Alistair Craven :: Blog

Joseph L. Bower has been a leader in general management at Harvard Business School for 45 years.

An expert on corporate strategy, organization, and leadership, he has devoted much of his teaching and research to challenges confronting corporate leaders in today’s rapidly changing hyper-competitive conditions. Presently, he is focusing on corporate value added – the contribution that corporate groups make to their operating divisions, as well as on the management of CEO succession.

For interviews with over 250 business leaders, please visit http://first.emeraldinsight.com 

Brian James has worked in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) for 30 years, with 20 years of that time spent at Executive or Director level. His experience spans strategy, hospital management, business development and information management and technology.

In his last post he was Director of Health Service Strategy & Innovation for South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority. His keen interest in international health systems and new ways of working makes him a regular speaker at National conferences on contemporary issues in the NHS. He has a Masters Degree in Health Informatics.

Mr. James became Chief Executive of Rotherham General Hospital in February 2005 and inherited an annual budget of £140m, 3,300 employees and over 400,000 patients. 90 per cent of patients to the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust wait less than three months for admission, making it one of the top performing Trusts in the country.

The modern picture of healthcare in the United Kingdom is transforming into one of competition and choice. In wanting to explore new ideas to help the Trust achieve its challenging objectives within existing resources, Mr. James took up the offer of Sir Gerry Robinson, former Chairman of Granada and Allied Domecq, to come into the Trust to see whether a “businessman” could identify alternative approaches to managing in this unique environment.

The result, broadcast by the BBC in January, was a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the modern day NHS. In Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? the two protagonists worked – occasionally at loggerheads – to explore areas and suggest changes to working practices that have led to wider learning points for the whole of the NHS. The programmes received widespread critical acclaim and serve as an invaluable snapshot for any professional wishing to study the delivery of healthcare services in a challenging environment.

In this exclusive interview, read what the Chief Executive has to say about the series, his management challenges, and the differences between managing in the public and private sectors.

http://first.emeraldinsight.com/healthcare_management/interviews/pdf/james_hm.pdf 

Mr Haruka Nishimatsu is the President and CEO of Japan Airlines (JAL).

He was born in 1948 in Hamamatsu Shizuoka Prefecture. He joined Japan Airlines in 1972 where he served in the corporate planning department. After a spell overseas in JAL’s city and airport offices in Frankfurt, he returned to Japan to work in the finance department.

In 2003, Mr. Nishimatsu was appointed as an executive officer in charge of finance and investor relations. In 2005 he was appointed to the airline’s board of directors. A year later he was promoted to the position of President and CEO of the JAL Group.

Japan Airlines was founded in the summer of 1951, and in 1953 was re-organized as a semi-government corporation with the Japanese government taking a 50 per cent share. In November 1987 the government sold its remaining stake in the company, and JAL was completely privatized.

Integration between JAL and JAS (Japan Air System) – Japan’s third largest airline company – was initiated in October 2002. Integration of the two companies was completed in April 2004. The new JAL Group was born, creating an organization with a better balance between international and domestic business.

The JAL Group currently employs 38,400 staff with about 17,640 working in the airline transportation sector.

http://first.emeraldinsight.com/strategy/interviews/pdf/nishimatsu.pdf

Gabrielle O’Donovan has worked with major blue-chip companies for many years on corporate culture management. Her recent HSBC culture change programme won an ASTD Excellence in Practice Award in 2005 and her articles have been published in Corporate Governance International, Banking Today and Best Practices Management.

Gabrielle has a Masters degree from the University of Sheffield and is a member of the ASTD, the Society of Authors, the Institute of Management Consultants, the Strategic Planning Society and MENSA. Gabrielle's book The Corporate Culture Handbook (Liffey Press, June 2006) dispels much of the mystique surrounding this subject, outlines the business case for corporate culture management, puts forward a field-proven strategic implementation plan that incorporates best practice and lessons learned and presents pioneering work on the measurement of a culture change programme. The Corporate Culture Handbook appears in the top 1 per cent of best business books 2006 as chosen by Business Book Reviews USA.

http://first.emeraldinsight.com/management_styles/interviews/pdf/odonovan.pdf

Jim Andrew is a Senior Vice President at Boston Consulting Group’s Chicago Office. Hal Sirkin is also a Senior Vice President at the Boston Consulting Group and worldwide leader of their Global Operations Practice.

According to their new book Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation, 90 per cent of senior executives say that innovation-driven growth is integral to their company's success, and most report that they're spending more on innovation efforts every year. But nearly half say they are unhappy with their return on these investments.

In the book, Andrew and Sirkin show that successful innovation has little to do with luck and everything to do with understanding and controlling the factors that drive profitability. The book also includes more than 70 case studies – both successes and failures – that have never been made public before, covering a wide range of companies around the world.

http://first.emeraldinsight.com/strategy/interviews/pdf/andrew_sirkin.pdf

What is the Strategy Paradox?

In 2003, Michael E. Raynor and Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen released The Innovator's Solution which became a bestseller. The focus of the book was on creating and sustaining successful growth. But for Michael Raynor a strategic conundrum demanded further attention: the more irreversible a company’s commitments, the greater its success if it guesses right, but the more devastating its failure if it has guessed badly. Hence his new study The Strategy Paradox.

According to Raynor, bold leadership, a compelling vision and decisive action are widely accepted as the prerequisites of corporate success. But, frustratingly, they are almost always the ingredients of failure too. Once one has understood the reasons for this, the only way to successfully plan for the future is to develop practical strategies based on multiple choices that respond to the different requirements of several possible futures rather than on single strategic commitments. So exactly how can organizations embrace this world of uncertainty? What role does risk play in the realm of strategic planning? How can organizations be more strategically flexible?

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/about_emerald/emeraldnow/spotlight.jsp