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The mission? To sensibly go where many have gone before—into the realm of information technology, where applications often outnumber sound business reasons to use them. If you've never been, don't believe everything you hear. Mainframes may be useful after all, and even wide‐spread technologies don't hold all the answers.

Competition, consolidation, and couponing have made consumers savvier and brand loyalty shakier. As a result, nurturing the all‐important brand demands a new level of creativity and an increased attention to strategy. Often it means a closer look at logos and package design.

Craig Ahlstrom has never met Peter Magowan. But he wants his job.

Do it right, and your investment in information technology can have ail sorts of strategic payoffs. Do it wrong, and you'll be paying, dearly, for nothing. Here's a guide to evaluating IT and measuring its impact.

Why has outsourcing become a corporate litmus test? Is it the right move for your company? Who's doing it—and why? Is it both efficient and cost‐effective? How should you structure an outsourcing agreement? Here are some answers—and a lot more questions to ask before you embark on an outsourcing adventure.

Once Atex owned editorial computing. But arrogance and complacency kept the shop from noticing that the world had changed. By the time it woke up, it was almost too late. But a new owner and a new strategy have given the company another chance.

There is nothing that can wreck a well‐intentioned benchmarking plan faster than selecting the wrong people for the team. Take the company that chose staff members who didn't have enough credibility within the organization to sell their benchmarking team's recommendations to senior management. The team did an excellent job, but without the clout to get their recommendations approved, their efforts failed.

As a recent piece in The Economist noted, “there is remarkably little agreement” these days about just what constitutes business strategy. Is it matching resources with opportunities, or is it setting goals that push well beyond the corporate envelope? Is it limiting or liberating? Competitive or combative? On the edge or on the shelf?

As the traditional mainstays of American business have collapsed around them, companies have begun searching for ways to become more competitive—and to stay alive.

Since 1985, notes a recent McKinsey & Co. study, the formation of international joint ventures involving American corporations has increased by 27% a year. However, the study adds, at least a third of those fail to meet the expectations of the companies involved.