When bad things happen to good companies: strategy failure and flawed executives

摘要

What is strategy? Countless books, MBA programs, executive education initiatives, and consultants are available to answer this question in excruciating detail. But let's cut to the chase. Strategy is what a company does, or doesn't do, to fulfill its vision in a competitive marketplace. Dell's strategy is to deliver directly to customers a built-to-order personal computer (and more recently other computer-related products). The strategy at Southwest Airlines is to provide world-class customer satisfaction to flyers that value high-frequency low-cost flights. There are three things you really want to know about strategy. 1. If you know the "who, what, and how", you know strategy. Who are you selling to? (People who value ease of customization and speed of delivery at Dell; customers who value low prices at Southwest). What are you selling? (Dell - reliable computer products; Southwest - convenient travel). How are you selling it? (Focus on logistics and execution at Dell; customer service and speed of airplane turnaround at Southwest). 2. Strategy is just as much about what you decide not to do, as it is what you do. If you do everything, then you don't really have much of a strategy. Dell, doesn't sell branded products via resellers; Southwest doesn't offer first-class cabins. This is one of the toughest things for executives to get their hands around. Sometimes you have to say no. 3. Not all strategies are created equal. Strategies should be based on real internal competence that customers value enough to pay for and that competitors cannot easily replicate. H-P knows how to make personal computers, but they lose against Dell because they can't easily switch from a reliance on channels and resellers to a direct-to-customer model (resellers tend to get a tad upset when you try to bypass them to go directly to end users). Many established airlines have been unable to weather the post-September 11 storm precisely because their standard operating procedures make it so difficult to take on attributes of the Southwest business model.