Strategic Management

EXPLORING STRATEGY ELEVENTH EDITION

GERRY JOHNSON RICHARD WHITTINGTON KEVAN SCHOLES DUNCAN ANGWIN PATRICK REGNÉR

ELEVENTH EDITION

GERRY JOHNSON RICHARD WHITTINGTON KEVAN SCHOLES DUNCAN ANGWIN PATRICK REGNÉR

EXPLORING STRATEGY JOHNSON

• W

HITTINGTON SCHOLES

• ANGW

IN •

REGNÉR

ELEVENTH EDITION

With over one million copies sold worldwide, Exploring Strategy has long been the essential introduction to strategy for the managers of today and tomorrow. From entrepreneurial start-ups to multinationals, charities to government agencies, this book raises the big questions about organisations – how they prosper, how they grow, how they innovate and how they change. The eleventh edition of Exploring Strategy has been comprehensively updated to help you:

• Understand clearly the key concepts and tools of strategic management • Explore hot topics, including business models, corporate governance, innovation and

entrepreneurship

• Learn from case studies on world-famous organisations such as Alibaba, Apple, H&M, Ryanair, Airbnb and Manchester United FC

Texts and Cases also provides a wealth of extra case studies written by experts in the subject to aid and enrich your understanding. Examples are taken from events and organisations as diverse as Glastonbury, Mondelez and Formula 1 racing.

EXPLORING STRATEGY ELEVENTH EDITION

www.pearson-books.com

TEXT AND CASES

TEXT AND CASES

TEXT AND CASES

‘Exploring Strategy has had a world-wide impact as a text in strategic management and unusually has achieved this notable position with the very best of European scholarship and writing. The approach to strategy is inclusive; the writing is direct and accessible; the case examples are vivid and contemporary; and the material in the book is always being updated.’ Andrew Pettigrew, Emeritus Professor of Strategy and Organisation, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

‘Exploring Strategy stands out as an excellent textbook on strategic management that covers all the basics yet, unlike other texts, adds onto this a coverage of strategy process and the practice of strategy. This coverage of both analytical and managerial aspects of strategy makes it a highly relevant text for both undergraduate and MBA students. A welcome inclusion to this edition is the feature “Thinking Differently” which is about cutting- edge theory related to each chapter of the book.’ Julia Balogun, Professor of Strategic Management and Director of University of Liverpool Management School

‘The book provides a very well-structured, comprehensive, and clear overview of the art of strategic management, using many up-to-date real-world case studies from renowned companies and providing useful online resources for teachers. As such, the book is engaging, accessible and certainly one of the most “classroom ready” texts on strategy. It is a must-have for students, scholars, and practitioners.’ Dr Florian Kapmeier, Professor for Strategy and International Project Management, Reutlingen University, ESB Business School

‘When teaching and learning with this book, strategy comes alive! Exploring Strategy addresses the fascinating issues of “strategy in action”. As strategic change is everywhere nowadays, this textbook provides unique and invaluable insights for the men and women who are daily involved in the processes and practice of strategizing.’ Linda Rouleau, Professor of Management, HEC Montréal

¯

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WELCOME TO

EXPLORING STRATEGY

Strategy is a crucial subject. It’s about the development, success and failure of all kinds of organisations, from multinationals to entrepreneurial start-ups, from charities to government agencies, and many more. Strategy raises the big questions about these organisations – how they grow, how they innovate and how they change. As a manager of today or tomorrow, you will be involved in shaping, implementing or communicat- ing these strategies.

Our primary aim with Exploring Strategy is to give you a comprehensive understanding of the issues and techniques of strategy. We can also help you get a great final result in your course. You can make the most of the text by:

● Exploring hot topics in cutting-edge issues such as competition, corporate governance, innovation and entrepreneurship and strategy in practice.

● Engaging with our new ‘Thinking Differently’ sections to access novel and distinctive perspectives on core themes in strategy.

● Using the ‘strategy lenses’ to think critically and originally about key topics and to set you on your way to better grades in your assignments and exams.

● Pursuing some of the recommended readings at the end of each chapter. They’re specially selected as accessible and valuable sources that will enhance your learning and give you an extra edge in your course work.

We want Exploring Strategy to give you what you need: a comprehensive view of the subject, an ambition to put that into practice, and – of course – success in your studies. We hope that you’ll be as excited by the key issues of strategy as we are!

So, read on and good luck!

Gerry Johnson Richard Whittington

Kevan Scholes Duncan Angwin Patrick Regnér

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Gerry Johnson BA, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management at Lancaster University School of Management. He has also taught at Strathclyde Business School, Cranfield School of Management, Manchester Business School and Aston University. He is the author of numerous books and his research has been published in many of the foremost management research journals in the world. He is also a partner in the consultancy partnership Strategy Explorers (see www.strategyexplorers.com ), where he works with senior management teams on issues of strategy development and strategic change.

Richard Whittington MA, MBA, PhD is Professor of Strategic Management at the Saïd Business School and Millman Fellow at New College, University of Oxford. He is author or co-author of nine books and is an Associate Editor of the Strategic Management Journal. He has had full or visiting positions at the Harvard Business School, HEC Paris, Imperial College London, the University of Toulouse and the University of Warwick. He is a partner in Strategy Explorers and active in executive education and consulting. His current research focuses on strategy practice and ‘open strategy’.

Kevan Scholes MA, PhD, DMS, CIMgt, FRSA is Principal Partner of Scholes Associates – specialising in strategic management. He is also Visiting Professor of Strategic Management and formerly Director of the Sheffield Business School, UK. He has extensive experience of teaching strategy to undergraduate and postgraduate stu- dents inside and outside the UK, as well as of management development work in private- and public-sector organisations. He has been an advisor on management development to a number of national bodies and is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute.

Duncan Angwin MA, MPhil, MBA, PhD is the Sir Roland Smith Professor of Strategic Management and Director of the Centre for Strategic Management at Lancaster University. He is author of eight books and many journal articles and serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Journal of Management Studies. He has taught strategy in over 20 countries and is active internationally in executive education and consulting. His current research focuses on mergers and acquisitions, strategy practices and international management.

Patrick Regnér BSc, MSc, PhD is Professor of Strategic Management at Stockholm School of Economics. He has published in leading journals like the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business, Human Relations , etc. and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Management Studies , Organization Studies and Strategic Organization. He has extensive experience of teaching strategy on all levels at several international institutions. He does executive teaching and consulting with organisations active worldwide and is senior advisor at strategy advisory firm Value Formation. His current research focuses on strategy and institutions.

The case collection has been managed by Jason Evans, Clive Kerridge and Steve Pyle .

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EXPLORING STRATEGY ELEVENTH EDITION

GERRY JOHNSON Lancaster University Management School

RICHARD WHITTINGTON Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

KEVAN SCHOLES Sheffi eld Business School

DUNCAN ANGWIN Lancaster University Management School

PATRICK REGNÉR Stockholm School of Economics

With the assistance of JASON EVANS CLIVE KERRIDGE STEVE PYLE

Harlow, England • London • New York • Boston • San Francisco • Toronto • Sydney • Dubai • Singapore • Hong Kong Tokyo • Seoul • Taipei • New Delhi • Cape Town • Sao Paulo • Mexico City • Madrid • Amsterdam • Munich • Paris • Milan

TEXT AND CASES

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Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow CM20 2JE United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623 Web: www.pearson.com/uk

First edition (print) published under the Prentice Hall imprint 1984 Fifth edition (print) published under the Prentice Hall imprint 1998 Sixth edition (print) published under the Financial Times Prentice Hall imprint 2002 Seventh edition (print) 2005 Eighth edition (print) 2008 Ninth edition (print) 2011 Tenth edition published (2013) (print and electronic) Eleventh edition published (2017) (print and electronic)

© Simon & Schuster Europe Limited 1998 (print) © Pearson Education 2002, 2011 (print) © Pearson Education Limited 2014, 2017 (print and electronic)

The rights of Gerry Johnson, Richard Whittington, Kevan Scholes, Duncan Angwin and Patrick Regnér to be identified as authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The print publication is protected by copyright. Prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, distribution or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, permission should be obtained from the publisher or, where applicable, a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom should be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Barnard’s Inn, 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN.

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Text only ISBN: 978-1-292-14517-4 (print)

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BRIEF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introducing strategy 2

PART I THE STRATEGIC POSITION 29 Introduction to Part I 30

Chapter 2 Macro-environment analysis 32 Chapter 3 Industry and sector analysis 62 Chapter 4 Resources and capabilities 96 Chapter 5 Stakeholders and governance 132 Chapter 6 History and culture 162 Commentary on Part I The strategy lenses 190

PART II STRATEGIC CHOICES 205 Introduction to Part II 206

Chapter 7 Business strategy and models 208 Chapter 8 Corporate strategy and diversification 242 Chapter 9 International strategy 276 Chapter 10 Entrepreneurship and innovation 308 Chapter 11 Mergers, acquisitions and alliances 338 Commentary on Part II Strategic choices 368

PART III STRATEGY IN ACTION 371 Introduction to Part III 372

Chapter 12 Evaluating strategies 374 Chapter 13 Strategy development processes 410 Chapter 14 Organising and strategy 438 Chapter 15 Leadership and strategic change 468 Chapter 16 The practice of strategy 498 Commentary on Part III Strategy in action 532

CASE STUDIES 535

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BRIEF CONTENTS

Glossary 773

Index of names 779

General index 785

Acknowledgements 795

vi

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Illustrations and Thinking Differently xviii

Figures xx

Tables xxiii

Preface xxv

Exploring Strategy features xxvii

Exploring Strategy online xxviii

1 INTRODUCING STRATEGY 2

1.1 Introduction 3 1.2 What is strategy? 4 1.2.1 Defining strategy 4 1.2.2 The purpose of strategy: mission, vision, values and

objectives 7 1.2.3 Strategy statements 8 1.2.4 Levels of strategy 10 1.3 The Exploring Strategy Framework 11 1.3.1 Strategic position 12 1.3.2 Strategic choices 13 1.3.3 Strategy in action 14 1.4 Working with strategy 16 1.5 Studying strategy 18 1.6 Exploring strategy further 20 1.6.1 Exploring strategy in different contexts 20 1.6.2 Exploring strategy through different ‘strategy lenses’ 21 Summary 22 Work assignments 22 Recommended key readings 23 References 23 Case example: The rise of a unicorn – Airbnb 24

CONTENTS

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CONTENTS

viii

PART I THE STRATEGIC POSITION

Introduction to Part I 30

2 MACRO-ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS 32

2.1 Introduction 33 2.2 PESTEL analysis 34 2.2.1 Politics 35 2.2.2 Economics 38 2.2.3 Social 39 2.2.4 Technology 43 2.2.5 Ecological 44 2.2.6 Legal 45 2.2.7 Key drivers for change 48 2.3 Forecasting 48 2.3.1 Forecast approaches 49 2.3.2 Directions of change 50 2.4 Scenario analysis 51 Summary 55 Work assignments 55 Recommended key readings 56 References 56 Case example: Alibaba – the Yangtze River Crocodile 58

3 INDUSTRY AND SECTOR ANALYSIS 62

3.1 Introduction 63 3.2 The competitive forces 64 3.2.1 Competitive rivalry 65 3.2.2 The threat of entry 66 3.2.3 The threat of substitutes 66 3.2.4 The power of buyers 68 3.2.5 The power of suppliers 69 3.2.6 Complementors and network effects 69 3.2.7 Defining the industry 71 3.2.8 Implications of the Competitive Five Forces 73 3.3 Industry types and dynamics 74 3.3.1 Industry types 76 3.3.2 Industry structure dynamics 77 3.4 Competitors and markets 81 3.4.1 Strategic groups 81 3.4.2 Market segments 84 3.4.3 Critical success factors and ‘Blue Oceans’ 85 3.5 Opportunities and threats 87

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ix

Summary 88 Work assignments 89 Recommended key readings 89 References 90 Case example: Global forces and the advertising industry 92

4 RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 96

4.1 Introduction 97 4.2 Foundations of resources and capabilities 98 4.2.1 Resources and capabilities 98 4.2.2 Threshold and distinctive resources and capabilities 100 4.3 Distinctive resources and capabilities as a basis of

competitive advantage 101 4.3.1 V – value of resources and capabilities 101 4.3.2 R – rarity 102 4.3.3 I – inimitability 102 4.3.4 O – organisational support 104 4.3.5 Organisational knowledge as a basis of competitive advantage 105 4.4 Diagnosing resources and capabilities 107 4.4.1 VRIO analysis 107 4.4.2 The value chain and value system 107 4.4.3 Activity systems 111 4.4.4 Benchmarking 114 4.4.5 SWOT 115 4.5 Dynamic capabilities 119 Summary 124 Work assignments 124 Recommended key readings 125 References 125 Case example: Rocket Internet – will the copycat be imitated? 128

5 STAKEHOLDERS AND GOVERNANCE 132

5.1 Introduction 133 5.2 Stakeholders 134 5.2.1 Stakeholder groups 134 5.2.2 Stakeholder mapping 136 5.2.3 Owners 139 5.3 Corporate governance 141 5.3.1 The governance chain 143 5.3.2 Different governance models 144 5.3.3 How boards of directors influence strategy 149 5.4 Social responsibility and ethics 150 5.4.1 Corporate social responsibility 150 5.4.2 The ethics of individuals and managers 153

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CONTENTS

x

Summary 155 Work assignments 156 Recommended key readings 156 References 157 Case example: Drinking Partners – India’s United Breweries Holdings Ltd 159

6 HISTORY AND CULTURE 162

6.1 Introduction 163 6.2 Why is history important? 164 6.2.1 Path dependency 164 6.2.2 History as a resource 167 6.2.3 Historical analysis 167 6.3 What is culture and why is it important? 168 6.3.1 Geographically-based cultures 169 6.3.2 Organisational fields 170 6.3.3 Organisational culture 171 6.3.4 Culture’s influence on strategy 174 6.3.5 Analysing culture: the cultural web 175 6.3.6 Undertaking cultural analysis 177 6.4 Strategic drift 180 Summary 184 Work assignments 184 Recommended key readings 185 References 185 Case example: Culture clashes at Barclays Bank 187

Commentary on Part I The strategy lenses 190

Case example: Nokia’s evolving strategy through the lenses 202

PART II STRATEGIC CHOICES

Introduction to Part II 206

7 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND MODELS 208

7.1 Introduction 209 7.2 Generic competitive strategies 210 7.2.1 Cost-leadership strategy 211 7.2.2 Differentiation strategy 215 7.2.3 Focus strategy 216 7.2.4 Hybrid strategy 218 7.2.5 The Strategy Clock 220 7.3 Interactive strategies 221 7.3.1 Interactive price and quality strategies 221

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xi

7.3.2 Cooperative strategy 224 7.3.3 Game theory 226 7.4 Business models 229 7.4.1 Value creation, configuration and capture 229 7.4.2 Business model patterns 232 Summary 234 Work assignments 234 Recommended key readings 235 References 235 Case example: The IKEA approach 237

8 CORPORATE STRATEGY AND DIVERSIFICATION 242

8.1 Introduction 243 8.2 Strategy directions 244 8.2.1 Market penetration 245 8.2.2 Product development 247 8.2.3 Market development 248 8.2.4 Conglomerate diversification 248 8.3 Diversification drivers 250 8.4 Diversification and performance 252 8.5 Vertical integration 253 8.5.1 Forward and backward integration 253 8.5.2 To integrate or to outsource? 254 8.6 Value creation and the corporate parent 256 8.6.1 Value-adding and value-destroying activities of

corporate parents 256 8.6.2 The portfolio manager 258 8.6.3 The synergy manager 259 8.6.4 The parental developer 261 8.7 Portfolio matrices 261 8.7.1 The BCG (or growth/share) matrix 263 8.7.2 The directional policy (GE–McKinsey) matrix 264 8.7.3 The parenting matrix 265 Summary 268 Work assignments 268 Recommended key readings 269 References 269 Case example: Virgin – is the brand more than Richard Branson? 271

9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY 276

9.1 Introduction 277 9.2 Internationalisation drivers 278 9.3 Geographic sources of advantage 282 9.3.1 Locational advantage: Porter’s Diamond 282 9.3.2 The international value system 284 9.4 International strategies 286

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9.5 Market selection and entry 289 9.5.1 Country and market characteristics 289 9.5.2 Competitive characteristics 292 9.5.3 Entry modes strategies 295 9.6 Subsidiary roles in an international portfolio 297 9.7 Internationalisation and performance 299 Summary 300 Work assignments 301 Recommended key readings 301 References 301 Case example: China goes to Hollywood – Wanda’s moves into

the US movie industry 304

10 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION 308

10.1 Introduction 309 10.2 Entrepreneurship 310 10.2.1 Opportunity recognition 310 10.2.2 Steps in the entrepreneurial process 313 10.2.3 Stages of entrepreneurial growth 314 10.2.4 Social entrepreneurship 316 10.3 Innovation dilemmas 317 10.3.1 Technology push or market pull 318 10.3.2 Product or process innovation 320 10.3.3 Open or closed innovation 321 10.4 Innovation diffusion 324 10.4.1 The pace of diffusion 324 10.4.2 The diffusion S-curve 325 10.5 Innovators and imitators 327 10.5.1 First-mover advantages and disadvantages 327 10.5.2 The incumbent’s response 328 Summary 331 Work assignments 332 Recommended key readings 332 References 332 Case example: Rovio Entertainment – going back to the entrepreneurial roots 335

11 MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS AND ALLIANCES 338

11.1 Introduction 339 11.2 Organic development 340 11.3 Mergers and acquisitions 341 11.3.1 Types of M&A 341 11.3.2 Timing of M&A 342 11.3.3 Motives for M&A 342 11.3.4 M&A processes 345 11.3.5 M&A strategy over time 350 11.4 Strategic alliances 351

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11.4.1 Types of strategic alliance 353 11.4.2 Motives for alliances 353 11.4.3 Strategic alliance processes 355 11.5 Comparing acquisitions, alliances and organic development 359 11.5.1 Buy, ally or DIY? 359 11.5.2 Key success factors 360 Summary 362 Work assignments 362 Recommended key readings 363 References 363 Case example: Future-proofing business? Sainsbury acquires Argos 365

Commentary on Part II Strategic choices 368

PART III STRATEGY IN ACTION

Introduction to Part III 372

12 EVALUATING STRATEGIES 374

12.1 Introduction 375 12.2 Organisational performance 376 12.2.1 Performance measures 376 12.2.2 Performance comparisons 377 12.2.3 Gap analysis 377 12.2.4 Complexities of performance analysis 379 12.3 Suitability 380 12.3.1 Ranking 384 12.3.2 Screening through scenarios 384 12.3.3 Screening for bases of competitive advantage 384 12.3.4 Decision trees 385 12.3.5 Life cycle analysis 385 12.4 Acceptability 387 12.4.1 Risk 388 12.4.2 Return 390 12.4.3 Reaction of stakeholders 398 12.5 Feasibility 399 12.5.1 Financial feasibility 399 12.5.2 People and skills 400 12.5.3 Integrating resources 401 12.6 Evaluation criteria: four qualifications 401 Summary 403 Work assignments 403 Recommended key readings 404 References 404 Case example: ITV – DIY, buy or ally? 406

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13 STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES 410

13.1 Introduction 411 13.2 Deliberate strategy development 412 13.2.1 The role of the strategic leader 412 13.2.2 Strategic planning systems 413 13.2.3 Externally imposed strategy 418 13.3 Emergent strategy development 419 13.3.1 Logical incrementalism 419 13.3.2 Strategy as the outcome of political processes 422 13.3.3 Strategy as the product of structures and systems 423 13.4 Implications for managing strategy development 425 13.4.1 Strategy development in different contexts 427 13.4.2 Managing deliberate and emergent strategy 429 Summary 431 Work assignments 431 Recommended key readings 432 References 432 Case example: Alphabet – who and what drives the strategy? 434

