個案總覽

In the past, cheap, centralized power and efficient but expensive production machinery tipped the competitive advantage toward large companies. Now low-cost computing and communications are tipping the advantage to a new organizational form: the "value-adding partnership". VAPs are groups of small companies that perform different steps along the value-added chain. The partners share information freely and perceive the whole chain as one competitive unit. VAPs have the benefits of both large and small companies: focus and flexibility as well as coordination and sharing. However, VAPs require a delicate balance of power between partners: What happens if one partner tries to take over another?

Competitive advantage is a constantly moving target. Leading Japanese companies provide a window on strategic change and its progression from the 1940s to today. Since World War II, Japanese competitors have shifted their strategic focus at least four times. They began by exploiting their low labor rates to gain entry to various markets, then moved to a scale-based strategy. From there they shifted to focused factories and finally to flexible manufacturing. This latter strategy gave the Japanese both lower costs and a greater variety of products. One result was the outbreak of variety wars in the early 1980s. The variety wars signaled a shift to time-based competitive advantage. The leading Japanese companies today recognize that time is the most critical competitive yardstick of company performance. McKinsey Award Winner.

George Gilder, in the March-April 1988 HBR, attacked MIT's Charles Ferguson for believing that many, small, entrepreneurial companies will do more for U.S. competitiveness than a few, large, integrated ones. Gilder claimed that advanced computer technology (engendering the "law of the microcosm") lowers barriers to market entry and promises to make talk of a national industrial policy obsolete. Here Charles Ferguson joins the debate and refutes Gilder's claims with an analysis of the U.S. semiconductor industry. Ferguson shows that U.S. companies lose out, not to nimble, small companies but to huge, protected Japanese complexes that are embedded in stable, concentrated, coordinated alliances.

Long-lived companies adapt themselves to the business environment. They develop when times are good and switch to a survival mode when times are turbulent. And they are successful at it because they have senior executives who learn quickly and act effectively. Teaching is too often ineffective. Changing or suspending the corporate rules works a lot better. What-if scenarios, computer modeling, and interaction with consultants help managers stay in tune with an inconsistent world.

A condensed version of Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc. The principal changes are the elimination of details about the early history of the company and condensation of the final section, Outlook for the Future.

Describes the competitive situation facing the market leader in antiknock additives, the Ethyl Corp. Demand is declining rapidly and Ethyl has to decide whether to close capacity, and if so, how. Raises issues of corporate as well as SBU strategy because antiknock additives are Ethyl's principal product.

The process quality management technique (PQM), used by IBM and its customers in intensive one- or two-day planning sessions, gets management teams to identify their mission, agree on what they must do to achieve it, and accept individual responsibility for the tasks deemed most important to success. The heart of PQM is a matrix that reflects the organization's unique goals and needs. To develop the matrix the team goes through four levels of consensus building that often spur new ideas to improve basic procedures.

Strategy requires multiple definitions to fully appreciate its implications. Accordingly, this article proposes five definitions--strategy as plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective--and analyzes how these definitions interrelate. Part II reconsiders the question of why organizations really do need strategies, and also shows how some long-held beliefs explain why organizations don't, as well as do, need strategies. It considers the needs for strategy to set direction, focus effort, define the organization, and provide consistency.

Describes a company that had traditionally followed a strategy quite distinct from its major competitors', its eventual decision to imitate them, and its subsequent performance.

Formal planning alone is not the best way for managers to develop strategy. Facts, figures, and forecasts are necessary; but managers also need an intuitive understanding of the organization, a feel for the business not unlike a potter's feel for the clay. Strategy is not just a plan for the future but also a pattern out of the past. Strategies are not always deliberate--they also emerge over time as organizations innovate and respond to their markets. By seeing patterns take shape in their environments, the best strategists find strategies as well as create them. McKinsey Award Winner.

A study of the diversification records of 33 large U.S. companies from 1950 to 1986 shows that diversification--whether through acquisition, joint venture, or start-up--generally has not brought the competitive advantages or profitability expected. Portfolio management, restructuring, transferring skills, and sharing activities are four concepts of corporate strategy that companies most commonly use. Portfolio management no longer works very well in the United States because of its highly developed capital market. Restructuring is merely a stopgap measure that will not build shareholder value over the long term because it usually produces an unwieldy conglomerate. Companies have the best chance of being successful at diversification if they capitalize on the existing relationships between business units by having them transfer skills and share activities. McKinsey Award Winner.

Focuses on the competitive interaction between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola specifically and the effect their dominance has on the other industry participants. Coke and Pepsi's competitive strategies are examined in an in-depth analysis; each firm's behavior is used to demonstrate the influence their strategic choices have on the future evolution of the industry. Taught in the section entitled "Predicting Competitive Behavior" of the Competition and Strategy course and should be taught in conjunction with Note on the U.S. Soft Drink Industry in 1986.

Supplements Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi-Cola (A).

Supplements Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi-Cola (A).

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union army faced the task of supplying the growing numbers of Union conscripts with shoulder arms. Existing government stockpiles were inadequate, and the chief of ordnance was forced to consider the alternatives: government inventories of outmoded muskets; private manufacturers; and European arms manufacturers. Further confusing matters was the fact that, given recent strides in rifle development, new weapons promised higher rates of fire and easier handling, but high-quality innovations in rifle design were scattered among many impractical ones. Part A provides an overview of the complicated character of the ordnance environment at war's outbreak and lays out the tensions between improving Army rifle design and maintaining a smoothly functioning supply system. Part B chronicles the efforts of Christopher Spencer, inventor of an innovative repeating rifle, to secure contracts with army ordnance in the face of resistance. The case is designed to illustrate problems in the management of procurement and supply under critical circumstances and the place of innovation in that process: How reasonable is technological conservatism in times of crisis? It also raises issues of the interaction between existing strategic doctrine and new technologies. Finally, it illustrates some of the sources of innovation in weaponry and the paths by which such innovations may be adopted. HKS Case Number 771.0.

Describes an attempt by Fox Broadcasting to enter the U.S. television broadcasting industry as a fourth network. Intended to integrate the analysis of major investment decisions with business strategy. Leads to a discussion of the investment decision based on industry structure, competitive positions, and sustainability.

The age of competitive strategy may be past. Sophisticated managers are learning that handsome returns come directly from superior strategic execution--not strategic planning. Their method: hustle and get it right. A look at the financial services industry provides valuable lessons. Few of the bases of competitive advantage exist--no economies of scale, few obstacles to product imitation, minimal costs and time required to bring out a new product. The organization's people and their executional skills--not the company's fixed assets--determine the bottom line.

The success of a business depends on its ability to sustain its competitive advantage over time. Product innovation, production processes, and marketing are areas in which intense competitive pressure has multiplied with the increase in domestic and international competition. Analyses of companies identified as outstanding performers in their industries sought to understand the sources of their competitive advantage, to determine why the advantages proved sustainable, and to assess their future security.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 387-019.

Facilitates a discussion of the sources of Wal-Mart Stores' competitive advantage in discount retailing, and the future sustainability of that advantage. Also profiles the company's major diversification move in the early 1980s.