Podcast · Business

HBR On Strategy

by Harvard Business Review · English · Business

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 27 min
Latest: 25 Jun 2025
Language: English

Latest episode

25 Jun 2025 · 1 min

An Announcement from HBR On Strategy

For the last two years, HBR On Strategy has been a collection of the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. But the time has come for HBR On Strategy to hit pause on new episodes. We think that you deserve the highest-possible quality HBR content. And to do that, we’re going to focus our efforts for now on our sister feed, HBR On Leadership. But don’t worry—you can still enjoy the archive of episodes. Plus you can find brand new episodes of HBR IdeaCast, HBR’s Women at Work, Cold Call, and…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E116 · 25 Jun 2025 · 30 min

The Strategic Advantage of Tapping Freelancers

The rapid pace of technological change is making a big impact on hiring. Some organizations are dynamically securing freelance workers through platform apps like Upwork and Freelancer. Other companies are investing heavily in work enabled by artificial intelligence. John Winsor and Jin Paik say these structural changes call for a reimagining of your talent strategy—one that is open to flexible, project-based work for talent inside or outside your organization—and they explain how to go about it. Winsor is the founder and chair of Open Assembly and an executive-in-residence at the Laboratory…
E115 · 18 Jun 2025 · 21 min

The Promises, Pitfalls, and Trade-offs of the Circular Economy

Most businesses are built on a linear model: take, make, and discard. But that norm is reaching its limits, and leaders are under pressure to find smarter, more sustainable ways to operate. Weslynne Ashton is a systems scientist and professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In her masterclass at HBR’s 2024 Leaders Who Make a Difference conference, she explains how companies can shift to a circular economic strategy. One that reduces waste, reinvests in communities, and creates long-term value. She shares how businesses around the world are rethinking products, partnerships, and…
E114 · 11 Jun 2025 · 31 min

Sustainability Is Fueling Innovation at Ferrari

When Ferrari, the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer, committed to achieving carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet, investors and employees applauded the new strategy. But among the company’s suppliers, the reaction was mixed. Many were nervous about how this shift would affect their bottom lines. Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun and Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna discuss how Ferrari collaborated with suppliers to work toward achieving the company’s goal. They also explore how sustainability can be a catalyst for innovation in the case,…
E113 · 4 Jun 2025 · 27 min

Stress Test Your Strategy Before It Fails

While many teams and organizations engage in scenario planning, most don’t go far enough. Arjan Singh, consultant and adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, says a more disciplined approach, borrowed from the military, can help leaders truly test how their strategies, operations, and tactics hold up against competitors, shifting market dynamics, and unexpected events. He’s helped hundreds of companies identify risks and find new ways to innovate by leading them through corporate war games, and he explains his process and results. Singh is the author of the book Competitive…
E112 · 28 May 2025 · 21 min

Rethink Your Pricing Strategies Amid Economic Uncertainty

Rafi Mohammed, founder of the consulting firm Culture of Profit, says a crisis or recession is not the time to panic and slash prices. He says leaders should instead reevaluate their pricing strategy—or develop one for the first time—to better respond to customers during the slump and keep them when the economy recovers. Since this conversation took place in 2020, the crisis you'll hear them referring to is—obviously—the Covid-19 pandemic. But these lessons apply well beyond that moment—to any period of economic instability. Mohammed shares examples of companies across a variety of…
E111 · 21 May 2025 · 23 min

AMD’s Lisa Su on Experimenting with AI

HBR editor at large Adi Ignatius speaks with Lisa Su, CEO of leading semiconductor company AMD, about the company’s evolution toward high-performance and adaptive computing, the future of AI use in different sectors, and the importance of responsible risk-taking. She advocates for fast experimentation and implementation while ensuring safety through initiatives like AMD’s Responsible AI Council, active learning within the organization and among industry peers, and the hiring of diverse talent to drive innovation. Time Magazine recently named Su their "CEO of the Year."
E110 · 14 May 2025 · 28 min