14 ORGANISING AND STRATEGY 438

14.1 Introduction 439 14.2 Structural types 440 14.2.1 The functional structure 440 14.2.2 The divisional structure 442 14.2.3 The matrix structure 444 14.2.4 Multinational/transnational structures 445 14.2.5 Project-based structures 448 14.2.6 Strategy and structure fit 448 14.3 Systems 451 14.3.1 Planning systems 451 14.3.2 Cultural systems 453 14.3.3 Performance targeting systems 454 14.3.4 Market systems 456 14.4 Configurations and adaptability 458 14.4.1 The McKinsey 7-Ss 459 14.4.2 Agility and resilience 460 Summary 462 Work assignments 462 Recommended key readings 462 References 463 Case example: One Sony? 465

15 LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC CHANGE 468

15.1 Introduction 469 15.2 Leadership and strategic change 470

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15.2.1 Strategic leadership roles 470 15.2.2 Leadership styles 471 15.3 Diagnosing the change context 473 15.3.1 The change kaleidoscope 473 15.3.2 Forcefield analysis 476 15.4 Types of strategic change 478 15.4.1 Adaptation 479 15.4.2 Reconstruction 479 15.4.3 Revolution 480 15.4.4 Evolution 481 15.5 Levers for strategic change 483 15.5.1 A compelling case for change 483 15.5.2 Challenging the taken for granted 484 15.5.3 Changing operational processes and routines 484 15.5.4 Symbolic management 485 15.5.5 Power and political systems 486 15.5.6 Timing 488 15.5.7 Visible short-term wins 488 15.6 Problems of formal change programmes 489 15.6.1 Problems in the process 489 15.6.2 What formal programmes forget 490 Summary 491 Work assignments 492 Recommended key readings 492 References 493 Case example: Sergio Marchionne – motor of change 495

16 THE PRACTICE OF STRATEGY 498

16.1 Introduction 499 16.2 The strategists 500 16.2.1 Top managers and directors 500 16.2.2 Strategic planners 501 16.2.3 Middle managers 502 16.2.4 Strategy consultants 505 16.2.5 Who to involve in strategy development? 506 16.3 Strategising 508 16.3.1 Strategy analysis 508 16.3.2 Strategic issue-selling 509 16.3.3 Strategic decision-making 512 16.3.4 Communicating the strategy 513 16.4 Strategy methodologies 515 16.4.1 Strategy workshops 515 16.4.2 Strategy projects 517 16.4.3 Hypothesis testing 518 16.4.4 Business cases and strategic plans 520 Summary 522 Work assignments 522

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Recommended key readings 523 References 523 Case example: Participative strategy process in the city of Vaasa 525

Commentary on Part III Strategy in action 532

CASE STUDIES Guide to using the case studies 536 Guide to the main focus of cases in the book 538

Glastonbury: from hippy weekend to international festival 541

The global pharmaceutical industry: back to the future? 545

Siemens A: exploring the future 557

The ‘pub’: decline of a British institution – how the brewers fought back 563

Ricoh Canada Inc.: printing the future or recycling the past? 568

H&M in fast fashion: continued success? 576

The Formula 1 constructors: capabilities for success 584

‘Access to Healthcare’: integrating a CSR programme in Coloplast 593

Manchester United FC: competing with Europe’s elite clubs 600

Adnams: a living company 608

Widespace: managing growth and culture within a maturing technology venture 616

Ryannair: the low fares airline – ‘always getting better’? 622

Flight Centre Limited: competing to provide the lowest air fares 633

Megabrew: creating an undisputed global brewing champion? 639

AirAsia and the Tune Group: diversifying across industries 651

Severstal: growth and consolidation strategies in a turbulent global steel industry 659

Indian Premier League: glitz, glamour and globalisation 667

Handelsbanken: banking done differently 671

Ningbo Smarter Logistics: innovating in partnership with IBM in China 680

Leadership and innovation at Apple Inc.: entering the post-Jobs era 684

All change at Teva 690

Mondelēz International: ‘Are you going to stick around Irene’? 695

CRH plc: leveraging corporate strategy for value creation and global leadership 705

Evaluating the Mexican narco-trafficking problem 713

Where should the beds go? Infrastructure planning in NHS England 722

Strategic planning at King Faisal Hospital and Research Centre Saudi Arabia 729

Mormor Magda’s ice cream: can you be hot in a cool market? 734

Academies and Free Schools: the future of education? 739

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Siemens B: implementing the strategy 744

Paul Polman: turnaround and development of strategy at Unilever 750

Aurizon: managing change in a complex environment 758

In the boardroom at HomeCo 764

Guide to the classic cases on the companion website 770

Glossary 773

Index of names 779

General index 785

Acknowledgements 795

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xviii

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 Tesla Motors: the future is electric! 5 1.2 Strategy statements 9 1.3 Strategists 17 2.1 BP’s PESTEL 36 2.2 Intelligence Unit 8200 and the small world of Israeli hi-tech 42 2.3 Uber drives into trouble 47 2.4 Datatopia? 52 3.1 Busted banking barriers? 67 3.2 Facebook’s network fears 72 3.3 Steps in an industry analysis 75 3.4 Consolidation across the UK charity and public sectors 78 4.1 Resources and capabilities 99 4.2 Groupon and the sincerest form of flattery 106 4.3 An integrated value system in the Nepalese poultry industry 112 4.4 SWOT analysis of Pharmcare 116 4.5 Dynamic capabilities (and rigidities) in mobile telephone companies 120 5.1 Firefox burns out 142 5.2 A load of tosh? Toshiba’s accounting scandal 145 5.3 Volkswagen’s governance crisis 148 5.4 H&M’s sustainability strategy 152 6.1 Indian Railways and Empire 166 6.2 ‘Dream. People. Culture’ 173 6.3 The Bogleheads and Vanguard Asset Management 178 6.4 Kodak: the decline and fall of a market leader 181 7.1 Vanguard’s low-cost strategy comes to Europe 214 7.2 Volvo’s different Indian buses 217 7.3 Game theory in practice in the public sector 227 7.4 Uber’s ubiquitous business model 230 8.1 Baking change into the community 246 8.2 From sat nav to driverless cars 249 8.3 ‘Out of sight – out of mind’? Outsourcing at Royal Bank of Scotland 255 8.4 Eating its own cooking: Berkshire Hathaway’s parenting 260 8.5 Chipotle: doing things differently 262 9.1 Walmart: international successes and failures 279 9.2 The international ‘Joint Effort Enterprise’ 285 9.3 Nordic Industrial Park: bridging distance across international markets 290 9.4 Base of the pyramid strategies 293

ILLUSTRATIONS AND THINKING DIFFERENTLY

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ILLUSTRATIONS AND THINKING DIFFERENTLY

10.1 Entrepreneurs, teams and external relationships 312 10.2 Nearly billionnaires 315 10.3 Frugal sanitary towels 319 10.4 The disruptive cloud 322 11.1 Strategies clash in a contested bid 343 11.2 To deal or not to deal – that’s the multi-billion dollar question 349 11.3 Apple’s iPad advantage 352 11.4 Bharti–Walmart break-up 358 12.1 Poor performance? 378 12.2 ‘Refreshing’ Heineken 382 12.3 A strategic decision tree for a law firm 386 12.4 Sensitivity analysis 389 12.5 Using break-even analysis to examine strategic options 391 12.6 Sewerage construction project 395 12.7 Real options evaluation for developing premium beers in India 397 13.1 The influence of strategic leaders 414 13.2 Strategic planning at Siemens 416 13.3 An incrementalist view of strategic management 421 13.4 A classic case: Honda entering the US motorcycle market 426 14.1 Structural fault: Qwikster’s quick demise 441 14.2 Google gets a new name and a new structure 447 14.3 Call fire, police and ambulance 455 14.4 Rogue banker or rogue bank? 457 15.1 Leadership styles 472 15.2 Challenges of change in Indian banking 475 15.3 A forcefield analysis for devolving strategy 477 15.4 Change levers in action 487 16.1 Wanted: team member for strategy unit 503 16.2 The Barclays Jam 507 16.3 Dinner with the consultants 511 16.4 A tale of two workshops 516 16.5 Hypothesis testing at a bank 519

THINKING DIFFERENTLY BY CHAPTER

2 The crowdsourced forecast 54 3 From five forces to one 88 4 Micro-foundations of capabilities 123 5 Benefit Corporations 155 6 Institutional logics versus organisational culture 183 7 Transient rather than sustainable advantage 233 8 Corporate strategy is a fool’s errand 267 9 An institution-based view of strategy 300

10 Entrepreneurship: discovery or creation? 331 11 From acquiring capabilities to acquiring as capability 361 12 Misrepresenting strategic projects 402 13 Different strategy development styles 430 14 Beyond hierarchy? 461 15 Women as leaders 491 16 Rethinking the role of strategists 521

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1.1 Definitions of strategy 4 1.2 Three horizons for strategy 6 1.3 The Exploring Strategy Framework 12 1.4 Strategy’s three branches 18 Part I.1 Strategic position 30 2.1 Layers of the business environment 33 2.2 Analysing the macro-environment 34 2.3 The political environment 37 2.4 Economic cycles 39 2.5 Sociogram of social networks within an organsational field 41 2.6 Technology roadmap for graphene technology in electronics 44 2.7 Contexts and motives for ecological issues 46 2.8 Forecasting under conditions of uncertainty 49 2.9 The scenario cube: selection matrix for scenario key drivers 51 2.10 The scenario process 53 3.1 Industry and sector environments: the key issues 63 3.2 The Five Forces Framework 64 3.3 The value net 70 3.4 The industry life cycle 79 3.5 Comparative industry structure analysis 80 3.6 Some characteristics for identifying strategic groups 82 3.7 Strategic groups in the Indian pharmaceutical industry 83 3.8 Strategy canvas for electrical components companies 86 4.1 Resources and capabilities: the key issues 97 4.2 VRIO 101 4.3 Criteria for the inimitability of resources and capabilities 103 4.4 The value chain within an organisation 108 4.5 The value system 110 4.6 Activity systems at Geelmuyden.Kiese 113 4.7 The TOWS matrix 119 5.1 Stakeholders, governance and ethics 133 5.2 Stakeholders of a large organisation 135 5.3 Stakeholder mapping: the power/attention matrix 137 5.4 Ownership, management and purpose 140 5.5 The chain of corporate governance: typical reporting structures 143 6.1 The influence of history and culture 163 6.2 Path dependency and lock-in 165

FIGURES

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FIGURES

6.3 Cultural frames of reference 169 6.4 Culture in four layers 171 6.5 Culture’s influence on strategy development 174 6.6 The cultural web of an organisation 175 6.7 The cultural web: some useful questions 179 6.8 Strategic drift 180 C.i Design lens 191 C.ii Experience lens 193 C.iii Variety lens 195 C.iv Discourse lens 197 Part II.1 Strategic choices 206 7.1 Business strategy 210 7.2 Three generic strategies 211 7.3 Economies of scale and the experience curve 212 7.4 Costs, prices and profits for generic strategies 213 7.5 The Strategy Clock 220 7.6 Interactive price and quality strategies 222 7.7 Responding to low-cost rivals 223 7.8 Cooperating with rivals 225 7.9 Prisoner’s dilemma game in aircraft manufacture 228 7.10 Business model components 231 8.1 Strategic directions and corporate-level strategy 243 8.2 Corporate strategy directions 245 8.3 Diversity and performance 252 8.4 Diversification and integration options: car manufacturer example 253 8.5 Portfolio managers, synergy managers and parental developers 258 8.6 The growth share (or BCG) matrix 263 8.7 Directional policy (GE–McKinsey) matrix 265 8.8 The parenting matrix: the Ashridge Portfolio Display 266 9.1 International strategy: five main themes 277 9.2 Drivers of internationalisation 280 9.3 Porter’s Diamond – the determinants of national advantages 283 9.4 Four international strategies 287 9.5 International cross-cultural comparison 292 9.6 International competitor retaliation 294 9.7 Subsidiary roles in multinational firms 298 10.1 Entrepreneurship and innovation: four major themes 309 10.2 Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition 311 10.3 Steps in an entrepreneurial process 313 10.4 Stages of entrepreneurial growth and typical challenges 314 10.5 Product and process innovation 321 10.6 The diffusion S-curve 326 10.7 Disruptive innovation 329 10.8 Portfolio of innovation options 330 11.1 Three strategy methods 339 11.2 The acquisition process 345 11.3 Post-acquisition integration matrix 348 11.4 Strategic alliance motives 354 11.5 Alliance evolution 356

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11.6 Buy, ally or DIY matrix 359 12.1 Evaluating strategies 375 12.2 Gap analysis 379 12.3 Assessing profitability 392 13.1 Deliberate and emergent strategy development 411 13.2 A continuum of emergent strategy development processes 419 13.3 Strategy development as the product of structures, systems

and routines 423 13.4 Strategic direction from the continuity of prior strategic decisions 425 13.5 Strategy development in different contexts 427 14.1 Organisational configurations: strategy, structure and systems 439 14.2 A functional structure 442 14.3 A multidivisional structure 443 14.4 Two examples of matrix structures 444 14.5 Multinational structures 446 14.6 Strategy styles 452 14.7 A partial strategy map 458 14.8 The McKinsey 7-Ss 459 15.1 Key elements in leading strategic change 469 15.2 The change kaleidoscope 473 15.3 Styles of change leadership according to organisational

capability and readiness 476 15.4 Types of change 478 15.5 Kotter’s Eight Steps for Change 483 16.1 The pyramid of strategy practice 499 16.2 Who to include in strategy making? 508 16.3 Formal channels for issue selling 510

FIGURES

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1.1 The strategy checklist 15 3.1 Industry types 76 3.2 Some bases of market segmentation 85 4.1 Resources and capabilities 98 4.2 The VRIO framework 108 5.1 Some common conflicts of stakeholder interests and expectations 136 5.2 Sources and indicators of power 137 5.3 Corporate social responsibility stances 151 5.4 Some questions of corporate social responsibility 154 C.i A summary of the strategy lens 200 9.1 Comparison of entry mode strategies 296 12.1 The SAFe criteria and techniques of evaluation 380 12.2 Suitability of strategic options in relation to strategic position 381 12.3 Some examples of suitability 381 12.4 The industry life cycle/portfolio matrix 387 12.5 Measures of shareholder value 394 12.6 Financial strategy and the business life cycle 399 14.1 Strategy and structure fit 449 14.2 Types of control systems 451 15.1 Turnaround: revenue generation and cost reduction steps 479 15.2 Organisational rituals and change 485 15.3 Political mechanisms in organisations 488 16.1 Managing conflict 513

TABLES

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PREFACE

We are delighted to offer this eleventh edition of Exploring Strategy. With sales of previous editions now well over one million, we believe we have a tried and tested product. Yet the strategy field is constantly changing. For this edition, therefore, we have introduced a new chapter, and thoroughly refreshed all the remaining chapters, with new concepts, new cases and new examples throughout. Here we would like to highlight four particular changes, while recalling some of the classic features of the book.

The eleventh edition’s principal changes are:

● Extended coverage of the macro-environment. We now have a whole chapter on the macro-environment, allowing us to cover increasingly important nonmarket aspects of strategy, such as politics and regulation, and to provide students with the tools to analyse the mega-trends that will drive organisational strategy in the future.

● A new treatment of business models. We have developed the treatment of business models, important to students in a start-up culture of rapid technological change.

● Enhanced emphasis on entrepreneurship. As entrepreneurial opportunities become increasingly attractive to readers, we have raised the prominence of entrepreneurship, and introduced new materials on opportunity recognition and the entrepreneurial process.

● New ‘Thinking Differently’ sections. At the end of each chapter, we introduce new mate- rial designed to encourage students to approach issues from a different point of view to the conventional wisdom of the chapter itself: for example, using crowdsourcing to predict environmental change, or one force rather than five to analyse industries.

At the same time, Exploring Strategy retains its longstanding commitment to a comprehen- sive and real-world view of strategy. In particular, this entails a deep concern for:

● Process. We believe that the human processes of strategy, not only the economics of par- ticular strategies, are central to achieving long-term organisational success. Throughout the book, we underline the importance of human processes, but in particular we devote Part III to processes of strategy formation, implementation and change.

● Practice. We conclude the book with a chapter on the practice of strategy ( Chapter  16 ), focused on the practicalities of managing strategy. Throughout the book, we introduce concepts and techniques through practical illustrations and applications, rather than abstract descriptions. MyStrategyExperience simulation gives students a chance to apply the frameworks of the book to a dynamic, realistic simulation of strategy in the advertising industry (visit https://uk.pearson.com/higher-education-educators/prod- ucts-and-services/course-resources-and-content/simulations.html).

Many people have helped us with the development of this new edition. Jason Evans, Clive Kerridge and Steve Pyle have led in coordinating the case collection. We have also consulted carefully with our Advisory Board, made up of experienced adopters of the book and other

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PREFACE

leading academics in the field of strategy. Many other adopters of the book provide more informal advice and suggestions – many of whom we have had the pleasure of meeting at our annual teachers’ workshops. This kind of feedback is invaluable and we hope you will keep the comments flowing. Also, our students and clients at Lancaster University, Oxford University, Oxford Brookes, Stockholm School of Economics, Sheffield Hallam and the many other places where we teach are a constant source of ideas and stimulus. We also gain from our links across the world, particularly in Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Swe- den, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA. Many contribute directly by providing case studies and illustrations and these are acknowledged in the text.

Finally, we thank those organisations that have been generous enough to be written up as case studies. We hope that those using the book will respect the wishes of the case study organisations and not contact them directly for further information.

Gerry Johnson ( [email protected] ) Richard Whittington ( [email protected] )

Kevan Scholes ( [email protected] ) Duncan Angwin ( [email protected] )

Patrick Regnér ( [email protected] ) October 2016

Advisory Board

Special thanks are due to the following members of the Advisory Board for their valued comments:

Mike Davies University of Winchester

Alison De Moraes Royal Holloway University of London

Dr Maria Emmanouilidou University of Kent

Dr Andrew Jenkins University of Huddersfi eld

Adrian Myers Oxford Brookes University

Sarah Owens Swansea University

Nick Papageorgiadis University of Liverpool

Adam Raman Kingston University

Dr Andrew Wild Nottingham University

Steve Wood Leeds Beckett University

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EXPLORING STRATEGY FEATURES

This eleventh edition of Exploring Strategy builds on the established strengths of this best-selling textbook. A range of in-text features and supplementary features have been developed to enable you and your students to gain maximum added value from the teaching and learning of strategy.

● Outstanding pedagogical features. Each chapter has clear learning outcomes, practical questions associated with real-life illustrations and examples which students can easily apply to what they have learnt.

● Flexibility of use. You can choose to use either the Text and Cases version of the book, or – if you don’t use longer cases (or have your own) – the Text-only version. The provision of Thinking Differently sections, Commentaries and Strategy ‘Lenses’ allows you to dig deeper into the tensions and complexity of strategy.

The two versions are complemented by a concise version of the text, Fundamentals of Strategy, and instructors also have the option of further customising the text. Visit www. pearsoned.co.uk/CustomPublishing for more details.

● Up-to-date materials. As well as a new chapter on the macro-environment, we have fully revised the other chapters, incorporating new research and updating references so that you can easily access the latest research.

● Encouraging innovative and critical thinking. The Strategy Lenses and Commentaries are designed to encourage critical thinking, while each chapter ends with a Thinking Differently section, introducing students to new and distinctive approaches to key issues of the chapter.

Our ‘three circles’ framework – depicting the overlapping issues of strategic position, stra- tegic choices and strategy in action – also challenges a simple linear, sequential view of the strategy process.

