The Boston Globe reports that Harvard Business Review has laid off 10 staff. Adi Ignatius, the magazine’s editor in chief, calls the change a complete overhaul that includes reorganising and increasing the importance of the online business.
At the heart of the rebuilding strategy is the reorganisation of the three most prominent consumer franchises associated with the Harvard Business School brand: the monthly Review; the book division, Harvard Business Press; and the websites. In April, the three divisions were realigned under the new Harvard Business Review Group, which has 100 employees.
The really interesting point, for this blog at least, is that throughout the recent changes, the magazine has tried to follow the precepts it advances in its own editorial pages. For example, they realigned the editorial staff to follow specific business sectors to increase the Review’s coverage of emerging business trends. “We spent a lot of time team-building to make that happen.’’ Ignatius said.
When Ignatius arrived at Harvard, he said he was impressed with the methodical way the organisation built scenarios so they would be prepared to deal with a variety of economic conditions, from Scenario A, a relatively mild downturn in the economic climate , to Scenario C, a severe recession. “It was a level of involvement that I never saw at Time magazine or The Wall Street Journal, where I worked before that, right now we’re somewhere between Scenarios A and B’’ he said.
This is interesting, because we have just applied our own disciplines to the Meridian 1 business in the form of a strategy and business plan evaluation. Our conclusion, as this blog as reported, is that it is difficult to discern the severity of the downturn and when the recovery will take hold, so scenario planning is an excellent method to follow. In our case we found that the sectors of the economy that we serve are prone to a larger than average amount by the recession.
Currently this means that business investment has decelerated faster than the underlying slowdown in economic activity, however, it is also likely to be offset by a larger than average growth as the recovery begins. Therefore, we need to contain our costs and diversify our products and markets now to weather the storm, and we also need to prepare to ramp up our capabilities when the upswing begins.
What is your view? Do you agree with us that the business schools and management consultants take their own medicine? Has you business undertaken a deliberate evaluation of the strategic change required to weather the storm? How has your sector been affected? Some decline, as in our own B2B segment; others remain relatively unaffected (e.g. Government), and others actually grow (budget supermarkets, pre-owned cars etc.) What has your sector been like?