A Lesson on Balancing Scaling with Stability

In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and then-CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, was facing a decision that could determine his company’s future. Should he stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of Chewy.com’s e-commerce fulfillment or take that function in house? Cohen worried that the company’s current 3PL may not be able to scale with Chewy.com’s projected growth or maintain the company’s performance standards for service quality and fulfillment. But neither he nor his cofounders had experience managing logistics, and the company’s board members were…
E109 · 7 May 2025 · 25 min

The Right Way to Launch an AI Initiative

Unfortunately, you can’t set up your organization’s artificial intelligence projects like just any other IT project. By their nature, AI endeavors are quite different and suffer high failure rates. But there are proven approaches you can take to increase your odds of success. Iavor Bojinov, assistant professor at Harvard Business School and former LinkedIn data scientist, breaks down five critical steps for an AI project to turn into an effective product: selection, development, evaluation, adoption, and management. He’s the author of the HBR article “Keep Your AI Projects on Track.”
E108 · 30 Apr 2025 · 9 min

The 6 Forces of Failure—and How to Protect Your Company from Them

What can failures like Harley-Davidson Cologne or Cheetos Lip Balm teach us about success? Sean Jacobsohn, partner at Norwest Venture Partners and founder of the Failure Museum, takes us on a tour of notable product failures, sharing insights into why they failed and the lessons we can learn from them. Discover the six forces of failure and learn how companies can avoid making the same mistakes.
E107 · 23 Apr 2025 · 17 min

How to Turn Your Customer Base into a Community

”Community” is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot in the business world. But what does it really mean to build one—and what does it take to make it last? More importantly, how can businesses create communities that drive long-term success? Matt Mullenweg, the cofounder of WordPress and the founder and CEO of Automattic, tackles these questions in this episode. He shares insights on fostering community within a firm—like hiring the right people through auditions instead of resumes—and within a customer base by encouraging engagement and feedback.
E106 · 16 Apr 2025 · 23 min

Great Strategy Starts with Experimentation

Stefan Thomke, professor at Harvard Business School, says running experiments can give companies tremendous value, but too often business leaders make decisions based on intuition. While A/B testing on large transaction volumes is common practice at Google, Booking.com, and Netflix, Thomke says even small firms can get a competitive advantage from experiments. He explains how to introduce, run, and learn from them, as well as how to cultivate an experimental mindset at your organization. Thomke is the author of the book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments and…
E105 · 9 Apr 2025 · 27 min

Bringing Innovation to an Underserved Market

Founded in 2014, Thinx, Inc. makes absorbent underwear that can be worn during menstruation. But the feminine care market had seen virtually no innovation in half a century because of the taboo against discussing the topic of menstruation. As a result, the startup was competing against large incumbents like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Rembrand Koning examines these strategic marketing challenges and discusses the importance of removing taboos and biases in order to bring innovation to the feminine care market in his case, “Thinx,…
E104 · 2 Apr 2025 · 25 min

To Make Better Decisions, Think Like a Venture Capitalist

Venture capital firms notoriously embrace risk and take big swings, hoping that one startup will become a monster hit that pays for many other failed investments. This VC approach scares established companies, but it shouldn’t. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Ilya Strebulaev says that VC firms have proven best practices that all leaders should apply in their own companies. He explains exactly how VC’s operationalize risk, embrace disagreement over consensus, and stay agile in their decision-making—all valuable lessons that apply outside of Silicon Valley. With author Alex…
E103 · 26 Mar 2025 · 29 min

How to Lead a Successful Turnaround

When a company, division, or product line has been struggling for some time, it can feel nearly impossible to get things back on track. But big turnarounds are possible, provided you have a team willing to work hard, be creative, and embrace change. When he was president and CEO of Marvel, Peter Cuneo oversaw the resurgence and sale of the media company, but even before that he had a long track record for turning around many types of consumer-facing businesses. He shares the strategies that work best for shaking up organizations and teams and boosting their performance. Cuneo is also the…
E102 · 19 Mar 2025 · 29 min

Alphabet CEO on AI as a Workplace Collaborator

The use of artificial intelligence—specifically generative AI—is growing rapidly, and tech giants like Google have an important role to play in how that technology gets adopted and developed. Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google as well as its parent company Alphabet, which he’s led as an AI-first company for several years. He speaks with HBR Editor at Large Adi Ignatius about shaping Google’s AI strategy, putting safeguards in place, and how work and leadership will change as AI advances.
E101 · 12 Mar 2025 · 27 min

