LAARC is a standard sales resistance mitigation tactic. The acronym stands for LISTEN, ACKNOWLEDGE, ASSESS, RESPOND, CONFIRM. Buyers' objections in the sales process are natural and should be regarded as requests for additional information and triggers for acceptance rather than as negative remarks. LAARC categorizes objections in the sales process into five...

In the late 1950's, the Russian-American engineer, Igor Ansoff, a founder of strategic management, argued that strategic planning was essential for firms operating in a complex, turbulent environment. At that time, sociologists dominated the research on strategic adaptation of non-profit organisations primarily and concluded that ad-hoc management was appropriate...

Michael Porter's innovative research in the 1980's changed managers' perceptions of their own industry's importance as a factor for their company's strategy. Business unit managers would now have to study their industry's characteristics since an industry's structure determines its relative economic attractiveness and hence, the profit potential of all companies...

The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg, synthesised organisational design literature into five ideal organisational forms or configurations that do not exist in the real world, but provide consultants and managers a framework to understand and design organisational structures. Mintzberg defined organisational structure as "the sum total of the ways in which...