Carlie talks with us about the growth of the Naturals industry within consumer packaged goods, or CPG’s. The CPG industry is a very crowded and competitive space that simultaneously must respond to short-run changes in consumer preferences while leveraging massive economies of scale to keep costs low. Yet in the face of those challenges, Natural products successfully find more and more ways to innovate and disrupt.

Health Insurance in the US is a quagmire of complex interactions with lots of moving parts between providers, insurers, governments, and patients. Inside of this intricate dance, healthcare costs have been increasing a fairly intense rate and has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Louise talks with me how an aging population and the very recent influx of telehealth technology are factors in the industry’s response to inflationary healthcare spending and public policy.

In this episode, we speak with DePaul MBA alumnus, Bob Schiller. Bob is the Countrywide Product Manager at National General Insurance (an Allstate Company).

Insurance is at the foundation of de-risking many other activities, making them more accessible and fueling economic development. That also means that insurance can inherently be a slow-moving industry in terms of its own innovation. However, technology and consumer preferences have drastically changed in the past decade, which is forcing some relatively quick changes for insurance in the forms of M&A, technology adoption, and product development.

Curious what those changes are? Well Bob’s got you covered, so have a listen!

Financial advising is a highly competitive industry for two reasons. Firstly, its largely non-differentiated. The service is usually only differentiated by the way products are packaged and the relationships built by individual advisors. But in the end, all a consumer wants is to make sure their savings will be there for retirement.

In February 2020, Bradley had recently stepped into his role as the operations leader for a Chicago based firm that sells and services industrial laundry solutions. As you might expect, this is a mature and competitive industry with established relationships across verticals like hospitality and health care. 

As you might expect from the competitive nature of sports, the sports apparel industry is similarly competitive. Jobs at firms are coveted by sports lovers, so high performance expectations tend to be intrinsically built into company cultures. This permeates into the everlasting chase of identifying new trends across cultures, sports, and market segments, which must be drilled down into the products Tom builds. 

Associations are a specific kind of nonprofit that usually represents a trade or professional group to communicate industry standards, avenues for continuing education, and policy considerations. Kirsten talks with us about the interesting industry landscape for Associations as well as the challenges of creating differentiated value. 

The Steel Construction industry is at the heart of large scale and infrastructure level construction projects, with notable rivals like Concrete and Wood. Brian speaks with me about how Steel Construction works with representative firms and government organizations to advocate for legislation that achieves its intended purpose while still encouraging a level playing field.

The energy industry is a massive complex network of power production, distribution and delivery that cooperates across regional and national boundaries that supports both our present and future economy. Dan talks with me about the challenges faced by our society as we recognize the importance of moving toward to more sustainable energy sources while our overall demand steadily increases. 

In this episode, Maggie talks with me about how she approaches strategy from a nonprofit perspective while leveraging the frameworks that, at first glance, might seem more suited to for-profits. While there are significant differences to explore between these two organizational models, the underlying purpose of strategy remains the same: Find a unique and sustainable way to create and capture value in a challenging industry and dynamic competitive landscape.