A persistent narrative has grown up over the years about why so many change efforts fail — or at least why they are harder than they need to be. It goes like this: A heroic leader is trying valiantly to change the organization, but he’s meeting with resistance. It comes from the layer of “permafrost” — aka long-serving middle managers. These managers are vital to the success of the change effort because they have to translate the new strategy into work streams and projects. But they’re not working fast enough or getting enough done. Is this narrative true? Given the…

Oil rose on Friday, adding to sharp gains overnight that saw Brent top $50 for the first time since March, as the rollout of coronavirus vaccination programmes fed hopes that demand for fuel would rebound up next year. Brent was up 30 cents or 0.6 per cent at $50.55 a barrel by 1:22 pm IST, after gaining nearly 3 per cent on Thursday. US oil was up 31 cents, or 0.7 per cent, at $47.09 a barrel, having also risen almost 3 per cent in the previous session. The benchmarks are…

December 10, 2020 5 min readOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The Covid-19 crisis has changed the world and our lifestyles drastically. These days, we open up our Zoom app to talk to friends. We join a Slack call to meet with the boss. We help our kids as they navigate their virtual classrooms. It has been a huge change for many, but the truth is that we’ve been slowly moving online for a long time. Covid-19 simply clicked the “fast forward” button on the shift to cyberspace. Still, the numbers are astounding. For instance, Google searches…

Private sector general insurer ICICI Lombard has revamped its health insurance offerings keeping in mind the evolving consumer needs, which have taken the centre stage because of the ongoing Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The insurer has launched four new plans, namely Health Shield, Health Shield Plus, Health Elite, and Health Elite Plus that are a part of its “complete health insurance” offering. These plans are powered with new features such as unlimited reset of sum insured wherein a customer gets the benefit of resetting up to 100 per cent of the base sum insured unlimited times in…

Shares of chemical firm UPL Ltd closed nearly 11 per cent down on Thursday on reports that a whistle-blower had alleged corporate governance lapses in the company and that its promoters had siphoned off funds. The whistle-blower also alleged that UPL entered into rent deals with a shell company owned by its employees and paid crores of rupees in rent for properties held by the latter, which was earlier owned by the promoter family. The company, owned by the Shroff family, however, said this was an old matter and was reported to the audit committee in…

Think of your strategy as a machine that’s made up of different small parts all working toward one goal. December 9, 2020 5 min readOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Figuring out a strategy that improves social media engagement and conversion rates — and aligns with business goals — is a common challenge for marketers. There are many solutions for improving social metrics and business ROI, but no part of a digital-marketing plan works in isolation, and social media engagement and conversion rates are a perfect example. Despite being on different levels of the marketing funnel, they…

The Inside the Mind of the CEO interview series explores a wide range of critical decisions faced by chief executives around the world. For more insight, see PwC’s CEO Survey. In the late 1990s, Deryl McKissack visited a high school in Washington, DC, to speak to the student body about her career. At the start of that decade, she had founded her architecture, engineering, and construction management firm in the U.S. capital, inspired by her family’s 115-year-old business. When she walked into one of the school’s restrooms after her talk, McKissack was struck by its deteriorated state. She thought…

There seems to be no stopping the market bulls. The benchmark Sensex on Wednesday topped the 46,000 mark amid relentless buying by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). Gaining for a seventh consecutive session, the gauge for the performance of the country’s leading 30 stocks rose 1.1 per cent, or 495 points, to end at 46,103. The Nifty50 index added 136 points, or 1 per cent, to close at 13,529. Both the indices have logged record highs in 14 of the last 21 trading sessions and are up 4.4 per cent in December, extending the last month’s 11.5…