● Case and examples. A wide range of Illustrations, Case Examples and (in the Text and Cases version) longer Case Studies are fresh and engage with student interests and day-to- day experience. The majority of these are entirely new to this edition; we have extensively revised the remainder. Finally, we draw these examples from all over the world and use examples from the public and voluntary sectors as well as the private.

● Teaching and learning support. You and your students can access a wealth of resources detailed in the Exploring Strategy Online section that follows this.

● Teachers’ workshop. We run an annual workshop to facilitate discussion of key chal- lenges and solutions in the teaching of strategic management. Details of forthcoming workshops can be found at https://heuk.pearson.com/events.html

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A wide range of supporting resources are available at: www.pearsoned.co.uk/johnson

For students

● Multiple choice questions that test your understanding of key content.

● Key concept audio summaries that you can download or listen to online.

● Video cases that show managers talking about strategic issues in their own organisations.

● Revision flashcards to help you prepare for your exams.

● A multi-lingual online glossary to help explain key concepts.

● Guidance on how to analyse a case study.

● Links to relevant sites on the web so you can explore more about the organisations fea- tured in the case studies.

● Classic cases – over 30 case studies from previous editions of the book.

For instructors

● An Instructor’s Manual which provides a comprehensive set of teaching support, includ- ing guidance on the use of case studies and assignments, and advice on how to plan a programme using the text.

● PowerPoint slides, containing key information and figures from the book.

● Classic cases, from previous editions of the book.

MyStrategyExperience is an engaging and rigorous simulation designed to bring together the theory and practice of strategy-making in the realistic environment of a dynamic organ- isation and industry. The simulation puts students on the board of directors in a global advertising agency and allows them to make a strategic analysis of the business, put together a business plan and then make a number of challenging decisions on the future strategy of the company.

As students set and implement strategy, they will see the impact of their decisions on financial and non-financial measures of performance within the simulated company. Your students will need to balance strategic opportunities with inherent risk thus gaining knowl- edge and insights relevant to their strategic studies.

For more information, contact your local sales representative or visit https://uk.pearson. com/higher-education-educators/products-and-services/course-resources-and-content/ simulations.html

Follow the authors’ latest comments on the strategy issues of this book at https://twitter. com/ExploreStrategy

EXPLORING STRATEGY ONLINE

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Strategy in actionStrategic

choicesStrategic position

business-level strategy p.11

corporate-level strategy p.10

Exploring Strategy Framework p.11

functional strategies p.11

mission statement p.7

objectives p.8

statements of corporate values p.8

strategic choices p.13

strategic position p.12

strategy p.4

strategy in action p.14

strategy lenses p.21

strategy statements p.8

three-horizons framework p.6

vision statement p.8

Key terms

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Summarise the strategy of an organisation in a ‘ strategy statement ’. ● Distinguish between corporate, business and functional strategies. ● Identify key issues for an organisation’s strategy according to the Exploring Strategy

Framework. ● Understand different people’s roles in strategy work. ● Appreciate the importance of different organisational contexts, academic disciplines

and theoretical lenses to practical strategy analysis.

1 INTRODUCING STRATEGY

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INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Claudia, a junior at a leading firm of strategy consultants, had just arrived with two senior colleagues at the headquarters of a medium-sized company considering its next strategic move. The CEO began the meeting by outlining the business the company was in and some of the history behind the firm’s significant success in European markets. The recent entry into Europe of new aggressive competitors threatened their perfor- mance and the Board was wondering whether the company should globalise. The CEO then asked how the consultants might approach this problem. The consulting partner explained they would carry out a systematic strategic analysis of the company’s situa- tion and Claudia knew this would be her responsibility – to gather and analyse appro- priate data. She would need to understand how the company had been so successful to date, the challenge posed by competitors and the broader opportunities and threats from the wider environment. She knew she could access key company executives to understand what resources, processes and people were supporting the current strategy and also what might support international expansion. She would have to consider the direction in which the business might expand, the methods of expansion that might be most appropriate as well as other strategic options. Through this analysis, she would hope to inform the CEO’s decision about what the strategy for the company might be and perhaps gain further work to help implement a strategic direction.

The problem presented by the CEO to the consultants is one of strategy. It is concerned with key issues for the future of the organisation. For instance, how should the company compete in the future with aggressive new entrants? What growth options are there for the company? If going global is a good strategy, what would be the optimal method to achieve this outcome and what might be the resourcing implications? All of these strategy questions are vital to the future survival of the organisation.

Strategy questions naturally concern entrepreneurs and senior managers at the top of their organisations. But these questions matter more widely. Middle managers also have to understand the strategic direction of their organisations, both to know how to get top man- agement support for their initiatives and to explain their organisation’s strategy to the people they are responsible for. Anybody looking for a management-track job needs to be ready to discuss strategy with their potential employer. Indeed, anybody taking a job should first be confident that their new employer’s strategy is actually viable. There are even specialist career opportunities in strategy, for example like Claudia, as a strategy consultant or as an in-house strategic planner, often key roles for fast-track young managers.

This book takes a broad approach to strategy, looking at both the economics of strategy and the people side of managing strategy in practice. It is a book about ‘Exploring’, because the real world of strategy rarely offers obvious answers. In strategy, it is typically important to explore several options, probing each one carefully before making choices. The book is also relevant to any kind of organisation responsible for its own direction into the future. Thus the book refers to large private-sector multinationals and small entrepreneurial start- ups; to public-sector organisations such as schools and hospitals; and to not-for-profits such as charities or sports clubs. Strategy matters to almost all organisations, and to everybody working in them.

3

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4

1.2 WhaT IS STRaTeGY?1

In this book, strategy is the long-term direction of an organisation. Thus the long-term direction of Amazon is from book retailing to internet services in general. The long-term direction of Disney is from cartoons to diversified entertainment. This section examines the practical implication of this definition of strategy; distinguishes between different levels of strategy; and explains how to summarise an organisation’s strategy in a ‘strategy statement’.

1.2.1 Defining strategy

Defining strategy as the long-term direction of an organisation implies a more comprehen- sive view than some influential definitions. Figure 1.1 shows the strategy definitions of sev- eral leading strategy theorists: Alfred Chandler and Michael Porter, both from the Harvard Business School, Peter Drucker from Claremont University, California and Henry Mintzberg, from McGill University, Canada. Each points to important elements of strategy. Chandler emphasises a logical flow from the determination of goals and objectives to the allocation of resources. Porter focuses on deliberate choices, difference and competition. Drucker sug- gests that it is a theory about how a firm will win.2 Mintzberg, however, takes the view that strategy is less certain and uses the word ‘pattern’ to allow for the fact that strategies do not always follow a deliberately chosen and logical plan, but can emerge in more ad hoc ways. Sometimes strategies reflect a series of incremental decisions that only cohere into a recog- nisable pattern – or ‘strategy’ – after some time.

In this book, strategy is defined as ‘the long-term direction of an organisation’. This has two advantages. First, the long-term direction of an organisation can include both deliber- ate, logical strategy and more incremental, emergent patterns of strategy. Second, long-term direction can include both strategies that emphasise difference and competition, and strate- gies that recognise the roles of cooperation and even imitation.

The three elements of this strategy definition – the long term, direction and organisation – can each be explored further. The strategy of Tesla Motors illustrates impor- tant points (see Illustration 1.1):

Figure 1.1 Definitions of strategy Sources: A.D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of American Enterprise, MIT Press, 1963, p. 13; M.E. Porter, ‘What is strategy?’, Harvard Business Review, November–December 1996, p. 60; P.F. Drucker, ‘The theory of business’, Harvard Business Review, September–October 1994, pp. 95–106; H. Mintzberg, Tracking Strategies: Towards a General Theory, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 3.

‘a firm’s theory about how to gain competitive advantages’

Peter Drucker

‘a pattern in a stream of decisions’

Henry Mintzberg

‘the long-term direction of an organisation’

Exploring Strategy

‘. . .the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources

necessary for carrying out these goals’

Alfred D. Chandler

‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’

Michael Porter

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WHAT IS STRATEGY?

5

ILLUSTRaTION 1.1

The Tesla Roadster is a staggeringly quick car with a dif- ference. There’s no wheel-spin, no traction control stutter, no driveline shutter. As soon as one stamps on the throttle the driver gets 686 lbs of torque immediately, rocketing the car from 0–60 mph in 3.2 seconds and with negligible noise – the car is electric.

The Tesla Roadster is the main product of Tesla Motors. Its charismatic chairman and main funder is PayPal co-founder, and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk. Barely a dec- ade old, Tesla Motors is already gigantic, $33bn (£20bn, €25bn) market capitalisation and adored. It’s been called ‘the world’s most important automotive company’ 1 and the Tesla’s Model S, ‘the Most Loved Vehicle in America’ 1 – out- selling Mercedes S-class and BMW 7 series. And yet the last successful American car start-up was Ford, founded 111 years ago. How can Tesla Motors be so successful?

Tesla is the brain-child of three Silicon Valley engineers convinced by global warming arguments and looking for alternative fuel sources for cars. Co-founder Martin Eber- hard asked: ‘How much of the energy that comes out of the ground makes your car go a mile?’ 1 He observed: ‘Hydro- gen fuel cells are terrible – no more efficient than gas. Electric cars were superior to everything.’ 1 He then discov- ered a bright yellow, all-electric, two-seater bullet car with zero emissions, ‘tzero’, built by AC propulsion. Inspired, Eberhard kept saying to potential recruits – ‘try and touch the dashboard.’ 1 He would then hit the accelerator – they couldn’t! With Lamborghini-level acceleration, this demon- strated electric cars didn’t have to be golf carts.

But industry logic said electric cars would never suc- ceed. GM spent $1bn (£0.6bn, €0.75bn), developing the EV-1 which was then scrapped. Battery technology had not improved in a hundred years. But Eberhard realised lithium-ion batteries were different – improving 7 per cent p.a. So Tesla was positioned to ride the current of tech- nological history.

The founders had no experience making cars, but real- ised car companies now outsourced everything, even styl- ing. Manufacturing partners were ready to be connected with; a ‘fab-less’ car company was possible. 3 Production began 2008. The business plan described the Roadster as ‘disruptive’ technology 1 – a high-end sports car with lower price and emissions than competitors – and a lower resource cost to the planet.

Tesla Motors: the future is electric!

Questions 1 How does Tesla Motor’s strategy fit with the

various strategy definitions in Figure  1.1 ?

2 What seems to account for Tesla’s success?

Tesla car Source: Jim West/Alamy Images.

Roadster 0–60 mph < 3.9 seconds; 100mpg; world-class handling; zero tailpipe emissions; 300 mile range; zero maintenance for 100,00 miles (other than tyres); 50% price of the cheapest competitive sports car. 1

Tesla’s strategy was:

to enter at the high end of the market, where custom- ers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model. . . . all free cash flow is plowed back into R&D to drive down the costs and bring the follow on products to market as fast as possible. When someone buys the Tesla Roadster sports car, they are actually helping pay for development of the low cost family car. 2

Tesla aimed to provide zero emission electric power gen- eration from their ‘giga’ battery factory in line with their ‘overarching purpose . . . to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy.’ 2 In 2015, Tesla Energy was launched selling batteries for home and business use.

Edison didn’t invent the light bulb, but he made it affordable and accessible through his electric system. 3 Tesla is also offering an energy system for a world of elec- tric vehicles, homes and businesses, using batteries.

Sources : (1) E. Musk, ‘The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)’, 2 August 2006; (2) D. Baer, ‘The making of Tesla: invention, betrayal, and the birth of the Roadster’, Business Insider, 11 November 2014; (3) J. Suskewicz, ‘Tesla’s new strategy is over 100 years old’, Harvard Business Review, May 2015.

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6

● The long term. Strategies are typically measured over years, for some organisations a decade or more. The importance of a long-term perspective on strategy is emphasised by the ‘three horizons’ framework in Figure 1.2. The three-horizons framework suggests organisations should think of themselves as comprising three types of business or activity, defined by their ‘horizons’ in terms of years. Horizon 1 businesses are basically the current core activities. In the case of Tesla Motors, Horizon 1 includes the original Tesla Roadster car and subsequent models. Horizon 1 businesses need defending and extending, but the expectation is that in the long term they will likely be flat or declining in terms of profits (or whatever else the organisation values). Horizon 2 businesses are emerging activities that should provide new sources of profit. For Tesla, that might include the new mega-bat- tery business. Finally, there are Horizon 3 possibilities, for which nothing is sure. These are typically risky research and development (R&D) projects, start-up ventures, test-market pilots or similar: at Tesla, these might be further solar electric initiatives, rockets and space transportation. For a fast-moving organisation like Tesla, Horizon 3 might generate profits a few years from the present time. In a pharmaceutical company, where the R&D and regulatory processes for a new drug take many years, Horizon 3 might be a decade ahead. While timescales might differ, the basic point about the ‘three-horizons’ framework is that managers need to avoid focusing on the short-term issues of their existing activities. Strategy involves pushing out Horizon 1 as far as possible, at the same time as looking to Horizons 2 and 3.

● Strategic direction. Over the years, strategies follow some kind of long-term direction or trajectory. The strategic direction of Tesla Motors is from the original electric car to a diversified set of solar power offerings. Sometimes a strategic direction only emerges as a coherent pattern over time. Typically, however, managers and entrepreneurs try to set the direction of their strategy according to long-term objectives. In private-sector businesses, the objective guiding strategic direction is usually maximising profits for shareholders. However, profits do not always set strategic direction. First, public-sector and charity organisations may set their strategic direction according to other objectives: for example, a sports club’s objective may be to move up from one league to a higher one. Second, even in the private sector profit is not always the sole criterion for strategy. Thus family

Figure 1.2 Three horizons for strategy Note: ‘profit’ on the vertical axis can be replaced by non-profit objectives; ‘business’ can refer to any set of activities; ‘time’ can refer to a varying number of years.

Source: M. Baghai, S. Coley and D. White, The Alchemy of Growth, Texere Publishers, 2000, Figure 1.1, p. 5.

Profit potential

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WHAT IS STRATEGY?

7

businesses may sometimes sacrifice the maximisation of profits for family objectives, for example passing down the management of the business to the next generation. The objectives behind strategic direction always need close scrutiny.

● Organisation. In this book, organisations are not treated as discrete, unified entities. Organisations involve many relationships, both internally and externally. This is because organisations typically have many internal and external stakeholders, in other words peo- ple and groups that depend on the organisation and upon which the organisation itself depends. Internally, organisations are filled with people, typically with diverse, competing and more or less reasonable views of what should be done. At Tesla, co-founder and orig- inal CEO Martin Eberhard was fired by new Chairman Elon Musk. In strategy, therefore, it is always important to look inside organisations and to consider the people involved and their different interests and views. Externally, organisations are surrounded by important relationships, for example with suppliers, customers, alliance partners, regulators and investors. For Tesla, relationships with investors and advertisers are crucial. Strategy there- fore is also vitally concerned with an organisation’s external boundaries: in other words, questions about what to include within the organisation and how to manage important relationships with what is kept outside.

Because strategy typically involves managing people, relationships and resources, the sub- ject is sometimes called ‘strategic management’. This book takes the view that managing is always important in strategy. Good strategy is about the practicalities of managing as well as the analysis of strategising.

1.2.2 The purpose of strategy: mission, vision, values and objectives

What is a strategy for? Harvard University’s Cynthia Montgomery3 argues that the core of a strategist’s job is defining and expressing a clear and motivating purpose for the organisation. Even for private-sector organisations this is generally more than simple profit-maximisation as long-term prosperity and employee motivation usually require expressions of purpose that go beyond just profits. According to Montgomery, the stated purpose of the organisation should address two related questions: how does the organisation make a difference; and for whom does the organisation make that difference? If the stakeholders of an organisation can relate to such a purpose it can be highly motivating. Indeed, research by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras suggests that the long-run success of many US corporations – such as Disney, General Electric or 3M – can be attributed (at least in part) to the clear guidance and moti- vation offered by such statements of purpose.4

There are four ways in which organisations typically define their purpose:

● A mission statement aims to provide employees and stakeholders with clarity about what the organisation is fundamentally there to do. This is often expressed in the apparently simple but challenging question: ‘What business are we in?’ Two linked questions that can clarify an organisation’s ‘business’ are: ‘What would be lost if the organisation did not exist?’; and ‘How do we make a difference?’ Though they do not use the term ‘mission statement’, Collins and Porras5 suggest that understanding the fundamental mission can be done by starting with a descriptive statement of what the organisation actually does, then repeatedly delving deeper into the organisation purpose by asking ‘why do we do this?’ They use the example of managers in a gravel and asphalt company arriving at the conclusion that its mission is to make people’s lives better by improving the quality of built

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structures. At Southampton University the mission includes educating students, training the next generation of researchers and addressing social issues.

● A vision statement is concerned with the future the organisation seeks to create. The vision typically expresses an aspiration that will enthuse, gain commitment and stretch perfor- mance. So here the question is: ‘What do we want to achieve?’ Porras and Collins suggest managers can identify this by asking: ‘If we were sitting here in twenty years what do we want to have created or achieved?’ They cite the example of Henry Ford’s original vision in the very early days of automobile production that the ownership of a car should be within the reach of everyone. For the Swedish music site Spotify, the vision is to become ‘the Operating System of music’, a universal platform for listening just as Microsoft is for office software.

● Statements of corporate values communicate the underlying and enduring core ‘principles’ that guide an organisation’s strategy and define the way that the organisation should operate. For example, Alphabet (previously Google) famously includes in its values ‘you can be serious without a suit’, ‘fast is better than slow’ and ‘don’t be evil’. It is important that these values are enduring, so a question to ask is: ‘Would these values change with circumstances?’ And if the answer is ‘yes’ then they are not ‘core’ and not ‘enduring’. An example is the importance of leading-edge research in some universities. Whatever the constraints on funding, such universities hold to the enduring centrality of research. On the other hand, as Alphabet has grown and diversified, some critics wonder whether the company still abides by its principle of ‘don’t be evil’ (see Chapter 13 end case).

● Objectives are statements of specific outcomes that are to be achieved. These are often expressed in precise financial terms, for instance, the level of sales, profits or share valuation in one, two or three years’ time.6 Organisations may also have quantifiable market-based objectives, such as market share, customer service, repeat business and so on. Sometimes objectives focus on the basis of competitive advantage: for example, low- cost airlines such as RyanAir set objectives on turnaround time for their aircraft because this is at the core of their distinctive low-cost advantage. Increasingly, organisations are also setting objectives referred to as ‘the triple bottom line’, by which is meant not only economic objectives such as those above, but also environmental and social objectives to do with their corporate responsibility to wider society (see Section 5.4.1).

Although visions, missions and values may be liable to become bland and too wide-ranging,7 they can offer more enduring sources of direction and motivation than the concrete nature of objectives. It is therefore crucial that vision, mission and values are meaningful when included in strategy statements.

1.2.3 Strategy statements

David Collis and Michael Rukstad8 at the Harvard Business School argue that all entrepre- neurs and managers should be able to summarise their organisation’s strategy with a ‘strat- egy statement’. Strategy statements should have three main themes: the fundamental goals (mission, vision or objectives) that the organisation seeks; the scope or domain of the organ- isation’s activities; and the particular advantages or capabilities it has to deliver all of these.

Mission, vision and objectives have been described in Section 1.2.2 so here we concen- trate on the other two main themes, scope and advantage, with examples of all five given in Illustration 1.2:

● Scope. An organisation’s scope or domain refers to three dimensions: customers or clients; geographical location; and extent of internal activities (‘vertical integration’). For a uni- versity, scope questions are two-fold: first, which academic departments to have (a business

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ILLUSTRaTION 1.2

Both Samsung electronics, the Korean telecommunications, computing and TV giant, and Southampton University, a leading British university, publish a good deal about their strategies.

Samsung electronics

At Samsung, we follow a simple business philosophy: to devote our talent and technology to creating supe- rior products and services that contribute to a better global society .

