137: Blair Sheppard, PwC global strategy head and author. On four urgent global crises and their strategic solutions

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 435, where we feature an interview with the co-author of the inspiring new Generative AI study, Jeremy Utley. This episode highlights the common mistakes and missed opportunities many corporate teams and individuals make when using AI. Too often, individuals treat AI as a mere search engine, leading to answers that fall short of actual solutions.    Jeremy Utley is an adjunct professor specializing in creativity and entrepreneurship at Stanford University, where he has taught design thinking and creativity to nearly one million students of innovation worldwide. In 2023, he was named a top ten global innovation leader by Thinkers50 for his recent book Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

27 Mars 202453min

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic from the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study. This podcast is for those who have mastered all the basics on slide design and formatting. In this podcast, we discuss how to determine if your PowerPoint slides are influential on a study. Influential PowerPoint slides may not be the most beautiful pieces of work or even the ones with the most effort, though it is usually at least the latter. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

25 Mars 202416min

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 433, an interview with the coauthor of Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future, Venkat Venkatraman. In Fusion Strategy, digital strategy expert Venkat Venkatraman and world-renowned innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan offer a first-of-its-kind playbook that will help industrial companies combine what they do best—create physical products—with what digitals do best—use algorithms and AI to parse expansive, interconnected datasets—to make strategic connections that would otherwise be impossible.   Venkat Venkatraman is the David J. McGrath Jr. Professor of Management at the Questrom School of Business, Boston University. He has previously taught at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the London Business School. He is considered one of the foremost authorities on how companies develop strategies to win with digital technologies. He has lectured and conducted digital strategy workshops all over the world with companies such as IBM, Merck, Ericsson, BP, Canal+, and others.   Get Venkat’s book here: https://rb.gy/2vq6rx Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

20 Mars 202457min

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 432, an interview with the coauthor of Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future. In Fusion Strategy, world-renowned innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan and digital strategy expert Venkat Venkatraman offer a first-of-its-kind playbook that will help industrial companies combine what they do best—create physical products—with what digitals do best—use algorithms and AI to parse expansive, interconnected datasets—to make strategic connections that would otherwise be impossible.   Vijay “VG” Govindarajan is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on strategy and innovation. He is the Coxe Distinguished Professor, a Dartmouth-wide chair, at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a former Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School. Govindarajan is the author of the bestselling books Reverse Innovation and Three-Box Solution.   Get Vijay’s book here: https://rb.gy/2vq6rx Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

18 Mars 202455min

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we discuss value chain analysis.   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo   Subscribe to FIRMSconsulting's YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/Firmsconsultingsubscribe

13 Mars 202411min

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 430, an interview with the author of Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference, Guy Kawasaki. In Think Remarkable, tech titan Guy Kawasaki teams up with Madisun Nuismer, producer of the Remarkable People podcast, to share invaluable knowledge from more than 40 years of working with game-changing organizations such as Apple, Canva, Google, Mercedes Benz, and Wikipedia, and delivers insights from a collection of amazing interviews that'll kick you into high gear and get you ready to start showing the world your best, most amazing self. Together the authors show you how to lead a fulfilling life by drawing on insights from working closely with some of the world's most remarkable people.   Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast. He is an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley), and adjunct professor of the University of New South Wales. He was the chief evangelist of Apple and a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He has written Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and eleven other books. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UCLA, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College.   Get Guy’s book here: https://rb.gy/tvng27 Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

11 Mars 202447min

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic from the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study, where we explain how benchmarking analysis, or what is also called best practice analysis, should be used for the top-down analysis and why they are so difficult to manage in a real study. Click here to see the full study and here to see the merger study and market entry study. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo Subscribe to FIRMSconsulting's YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/Firmsconsultingsubscribe

6 Mars 202416min

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 427, an interview with Paul Stonick, the Vice President of SCADpro—Savannah College of Art and Design’s in-house design, research, and innovation studio—which is generating innovative designs and products for the world's most influential brands, including Google, Amazon, and Apple.   From sketches to on-screen visuals, SCADpro students conceptualized and created augmented reality graphics ahead of Super Bowl LVIII. Their game-changing use of Augmented Reality was an epic viewing experience like never before!   Visit the behind the scenes with CBS Sports here: https://twitter.com/NFLonCBS/status/1755382181998841907   Prior to SCAD, Paul spent 25 years in the corporate world leading world-class digital and user experience design teams primarily in e-commerce, most notably with The Home Depot. His work has been featured in multiple news outlets, research organizations like Forrester and L2 Gartner, national television spots, and multiple Apple WWDC keynotes.   Paul also coaches and mentors the next generation of design leaders in his work with Amazing Design People (adplist.org). ADPList inspires powerful conversations and collaborations among designers worldwide so together we can change the world with creativity. In addition, Paul is a founding cohort member of Punks & Pinstripes -- a private network of badass transformation executives. Because it takes a rebel to change a company. Find us at punksandpinstripes.com    Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

4 Mars 202451min