Strategy
This three-word term - referring to financial performance that consistently outperforms industry averages - has traditionally been the fundamental quest of strategic management.
What is "sustainable competitive advantage"?
This term, referred to as a "dark side of Moore's Law", describes discarded, often obsolete technology.
What is e-waste or electronic waste?
Unlike costs that do not vary by volume, these costs are associated with each additional customer or unit produced and have decreased significantly for many tech-enabled firms in the wake of the digital economy.
What are marginal costs?
These small chip-based tags wirelessly emit a unique identifying code associated with the item to which they are attached.
What is RFID? Radio frequency identification.
Co-founder of the world's largest PC software company, this American business magnate is also one of the world's leading philanthropists.
Who is Bill Gates?
Advertising can build public awareness, but brand strength is built through this. Just ask Netflix. And Amazon.
What is customer experience?
This common fashion industry practice involves outsourcing to third-party contractors. Production costs are lower, but all too often at the expense of the environment, worker safety, and the firm's reputation.
What is contract manufacturing?
This type of contract gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to make an investment.
What is an option?
Amazon’s industry-leading cloud computing offerings are better known by this acronym.
What is AWS? Amazon Web Services
This Netflix CEO celebrated 100 million subscribers the same way he celebrated 1 million - with a steak alone at Denny's.
Who is Reed Hastings?
If resistant to imitation, this set of activities through which a product or service is created and delivered to customers can be a sustainable source of strategic advantage.
What is the Value Chain?
Between testifying before a congressional committee, denying Russian disinformation in American politics, and downplaying a spate of controversies that include the Cambridge Analytica data breach, this 34-year old tech CEO has had a rough year.
Who is Mark Zuckerberg?
The Internet has diminished the presence and impact of this phenomenon: a decision situation in which one party has more or better information than its counterparty.
What is information asymmetry?
These computing systems seek to reproduce or improve upon human thought and decision making.
What is AI, artificial intelligence?
Once named to Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business", this Google alum and current Facebook Chief Operating Officer will have to lean in to manage the shitstorm of controversy currently facing her company.
Who is Sheryl Sandberg?
According to this Harvard Business School professor and influential strategy researcher, there is a fundamental difference between strategic positioning and operational effectiveness.
Who is Michael Porter?
While this leading e-commerce company made a grand gesture in announcing a $15 minimum wage this year, many reports seem to indicate that its working environments may be toxic, demanding, and/or downright dangerous.
What is Amazon?
This financial measure of firm value is calculated by multiplying the number of shares outstanding by the current market price of one share.
What is market capitalization or market cap?
In computer programming, this phrase indicates a set of programming protocols and communication tools for building software, functioning as a mainstay of today's platform economy.
What are APIs? Application Programming Interface
This computing CEO was just a sophomore when he began building computers in his dorm room at the University of Texas. His firm would one day claim the top spot among PC manufacturers worldwide.
Who is Michael Dell?
This strategy paradigm applies to firms seeking to create uncontested markets rather than to compete in domains with many existing rivals.
What is a Blue Ocean strategy?
This is a common term for Non-Practicing Entities that profit by acquiring legal rights and litigating rather than creating new products; unfortunately, sunlight doesn't turn them into stone.
What are patent trolls?
Firms that cannot efficiently convert assets to cash are said to have this kind of problem.
What are liquidity problems?
Used to communicate with a database, this is the standard language for relational database management systems.
What is SQL? Structured Query Language
This once-top tech CEO was ousted last year after his transportation firm endured a series of scandals that included accusations of a hedonistic and misogynistic workplace, tech-enabled evasion of regulatory authorities, algorithmic abuse of contract workers, and autonomous vehicle corporate espionage.
Who is Travis Kalanick?