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B2B Salespeople Need to Act More Like Travel Agents

Harvard Business

According to the travel and leisure marketing firm MMGY, the use of travel agents increased by 50% from 2014 to 2015. The content is highly prescriptive, guiding customers through the stages of decision making, assessing their readiness to provide wellness benefits, and walking them through benchmarking exercises and even RFP builders.

B2B 117
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Zero-Based Budgeting Is Not a Wonder Diet for Companies

Harvard Business

ZBB has been around for decades, but is currently enjoying a revival driven by powerful investors like 3G Capital Partners, the force behind the 2015 merger of Kraft Foods and H.J. Who would argue that a business should not eliminate unjustifiable costs? We believe the exact opposite to be true.

Company 110
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Why Aren’t Black Employees Getting More White-Collar Jobs?

Harvard Business

A national review of 2015 data on white-collar employment shows: White men are 61.3% In his July 2015 testimony to the EEOC , Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, a sociology professor at UMass Amherst, commented “There is no evidence that corporate equal opportunity statements are associated with increased employee diversity.”

Metrics 114
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Your Whole Company Needs to Be Distinctive, Not Just Your Product

Harvard Business

But in 2015, CostCo shifted its affiliation to Citigroup’s Visa. Our recommendations include: Be skeptical of benchmarking. Thus American Express had an extremely valuable “one-hit wonder”– an exclusive arrangement for years with the CostCo retail chain in the U.S.,

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How to Think Differently About a Flexible Workforce - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM CATALANT

Harvard Business

million from 2005 to 2015, a 67 percent jump. Benchmarks for Success Measure progress toward the goal. And a pool of independent and highly skilled workers who can fill those needs is growing. Economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger found that American workers in alternative work arrangements, including temp workers, increased by 9.4

Talent 108
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Retail Bank Operational and Digital Leaders Reap the Rewards

BCG

BCG’s Retail-Banking Excellence benchmarking study (REBEX) profiles the operational and digital practices and performance of 20 of the world’s leading retail banks, a group of 40 institutions chosen for their size and the strength of their capabilities. At the heart of the benchmarking are core operational metrics.

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Three Areas for Action by Wealth Managers

BCG

For 14 years, BCG has conducted a proprietary benchmarking survey of wealth management providers from all over the world, running the spectrum from small boutiques to the world’s largest wealth managers—and covering multiple business models, from onshore to offshore and from banking to brokerage. See Exhibit 1.).