Every day, our people bring this philosophy to life. Our leaders search for the brightest talent from around the world, and give them the resources they need to be the best at what they do. The result is that all of our products – from memory chips that help businesses store vital knowledge to mobile phones that connect people across continents – have the power to enrich lives. And that’s what making a better global society is all about.

As stated in its new motto, Samsung Electronics’ vision [. . .] is, ‘Inspire the World, Create the Future’. This new vision reflects Samsung Electronics’ com- mitment to inspiring its communities by leveraging Samsung’s three key strengths: ‘New Technology’, ‘Innovative Products’ and ‘Creative Solutions’. As part of this vision, Samsung has mapped out a specific plan of reaching $400 billion in revenue and becoming one of the world’s top five brands by 2020. To this end, Sam- sung has also established three strategic approaches in its management: ‘Creativity’, ‘Partnership’ and ‘Talent’.

As we build on our previous accomplishments, we look forward to exploring new territories, includ- ing health, medicine, and biotechnology. Samsung is committed to being a creative leader in new markets, becoming No. 1 business in the Global IT industry and in the Global top 5.

Southampton University strategy

The university’s core mission is to change the world for the better. It is an exceptional place whose peo- ple achieve remarkable things. We are a world-leading, research-intensive university, with a strong educational offering, renowned for our innovation and enterprise. Our strategy is about our aspirations – building our rep- utation and being simply better than our competitors.

We will increase our rankings to be in the top 10 (UK) and top 100 internationally. This will increase our reputation, which will increase our ranking.

A reputation for delivering excellence and an exemplary student experience will lead to greater demand from the best student applicants, sustained support from research funders and strong support from our alumni.

We aim to achieve:

1 Collegiality: providing excellent staff experience, improving management and leadership through- out, developing agile governance, increasing risk appetite.

2 Internal quality: improve student experience to amongst the best in the UK’s National Student Survey, develop high quality systems and infra- structure, improve quality of research applica- tions, develop £5m+ strategic partnerships, raise admission standards, increase international student numbers, improve student employability, recruit and retain high quality staff.

3 National and international recognition: improve league table rankings and reputation, improve quality of education, grow international alumni community, deliver impactful research.

4 Sustainability: deliver the ability to invest, develop sustainable smooth income, improve research overhead recovery, improve productivity, increase revenue from other sources.

Sources: Edited extract from the University of Southampton Simply Better: The University Strategy, www.southampton.ac.uk .

Strategy statements

Questions 1 Construct short strategy statements covering

the goals, scope and advantage of Samsung and the Southampton University. How much do the different private- and public-sector contexts matter?

2 Construct a strategy statement for your own organisation (university, sports club or employer). What implications might this statement have for change in your organisation?

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school, an engineering department and so on); second, which activities to do internally themselves (vertically integrate) and which to externalise to subcontractors (for example, whether to manage campus restaurants in-house or to subcontract them).

● Advantage. This part of a strategy statement describes how the organisation will achieve the objectives it has set for itself in its chosen domain. In competitive environments, this refers to the competitive advantage: for example, how a particular company or sports club will achieve goals in the face of competition from other companies or clubs. In order to achieve a particular goal, the organisation needs to be better than others seeking the same goal. In the public sector, advantage might refer simply to the organisation’s capa- bility in general. But even public-sector organisations frequently need to show that their capabilities are not only adequate, but superior to other rival departments or perhaps to private-sector contractors.

Collis and Rukstad suggest that strategy statements covering goals, scope and advantage should be no more than 35 words long. The three themes are deliberately made highly concise. Brevity keeps such statements focused on the essentials and makes them easy to remember and communicate. Thus for Tesla, a strategy statement might be: ‘To accelerate the advent of a sustainable solar economy by developing and incorporating superior battery-based technologies into compelling mass market electric products and bringing them to market as soon as possible.’ The strategy statement of Swedish multinational group IKEA is a little more specific: ‘To create a better everyday life for the many people [by offering] a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.’ Of course, such strategy statements are not always fulfilled. Circumstances may change in unexpected ways. In the meantime, however, they can provide a useful guide both to managers in their decision-making and to employees and others who need to understand the direction in which the organisation is going. The ability to give a clear strategy statement is a good test of managerial competence in an organisation.

As such, strategy statements are relevant to a wide range of organisations. For example, a small entrepreneurial start-up can use a strategy statement to persuade investors and lenders of its viability. Public-sector organisations need strategy statements not only for themselves, but to reassure clients, funders and regulators that their priorities are the right ones. Vol- untary organisations need persuasive strategy statements in order to inspire volunteers and donors. Thus organisations of all kinds frequently publish materials relevant to such strategy statements on their websites or annual reports. Illustration 1.2 provides published materials on the strategies of two very different organisations: the technology giant Samsung from the private sector and Southampton University in the UK from the public sector.

1.2.4 Levels of strategy

So far we have considered an organisation as a whole, but inside an organisation, strategies can exist at three main levels.

● Corporate-level strategy is concerned with the overall scope of an organisation and how value is added to the constituent businesses of the organisational whole. Corporate-level strategy issues include geographical scope, diversity of products or services, acquisitions of new businesses, and how resources are allocated between the different elements of the organisation. For Tesla, moving from car manufacture to battery production for homes and businesses is a corporate-level strategy. Being clear about corporate-level strategy is important: determining the range of businesses to include is the basis of other strategic decisions, such as acquisitions and alliances.

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● Business-level strategy is about how the individual businesses should compete in their particular markets (this is often called ‘competitive strategy’). These might be stand-alone businesses, for instance entrepreneurial start-ups, or ‘business units’ within a larger cor- poration. Business-level strategy typically concerns issues such as innovation, appropriate scale and response to competitors’ moves. For Tesla this means rolling out a lower cost electric car to build volume and capture market share in advance of potential competitor entry. In the public sector, the equivalent of business-level strategy is decisions about how units (such as individual hospitals or schools) should provide best-value services. Where the businesses are units within a larger organisation, business-level strategies should clearly fit with corporate-level strategy.

● Functional strategies are concerned with how the components of an organisation deliver effectively the corporate- and business-level strategies in terms of resources, processes and people. For example, Tesla continues to raise external finance to fund its rapid growth: its functional strategy is partly geared to meeting investment needs. In most businesses, suc- cessful business strategies depend to a large extent on decisions that are taken, or activities that occur, at the functional level. Functional decisions need therefore to be closely linked to business-level strategy. They are vital to successful strategy implementation.

This need to link the corporate, business and functional levels underlines the importance of integration in strategy. Each level needs to be aligned with the others. The demands of integrating levels define an important characteristic of strategy: strategy is typically complex, requiring careful and sensitive management. Strategy is rarely simple.

1.3 The EXPLORING STRATEGY FRaMeWORK

This book is structured around a three-part framework that emphasises the interconnected nature of strategic issues. The Exploring Strategy Framework includes understanding the stra- tegic position of an organisation; assessing strategic choices for the future; and managing strategy in action. Figure 1.3 shows these elements and defines the broad coverage of this book. Together, the three elements provide a practical template for studying strategic situ- ations. The following sections of this chapter will introduce the strategic issues that arise under each of these elements of the Exploring Strategy Framework. But first it is important to understand why the framework is drawn in this particular way.

Figure 1.3 could have shown the framework’s three elements in a linear sequence – first understanding the strategic position, then making strategic choices and finally turning strat- egy into action. Indeed, this logical sequence is implicit in the definition of strategy given by Alfred Chandler (Figure 1.1) and many other textbooks on strategy. However, as Henry Mintzberg recognises, in practice the elements of strategy do not always follow this linear sequence. Choices often have to be made before the position is fully understood. Sometimes too a proper understanding of the strategic position can only be built from the experience of trying a strategy out in action. The real-world feedback from launching a new product is often far better at uncovering the true strategic position than remote analysis carried out in a strategic planning department at head office.

The interconnected circles of Figure  1.3 are designed to emphasise this potentially non-linear nature of strategy. Position, choices and action should be seen as closely related, and in practice none has priority over another. It is only for structural convenience that this book divides its subject matter into three sections; the book’s sequence is not meant to suggest that the process of strategy must follow a logical series of distinct steps. The three

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circles are overlapping and interdependent. The evidence provided in later chapters will suggest that strategy rarely occurs in tidy ways and that it is better not to expect it to do so.

However, the Exploring Strategy Framework does provide a comprehensive and integrated schema for analysing an organisation’s position, considering the choices it has and put- ting strategies into action. Each of the chapters can be seen as asking fundamental strategy questions and providing the essential concepts and techniques to help answer them. Work- ing systematically through questions and answers provides the basis for persuasive strategy recommendations.

1.3.1 Strategic position

The strategic position is concerned with the impact on strategy of the macro-environment, the industry environment, the organisation’s strategic capability (resources and compe- tences), the organisation’s stakeholders and the organisation’s culture. Understanding these five factors is central for evaluating future strategy. These issues, and the fundamental ques- tions associated with them, are covered in the following five chapters of Part I of this book:

● Macro-environment. Organisations operate in complex multi-level environments. At the macro level, organisations are influenced by political, economic, social, technological, eco- logical and legal forces. The macro-environment varies widely in terms of its dynamism. The fundamental question here relates to the opportunities and threats available to the organisation in complex, changing environments. Chapter 2 provide key frameworks to help in focusing on priority issues in the face of environmental complexity and dynamism.

● Industry environment. At the industry level of analysis, competitors, suppliers and cus- tomers present challenges to an organisation. A fundamental question is: how can an

Figure 1.3 The Exploring Strategy Framework

Strategic position

Macro- environment

StakeholdersIndustry

CultureResources

Strategic choices

Business strategy

International Corporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

Strategy in action

Evaluating

OrganisingProcesses

Leadership & change

Practice

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THE EXPLORING STRATEGY FRAMEWORK

organisation manage industry forces? Industry environments can vary widely in their attractiveness and present opportunities and threats. Chapter 3 provides key frameworks to help identify major forces at work in different industries.

● Strategic capability. Each organisation has its own strategic capabilities, made up of its resources (e.g. machines and buildings) and competences (e.g. technical and managerial skills). The fundamental question on capability regards the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses (for example, where is it at a competitive advantage or disadvantage?). Are the organisation’s capabilities adequate to the challenges of its environment and the demands of its goals? Chapter 4 provides tools and concepts for analysing such resources and capabilities.

● Stakeholders. There are many actors who hold a ‘stake’ in the future of every organ- isation – not just owners, but employees, customers, suppliers and more. The fourth fundamental question then is: how can the organisation be aligned around a common purpose? An organisation’s key stakeholders should define its purpose. Understanding their different interests to identify this purpose is important. Corporate governance then matters as it translates this purpose into strategy: how to ensure that managers stick to the agreed purpose? Questions of purpose and accountability raise issues of corporate social responsibility and ethics: is the purpose an appropriate one and are managers sticking to it? Chapter 5 provides concepts for addressing these issues of purpose.

● Culture. Organisational cultures can also influence strategy. So can the cultures of a par- ticular industry or particular country. These cultures are typically a product of an organi- sation’s history. The consequence of history and culture can be strategic drift, a failure to create necessary change. A fundamental question here, therefore, is: how does culture fit with the required strategy? Chapter 6 demonstrates how managers can analyse, challenge and sometimes turn to their advantage the various cultural influences on strategy.

The Exploring Strategy Framework (Illustration 1.1) points to the following positioning issues for Tesla Motors. What is the future of the company given the growing social, political, eco- logical and legal demands for businesses to be environmentally sustainable? Are its distinctive capabilities really valued sufficiently by consumers to provide a financial return to investors and to allow sustained investment in further innovative products? How will Tesla cope with rising competition from car industry giants who are now selling electric and hybrid cars?

1.3.2 Strategic choices

Strategic choices involve the options for strategy in terms of both the directions in which strategy might move and the methods by which strategy might be pursued. For instance, an organisation might have a range of strategic directions open to it: the organisation could diversify into new products; it could enter new international markets; or it could transform its existing products and markets through radical innovation. These various directions could be pursued by different methods: the organisation could acquire a business already active in the product or market area; it could form alliances with relevant organisations that might help its new strategy; or it could try to pursue its strategies on its own. Typical strategic choices, and the related fundamental questions, are covered in the five chapters that make up Part II of this book, as follows:

● Business strategy and models. There are strategic choices in terms of how the organisa- tion seeks to compete at the individual business level. For example, a business unit could choose to be the lowest cost competitor in a market, or the highest quality. The funda- mental question here, then, is what strategy and what business model should a company use to compete? Key dilemmas for business-level strategy, and ways of resolving them, are discussed in Chapter 7.

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● Corporate strategy and diversification. The highest level of an organisation is typically concerned with issues of corporate scope, in other words, which businesses to include in the portfolio. This relates to the appropriate degree of diversification, with regard to prod- ucts offered and markets served. Corporate-level strategy is also concerned with internal relationships, both between business units and with the corporate head office. Chapter 8 provides tools for assessing diversification strategies and the appropriate relationships within the corporate portfolio.

● International strategy. Internationalisation is a form of diversification, but into new geo- graphical markets. Here the fundamental question is: where internationally should the organisation compete? Chapter 9 examines how to prioritise various international options and key strategies for pursuing them.

● Entrepreneurship and innovation. Most existing organisations have to innovate constantly simply to survive. Entrepreneurship, the creation of a new enterprise, is an act of inno- vation too. A fundamental question, therefore, is whether the organisation is innovating appropriately. Chapter 10 considers key choices about innovation and entrepreneurship, and helps in selecting between them.

● Mergers, acquisitions and alliances. Organisations have to make choices about methods for pursuing their strategies. Many organisations prefer to build new businesses with their own resources. Other organisations develop by acquiring other businesses or forming alli- ances with complementary partners. The fundamental question in Chapter 11, therefore, is whether to buy another company, ally or to go it alone.

Again, issues of strategic choice are live in the case of Tesla Motors (Illustration 1.1). The Exploring Strategy Framework asks the following kinds of questions here. Should Tesla continue to produce new higher volume cheaper cars or remain specialised? How far should it widen the scope of its businesses: is producing batteries for homes really helping or detract- ing from car production? Where should Tesla innovate next?

1.3.3 Strategy in action

Managing strategy in action is about how strategies are formed and how they are imple- mented. The emphasis is on the practicalities of managing. These issues are covered in the five chapters of Part III, and include the following, each with their own fundamental questions:

● Strategy performance and evaluation. Managers have to decide whether existing and fore- cast performance is satisfactory and then choose between options that might improve it. The fundamental evaluation questions are as follows: are the options suitable in terms of matching opportunities and threats; are they acceptable in the eyes of significant stake- holders; and are they feasible given the capabilities available? Chapter 12 introduces a range of financial and non-financial techniques for appraising performance and evaluating strategic options.

● Strategy development processes. Strategies are often developed through formal planning processes. But sometimes the strategies an organisation actually pursues are emergent – in other words, accumulated patterns of ad hoc decisions, bottom-up initiatives and rapid responses to the unanticipated. Given the scope for emergence, the fundamental ques- tion is: what kind of strategy process should an organisation have? Chapter 13 addresses the question of whether to plan strategy in detail or leave plenty of opportunities for emergence.

● Organising. Once a strategy is developed, the organisation needs to organise for successful implementation. Each strategy requires its own specific configuration of structures and

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systems. The fundamental question, therefore, is: what kinds of structures and systems are required for the chosen strategy? Chapter 14 introduces a range of structures and systems and provides frameworks for deciding between them.

● Leadership and strategic change. In a dynamic world, strategy inevitably involves change. Managing change involves leadership, both at the top of the organisation and lower down. There is not just one way of leading change, however: there are different styles and differ- ent levers for change. So the fundamental question is: how should the organisation man- age necessary changes entailed by the strategy? Chapter 15 therefore examines options for managing change, and considers how to choose between them.

● Strategy practice. Inside the broad processes of strategy development and change is a lot of hard, detailed work. The fundamental question in managing this work is: who should do what in the strategy process? Chapter 16 thus provides guidance on which people to include in the process; what activities they should do; and which methodologies can help them do it. These kinds of practicalities are a fitting end to the book and essential equip- ment for those who will have to go out and participate in strategy work themselves.

With regard to strategy in action, the Exploring Strategy Framework raises the following kinds of questions for Tesla. How will Tesla return value to shareholders going forwards? How will the rate of innovation at Tesla be maintained? Should Tesla move towards a more disciplined strategy development process rather than depend on the vision of Elon Musk? Does Tesla need more structure and systems? As Tesla grows, how should any changes that may be necessary be managed?

Thus the Exploring Strategy Framework offers a comprehensive way for analysing an organisation’s position, considering alternative choices, and selecting and implementing strategies. In this sense, the fundamental questions in each chapter provide a comprehensive checklist for strategy. These fundamental questions are summed up in Table 1.1. Any assess- ment of an organisation’s strategy will benefit from asking these questions systematically. The frameworks for answering these and related questions can be found in the respective chapters.

The logic of the Exploring Strategy Framework can be applied to our personal lives as much as to organisations. We all have to make decisions with long-run consequences for our futures and the issues involved are very similar. For example, in pursuing a career strategy, a job-seeker needs to understand the job market, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, establish the range of job opportunities and decide what their career goals really are (posi- tioning issues). The job-seeker then narrows down the options, makes some applications

Table 1.1 The strategy checklist

Sixteen fundamental questions in strategy

Strategic position Strategic choices Strategy in action

● What are the macro-environmental opportunities and threats?

● How can the organisation manage industry forces?

● How are stakeholders aligned to the organisational purpose?

● What resources and capabilities support the strategy?

● How does culture fit the strategy?

● How should business units compete? ● Which businesses to include in a

portfolio? ● Where should the organisation

compete internationally? ● Is the organisation innovating

appropriately? ● Should the organisation buy other

companies, ally or go it alone?

● Are strategies suitable, acceptable and feasible?

● What kind of strategy-making process is needed?

● What are the required organisation structures and systems?

● How should the organisation manage necessary changes?

● Who should do what in the strategy process?

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and finally gets an offer (choice issues). Once the job-seeker has chosen a job, he or she sets to work, adjusting their skills and behaviours to suit their new role (strategy in action). Just as in the non-linear, overlapping Exploring Strategy Framework, experience of the job will frequently amend the original strategic goals. Putting a career strategy into action produces better understanding of strengths and weaknesses and frequently leads to the setting of new career goals.

1.4 WORKING WITh STRaTeGY

Strategy itself is a kind of work, and it is something that almost all levels of management have to engage in, not just top decision-makers. Middle and lower-level managers have to understand their organisation’s strategic objectives and contribute to them as best they can. Managers have to communicate strategy to their teams, and will achieve greater performance from them the more convincing they are in doing so. Indeed, as responsibility is increasingly decentralised in many organisations, middle and lower-level managers play a growing part in shaping strategy themselves. Because they are closer to the daily realities of the business, lower-level managers can be a crucial source of ideas and feedback for senior management teams. Being able to participate in an organisation’s ‘strategic conversation’ – engaging with senior managers on the big issues facing them – is therefore often part of what it takes to win promotion.9

For many managers, then, strategy is part of the job. However, there are specialist strat- egists as well, in both private and public sectors. Many large organisations have in-house strategic planning or analyst roles.10 Typically requiring a formal business education of some sort, strategic planning is a potential career route for many readers of this book, especially after some functional experience. Strategy consulting has been a growth industry in the last decades, with the original leading firms such as McKinsey & Co., the Boston Consulting Group and Bain joined now by more generalist consultants such as Accenture, IBM Con- sulting and PwC, each with its own strategy consulting arm.11 Again, business graduates are in demand for strategy consulting roles, such as that of Claudia in the opening example.12

The interviews in Illustration 1.3 give some insights into the different kinds of strategy work that managers and strategy specialists can do. Galina, the manager of an international subsidiary, Chantal, a strategy consultant, and Paul, heading a strategy office in a not-for- profit organisation, all have different experiences of strategy, but there are some common themes also. All find strategy work stimulating and rewarding. The two specialists, Chantal and Paul, talk more than Galina of analytical tools such as scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis and hypothesis testing. Galina discovered directly the practical challenges of real- world strategic planning, having to adapt the plan during the first few years in the UK. She emphasises the importance of flexibility in strategy and the value of getting her managers to see the ‘whole picture’ through involving them in strategy-making. But Chantal and Paul too are concerned with much more than just analysis. Chantal emphasises the importance of gaining ‘traction’ with clients, building consensus in order to ensure implementation. Paul also realises that delivering recommendations is just the beginning of the strategy process and getting buy-in from key stakeholders is critical for implementation. He sees strategy and delivery as intimately connected, with people involved in delivery needing an understanding of strategy to be effective, and strategists needing to understand delivery.

