“Effective stories that win both listeners’ hearts and minds are critical communications tools that can enable leaders to achieve difficult strategic goals,” write Doug Randall and Aaron Harms in an article in Strategy & Leadership magazine. The onus is on leaders—not their audience—to deliver a successful narrative that transfers meaning and motivation. The authors warn executives that their strategy initiatives are at risk every time the message they deliver is not convincing or clear.

Larry Keeley, an innovation expert and partner at Monitor, explains how Kodak’s famous failure to enter digital photography quickly can be a useful lesson for executives looking to innovate now. He writes that a new form of strategic thinking, convergences, “gives leaders a deeper sense of the interdependencies that connect firms, products, systems and services in new ecosystems” and reveals emerging opportunities, typically at the junction of new technologies and customer behaviors.

The global economy faces serious risks of a second “great recession” if world leaders fail to cooperate on solutions to prevent “near-term economic divisions to devolve into deeper-seated geopolitical divisions,” write Peter Schwartz, Jonathan Star, and Nikhil Prasad Ojha in The Times of India newspaper. In this piece that demonstrates scenario thinking, the authors project the global economy is likely to go through a near-term period of low growth. The long-term prognosis then depends on the actions—or failures—of leaders to respond.

In this special report on innovation in India’s Business Today magazine, Nikhil Prasad Ojha, Parijat Ghosh, Sachin Khandelwal, and Harsh Kapoor from Monitor describe key principles of innovation used by successful companies, from mobile phone provider Safaricom in Kenya, to Mexican cement company Cemex, to GE’s green energy products, to create new ways of doing business. “As markets mature and become more competitive, innovation has become an imperative for firms to survive and win,” the authors write.

This report, "Private Equity In the Shadow of Giants: Innovative Approaches Along the Investment Value Chain in Sub-Saharan Africa," surveys a wide range of stakeholders in the African private equity ecosystem to help new-to-Africa actors interested in understanding in more detail the investment opportunities and nuances in the operating models on the Sub-continent. It was compiled in the second half of 2011, triggered by the recent increase in positive hype that Africa received as the last frontier market. The report covers trends and innovative approaches from fund strategies and fundraising, to deal-flow generation and post-deal value-add activities, and ultimately exits. Overall, it uncovered an attractive industry in flux, with increased competitiveness, but sufficient uncharted territory to grow from its still relatively small base.

Fundamental changes in the health care system are transforming how key stakeholders value, obtain, and process information. While biopharmaceutical companies are experimenting with different solutions, they are not going far enough and fast enough to address new realities. In this article, part of the Monitor Perspectives white paper series, Jeff Wordham and Sheryl L. Jacobson outline how companies can succeed by fundamentally rethinking their approaches to customers, offering and channels.

In these video clips, Monitor thought leaders explain why pharmaceutical companies need to think differently about their commercial models—their approaches to customers, offerings, and channels—to make important changes to their strategies and adapt to the new shape of the pharmaceutical industry.

This white paper by experts from Monitor and Global Business Network (GBN) analyzes the impact that deep structural shifts in commodities markets will have on the competitive landscape, including the critical supply chain and business location decisions C-level executives will face as higher prices for food, fuel and minerals become permanent.

A new report funded by the Rockefeller Foundation estimates that the field of Impact Sourcing, employing socioeconomically disadvantaged people in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) centers, is currently $4.5 billion and has the potential to reach $20 billion and employ 780,000 by 2015. The report, conducted by Monitor Group, suggests a strong business case for Impact Sourcing, which can provide high-quality, reliable services at prices that are at least competitive with traditional BPO centers and, in some cases, almost 40 percent lower than what traditional providers can offer.

In this year’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF) report, Monitor found that 2010 marks the beginning of a new pattern of SWF investment, characterized by an increased number of smaller investments and a focus on financial services and commodities sectors.