The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy

For more than forty years, The Boston Consulting Group has been shaping strategic thinking in business. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry. Here's a sampling of the provocative thinking you'll find inside:

"You have to be the scientist of your own life and be astonished four times:at what is, what always has been, what once was, and what could be."

"The majority of products in most companies are cash traps . . . .[They] are not only worthless, but a perpetual drain on corporate resources."

"Use more debt than your competition or get out of the business."

"When information flows freely, reputation, more than reciprocity,becomes the basis for trust."

"As a strategic weapon, time is the equivalent of money, productivity,quality, even innovation."

"When brands become business systems, brand management becomes far too important to leave to the marketing department."

"The winning organization of the future will look more like a collection ofjazz ensembles than a symphony orchestra."

"Most of our organizations today derive from a model whose original purpose was to control creativity."

"Rather than being an obstacle, uncertainty is the very engine of transformation in a business, a continuous source of new opportunities."

"IP assets lack clear property lines. Every bit of intellectual property you can own comes with connections to other valuable innovations."

CARL W. STERN has been with BCG for thirty-two years. He was the CEO of BCG from 1997 to 2003 and presently serves as co-chairman of the board. He holds an MBA from Stanford Business School.

MICHAEL S. DEIMLER is a Senior Vice President in the Atlanta office of BCG and the leader of its strategy practice. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School.