HBR On Strategy

Harvard Business Review

Business strategy isn’t 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 conversations and case studies from across HBR podcasts, videos, articles, and beyond to unlock new ways of doing business.

  • 1 minute 5 seconds
    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 Coaching Real Leaders wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, we hope you’ll subscribe to our sister podcast, HBR On Leadership, which will continue dropping new episodes every week.

    Thank you for joining us each week. See you next time.

    • Listen to HBR On Leadership
    • Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org
    25 June 2025, 12:22 pm
  • 30 minutes 26 seconds
    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 for Innovation Science at Harvard. Paik is a cofounder and managing partner at the AI consultancy Altruistic and a visiting research scientist at Harvard Business School. Together, they wrote the book Open Talent: Leveraging the Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges and the HBR article “Do You Need an External Talent Cloud?“

    Key episode topics include: talent strategy, competitive strategy, talent management, freelancing, gig economy, contractors, agile project management

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    25 June 2025, 11:22 am
  • 20 minutes 36 seconds
    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 growth itself to build more resilient, regenerative business models. 

    Key episode topics include: environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility, ESG, climate change, business models, strategy, competitive strategy

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week

    18 June 2025, 11:22 am
  • 30 minutes 36 seconds
    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, Ferrari: Shifting to Carbon Neutrality.

    Key episode topics include: strategy, environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility, luxury goods, ESG, climate change, car manufacturing, innovation

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    • Listen to the full Cold Call episode: Can Sustainability Drive Innovation at Ferrari?
    • Find more episodes of Cold Call
    • Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org

    11 June 2025, 11:22 am
  • 26 minutes 51 seconds
    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 Success: Building Winning Strategies with Corporate War Games.

    Key episode topics include: competitive strategy, strategy, scenario planning, risk management, military, wargaming

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    4 June 2025, 11:22 am
  • 20 minutes 40 seconds
    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 industries that created effective price strategies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Mohammed is the author of The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow and the recent HBR article, “Setting a Pricing Strategy Amid Ever-Changing Tariffs.”

    Key episode topics include: pricing strategy, competitive strategy, crisis management, customer strategy, economic downturns, economics, inflation, recessions, risk management, strategy 

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    28 May 2025, 11:22 am
  • 23 minutes 5 seconds
    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.”

    Key episode topics include: artificial intelligence, computing, machine learning, technology, decision-making, implementation, experimentation, ChatGPT, OpenAI, strategy 

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    21 May 2025, 11:22 am
  • 28 minutes 28 seconds
    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 pressuring him to leave order fulfillment to the 3PL.

    What should Cohen do? Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeffrey Rayport discusses the options in his case, “Chewy.com (A).”

    Key episode topics include: strategy, supply chain management, operations management, growth strategy, operations strategy

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    14 May 2025, 11:22 am
  • 25 minutes 1 second
    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.”

    Key episode topics include: artificial intelligence, project management, product management, product launches, trust, employee engagement, technology and analytics, competitive strategy, strategy,

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    7 May 2025, 11:22 am
  • 8 minutes 53 seconds
    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.

    Key episode topics include: business failures, growth strategy, product management, product development, product launches, competitive strategy, competition, financial management, customer strategy, timing, strategy

    HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    30 April 2025, 11:22 am
  • 17 minutes 22 seconds
    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.

    Key episode topics include: customer strategy, customer experience, customer feedback, hiring and recruitment, brand management, strategy,

    HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

    23 April 2025, 11:22 am
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