South america

In many countries, diversified business groups substitute for the institutions that support effective markets in capital, labor, and goods and services. Their capacity for doing this must be strengthened through restructuring, not destroyed through dismantling.

You can't keep relying on the same old methods.

Procter & Gamble’s radical strategy of open innovation now produces more than 35% of the company’s innovations and billions of dollars in revenue.

Companies should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

There’s strength in numbers.

The most popular offshore sites for service functions are overheating. Now is the time for companies to explore a world of opportunity beyond those hot spots and to base investment decisions not just on costs but also on talent, markets, strategic aims, and appetite for risk.

The Idea: After Greenpeace pressured Timberland to pull out of Brazil, CEO Jeff Swartz chose instead to engage with the activist group and Timberland’s Brazilian supplier in hopes of making a positive difference.

After five years of heady growth in Peru, many experts say the country’s economy will slow down sharply in the future because of political uncertainty. The first round of presidential polls on April 10, 2011, set the stage for a June runoff between the leftist Ollanta Humala, a former military commander, and right-winger Keiko Fujimori, […]

In Chile last June, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Felipe Kast, the new government’s minister of planning, and a few of his compadres. (We also went dancing, but that is another story.) One of the topics we talked about was the Chilean retirement saving plan. By law, 11% of every employee’s […]

Ricardo Semler is a Brazilian industrialist whose company, Semco, manufactures marine equipment, food-service machinery, and other highly differentiated...

Internet entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky is applying what he does best—building high-tech companies—to improving education in Argentina.

It opens up a whole new world of digital marketing.

Having a rotating host city is a 19th-century idea.

New research shows that senior managers analyze and act on problems far differently than their more junior colleagues do. Those whose thinking does not evolve may not advance.

How hard-liners got their way.

How a Brazilian cosmetics giant saw the beauty in neighboring markets

A case study of the Brazilian beef industry.

The country’s economic climate has changed.

Eight years ago, energy giant Petrobras was best known for its appalling environmental record. Today, Brazil’s biggest company is a champion for sustainable business at home.

Over the last decade, Semco has successfully extended its business from manufacturing to services to the Internet. Here’s what it has learned: transformation is easy—if you throw away your plans and let your people lead you.