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ILLUSTRaTION 1.3

For Galina, Chantal and paul, strategy is a large part of their jobs.

Galina At the age of 33, after a start in marketing, Galina became managing director of a Russian-owned British IT company. As well as developing the strategy for her local business, she has to interact regularly with headquarters: ‘Moscow is interested in the big picture, not just the details. They are interested in the future of the business.’

She had to adapt substantially the subsidiary’s strategic plans:

‘When we first came here, we had some ideas about strategy, but soon found the reality was very different to the plans. The strategy was not completely wrong, but in the second stage we had to change it a lot: we had to change techniques and adapt to the market. Now we are in the third stage, where we have the basics and need to focus on trends, to get ahead and be in the right place at the right time.’

Galina works closely with her management team on strat- egy, taking them on an annual ‘strategy away-day’ (see Chap- ter  16 ): ‘Getting people together helps them see the whole picture, rather than just the bits they are responsible for. It is good to put all their separate realities together.’

Galina is enthusiastic about working on strategy:

‘I like strategy work, definitely. The most exciting thing is to think about where we have come from and where we might be going. We started in a pub five years ago and we have somehow implemented what we were hoping for then. Strategy gives you a measure of success. It tells you how well you have done.’

Her advice is: ‘Always have a strategy – have an ultimate idea in mind. But take feedback from the market and from your colleagues. Be ready to adjust the strategy: the adjust- ment is the most important.’

Chantal Chantal is in her early thirties and has worked in Paris for one of the top three international strategy consultancies since graduating in business. Consulting was attractive to her orig- inally because she liked the idea of helping organisations improve. She enjoys strategy consulting because ‘I like solv- ing problems. It’s a bit like working on a mystery case: you have a problem and then you have to find a solution to fit the company, and help it grow and to be better.’

The work is intellectually challenging:

‘Time horizons are short. You have to solve your case in two to three months. There’s lots of pressure. It pushes you and helps you to learn yourself. There are just three to four in a team, so you will make a significant contribution to the project even as a junior. You have a lot of autonomy and you’re making a contribution right from the start, and at quite a high level.’

Consulting work can involve financial and market modelling (see Chapters  3 and 12 ), interviewing clients and customers, and working closely with the client’s own teams. Chantal explains:

‘As a consultant, you spend a lot of time in building solid fact-based arguments that will help clients make business decisions. But as well as the facts, you have to have the ability to get traction. People have to agree, so you have to build consensus, to make sure that recommendations are supported and acted on.’

Chantal summarises the appeal of strategy consulting: ‘I enjoy the learning, at a very high speed. There’s the opportu- nity to increase your skills. One year in consulting is like two years in a normal business.’

paul In his early forties, Paul is a UK ex-pat in Saudi Arabia head- ing up a key part of the Strategy and Planning Office in a large hospital with a multi-million pound investment responsibility.

‘Rational linear analysis is very important here. We have an abundance of data from all the major consultancies and a number of high-profile US academic advisors and need to assemble it for forecasting and trend analysis pur- poses. A great deal of time is taken crafting documents for key stakeholders. Informally we used a range of strategy tools and techniques including statistical analysis, sce- nario analysis (see Chapter  2 ), sensitivity analysis (see Chapter  12 ), hypothesis testing (see Chapter  16 ) and also carry out many internal surveys to monitor implementation progress.’

Paul has been surprised by the sheer amount of time and effort needed to consult key internal and external stakehold- ers personally: ‘I have to consult every project manager and director and, more importantly, politically powerful and rich external stakeholders, regardless of their knowledge – and they have to be flattered to get buy-in.’

What Paul likes about the job is making a difference by ‘changing people’s perceptions, getting powerful individuals to make decisions and understand the reasons – rather than hiding behind endless committees (see Chapter  16 ).’

Source: interviews (interviewees anonymised).

Strategists

Questions 1 Which of these strategy roles appeals to you most –

manager of a business unit in a multinational, strategy consultant or in-house strategy specialist? Why?

2 What would you have to do to get such a role?

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Strategy, therefore, is not just about abstract organisations. It is about linking analysis with implementation on the ground. It is complex work that real people do. An important aim of this book is to equip readers to do this work better.

1.5 STUDYING STRaTeGY

This book is both comprehensive and serious about strategy. To understand the full range of strategy issues – from analysis to action – it is important to be open to the perspectives and insights of key disciplines such as economics, finance, sociology and psychology. To be serious about strategy means to draw as far as possible on rigorous research about these issues. This book aims for an evidence-based approach to strategy, hence the articles and books referenced at the end of each chapter.13

This book therefore covers equally the three main branches of strategy research: con- ventionally, these are known as strategy context, strategy content and strategy process. In terms of the Exploring Strategy Framework (Figure 1.3), context broadly relates to posi- tioning, content to choice and process to action. Each of these branches contains various research streams whose lessons can be readily applied to practical questions of strategy issues. Figure 1.4 shows the three branches and their respective research streams: these are listed in the approximate historical order of their emergence as strong research streams, the arrows representing the continuously developing nature of each. In more detail, the three branches and the characteristic analytical approaches of their main research streams are as follows:

● Strategy context refers to multiple layers of environment, internal and external to organi- sations. All organisations need to take into account the opportunities and threats of their external environments. Macro-environmental analysis has been an enduring theme in strategy with early recognition of multiple pressures upon industries in the 1960s. Subse- quently, researchers have focused upon various additional themes including institutional pressures establishing the ‘rules of the game’ within which companies operate. Industry analysis took off as a research tradition in the early 1980s, when Michael Porter showed

Figure 1.4 Strategy’s three branches

Context (internal and external)

Research:

Macro-environmental

Industry analysis

Cultural analysis

Resource-based

view

Research:

Choice

and

performance

Research:

Strategic planning

Choice and change

Strategy-as-practice

Content (strategic options)

Process (formation and implementation)

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how the tools of economics could be applied to understanding what makes industries attractive (or unattractive) to operate in.14 From the 1980s too, cultural analysts have used sociological insights into human behaviour to point to the importance of shared cultural understandings about appropriate ways of acting. In the internal context, cultural analysts show that strategies are often influenced by the organisation’s specific culture. In the external context, they show how strategies often have to fit with the surrounding industry or national cultures. Resource-based view researchers focus on internal context, looking for the unique characteristics of each organisation.15 According to the resource- based view, the economic analysis of market imperfections, the psychological analysis of perceptual or emotional biases, and the sociological analysis of organisational cultures should reveal the particular characteristics (resources) that contribute to an organisation’s specific competitive advantages and disadvantages.

● Strategy content concerns the content (or nature) of different strategies and their probability of success. Here the focus is on the merits of different strategic options. Strat- egy and performance researchers started by using economic analysis to understand the success of different types of diversification strategies. This research continues as the endur- ing central core of the strategy discipline, with an ever-growing list of issues addressed. For example, contemporary strategy and performance researchers examine various new innovation strategies, different kinds of internationalisation and all the complex kinds of alliance and networking strategies organisations adopt today. These researchers typically bring a tough economic scrutiny to strategy options. Their aim is to establish which types of strategies pay best and under what conditions. They refuse to take for granted broad generalisations about what makes a good strategy.

● Strategy process, broadly conceived, examines how strategies are formed and imple- mented. Research here provides a range of insights to help managers in the practical processes of managing strategy.16 From the 1960s, researchers in the strategic planning tradition have drawn from economics and management science in order to design rational and analytical systems for the planning and implementing of strategy. How- ever, strategy involves people: since the 1980s, choice and change researchers have been pointing to how the psychology of human perception and emotions, and the sociology of group politics and interests, tend to undermine rational analysis.17 The advice of these researchers is to accept the irrational, messy realities of organisations, and to work with them, rather than to try to impose textbook rationality. Finally, strategy-as-practice researchers have recently been using micro-sociological approaches to closely examine the human realities of formal and informal strategy processes.18 This tradition focuses attention on how people do strategy work, and the importance of having the right tools and skills.

From the above, it should be clear that studying strategy involves perspectives and insights from a range of academic disciplines. Issues need to be ‘explored’ from different points of view. A strategy chosen purely on economic grounds can easily be undermined by psy- chological and sociological factors. On the other hand, a strategy that is chosen on the psychological grounds of emotional enthusiasm, or for sociological reasons of cultural acceptability, is liable to fail if not supported by favourable economics. As underlined by the four strategy lenses to be introduced later, one perspective is rarely enough for good strategy. A complete analysis will typically need the insights of economics, psychology and sociology.

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1.6 eXpLORING STRaTeGY FURTheR

So far we have stressed that strategic issues are typically complex, best explored from a number of points of views. There is no simple, universal rule for good strategy. This section introduces two further ways of exploring strategy: one depending on context, the other depending on perspective.

1.6.1 exploring strategy in different contexts

Although the basic elements of the Exploring Strategy Framework are relevant in most cir- cumstances, how they play out precisely is likely to differ according to organisational con- texts. To return to Illustration 1.2, both Samsung and Southampton University share some fundamental issues about how to compete and what activities they should have in their portfolio. However, for a Korean electronics company and a British university, the role of institutions, particularly government, varies widely, affecting the freedom to choose and the ability to change. In applying the Exploring Strategy Framework, it is therefore useful to ask what kinds of issues are likely to be particularly significant in the specific context being considered. To illustrate, this section shows how issues arising from the Exploring Strategy Framework can vary in three important organisational contexts.

● Small businesses. With regard to positioning, small businesses will certainly need to attend closely to the environment, because they are so vulnerable to change. But, especially in small entrepreneurial and family businesses, the most important positioning issue will often be strategic purpose: this will not necessarily just be profit, but might include objec- tives such as independence, family control, handing over to the next generation and maybe even a pleasant lifestyle. The range of strategic choices is likely to be narrower: for a small business, acquisitions may not be affordable, though they may have to decide whether to allow themselves to be acquired. Some issues of strategy in action will be different, for example strategic change processes will not involve the same challenges as for large, complex organisations.

● Multinational corporations. In this context, positioning in a complex global marketplace will be very important. Each significant geographical market may call for a separate anal- ysis of the business environment. Likewise, operating in many different countries will raise positioning issues of culture: variations in national culture imply different demands in the marketplace and different managerial styles internally. Strategic choices are likely to be dominated by international strategy questions about which geographical markets to serve. The scale and geographical reach of most multinationals point to significant issues for strategy-in-action, particularly those of organisational structure and strategic change.

● Public sector and not-for-profits. Positioning issues of competitive advantage will be important even in these contexts, but have a different flavour. Charitable not-for-profits typically compete for funds from donors; public-sector organisations, such as schools and hospitals, often compete on measures such as quality or service. The positioning issue of purpose is likely to be very important too. In the absence of a clear, focused objective such as profit, purpose in the public sector and not-for-profits can be ambiguous and con- tentious. Strategic choice issues may be narrower than in the private sector: for example,

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there may be constraints on diversification. Strategy in action issues often need close attention, leadership and change typically being very challenging in large public-sector organisations.

In short, while drawing on the same basic principles, strategy analysis is likely to vary in focus across different contexts. As the next section will indicate, it is often helpful therefore to apply different lenses to strategy problems.

1.6.2 exploring strategy through different ‘strategy lenses’

Exploring means looking for new and different things. Exploring strategy involves search- ing for new angles on strategic problems. A comprehensive assessment of an organisation’s strategy needs more than one perspective. We introduce ‘the strategy lenses’ as distinct, theoretically-informed perspectives on strategy. The strategy lenses are ways of looking at strategy issues differently in order to generate additional insights. Different perspectives will help you criticise prevailing approaches and raise new issues or solutions. Thus, although drawn from academic theory, the lenses should also be highly practical in the job of doing strategy.

The four lenses are described fully at the end of Part I, after you have had a chance to take on board some key strategy frameworks for analysing strategic position. We shall return to them as well through brief commentaries at the end of Parts II and III. The following is therefore just a brief introduction to the lenses:

● Strategy as design views strategy development as ‘designed’ in the abstract, as an architect might design a building using pens, rulers and paper. Taking a design lens to a strategic problem means valuing hard facts and objectivity. It’s about being systematic, analytical and logical.

● Strategy as experience recognises that an organisation’s future strategy is often heavily influenced by its experience and that of its managers. Taken-for-granted assumptions and ways of doing things, embedded in people’s personal experience and in organisational culture, will drive strategy. Strategy is likely to build on rules of thumb, appeals to prece- dent, standard fixes, biases and routines of key decision-makers.

● Strategy as variety.19 Neither of the above lenses is likely to uncover radical new ideas in strategy as a design approach risks being too rigid and top-down and experience builds too much on the past. The variety lens sees strategy as emergent from within and around organisations as new ideas bubble up through an unpredictable process in response to an uncertain and changing environment.

● Strategy as discourse focuses attention on the ways managers use language to frame stra- tegic problems, make strategy proposals, debate issues and then finally communicate strategic decisions. Strategy discourse becomes a tool for managers to shape ‘objective’ strategic analyses in their favour and to gain influence, power and legitimacy – strategy ‘talk’ matters.

None of these lenses is likely to offer a complete view of a strategic situation. The point of the lenses is to encourage the exploration of different perspectives: first from one point of view and then from another. This might help in recognising how otherwise logical strategic initiatives might be held back by cultural experience, unexpected ideas and self-interested strategy discourse.

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WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

1.1 Drawing on Figure 1.2 as a guide, write a strategy statement for an organisation of your choice (for example, the Airbnb end of chapter case, or your university), drawing on strategy materials in the organisation’s annual report or website.

1.2 Using the Exploring Strategy Framework of Figure 1.3, map key issues relating to strategic position, strategic choices and strategy in action for either the Airbnb or Glastonbury* cases, or an organisation with which you are familiar (for example, your university).

1.3 Go to the website of one of the major strategy consultants such as Bain, the Boston Consulting Group or McKinsey & Co. (see reference 11 below). What does the website tell you about the nature of strategy consulting work? Would you enjoy that work?

1.4✱ Using Figure 1.3 as a guide, show how the elements of strategic management differ in:

(a) a small or family business (e.g. Adnams*)

(b) a large multinational business (e.g. SABMiller or AB InBev in the Megabrew* case, Kraft Foods in the Mondelez* case)

(c) a non-profit organisation (e.g. Aurizon or King Faisal Hospital*).

SUMMaRY ● Strategy is the long-term direction of an organisation.

● The work of strategy is to define and express the purpose of an organisation through its mission, vision, values and objectives.

● Ideally a strategy statement should include an organisation’s goals, scope of activities and the advantages or capabilities it brings to these goals and activities.

● Corporate-level strategy is concerned with an organisation’s overall scope; business-level strategy is concerned with how to compete; and functional strategy is concerned with how corporate- and business-level strategies are actually delivered.

● The Exploring Strategy Framework has three major elements: understanding the strategic position, making strategic choices for the future and managing strategy in action.

● Strategy work is done by managers throughout an organisation, as well as specialist strategic planners and strategy consultants.

● Research on strategy context, content and process shows how the analytical perspectives of economics, finance, sociology and psychology can all provide practical insights for approaching strategy issues.

● Although the fundamentals of strategy may be similar, strategy varies by organisational context, for example, small business, multinational or public sector.

● Strategic issues can be viewed critically from a variety of perspectives, as exemplified by the four strategy lenses of design, experience, variety and discourse.

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ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

It is always useful to read around a topic. As well as the specific references below, we particularly highlight: ● Two stimulating overviews of strategic thinking in gen-

eral, aimed particularly at practicing managers, are C. Montgomery, The Strategist: Be the Leader your Busi- ness Needs, Harper Business, 2012; and R. Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: the Difference and Why it Matters, Crown Business, 2011.

● Two accessible articles on what strategy is, and might not be, are M. Porter, ‘What is strategy?’, Harvard Business Review, November–December 1996, pp. 61–78; and F. Fréry, ‘The fundamental dimensions of strategy’, MIT

Sloan Management Review, vol. 48, no. 1 (2006), pp. 71–75.

● For contemporary developments in strategy practice, con- sult business newspapers such as the Financial Times, Les Echos and the Wall Street Journal and business magazines such as Business Week, The Economist, L’Expansion and Manager-Magazin. Several of these have well-informed Asian editions. See also the websites of the leading strat- egy consulting firms: www.mckinsey.com; www.bcg.com; and www.bain.com.

ReFeReNCeS

1. The question ‘What is strategy?’ is discussed in R. Whitting- ton, What Is Strategy – and Does it Matter?, International Thomson, 1993/2000; and M.E. Porter, ‘What is strategy?’, Harvard Business Review, November–December 1996, pp. 61–78.

2. T. Zenger, ‘What is the theory of your firm?’, Harvard Busi- ness Review, June 2013, pp. 72–80.

3. Cynthia A. Montgomery, ‘Putting leadership back into strat- egy’, Harvard Business Review, January 2008, pp. 54–60.

4. See J. Collins and J. Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Harper Business, 2002.

5. J. Collins and J. Porras, ‘Building your company’s vision’, Harvard Business Review, September–October 1996, pp. 65–77.

6. See Sayan Chatterjee, ‘Core objectives: clarity in designing strategy’, California Management Review, vol. 47, no. 2 (2005), pp. 33–49. For some advantages of ambiguity, see J. Sillince, P. Jarzabkowski and D. Shaw, ‘Shaping strategic action through the rhetorical construction and exploitation of ambiguity’, Organization Science, vol. 22, no. 2 (2011), pp. 1–21.

7. For example, see B. Bartkus, M. Glassman and B. McAfee, ‘Mission statements: are they smoke and mirrors?’, Business Horizons, vol. 43, no. 6 (2000), pp. 23–8.

8. D. Collis and M. Rukstad, ‘Can you say what your strategy is?’ Harvard Business Review, April 2008, pp. 63–73.

9. F. Westley, ‘Middle managers and strategy: microdynamics of inclusion’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 11, no. 5 (1990), pp. 337–51.

10. For insights about in-house strategy roles, see D. N. Angwin, S. Paroutis and S. Mitson, ‘Connecting up strategy: are strategy directors a missing link?’ California Management Review, vol. 51, no. 3 (2009), pp. 74–94.

11. The major strategy consulting firms have a wealth of infor- mation on strategy careers and strategy in general: see www. mckinsey.com; www.bcg.com; www.bain.com.

12. University careers advisers can usually provide good advice on strategy consulting and strategic planning opportunities. See also www.vault.com.

13. For reviews of the contemporary state of strategy as a disci- pline, see J. Mahoney and A. McGahan, ‘The field of stra- tegic management within the evolving science of strategic organization’, Strategic Organization, vol. 5, no. 1 (2007), pp. 79–99; and R. Whittington, ‘Big strategy/small strategy’, Strategic Organization, vol. 10, no. 3 (2012), pp. 263–68.

14. See M.E. Porter, ‘The Five Competitive Forces that shape strategy’, Harvard Business Review, January 2008, pp. 57–91.

15. The classic statement of the resource-based view is J. Barney, ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’, Jour- nal of Management, vol. 17, no. 1 (1991), pp. 91–120.

