells us about business in Southeast Asia.

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You’re Always Selling to a Situation, Not an ICP

One simple idea that falls out of the Heart of Innovation book — that you can use immediately — is this idea of selling into situations, not selling to ideal customer profiles. It’s what the pros do anyway.

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The Origin of the Tatas

How one of the oldest business empires on the subcontinent got started, and how one man’s values laid the foundation for five generations of business conduct.

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Cases from The Heart of Innovation

Three cases from The Heart of Innovation, picked to demonstrate the ideas of Deliberate Innovation.

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The Heart of Innovation: Why Most Startups Fail

A theory of demand (and product market fit) that explains it all, and does NOT require ‘pain’ to do it.

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Business with Tariffs; Business as Usual

Every Asian Tycoon we’ve examined got their start in a world with tariffs. They could thrive and adapt under severe uncertainty. So can we. Here’s how to calibrate for that world.

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Vanguard as a Demand-Side Mystery

We study the rise of Vanguard, the index fund management company, as a case study of how customer demand is not always about pain.