In their quest for innovation-led growth, executives are apt to approach technology investments with a conservative risk-averse mindset. This paper explains how taking an active approach to technology risk management, using three common portfolio management techniques, can reduce uncertainty and increase a company's opportunity for growth.

Monitor Group, one of the world’s leading advisory and consulting firms, and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, a leading international research center, based in Milan, Italy, released, “Weathering the Storm: Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Global Economic Crisis of 2008,” a new annual report analyzing the effects of the global economic crisis on the behaviors and financial transactions of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs).

Nearly half of the world lives on less than $2 a day. The persistence of massive global poverty cries out for new approaches to improving the lives of people living at the base of the income pyramid. Monitor Group released this first-of-its-kind report based on comparative research in 20 countries that explores financially sustainable and scalable enterprises that succeed in low-income markets and highlights their promise to accelerate genuine social change.

Cloud computing is one avenue for the U.S. to reassert global economic and technology leadership--if government policy makers safeguard its future as the basis for a flourishing new technology sector. In this paper, Andrew Heyward and Jeffrey F. Rayport outline eight elements for enabling this on-demand computing industry to realize its full potential.

Facing a sharp economic downturn and fundamental shifts in the way buyers learn and make decisions, companies must adapt their mix of marketing expenditures and develop new models for customer engagement. These new models, informed by insight into how customers think and behave, welcome shoppers’ involvement in shaping when, where and how they receive information and how they interact with products and brands.

Recessions and times of uncertainty present unusual opportunities. In these times, companies need to seize new opportunities not by retrenching, but by rebalancing: focusing on the right innovation projects and then executing those innovations more efficiently, effectively and creatively. By doing so, we believe companies can generate superior results and emerge from the current downturn more competitive than ever--and they can do so without increased budget or investment.

“Paths to Prosperity; Promoting Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century,” a new Monitor Group study, interviewed entrepreneurs in 22 countries to determine attitudes and critical policies required for entrepreneurship to thrive in different regions around the world, including the importance of a society's fostering of entrepreneurial skills and tax policies that encourage R&D.

In today’s increasingly volatile economy, companies that make informed technology decisions can gain a significant edge over their competition without spending more on technology to do so.  This paper examines the forces that have prevented some companies from unlocking the strategic potential of their technology assets and highlights the tools top-performing companies have employed to drive growth. 

Once at the mercy of marketers, customers have developed coping mechanisms to combat the torrent of messages that come their way. Companies need to move past traditional approaches to get their attention.

In this Conference Board article Jennifer Lacks Kaplan and Yakir Siegel, both partners at Monitor Group, discuss five principles that can help companies better focus marketing investment decisions in a challenging world of new technologies and delivery channels.

Nick Turner, a partner at Monitor Group and co-president of the Global Business Network, explains how scenario planning is a key to readiness in uncertain times in an article in CEO Journal.