16. A recent review of strategy process research is H. Sminia, ‘Process research in strategy formation: theory, methodol- ogy and relevance’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 11, no. 1 (2009), pp. 97–122.

17. Psychological influences on strategy are explored in a spe- cial issue of the Strategic Management Journal, edited by T. Powell, D. Lovallo and S. Fox: ‘Behavioral strategy’, vol. 31, no. 13 (2011).

18. For a review of strategy-as-practice research, see E. Vaara and R. Whittington, ‘Strategy-as-practice: taking social prac- tices seriously’, Academy of Management Annals, vol. 6, no. 1 (2012), pp. 285–336.

19. In earlier editions, this lens was called the ‘ideas lens’.

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on a website created by former flatmate and computer programmer, Nathan Blecharczyk. In the summer of 2008, Barack Obama was due to speak in Denver at the Democratic Party National Convention. Eighty thou- sand people were expected to attend and Joe and Brian thought there would be a shortage of hotel rooms. They rushed to complete their website in time and recorded 800 listings in one week. However, it did not make any money. To survive they had to make use of their entrepre- neurial skills, buying cereal in bulk and designing pack- aging such as ‘Obama’s O’s’ and ‘Cap’n McCain’ cereal; jokey references to the two Presidential candidates of the year. However, they soon added a payment facility to their website allowing them to charge up to 15 per cent of the booking (the host pays 3 per cent and the traveller between 6 and 12 per cent). By April 2009, they were breaking even.

Growth

Attracting funding for their start-up was not easy. Inves- tors saw Gebbia and Cesky purely as designers, which did not fit the traditional start-up profile. Funders thought there would not be much demand for listings that mostly advertised sleeping on airbeds.

Nonetheless, in 2009 Airbnb received its first funding of $20,000 from angel investor, Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator (a start-up mentoring programme), who was impressed with their inventiveness and tenacity. The company was renamed Airbnb and it provided an app and website that connects people seeking lodging with renters who have listed their personal houses, apartments, guest rooms on either platform. Further funding followed: in November 2010 Airbnb raised an additional $7.2m. This allowed the company to expand to 8000 cities worldwide, to increase the number of employees to 500 and to move out of the founders’ flat – where staff had been making sales calls from the bathroom and holding conferences in the kitchen – to offices in the design district of San Francisco. The early history of Airbnb is illustrated in Figure  1 .

A unicorn is a mythical animal that has been described since antiquity as a horse with a large pointed spiral horn. Legend has it unicorns are very rare and difficult to tame. It is a name that has been adopted by the US venture capital industry to denote a start-up company whose val- uation exceeds $1bn (£0.6bn, €0.75bn). Airbnb, founded in 2007, was one of these rare and valuable unicorns, already valued at $25bn in 2015. How could this start-up become so successful, so fast?

Origins

The original founders of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, first met at Rhode Island School of Design. Five years later, both aged 27, they were struggling to pay their rent when a design conference came to San Francisco. All the hotels were fully booked, so they set up a simple website with pictures of their loft-turned-lodging space – complete with three air mattresses on the floor and the promise of a home-cooked breakfast in the morning. This site got them their first three paying guests at $80 each. It dawned on them this could be the start of some- thing big. They both wanted to be entrepreneurs and Brian already had some experience having designed a cushion for back sufferers and built a website. 1 Next day they cre- ated a website, www. airbedandbreakfast.com .

They decided to target conferences and festivals across America, getting local people to list their rooms

The rise of a unicorn – airbnb Duncan Angwin

CaSe eXaMpLe

Airbnb logo Source: Russell Hart/Alamy Images.

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competitor Crashpadder just in time for the 2012 Sum- mer Olympics in London. Offices were opened in Paris, Barcelona and Milan. Airbnb’s growth was explosive with a higher valuation than Hyatt and Wyndham hotel groups by 2014 and more guest nights booked than Hilton Hotels (see Figure 2). By 2016 Airbnb was valued at $25bn – more than any other hotel group. The company justified its valuation by claiming that, when its price ($25bn) to sales ratio of 27.8 (based on estimated sales of $900m for 2015) is divided by its high growth rate of 113 per cent per year, the resulting value for the group is broadly in line with the sector.2 Airbnb forecasts $10bn of revenues by 2020, with $3bn of profits before tax.

Airbnb proved attractive to guests and hosts as its listings were far superior to others available at the time, such as Craigslist – they were more personal, with bet- ter descriptions and nicer photos that made them more appealing for people searching for vacation rentals. The rooms provided by Airbnb were also cheaper than equiva- lent ones at hotels and had more of a personal flavour. For instance, in a recent stay in Paris a user noted the host

However, in 2010 Airbnb was experiencing sluggish listings in New York. Joe and Brian booked spaces with 24 hosts and flew out to try to understand the problem. They soon realised hosts were doing a very poor job of presenting their properties. They immediately rented a $5000 camera and took as many photos of New York apartments as possible. Listings in the city suddenly dou- bled. From there on hosts could automatically schedule a professional photographer. This was an immediate hit and by 2012 there were 20,000 freelance photographers being employed by Airbnb around the world. The pho- tos also built trust for guests as they verified addresses. The company also introduced Airbnb Social Connections, which leverages users’ social graphs via Facebook Con- nect. This shows whether friends have stayed with the host or are friends with the host and it allows guests to search for hosts based on other characteristics, like alma mater. Again this reassured potential guests.

Further venture funding of $112m was received in July 2011. Airbnb expanded through acquisitions with a deal in Germany and the purchase of their largest UK-based

Figure 1 Airbnb early growth story Source: Funders and Founders, Inc., image courtesy of Anna Vital.

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culture. But he had a somewhat cynical view that it was practically inevitable once a company gets to a certain size to ‘f*** it up.’

Accordingly, the company began to manage its culture more deliberately. For example, Joe Gebbia had become concerned that as the company grew, it had become less open to dialogue. To encourage more discussion, he invented the notion of ‘elephants, dead fish and vomit’. As Gebbia explains: ‘Elephants are the big things in the room that nobody is talking about, dead fish are the things that happened a few years ago that people can’t get over, and vomit is that sometimes people just need to get something off their mind and you need someone to just sit there and listen’.4 All three need to be aired. Airbnb also established a series of annual meetings called One Airbnb, bringing together employees (called ‘Airfam’) from all around the world to the San Francisco base for four-day conferences at which everyone can meet the founders, discuss strat- egy and also talk about both their work roles and their hobbies. The company has ‘ground control’ staff in every office in the world dedicated to making the company culture ‘come alive’, organising pop-up birthday celebra- tions, anniversary parties or baby showers. The company is rigorous in its recruitment policy, committed to hiring ‘missionaries, not mercenaries’.

At the same time, founders Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk had begun to ask themselves again: ‘What is our mission? What is the big idea that truly defines Airbnb?’. As they recalled in their own words: ‘It turns out the answer was right in front of us. For so long, people thought Airbnb was about renting houses. But really, we’re about home. You see, a house is just a space, but a home is where you belong. And what makes this global community so special is that for the very first

had left a selection of food in the refrigerator, a bottle of wine on the counter for her guests and a welcoming note suggesting good places nearby to eat out and convenience shops. Staying in another person’s apartment makes the visitor feel far more at home than an anonymous hotel room. For many young guests and hosts, Airbnb fitted into the contemporary sharing culture exemplified by Easy car club, where users can rent their car to others, and Girl Meets Dress, that allows girls to borrow and lend their dresses for special occasions. For hosts, rents provide a source of income to help pay for soaring accommodation costs in many major cities.

Managing growth

Founder and CEO Brian Chesky penned a memo in 2013 to his top management team, as follows:3

hey team,

Our next team meeting is dedicated to Core Values, which are essential to building our culture. It occurred to me that before this meeting, I should write you a short letter on why culture is so important to [co-founders] Joe, Nate, and me.

. . . In 2012, we invited peter Thiel [a major investor] to our office. This was late last year, and we were in the Berlin room showing him various metrics. Midway through the conversation, I asked him what was the sin- gle most important piece of advice he had for us.

he replied, ‘Don’t f*** up the culture.’

This wasn’t what we were expecting from someone who just gave us $150m. I asked him to elaborate on this. he said one of the reasons he invested in us was our

Figure 2 Guest nights booked

0

10

20

30

40

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 (est.)

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Questions 1 Sticking to the 35-word limit suggested by Collis

and Rukstad in Section 1.2.3, what strategy statement would you propose for Airbnb?

2 Carry out a ‘three-horizons’ analysis (Section 1.2.1) of Airbnb, in terms of both existing activities and possible future ones. How might this analysis affect its future strategic direction?

3 Using the headings of environments, strategic capability, strategic purpose and culture seen in Section 1.3.1, identify key positioning issues for Airbnb and consider their relative importance.

4 Following on from the previous questions and making use of Section 1.3.2, what alternative strategies do you see for Airbnb?

5 Converting good strategic thinking into action can be a challenge: examine how Airbnb has achieved this by considering the elements seen in Section 1.3.3?

was brewing in the US from vacation rental site Home- Away Inc. (owned by Expedia), Roomorama, HouseTrip, Flipkey and Travel Advisor holiday rentals. Indeed, web- sites have sprung up such as www.airbnbhell.com that list a string of internet accommodation providers. None- theless, at the time of writing Airbnb was rumoured to be the hottest IPO (an initial public offering of its stock to investors) tip for 2016.

References 1. Salter, J. (2012) ‘Airbnb: The story behind the $1.3bn room-letting web-

site’, The Telegraph, 7 September; Lee, A. (2013) ‘Welcome to The Uni- corn Club: learning from billion-dollar startups’, TechCrunch, 2 November, https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/

2. A ratio of price /sales to revenue growth rate gives Airbnb a figure of 24.6 against Marriott at 19.2, Wyndham at 34.1 and Expedia at 12.2 (Guest post, ‘ Why that crazy-high AirBnB valuation is fair, www.valuewalk.com, 1 January 2016).

3. h t tps : / /medium.com /@bchesky/dont- fuck-up - the - cu l ture - 597cde9ee9d4\#.5wd5kwtdm.

4. B. Clune, ‘How Airbnb is building its culture through belonging’, Culture Zine.

5. http://blog.airbnb.com/belong-anywhere/. 6. Zacks.com, ‘Investing in resting: is Airbnb a top 2016 IPO candidate?’,

11 December 2015.

time, you can belong anywhere. That is the idea at the core of our company.’5

airbnb in 2016

In 2016, Airbnb had over 1.5 million listings in 34,000 cities in 192 countries, with 40 million total guests. Any- one anywhere in the world can list spare space from a room to a tree house, from a castle to an island in Fiji, with prices ranging from $50 to $2000 per night. Airbnb received 30 million page views per month. The headquar- ters’ walls were covered with world maps dotted with hun- dreds of coloured pins, charting world domination. Airbnb was so popular that one of their rooms was booked every two seconds.6

The company was now focused on the whole travel trip with an emphasis on delivering local experiences. This focus on hospitality was not just about where you stay, but what you do – and whom you do it with – while you’re there. To this end they introduced Airbnb Neighbourhoods and local lounges, partnering with local coffee shops that can offer free wifi, a comfortable setting and local guide- books. They also acquired a small start-up that connects guests with locals who can answer their questions. They also offer cleaning services.

Airbnb was providing a strong challenge to hotels with prices 30–80 per cent lower than local operators. San Francisco hotels were having to slash prices to protect their occupancy rates. Incumbents in the industry fought back by arguing Airbnb were dangerous and unsafe in terms of health and safety and quality assurance as it was unregulated. Although one must have a permit to rent for under 30 days, San Francisco residents were still illegally listing personal homes and apartments. Similar problems were being experienced in New York where an ‘illegal hotel law’ was passed preventing people from subletting apart- ments for less than 29 days. There was also a question mark over hosts not paying tax on earnings.

During 2016, Airbnb redesigned its website and apps with subtle animations and flashier imagery. This huge rebranding represented a transition from a hotel service to a lifestyle brand. Airbnb wanted their logo to be seen on a variety of products, houses and businesses, so people understood that owners supported their ideal and their brand. Airbnb’s focus was now firmly on ‘belonging’. This rebranding may not have been before time, as competition

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28

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Strategy in action

Strategic choices

Strategic position

Macro- environment

CultureResources

StakeholdersIndustry

paRT I THE STRATEGIC POSITION This part explains:

● How to analyse an organisation’s position in the external environment – both macro-environment and industry or sector environment.

● How to analyse the determinants of strategic capability – resources, competences and the linkages between them.

● How to understand an organisation’s purposes, taking into account corporate governance, stakeholder expectations and business ethics.

● How to address the role of history and culture in determining an organisation’s position.

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INTRODUCTION TO paRT I

This part of the book is concerned with understanding the strategic position of the organ- isation. There are five chapters, organised around two themes. The first theme is the organisation’s strategic potential, in other words what it can do. The second theme is the organisation’s strategic ambitions, what it actually seeks to do, sometimes deliberately and sometimes not so deliberately (see Figure  I.1 ).

Strategic potential is addressed as follows:

● Chapters  2 and 3 consider how different environments can be more or less rich in oppor- tunities or hostile, imposing threats and constraints.

● Chapter  4 considers how each organisation has its own particular strategic capabilities (resources and competences), and how these can enable or constrain strategies.

Organisational ambitions are addressed in the following two chapters:

● Chapter  5 is about ambition in terms of the stakeholders’ objectives, and the governance mechanisms to ensure their delivery.

● Chapter  6 examines how an organisation’s history and culture may shape the ambitions of an organisation, often in taken-for-granted and hard-to-change ways.

There is an important strategic dilemma that runs through Chapters 2, 3 and 4 . How much should managers concentrate their attention on the external market position and how much should they focus on developing their internal capabilities? On the external side, many argue that environmental factors are what matter most to success: strategy development should be primarily about seeking attractive opportunities in the marketplace. Those favouring a more internal approach, on the other hand, argue that an organisation’s specific strategic capabilities should drive strategy. It is from these internal characteristics that distinctive strat- egies and superior performance can be built. There can be a real trade-off here. Managers who invest time and resources in developing their external market position (perhaps through acquiring companies that are potential competitors) have less time and resources to invest in managing their internal capabilities (for example, building up research and development). The same applies in reverse.

Figure I.1 Strategic position

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31

Chapters  5 and 6 raise another underlying issue. To what extent should managers’ ambi- tions for their organisations be considered as free or constrained? Chapter  5 explains how the expectations of investors, regulators, employees and customers can often influence strategy. Chapter  6 raises the constraints on managers exercised by organisational history and culture. Managers may be only partially aware of these kinds of constraints and are often in danger of underestimating the hidden limits to their ambitions.

Understanding the extent of managers’ freedom to choose is fundamental to considering the issues of strategic choice that make up Part II of this book. But first Part I provides a foundation by exploring the question of strategic position.

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Strategic choices

Macro- environment

Stakeholders

Resources Culture

Industry

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Analyse the broad macro-environment of organisations in terms of political , economic , social , technological , ecological and legal factors (PESTEL).

● Evaluate different approaches to environmental forecasting. ● Construct alternative scenarios in order to address possible environmental changes.

2 MACRO- ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

forecasting p.47

key drivers p.47

macro-environment p.33

organisational field p. 40

peSTeL analysis p.34

scenarios p.51

Key terms

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INTRODUCTION

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2.1 INTRODUCTION

The environment creates both opportunities and threats for organisations. Some organisations have been transformed by environmental change: think how traditional cable and satellite TV services such as Comcast and Sky are being challenged by the digital tech- nologies of players such as Netflix or Amazon. Some organisations have sprung suddenly to global scale: take for example the end of chapter case, the Alibaba trading company, whose massive growth in less than two decades has been facilitated by a combination of new technologies, Chinese political and economic change and international regulations. Although the future can never be predicted perfectly, it is clearly important that entrepre- neurs and managers try to analyse their environments as carefully as they can in order to anticipate and – if possible – take advantage of such environmental changes.

Environments can be considered in terms of a series of ‘layers’, as summarised in Figure 2.1. This chapter focuses on organisations’ macro-environments, the outermost layer. The macro-environment consists of broad environmental factors that impact to a greater or lesser extent many organisations, industries and sectors. For example, the effects of macro-environmental factors such as the internet, economic growth rates, climate change and aging populations go far beyond one industry or sector, impacting a wide range of activities from tourism to agriculture. The industry, or sector, makes up the next layer within this broad macro-environment. This layer consists of organisations producing the same sorts of products or services, for example the automobile industry or the healthcare sector. The third layer is that of specific competitors and markets immediately surrounding organisations. For a company like Nissan, this layer would include competitors such as Ford and Volkswagen; for a hospital, it would include similar facili- ties and particular groups of patients. Whereas this chapter focuses on the macro-environment, Chapter 3 will analyse industries and sectors and competitors and markets. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the individual organisations at the heart of Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Layers of the business environment

The macro-environment

Industry (or sector)

Competitors

Markets

The Organisation

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Macro-environmental changes can often seem too big, complex or unpredictable for man- agers to grasp. The result is that changes can creep up on them until it is too late to avoid threats or take advantage of opportunities. Thus many traditional retailers, banks and news- papers were slow to seize the opportunities of the internet; many oil and steel producers underestimated the potential impact of China’s slowing economic growth. While managers are always liable to some biases and inertia (see Chapter 5), this chapter introduces a number of analytical tools and concepts that can help keep organisations alert to macro-environ- mental change. The point is to minimise threats and to seize opportunities. The chapter is organised in three main sections:

● PESTEL factors which examine macro-environmental factors according to six key types: political, economic, social, technological, ecological and legal. These factors include both market and nonmarket aspects.

● Forecasting, which aims to predict, with varying degrees of precision or certainty. Macro-environmental forecasting draws on PESTEL analysis and often makes use of three conceptual tools: megatrends, inflexion points and weak signals.

● Scenario analysis, a technique that develops plausible alternative views of how the envi- ronment might develop in the future. Scenario analysis differs from forecasting because it avoids predictions about the future; it is more about learning different possibilities for environmental change.

The structure of this chapter is summarised in Figure 2.2.

2.2 peSTeL aNaLYSIS

This section introduces a key tool for analysing the broad macro-environment of an organ- isation: PESTEL analysis. Providing a wide overview, PESTEL is likely to feed into both environmental forecasts and scenario analyses.

The PESTEL framework is one of several frameworks (including the similar ‘PEST’ and ‘STEEPLE’ frameworks) which categorise environmental factors into key types.1 peSTeL analysis highlights six environmental factors in particular: political, economic, social, technological, ecological and legal. This list underlines that the environment includes not only the economics of markets, but also nonmarket factors. Organisations need to consider both market and nonmarket aspects of strategy:2

Figure 2.2 Analysing the macro-environment

PESTEL analysis

• market • nonmarket

Scenario analysis

Learning emphasis

Forecasting • megatrends • inflexion points • weak signals Prediction emphasis

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● The market environment consists mainly of suppliers, customers and competitors. These are environmental participants with whom interactions are primarily economic. Here, companies typically compete for resources, revenues and profits. Pricing and innovation are often key strategies here. The market environment is discussed extensively in Chapter 3, but issues such as economic cycles are also considered in this chapter (Section 2.2.2).

● The nonmarket environment involves primarily the social, political, legal and ecological factors, but can also be impacted by economic factors. Key participants in the nonmarket environment are not just other businesses, but non-governmental organisations (NGOs), politicians, government departments, regulators, political activists, campaign groups and the media. In the nonmarket environment, organisations need to build reputation, connec- tions, influence and legitimacy. Lobbying, public relations, networking and collaboration are key nonmarket strategies.

Nonmarket factors are obviously important for government and similar organisations reliant on grants or subsidies, for example schools, hospitals and charities. However, nonmarket factors can be very important for business organisations too. For example, nonmarket factors are particularly important where the government or regulators are powerful (for instance in the defence and healthcare sectors); where consumer sensitivities are high (for instance in the food business); or in societies where political, business and media elites are closely intercon- nected (typically smaller countries, or countries where the state is powerful).

