Editor's page

Citation

Randall, R.M. (2002), "Editor's page", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 30 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2002.26130baa.001

Editor's page

In the previous issue, Strategy & Leadership's new two-team editorial board made its debut. It's a valuable innovation that was insufficiently heralded two months ago. Here now, with appropriate trumpets and flourishes, is a proper introduction.

The two teams are:

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  The editorial advisory board, a world-renown panel of thought leaders.

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  The contributing editors and senior reviewers, 13 members who serve as the editorial workhorses.

First some news about four additions to S&L's editorial advisory board. Three new members greatly increase S&L's international reach. They are: Jeffrey Sampler, an information management and strategy professor at the London Business School, Bala Chakravarthy, author and strategy professor at IMD in Switzerland, and Liam Fahey, author of eight books on strategic management, international consultant, and professor peregrinating between the USA and the UK. The fourth new member, Tom Davenport, adds to the advisory board's reputation for recruiting revolutionary thinkers. Davenport is credited with conceiving the concept of reengineering, which "used the emerging power of information technologies as a sledgehammer .€.€. to demolish old bureaucracies and paper-pushing management systems" (Stewart, 2002).

The six new members on the contributing editors and senior reviewers team are: Robert Allio (consultant, author, professor, and former editor of Planning Review), Professor Stan Abraham (an organizer of the Association for Strategic Planning), Alistair Davidson (CEO of several California software startups), Stewart Early (consultant and author), Steve Millet (Battelle researcher and scenario planner), Deependra Moitra, (a senior manager at Lucent Technologies, India) and David Rader (consultant, author, and Silicon Valley corporate ventures manager).

The contributing editors and senior reviewers team critiques submitted and solicited manuscripts and frequently writes book reviews and conducts interviews. Some of their recent projects are:

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  Robert Allio's book review in this issue;

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  Stan Abraham's Conference Report in this issue;

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  Alistair Davidson's interview in the previous issue;

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  William Finnie's interview with Fredrick Reichheld in this issue;

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  Catherine Gorrell's "Quick Takes" synopsis in every issue;

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  Steve Millett's book review in this issue;

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  Ian Wilson's book review in the previous issue.

Working together, the two teams write, review, consult, talent scout, and set direction for S&L. They guide the course of article development step by step: specific and relevant problem researched and defined, strategic solution proposed, cutting edge company example analyzed, and guidelines for implementing the solution model suggested. By keeping articles relevant to the issues practitioners must wrestle with in their daily work, the editorial board members help the publication be a sophisticated "conversation among managers."

To further that "conversation among managers," let me draw your attention to several major articles in this issue:

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  Escaping merger and acquisition madness. John G. Lynch and Barbara Lind offer an innovative M&A assessment model, unveiled here for the first time, to guide executives engaged in making acquisitions and making them work.

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  How boards can improve the odds of M&A success. Eric Armour advises boards of directors how to ask discerning questions to screen for the best M&A opportunities. By asking the right questions, M&A oversight can be one of the most valuable functions boards offer.

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  The CEO's "how to" guide to crisis communications. Just in case an acquisition becomes problematic or some other catastrophe breaks loose, Loretta Ucelli provides a step-by-step guide for being prepared in advance. The White House communications director during the Clinton Administration, she knows what is at stake when chief executives have to communicate with the public during an unexpected crisis or a critical business event.

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  Loyalty as a philosophy and strategy: an interview with Frederick F. Reichheld. The influential author and consultant Frederick Reichheld argues that loyalty of all stakeholders – customers, employees and shareholders – is the fuel that drives financial success, especially in today's volatile economy. Loyalty leader companies identified by Reichheld out-performed their competitors in the stock market by a factor of 2.2 on average during the 1990s.

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  How top wholesalers succeed: secrets of a brutal business. Sam Rovi, Ken Sweder and Jed Buchanan discovered that the most successful wholesale distributors have a surprisingly successful three-legged strategy: focus investments to gain local market share, select their service offering carefully to pump up gross margins and slice operating expenses to the bone.

Have a good read!

Robert M. RandallEditor

ReferenceStewart, T. (2002), A Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization, Doubleday, New York, NY.