How to Push for Change in a Large Organization

Getting a big, bureaucratic organization to innovate or adopt new technologies is hard. That’s why Harvard Business School professor Maria Roche wrote a case study about U.S. Air Force Major Victor “SALSA” Lopez. He helped launch a program that uncovers ways to use AI to strengthen U.S. defense efforts. Professor Roche and Major Lopez talked about the challenges of fostering innovation within a large bureaucracy in a conversation with host Brian Kenny on Cold Call back in 2023.
E100 · 5 Mar 2025 · 27 min

The Right Way to Make Data-Driven Decisions

Fueled by the promise of concrete insights, organizations are increasingly prioritizing data in their decision-making processes. But that process can easily go wrong. Many leaders don’t understand that their decisions are only as good as how they interpret the data. In this episode, John Hopkins Carey School Professor Michael Luca and Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson explain their framework for making better decisions by interpreting data more effectively.
E99 · 26 Feb 2025 · 30 min

To Grow Profitably, Take It Slow

Many companies, especially in the tech world, have come to embrace the idea of growth at all costs. But according to research from Gary Pisano, professor at Harvard Business School, most firms fail to consistently increase revenues and profits over the long term, adjusting for inflation. In this episode, Pisano explains why it’s important for leaders to think more strategically about not just the rate of growth they want to achieve but the direction they want to grow in and their method for doing so. Trying to grow too fast can be the downfall of many organizations. He shares examples of…
E98 · 19 Feb 2025 · 25 min

Turn Your Supply Chain into an Innovation Engine

Imagine a company that, in a matter of weeks, can develop, prototype, build, and deliver innovative products. That’s exactly what Haier, one of the world’s largest home appliance manufacturers, achieved in 2019. When the city of Wuhan urgently needed mobile isolation wards to curb the spread of Covid-19, Haier leveraged their open digital supply chain platform. In this episode, Kasra Ferdows, an operations management professor at Georgetown University, explains how open digital platforms facilitate innovation and problem solving by making the entire supply chain more transparent to suppliers.
E97 · 12 Feb 2025 · 27 min

Using New Tech to Compete in an Old Industry

The insurance industry is centuries old and has historically been dominated by a few large incumbents. To buy insurance, customers usually go through a broker or an agent. But the industry is experiencing disruption from smaller tech-driven companies—known as insurtechs—that are changing how insurance is bought and sold. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Lauren Cohen explores how insurtech firm Hippo is challenging traditional insurance models. He explains how Hippo is eliminating the need for insurance agents and using AI to lower prices. He also shares Hippo’s unique…
E96 · 5 Feb 2025 · 19 min

The Key to Sustaining an Enduring Competitive Advantage

It’s a holy grail for many businesses — the search for sustainable competitive advantage. But Chris Zook points out that it’s elusive for most companies. He notes that less than one in ten achieve profitable growth over a decade, on average. Zook is the former head of Bain’s global strategy practice and coauthor of the book Repeatability: Build Enduring Businesses for a World of Constant Change. In this episode, he shares three key principles that can help your organization find and maintain an enduring competitive advantage, with real-world examples drawn from IKEA, Enterprise Rent-A-Car,…
E95 · 29 Jan 2025 · 32 min

A Restaurant Innovator’s Recipe for Strategic Growth

For a long time in the restaurant industry, there were two types of dining experiences: fast food or table service. But Ron Shaich, founder and former chairman and CEO of Panera Bread, managed to create an entirely new category in between the two: fast casual. That innovative idea laid the groundwork for companies like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and beyond. In this episode, Shaich breaks down his core strategies for successful innovation in the restaurant industry: figure out what your customers truly want, create a differentiated offering, execute with excellence, and focus on growth. He argues…
E94 · 22 Jan 2025 · 47 min