The following sections consider each of the PESTEL elements in turn, providing key analytical concepts and frameworks for each. Meanwhile, Illustration 2.1 on oil giant BP pro- vides examples of various PESTEL factors, showing how in practice they often inter-relate.

2.2.1 politics

The political element of PESTEL highlights the role of the state and other political factors in the macro-environment. There are two important steps in political analysis: first, identifying the importance of political factors; second carrying out political risk analysis.

Figure 2.3 is a matrix that distinguishes two variables helpful to identifying the importance of political factors:

● The role of the state. In many countries and sectors, the state is often important as a direct economic actor, for instance as a customer, supplier, owner or regulator of businesses.

● Exposure to civil society organisations. Civil society comprises a whole range of organisations that are liable to raise political issues, including political lobbyists, cam- paign groups, social media or traditional media.

To take an example from Figure 2.3, the defence industry faces a highly politicised envi- ronment. Defence companies typically have high direct state involvement: national armed services are of course key customers, while states are often owners of their national defence companies. At the same time, defence companies are often highly exposed to groups from civil society, for instance campaigners against the international arms trade. By contrast, food companies face less direct state involvement: most food companies are privately-owned and operate in private-sector markets. However, the political environment is still important for food companies, as they are typically exposed to pressures from civil society in the form of fair trade campaigners, labour rights organisations and health lobbying groups. Pressures from civil society organisations can increase state involvement by demanding additional regulation, for instance health standards for food products. Canals are often state-owned but nowadays are not highly exposed to political pressures from civil society organisations. Industries can rapidly change positions: thus revelations about internet monitoring by

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ILLUSTRaTION 2.1

In 2016, the world’s oil industry was facing a toughening macro-environment.

A PESTEL analysis can be done using published sources (e.g. company annual reports, media articles and consultants’ reports) or more extensively by direct discussion with managers, customers, suppliers, con- sultants, academics, government officials and financial analysts. It is important not to rely just on a firm’s managers, who may have limited views. A PESTEL analysis of the world oil industry in 2016 based on published sources shows a preponderance of threats over opportunities. In the figure above, the scale of Opportunities and Threats on each of the PESTEL dimensions is indicated by the relative extent of the bars. Just taking 12 issues for illustration, the figure shows more and longer bars on the Threats side than the Opportunities side. Thus:

● Political. Global instability raised potential threats to supply and distribution, with tensions in oil-produc- ing regions such as Russia and the Middle East, and in major oil-consuming regions, such as the South China Sea. Short-term, prices were depressed by Saudi Arabian policy to maintain output despite declining demand: oil prices had halved during 2015. The main opportunity was various measures of government support, particularly in favour of shale oil production in China and the West.

● Economic. During 2014–15, the world had recorded declining economic growth, with only a modest upturn forecast for 2016. High growth regions such as India and Africa still offered opportunities and Western oil companies were reducing their costs through mergers.

● Social. In the West, car usage is declining; in the USA, the number of car passenger miles has fallen by more than 10 per cent since 2007.

● Technological. More fuel-efficient cars were also reducing demand, with average miles per gallon improving by 40 per cent since the early 1980s. More positively, technology offered oil producers opportunities to reduce costs: e.g. more efficient production using digital sensors.

● Ecological. Climate change raised indirect legal and political threats, but also posed direct threats, as global warming changed demand patterns and threatened production and distribution infrastruc- ture with more extreme weather events.

● Legal. Oil companies were facing higher legal penal- ties for pollution: in 2015, BP had to pay $18.7bn (£11.2bn, €14bn) in fines for the Deepwater Hori- zon disaster. Global agreements such as the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference were increasing legal measures to promote decarbonisation.

BP’s PESTEL

Questions 1 In the light of this analysis, what strategic

options would you advise a Western oil producer such as Shell or BP to consider?

2 Have the Opportunities and Threats changed since 2016? How would you update this analysis?

P

E

S

T

E

L

Opportunities Threats

Slow world economic growth

Lower car usage

New production technologies

Government support

Fuel efficiency technologies

Global instability Saudi Arabian policy

Pollution liabilities Decarbonisation

New growth regions Business mergers

Climate change

High High

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37

national security agencies has placed companies such as Apple and Facebook much more under scrutiny by governments, civil liberties groups and consumers.

Organisations that face politicised environments need to carry out political risk analysis, the analysis of threats and opportunities arising from potential political change. There are two key dimensions to political risk analysis:3

● The macro–micro dimension. The macro dimension of political risk refers to the risks associated with whole countries – for instance China, France or Nigeria. Many special- ist organisations publish relative rankings of countries’ macro political risks. Western European countries are typically ranked low in terms of macro political risk, as even changes of government following elections do not bring fundamental change. On the other hand, some Middle Eastern countries rank high in terms of macro political risk, because changes of government there can be sudden and radical.4 However, there is also an important micro dimension of political risk, relating to the specific risk of particular organisations or sectors within a country. It is important to distinguish between macro political risk and specific micro-level risk. China is typically ranked medium political risk on the macro dimension, but for some Japanese companies operating there the micro dimension is higher and variable. For many Chinese consumers, resentment of Japan is strong and Japanese car companies are from time to time targeted by nationalist boycotts.

● The internal–external dimension. The internal dimension of political risk relates to fac- tors originating within the countries, for example government change or pressure from local campaigning groups. These can be relatively easy to monitor, requiring attention to election dates and opinion polls, for example. However, there are also external politi- cal risks, the knock-on effects of events occurring outside particular countries’ national boundaries. For example, a fall in oil prices driven by the internal politics of Saudi Ara- bia is liable to have negative economic and political impacts on other big oil-producing countries such as Russia and Venezuela. On the other hand, oil price falls can produce political benefits in energy-importing countries such as India or Japan. External political risk analysis involves careful analysis of economic, political and other linkages between countries around the world.

Figure 2.3 The political environment

Direct state involvement

Political exposure

High

Low

Low

High

e.g. Defence industry e.g. Canal industry

e.g. Food industry e.g. Hotel industry

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2.2.2 economics

The macro-environment is also influenced by macro-economic factors such as currency exchange rates, interest rates and fluctuating economic growth rates around the world. It is important for an organisation to understand how its markets are affected by the prosperity of the economy as a whole. Managers should have a view on how changing exchange rates may affect viability in export markets and vulnerability to imports. They should have an eye to changing interest rates over time, especially if their organisations have a lot of debt. They should understand how economic growth rates rise or fall over time. There are many public sources of economic forecasts that can help in predicting the movement of key economic indicators, though these are often prone to error because of unexpected economic shocks.5

A key concept for analysing macro-economic trends is the economic cycle. Despite the possibility of unexpected shocks, economic growth rates have an underlying tendency to rise and fall in regular cycles. These cycles can also link to other important economic var- iables. For example, severe downturns in economic growth are often followed by falls in interest rates and exchange rates. Awareness of cycles reinforces an important pattern in the macro-environment: good economic times do not last forever, while bad economic times lead eventually to recovery. The key is to identify cyclical turning points.

Overall cycles in economic growth are made up of three principal sub-cycles, each of varying length (and named after the economists who originally identified them):6

● The Kitchin or ‘stock’ cycle is the shortest cycle, tending to last about three to four years from one cyclical peak to the next. This short cycle is driven by the need for firms to build up stocks of raw materials and parts as economies emerge from recessions. The build-up of stocks gives an additional boost to economic growth for a year or so, but the boost fades as firms no longer need to build their stocks. As economic growth slows, firms tend to run down their stocks by buying-in less, which reinforces the downward trend. A Kitchin cycle turning point comes when stocks are totally run down and firms fuel the upturn by building-up stocks again.

● The Juglar or ‘investment’ cycle is a medium-term cycle, typically stretching over 7–11 years. The cycle is driven by surges of investment in capital equipment, for instance plant and machinery. The Juglar downturn comes once these investments have been made across an economy and firms are able to cut back on further investment until the equipment is worn out. These investment cut-backs drain demand from the economy. The economy only reaches a new turning-point when wear and tear or innovation forces firms to spend again by investing in a new generation of capital equipment.

● The Kuznets or ‘infrastructure’ cycle is the longest, lasting between 15 and 25 years. These cycles follow the life-spans of infrastructural investments, for example in housing or trans- port. Kuznets cycles are triggered by initial surges of infrastructure investment, which then ease off as infrastructural needs are met, perhaps for a decade or so. The cyclical upturn comes when the last generation of infrastructure is worn out or outdated, and a new surge of investment is required.

The three sub-cycles add together to determine overall cycles of economic growth. Thus in Figure 2.4, year 1 corresponds with simultaneous low-points in all three of the Kitchin, Juglar and Kuznets cycles: this could be expected to be a very bad year for economic growth. Year 8, on the other hand, corresponds with low growth on both the Kitchin and Juglar cycles, but an approaching peak in the Kuznets cycles: this would be a less bad year.

Managers making long-term strategic decisions should assess where they stand in the overall economic cycle. For example, it might be tempting after several years of rising growth to launch major investments in new capacity. Such new capacity might not be needed in the

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39

subsequent slowdown. On the other hand, two or three years of slowing growth might make firms over-cautious about new investment. As the economy recovers in the following years, rivals who had invested in extra capacity or innovation might be able to seize the advantage, leaving over-cautious firms struggling to catch up. In assessing the economic environment, therefore, it is crucial not to assume that current economic growth rates will continue.

Some industries are particularly vulnerable to economic cycles. For example:

● Discretionary spend industries. In industries where purchasers can easily put off their spending for a year or two, there tend to be strong cyclical effects. Thus housing, restau- rants and cars tend be highly cyclical because many people can choose to delay or curtail spending on these for a while. After a period of curtailed spending, there is liable to be a strong upturn as pent-up demand is finally released into the market.

● High fixed cost industries. Industries such as airlines, hotels and steel suffer from eco- nomic downturns because high fixed costs in plant, equipment or labour tend to encour- age competitive price-cutting to ensure maximum capacity utilisation when demand is low. For example, an airline might try to fill its seats in the face of falling demand simply by offering cheap tickets. If its competitors do the same, the resulting price-war will result in low profits for all the airlines.

2.2.3 Social

The social elements of the macro-environment have at least two impacts upon organisa- tions. First, they can influence the specific nature of demand and supply within the overall economic growth rate. Second, they can shape the innovativeness, power and effectiveness of organisations.

In the first place, there are a number of key aspects of the social environment that can shape demand and supply. These can be analysed under the following four headings:

● Demographics. For example, the ageing populations in many Western societies create opportunities and threats for both private and public sectors. There is increasing demand for services for the elderly, but diminishing supplies of young labour to look after them.

● Distribution. Changes in wealth distribution influence the relative sizes of markets. Thus the concentration of wealth in the hands of elites over the last 20 years has constrained some categories of ‘middle-class’ consumption, while enlarging markets for certain luxury goods.

Figure 2.4 Economic cycles

Kuznets infrastructure cycle (15–25 years)

1 208 Years

Cycle growth rates Juglar investment

cycle (7–11 years)

Kitchin stock cycle (3–4 years)

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● Geography. Industries and markets can be concentrated in particular locations. In the United Kingdom, economic growth has in recent decades been much faster in the London area than in the rest of the country. Similarly, industries often form ‘clusters’ in particular locations: thus there are high concentrations of scientists and engineers in California’s Silicon Valley (see also Chapter 10).7

● Culture. Changing cultural attitudes can also raise strategic challenges. For example, new ethical attitudes are challenging previously taken-for-granted strategies in the financial ser- vices industry. Changing cultural attitudes can be linked to changing demographics. Thus the rise of ‘digital natives’ (generations born after the 1980s, and thus from childhood immersed in digital technologies) is changing expectations about media, consumption and education.

A second important social aspect of the macro-environment is organisational networks, with significant implications for innovativeness, power and effectiveness. These networks are frequently described as ‘organisational fields’.8 An organisational field is a community of organisations that interact more frequently with one another than with those outside the field. These organisational fields are partly economic as they include competing organisa- tions within the industry or sector, as well as customers and suppliers in the marketplace (see Chapter 3). However, the concept of organisational fields also emphasises social interactions with other organisations and actors that exercise an influence on the focal organisation. These might include political organisations such as governments and campaign groups, legal entities such as regulators, and other social groups, such as professions and trade unions. Sometimes key actors in the field might even be particularly influential individuals, for exam- ple politicians. The organisational field is therefore much broader than just industries or markets. Because of the importance of social networks, managers need to analyse the influ- ence of a wide range of organisational field members, not just competitors, customers and suppliers.

Networks and organisational fields can be analysed by means of sociograms, maps of potentially important social (or economic) connections.9 For a new hi-technology enterprise, important network connections might be links to leading universities, powerful firms and respected venture capitalists, for example. Maps can help assess the effectiveness of networks and identify who is likely to be most powerful and innovative within them. Three concepts help to understand effectiveness, power and innovativeness:

● Network density typically increases network effectiveness. Density refers to the number of interconnections between members in the network map. Effectiveness is increased by density because the more interconnections there are, the better the communication of new ideas between network members. Everybody is talking to each other, and nobody with potentially useful information is isolated.

● Central hub positions, where a particular organisation is responsible for connecting many network members, are relatively powerful within a network. Hubs have power because network members rely on them for interconnection with other members. Hubs are also potentially innovative because they can collect ideas from the whole network, and they hear about what is going on in one part of the network before most other parts.

● Broker positions, where a particular organisation connects otherwise separate groups of organisations, are associated with innovativeness. Brokers’ innovation advantage stems from their ability to link the most valuable information from one group of organisations with the most valuable information from the other group. Because they provide the con- nection between the two groups, they are able to exploit this combination of information before anybody else.

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Figure 2.5 provides an illustrative sociogram of two organisations’ networks, A and B. Together these networks constitute a shared organisational field, although there are two relatively distinct groups within it. Because they link the two groups of organisations, organ- isation A and B can both be seen as brokers. Moreover, organisation A occupies a central hub position in its immediate network, connecting to seven other organisations, including organisation B. Organisation B is also a hub, though it links directly to only five organisa- tions: to connect with organisation D, for instance, it passes through organisation C. Because organisation B is a less central hub, the sociogram suggests that it is likely to be relatively less powerful and innovative in its immediate group than organisation A. On the other hand, organisation B is likely to be more powerful and innovative than organisation C, because of its hub position and its role as broker. Moreover, although organisation B might be relatively less powerful and innovative in its group than organisation A, the overall effectiveness of its group might be greater than organisation A’s. Organisation B’s immediate network is denser, with more interconnections between individual members: all B’s group have at least two or three connections. This density of connections means that ideas are more likely to pass quickly between group members, saving the problems involved in always going through a central hub. In this sense, organisation B may individually have less advantage relative to its group than organisation A, but collectively its network may perform better.

Sociograms can be drawn for key people as well as organisations: individuals are often the link between organisations anyway. Personal networks are important in many societies, for example the network of former consultants at the elite McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, or networks of company directors, or the interpersonal guanxi networks that prevail in China. Illustration 2.2 describes the network that has emerged from the armed service backgrounds of many Israeli entrepreneurs. The crucial issue in analysing social networks is how hub positions, brokering roles and network density are likely to affect a particular organisation’s power, innovativeness and overall effectiveness.

Some organisational fields can be characterised as ‘small worlds’.10 Small worlds exist where the large majority of a network’s members is closely connected, either just one step away (as C is from B in Figure 2.5) or one or two more steps away (as D is from B). Small

Figure 2.5 Sociogram of social networks within an organisational field

B

C D

A

Organisational field

A is a more central hub than B; both A and B are brokers; B’s immediate network is denser than A’s.

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ILLUSTRaTION 2.2

Israel, a nation of just eight million people, exports more than $6bn worth of cybersecurity products a year, accounting for about 10 per cent of the global cybersecurity market. At the heart of this success is Unit 8200, the largest unit of the Israeli Defence Force and the equivalent of America’s National Secu- rity Agency.

Unit 8200’s alumni have produced more hi-tech start-ups per capita than the University of Stanford. Some of the successful companies originating with Unit 8200 include Check Point, with 2900 employ- ees and a pioneer in Virtual Private Networks; NICE Systems, with 2700 employees and a pioneer in tele- phone recording technology; and Palo Alto Networks, with 3000 employees and a pioneer in computer fire- wall technology. Unit 8200 recruits are drawn from young Israelis doing their national military service: because this is compulsory only for Jews, few Arabs join. Recruitment into Unit 8200 is highly selective (in the Israeli Defence Force, only pilot training is harder to enter) and favours skilled computer science stu- dents and linguists. Recruits come disproportionately from the richer and more highly educated Tel Aviv area of Israel, and from elite schools such as Leyada, the semi-private Hebrew University High School in Jerusa- lem (where the founder of Check Point was a student). Alumni of Unit 8200 go not only into hi-tech business; many pursue successful careers in politics, the judici- ary, the media and academia. For example, the former CEO of NICE Systems became director general of the Israeli Ministry of Finance.

Unit 8200’s young recruits are intensively trained and work long hours in small groups applying the latest technology to security matters that might involve life and death. To maximise security, Unit 8200’s technology systems – from analytics to data mining, intercept and intelligence management – are designed and built in-house. This experience pre- pares Unit 8200 alumni well for futures in hi-tech business. Avi Hasson, Chief Scientist at the Israeli Economy Ministry and himself an alumnus of Unit 8200, describes the working environment: ‘When it

comes to managing a startup, Unit 8200 is a fan- tastic school. . . . The unit encourages independent thought. It’s something that was adopted later by many companies, a little like the culture in Google, in which good ideas can come from anywhere.’

Because recruitment in hi-tech tends to favour a ‘buddy-system’, alumni are often sought out for employ- ment by other alumni. Experience of this intense, elitist organisation in the formative years of youth creates strong social bonds. The 8200 alumni association has more than 15,000 members, and hosts networking events and community outreach programmes, includ- ing start-up accelerators.

By 2020, Unit 8200 is due to move adjacent to the Advanced Technology Park at Be’er Sheva in southern Israel’s Negev Desert. In 2013, Israel’s President Ben- jamin Netanyahu had declared that Be’er Sheva would become the ‘cybercenter of the Western hemisphere’. Be’er Sheva already had the advantage of the local Ben-Gurion University and its Cyber Security Research Centre. The National Cyber Bureau, a newly created agency advising the government on cyber policies, moved to Be’er Sheva in 2015. Companies already with operations in the Advanced Technology Park included many leading foreign firms such as Deutsche Telecom, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, PayPal and EMC. Ven- ture capital firm JVP, with more than $1bn (£0.6bn, € 0.75bn) funding available, was also running a local ‘cyberincubator’ for start-ups. One of its first ventures was sold to PayPal.

Sources: Haaretz, 18 April and 24 April 2015; Financial Times, 10 July 2015; TechCrunch, 20 March 2015.

Intelligence Unit 8200 and the small world of Israeli hi-tech

Questions 1 Identify at least one important hub and one

important broker in the Unit 8200 network.

2 If you were a foreign cybersecurity company, what would you do to access Israel’s expertise?

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worlds typically give members a good deal of protection and effectiveness, due to their den- sity. However, outsider organisations (for example foreign firms) will have difficulty pene- trating small world networks on their own, and will typically require the help of insiders. Small worlds are particularly likely in societies where economic activity is geographically concentrated or where social elites share common backgrounds (for example, the French elite is often characterised as living in the same exclusive parts of Paris and as graduating from the same higher education institutions, the so-called Grandes Ecoles). Thus an important aspect of social analysis is the extent of small worlds in the macro-environment.

2.2.4 Technology

Further important elements within the macro-environment are technologies such as the inter- net, nanotechnology or new composite materials, whose impacts can spread far beyond single industries. As in the case of internet streaming, new technologies can open up opportunities for some organisations (e.g. Spotify and YouTube), while challenging others (traditional music and broadcasting companies). Chapter 10 will discuss specific strategies surrounding innovative new technologies in more detail.

