The Ruthven Institute Hub

A research alliance based at the University of Melbourne seeking to improve the profitability and sustainable success of Australian businesses

12 Rules for Business Success

Teaching Cases

Research Notes

Who Are We?

Practice Notes

12 Rules for Business Success

Based on 45 years of analysis of Australia’s top 1000 companies, Phil Ruthven distilled the essence of a winning business strategy. These 12 Rules formed the basis for the Ruthven Institute’s work.

At the Ruthven Institute Hub we set out to explore and test each of these. This involved positioning the Rules within the relevant academic conversations and looking at the evidence from scholarly articles that have explored these issues.

For more on our findings see the Research Notes and Practice Notes.

Research Notes

At the Ruthven Institute Hub we set out to explore and test each of the 12 Rules for Business Success. This involved positioning the Rules within the relevant academic conversations and looking at the evidence from scholarly articles that have explored these issues.

We kicked off by exploring the challenges of assessing firm performance, before examining each Rule. Click below to download each Note.

How we should calculate Firm Profitability

Rule 1 - Focus on one business at a time

Rule 2 - Know your industry & its life cycle phase

Rule 3 - Emulate best practice

Rule 4 - Be forever innovative

Rule 5 - Be the master of your own destiny

Rule 6 - Plan from the outside in

Rule 7 - Outsource non-core activities

Rule 8 - Don’t own hard assets

Rule 9 - Manage your finances wisely

Rule 10 - Develop strategic alliances

Rule 11 - Lead from the inside out

Rule 12 - Develop a unique organsational culture

Practice Notes

Conscious that the Research Notes were lengthy academic explorations of the 12 Rules for Business Success, we translated several into shorter practice-focussed Notes.

Click below to download each Note.

How should we calculate Firm Profitability?

Rule 1 - Focus or Divesification?

Rule 2 - Know your industry life cycle phase

Rule 4 - Be forever innovative

Rule 5 - Be the master of your own destiny

Teaching Cases

Another key mission of the Ruthven Institute Hub was to develop contemporary Australian teaching cases showcasing performance issues and incorporating the 12 Rules for Business Success.

Click below to download each Case. Each have teaching notes available upon request.

Case 1 - Yering Station

Case 2 - Kogan

Case 3 - Amcor

Case 4 - Gingham & Heels

Case 5 - Lovisa

Case 6 - Blackmores

Who are we?

The Ruthven Institute Hub was an alliance based at the University of Melbourne, operating from 2018-2023. It sprung from Phil Ruthven’s efforts to improve the profitability and sustainable success of Australian businesses.

Below are the key actors involved. For more on the motivation for the Hub see this article.

Associate Professor André Sammartino was the Hub Director. André is based in the Department of Management & Marketing at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Sabutay Fatullayev has a PhD in Accounting from the University of Melbourne. He was the longest-serving RI Hub Research Fellow.

Dr Rakesh Pati joined us from the University of Minnesota. He was the RI Hub Research Fellow in 2019. He now works at Deakin University.

Phil Ruthven, the Founder of IBISWorld, was the driving force behind the RI Hub partnership. Passionate about improving Australian business, his decades of accumulated wisdom informed the 12 Rules. Sadly, Phil passed away in July, 2022 at the age of 82, leaving an enormous legacy.

The Ruthven Institute Hub ceased operating in 2023. There are still several academic articles under review and we will update this website when they are available.

Please contact Associate Professor André Sammartino with an inquiries about the Teaching Cases (or any other document here).

We still do occasionally tweet at @RuthvenH