A Middle Manager’s Guide to Executing Strategy

Imagine this scenario: Your company’s executive team has just announced their new master plan for growing the business. Now it’s your job, as a mid-level manager, to put it into practice. So where do you start? In this episode, strategist Andrea Belk Olson explains how to make the most of a plan that you may or may not agree with and that you may or may not have had any input into. She also has advice about the questions you should ask yourself before taking action, how to handle resistance from people you manage, and what to do if the new strategy isn’t working well.
E93 · 15 Jan 2025 · 28 min

Competitive Strategy Lessons from the LIV Golf and PGA Tour Merger

In June 2022, the first ever LIV Golf event teed off outside of London. Offering players larger prizes and more flexibility, LIV Golf aimed to disrupt the sport. In response, the PGA Tour suspended all players who participated in the LIV Golf event, escalating tensions between the two entities. This conflict culminated in LIV Golf filing an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. Then, in a surprising turn of events, the two tours announced their merger in June 2023. University of Virginia associate professor Alexander MacKay discusses the competitive and regulatory issues at stake and…
E92 · 8 Jan 2025 · 21 min

Strategies for Managing Talent Amid Uncertainty and Competition

In the last half century, relationships between employers and their employees have evolved away from being rooted in long-term loyalty to a new paradigm of short-term alliances driven by uncertainty and competition. Entrepreneurs and coauthors Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh argue that the new world of work isn’t so different from the typical conditions that many entrepreneurs operate in. And if you’re a manager, you may need a new strategy to hire and retain top talent. Casnocha and Yeh, coauthors of the book The Startup of You, explain why it’s important for your organization to build internal…
E91 · 1 Jan 2025 · 29 min

How McKinsey Resisted Disruption

The consulting firm McKinsey has helped its clients navigate disruption in a wide range of industries. But what can we learn from how McKinsey itself responded to disruption in the management consulting industry in the early aughts? In this episode, the originator of disruptive innovation, the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, joined former McKinsey managing partner Dominic Barton to break down how the firm shifted its internal strategy to prioritize flexibility and efficiency.
E90 · 25 Dec 2024 · 24 min

What It Takes to Thrive During a Crisis

Why did some companies thrive during the Covid-19 pandemic while others struggled? Keith Ferrazzi, founder of the consulting firm Ferrazzi Greenlight, surveyed more than 2,000 executives to learn how they changed their operations during the pandemic. The results show that some companies had already been cultivating a kind of extreme adaptability before the pandemic. That practice helped them come out on top. In this episode, Ferrazzi outlines the concrete steps organizations can take to cultivate the resilience and agility to stay competitive in the post-Covid-19 world.
E89 · 18 Dec 2024 · 29 min

How Glossier Maintained Brand Integrity While Scaling

Glossier launched in 2014 as an e-commerce, direct-to-consumer makeup and skincare brand aimed at millennial women. From the start, Glossier’s founder Emily Weiss built a strong digital community around her brand. But after the company received its first major round of funding, Glossier was ready to scale up its marketing spending. The challenge: How to do that while also preserving the brand’s all-important authenticity? In this episode, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jill Avery explains how to think about marketing when scaling a business. Drawing from her business case on…
E88 · 11 Dec 2024 · 16 min

How to Build Long-Term Social Value

What does it take to succeed as a business while doing well by your employees? Harvard Business School professor emeritus Mike Beer has studied companies who invest in building long-term social value and he says they offer some key lessons for other firms. In this episode, he breaks down how these companies set their strategies for new products and services, hiring, and even how much debt to accrue by first considering their company’s larger identity and higher purpose. Beer calls this “strategic identity.” He also explains how to manage short-term pressures from Wall Street through…

About HBR On Strategy

Business strategy isn’t just a plan, it’s a framework for success. Whether you’re building, innovating, or executing, HBR On Strategy is your destination for insights and inspiration from the world’s top experts on business strategy and innovation. Every Wednesday, the editors at the Harvard Business Review hand-picked case studies and conversations from across HBR podcasts, videos, articles, and beyond to help you unlock new ways of doing business.

HBR On Strategy is a English business podcast from Harvard Business Review. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Harvard Business Review
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 27 min
Latest episode: 25 Jun 2025
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1683845677

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