Meanwhile, it is important to carry out the macro-environmental analysis of technology in order to identify areas of potential innovative activity. There are five primary indicators of innovative activity:11

● Research & development budgets. Innovative firms, sectors or countries can be identified by the extent of spending on research, typically reported in company annual reports and government statistics.

● Patenting activity. Firms active in patenting new technologies can be identified on national patent registers, the most important being the United States Patents and Trademarks Office.

● Citation analysis. The potential impact of patents and scientific papers on technology can be measured by the extent to which they are widely cited by other organisations, with data available from Google Scholar for instance.

● New product announcements. Organisations typically publicise their new product plans through press releases and similar media.

● Media coverage. Specialist technology and industry media will cover stories of the latest or impending technologies, as will various social media.

Although there is some variation between firms, sectors and countries in how far their innova- tive activity is reflected by these kinds of indicators, generally they will help to identify areas of rapid technological change and locate centres of technological leadership. For example, an analysis for the new material graphene (a material just one atom thick, but both strong and highly flexible) reveals that the annual number of published scientific papers multiplied by four between 2010 and 2014. Clearly graphene is likely to be of growing importance in the coming years. However, technological leadership is not clear. Western Europe accounts for 34 per cent of the scientific papers, but just 9 per cent of the patents. China accounts for 40 per cent of the patents and Samsung is the single firm with the largest number of patents. In terms of graphene application areas, patenting is greatest in electronics and composite materials.12

Many organisations also publish technology roadmaps for their sectors going forward.13 Technology roadmaps project into the future various product or service demands, identify technology alternatives to meet these demands, select the most promising alternatives and then offer a timeline for their development. Thus they provide good indicators of future technological developments. Figure  2.6 provides a simplified technology roadmap for

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applications of graphene in electronics, both components and circuits and electronic sys- tems. The roadmap suggests that tests of graphene devices in live animals and humans will be underway by 2018, with products like drug-screening devices and ultra-sensitive sensors emerging around 2020. This kind of roadmap has implications that go beyond the electronics industry, to include pharmaceuticals and every sector where detecting product characteristics is important, from retails to logistics.

2.2.5 ecological

Within the PESTEL framework, ecological stands specifically for ‘green’ macro-environ- mental issues, such as pollution, waste and climate change. Environmental regulations can impose additional costs, for example pollution controls, but they can also be a source of opportunity, for example the new businesses that emerged around mobile phone recycling.

When considering ecological issues in the macro-environment, there are three sorts of challenges that organisations may need to meet:14

● Direct pollution obligations are an obvious challenge, and nowadays typically involve not just cleaning up ‘at the end of the pipe’ (for example, disposing of waste by-products safely), but also minimising the production of pollutants in the first place. Having clean processes for supply, production and distribution is generally better than managing the consequences of polluting after the fact.

● Product stewardship refers to managing ecological issues through both the organisation’s entire value chain and the whole life cycle of the firm’s products. Stewardship here might involve responsibility for the ecological impact of external suppliers or final end-users. It will also involve responsibility for what happens to products at ‘end of life’, in other words how they are disposed of when consumers have no more use for them. Thus car manufacturers are increasingly responsible for the recycling and safe disposal of old cars.

Figure 2.6 Technology roadmap for graphene technology in electronics Source: Substantially simplified from A. Ferrari, ‘Science and technology roadmap for graphene’, Nanoscale, vol. 7 (2015), pp. 4598–810 (Figure 121, p. 4759).

2016 2018 2020 2024 and later

S ci

en ce

a nd

te ch

no lo

gy

C om

po ne

nt s

an d

ci rc

ui ts

S ys

te m

s

Drug screening devices

DNA sensors

Biosensors

Imaging platforms

Electrochemical sensors

Electrodes on flexible substrates

In vitro biocompatability

Device tests in animals and humans

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● Sustainable development is a criterion of increasing importance and refers not sim- ply to reducing environmental damage, but to whether the product or service can be produced indefinitely into the future. This sustainability criterion sets constraints on the over-exploitation of particular sources of raw materials, for instance in developing countries, and often raises issues regarding the economic and social well-being of local communities.

In assessing the macro-environment from an ecological point of view, all three criteria of pollution, stewardship and sustainability need typically to be considered.

The extent to which these ecological criteria are important to organisations relies on three contextual sources of pressure, the first two arising directly from the macro-environment:

● Ecological. Clearly ecological issues are more likely to be pressing the more impactful they are: a chemical company may have more to worry about than a school. However, there are three less obvious characteristics to consider. First, ecological issues become more salient the more certain they are. For example, as doubts have reduced about the facts of global warming, so the pressures on organisations to act on it have increased. Pressures are also likely to be greater the more visible ecological issues are: aircraft pollution is more salient as an issue than shipping pollution because aircraft are more obvious to ordinary citizens than pollution done far out to sea. Similarly, the emotivity of the issue is liable to be a factor: threats to polar bears generally get more attention than threats to hyenas.

● Organisational field. Ecological issues do not become salient just because of their inherent characteristics. The extent of pressure is influenced by how ecological issues interact with the nature of the organisational field. An organisational field with highly active regulators or campaign groups will clearly give saliency to ecological issues. However, high levels of field interconnectedness will also increase the importance of ecological issues: within densely interconnected networks, it is harder to hide damaging behaviour and peer pres- sure to conform to ecological standards is greater.

● Internal organisation. The personal values of an organisation’s leadership will clearly influence the desire to respond to ecological issues. Actual responsiveness will rely on the effectiveness of managerial systems that promote and monitor behaviours consistent with ecological obligations.

Although ecological issues can exercise unwelcome pressure, there are potentially strong organisational motives to respond. As in Figure 2.7, the three kinds of contextual pressure can satisfy a variety of motives. Fundamentally, there is of course a sense of ecological responsibility: thus the personal values of the organisation’s leaders might stimulate eco- logical initiatives, or routine production systems might reduce pollution. However, another outcome can be legitimacy, as reflected in regulatory compliance and a good reputation with consumers. Finally, responding to ecological issues can even enhance competitive- ness. For example, minimising waste in production processes for pollution reasons can reduce costs. Green products are attractive in the marketplace and often command a price premium.

2.2.6 Legal

The final element in a PESTEL analysis of the macro-environment refers to legal aspects. These can cover a wide range of topics: for example, labour, environmental and consumer regulation; taxation and reporting requirements; and rules on ownership, competition and corporate governance. In recent years, the relaxation of legal constraints through deregu- lation has created many new business opportunities, for example for low-cost airlines and

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‘free schools’ in various countries. However, regulations can also handicap organisations: Illustration 2.3 shows how the taxi-hailing app company Uber ran into important legal issues as it entered new markets and regulators struggled to keep up with the new technology.

Legal issues form an important part of the institutional environment of organisations, by which is meant the formal and informal ‘rules of the game’.15 This concept of institutional environment suggests that it can be useful in a PESTEL analysis to consider not only formal laws and regulations but also more informal norms: the ‘L’ can be stretched to cover all types of rule, formal and informal. Informal rules are patterns of expected (‘normal’) behaviour that are hard to ignore. Thus, regardless of the law, there are fairly explicit norms regarding proper respect for the ecological environment. Organisations ignoring these norms would risk outrage amongst consumers or employees, regardless of the legal situation.

Formal and informal rules vary sufficiently between countries to define very different institutional environments, sometimes known as ‘varieties of capitalism’.16 These varieties of capitalism have implications for the ways in which business and management are done in those environments and the prospects for success, both for insiders and for outsiders. Although every country differs in detail, three broad varieties of capitalism have been iden- tified, whose formal and informal rules lead to different ways of doing business:

● Liberal market economies are institutional environments where both formal and informal rules favour competition between companies, aggressive acquisitions of one company by another and free bargaining between management and labour. Companies in these liberal market economies tend to raise funds from the financial markets and company ownership is either entrepreneurial or, for older companies, widely dispersed amongst many shareholders. These economies tend to support radical innovation and are receptive to foreign firms. Although neither is perfectly representative, the United States and the United Kingdom correspond broadly to this type of institutional environment.

● Coordinated market economies encourage more coordination between companies, often supported by industry associations or similar frameworks. There are legal and normative constraints on hostile acquisitions on the one hand, and various supports for consensual

Figure 2.7 Contexts and motives for ecological issues Source: Substantially adapted from P. Bansal and K. Roth, ‘Why companies go green: a model of ecological responsiveness’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 43, no. 4 (2000), pp. 717–36 (Figure 2, p. 729).

Ecological: • certainty • visibility • emotivity

Contexts

Organisational field: • activism • interconnection

Internal organisation: • leader values • systems

Competitiveness (e.g. low waste, green products)

Organisational motives

Legitimacy (e.g. regulatory compliance; good reputation)

Responsibility (e.g. unpublicised initiatives and pollution control)

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ILLUSTRaTION 2.3

The Uber taxi-hailing company has often run up against local regulations.

The inspiration for the Uber’s taxi-hailing app came on a snowy night in Paris in 2008, when co-found- ers Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp couldn’t find a cab. Uber began business in Kalanick’s home state of California, launching in San Francisco in 2011. With early funding from renowned investment bank Goldman Sachs and Google Ventures, Uber expanded rapidly. At the end of 2015, the company was able to celebrate its billionth ride. It was operating in about 400 cities around the world, from Abu Dhabi to Zurich.

Uber’s hectic growth was in part aimed at pre-empt- ing competitors. It is technically fairly easy to launch a local taxi-hailing app. Some of Uber’s regional com- petitors grew rapidly, for example Lyft in the USA, Didi Kuaidi in China, Ola in India and GrabTaxi in South- east Asia. In December 2015, these four rivals to Uber declared a strategic alliance, promising to share technologies and offer common services to customers travelling from one region to another.

The pursuit of growth has frequently got Uber into legal trouble. There are three areas in which Uber’s strategy is particularly controversial. First, there is the contention that the company does not employ its driv- ers, but just offers a technology platform on which drivers and passengers freely interact. With drivers considered independent contractors, the company appears absolved from costly obligations such as insur- ance, minimum wages, overtime pay and pensions. This has helped Uber undercut the prices of traditional taxi services: in New York, the traditional yellow cabs saw a 14 per cent drop in business after the local launch of Uber. In several localities, including its home state of California, the independent contractor status of Uber’s drivers has faced legal challenges, leading to local bans or fines.

Second, by comparison with becoming a licensed taxi-driver, it is relatively easy for people to become Uber drivers. This creates safety risks, with cases of Uber drivers even assaulting passengers. In 2015, an Uber driver in Delhi was convicted of raping a passen- ger. Uber was accused of failing to conduct adequate

background checks after it emerged the rapist had been previously accused of assaulting women. The vic- tim lodged a lawsuit in San Francisco (later dropped) and Uber was temporarily banned by the Delhi local authorities.

A third source of controversy is Uber’s apparent aggression. The motto of the company’s growth team is: ‘it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission’. Uber is often careless of local regulations. Local offi- cials regarded by Uber as obstructive have allegedly become the targets of systematic attack. A hostile offi- cial in Virginia, United States, was flooded with emails and calls after Uber distributed his personal contact information to all of its users in the state. A senior vice president of Uber was widely reported to have suggested that Uber hire a team with a million-dollar budget to dig into the personal lives and backgrounds of media reporters critical of Uber: the company was obliged to disown the suggestion. During a bitter dis- pute in Portland, Oregon, the transportation commis- sioner called Uber management ‘a bunch of thugs’.

In early 2016, CEO Travis Kalanick gave his view of Uber’s approach to the Times of India: The way of an entrepreneur is the way of an adventurer. . . . . It can be conveyed as aggressive, but it is doing things people think is against conventional wisdom. . . . Ultimately, all rules have to bend towards people and progress.

Main sources: Financial Times , 15 September 2015; Times of India, 19 January 2016; Forbes , 17 August 2015.

Uber drives into trouble

Questions 1 Using the concept of ‘varieties of capitalism’,

in which countries would you expect Uber to be most successful and in which less so?

2 What are the costs and benefits of Uber’s aggressive approach to growth?

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and collective arrangements between management and labour on the other. Companies in these coordinated market economies tend to rely on banks for funding, while family ownership is often common. These economies support steady innovation over the long- run and, because of coordination networks, are typically less easy for foreign firms to penetrate. Again, neither is perfectly representative, but Germany and Japan correspond broadly to this type of institutional environment.

● Developmental market economies tend to have strong roles for the state, which will either own or heavily influence companies that are important for national economic develop- ment. Formally or informally, the state will often encourage private-sector firms to coordi- nate between themselves and with national economic policy-makers. Labour relations may be highly regulated. Banks, often state-owned, will be a key source of funding. Long-term, infrastructural and capital-intensive projects may be favoured, but foreign firms will often be at a disadvantage. Although each is very different in its own way, Brazil, China and India all have aspects of this developmental market economy environment.

A macro-environmental analysis of any particular country should therefore include an assessment of the local variety of capitalism and the extent to which it favours particular kinds of firm and strategy.

2.2.7 Key drivers for change

The previous sections have introduced a variety of concepts and frameworks for analysing each of the PESTEL factors, particularly at a macro-level. As can be imagined, analysing these factors, together with their interrelationships, can produce long and complex lists of issues. Rather than getting overwhelmed by a multitude of details, it is necessary to step back to identify the key drivers for change in a particular context. Key drivers for change are the environmental factors likely to have a high impact on industries and sectors, and the success or failure of strategies within them.

Key drivers thus translate macro-environmental factors to the level of the specific indus- try or sector. Thus social and legislative changes discouraging car use might have different and greater effects on supermarkets than, for example, retail banks. Identifying key drivers for change in an industry or sector helps managers to focus on the PESTEL factors that are most important and which must be addressed most urgently. Without a clear sense of the key drivers for change, managers will not be able to take the strategic decisions that allow for effective responses: to return to the example above, the supermarket chain might address reduced car use by cutting the number of out-of-town stores and investing in smaller urban and suburban sites. It is important that an organisation’s strategists consider each of the key drivers for change, looking to minimise threats and, where possible, seize opportunities.

2.3 FOReCaSTING

In a sense, all strategic decisions involve forecasts about future conditions and outcomes. Thus a manager may decide to invest in new capacity because of a forecast of growing demand (condition), with the expectation that the investment will help capture increased sales (outcome). PESTEL factors will feed into these forecasts, for example in tracking eco- nomic cycles or mapping future technologies. However, accurate forecasting is notoriously difficult. After all, in strategy, organisations are frequently trying to surprise their competi- tors. Consequently, forecasting takes three fundamental approaches based on varying degrees

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of certainty: single-point, range and multiple-futures forecasting. This section explains these three approaches and also introduces some key concepts that help explore the direction of future change.

2.3.1 Forecast approaches

The three approaches to forecasting are explored in the following and illustrated in Figure 2.8:17

● Single-point forecasting is where organisations have such confidence about the future that they will provide just one forecast number (as in Figure 2.8(i)). For instance, an organi- sation might predict that the population in a market will grow by 5 per cent in the next two years. This kind of single-point forecasting implies a great degree of certainty. Demo- graphic trends (for instance the increase in the elderly within a particular population) lend themselves to these kinds of forecasting, at least in the short term. They are also often attractive to organisations because they are easy to translate into budgets: a single sales forecast figure is useful for motivating managers and for holding them accountable.

● Range forecasting is where organisations have less certainty, suggesting a range of possible outcomes. These different outcomes may be expressed with different degrees of proba- bility, with a central projection identified as the most probable (the darkest shaded area in Figure 2.8(ii)), and then a range of more remote outcomes given decreasing degrees of likelihood (the more lightly shaded areas). These forecasts are often called ‘fan charts’, because the range of outcomes ‘fans out’ more widely over time, reflecting growing uncer- tainty over the longer term. These ‘fan charts’ are often used in economic forecasting, for example economic growth rates or inflation.

● Alternative futures forecasting typically involves even less certainty, focusing on a set of possible yet distinct futures. Instead of a continuously graduated range of likelihoods, alternative futures are discontinuous: they happen or they do not, with radically different outcomes (see Figure 2.8(iii)). These alternatives might result from fundamental policy decisions. For example, for a country facing possible exit from a currency union (for instance the Euro), outcome A might reflect the consequences for growth or unemploy- ment of staying in the union; outcome B might reflect the consequences of exiting the union; and outcome C would be a further alternative outcome, consequent on a decision

Figure 2.8 Forecasting under conditions of uncertainty

Probable

Possible Unlikely

Possible

Unlikely

Time Time Time

Outcomes OutcomesOutcomes

(i) Single-point forecast (ii) Range forecast (iii) Alternative futures

A

B

C

UncertaintyLow High

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that followed the initial decision pointing towards outcome B (for instance, to adopt trade barriers as well as to exit the currency union). For a business, outcome A might represent expected sales if a competitor business did not invest in a new machine or similar capacity; outcome B is a consequence of the competitor making that investment; and outcome C is a consequence of the competitor both making that investment and then slashing prices to make full use of the new capacity. It is possible to put probabilities to each of these out- comes too: for example, outcome A might have a 40 per cent probability, while outcomes B and C would be 30 per cent each. These kinds of alternative futures are often fed into scenario analyses (see Section 2.4), though not as simple forecasts.

2.3.2 Directions of change

It is helpful in forecasting to keep an eye on the fundamental directions of likely change. Managers need to check their forecasts are consistent with major trends and to be alert to possible turning points. Three concepts help focus both on major trends and on possible turning points that might invalidate existing forecasts:

● Megatrends are large-scale political, economic, social, technological, ecological or legal movements that are typically slow to form, but which influence many other activities and views, possibly over decades.18 A megatrend typically sets the direction for other factors. Thus the social megatrend towards ageing populations in the West influences other trends in social care, retail spending and housing. The megatrend towards global warming affects agriculture, tourism and, with more extreme climatic events, insurance. It is important to identify major megatrends because they influence so many other things. Forecasts should be checked for consistency with such trends.

● Inflexion points are moments when trends shift in direction, for instance turning sharply upwards or downwards.19 For example, after decades of stagnation and worse, in the early twenty-first century sub-Saharan Africa may have reached an inflexion point in its economic growth, with the promise of substantial gains in the coming decade or so. Internet retailing may also have put urban shopping on a path to significant decline in advanced economies. Inflexion points are likely to invalidate forecasts that extrapolate existing trends. Clearly it is valuable to grasp the inflexion point at the moment when trends just start to turn, in order either to take advantage of new opportunities early or to act against escalating decline as soon as possible.

● Weak signals are advanced signs of future trends and are particularly helpful in identify- ing inflexion points.20 Typically these weak signals are unstructured and fragmented bits of information, often perceived by observers as ‘weird’. A weak signal for the worldwide financial crisis that began in 2008 was the rise in mortgage failures in California the previous year. An early weak signal foreshadowing the current success of Asian business schools was the first entry of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology into the Financial Times’ ranking of the top 50 international business schools in the early 2000s. It is important to be alert to weak signals, but it is also easy to be overwhelmed by ‘noise’, the constant stream of isolated and random bits of information without strate- gic importance. Some signs of truly significant weak signals (as opposed to mere noise) include: the repetition of the signal and the emergence of some kind of pattern; vehement disagreement among experts about the signal’s significance; and an unexpected failure in something that had previously worked very reliably.

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2.4 SCeNaRIO aNaLYSIS

Scenarios offer plausible alternative views of how the macro-environment might develop in the future, typically in the long term. Thus scenarios are not strategies in themselves, but alternative possible environments which strategies have to deal with. Scenario analysis is typically used in conditions of high uncertainty, for example where the environment could go in several highly distinct directions.21 However, scenario analyses can be differentiated from alternative futures forecasting (Section 2.3.1), as scenario planners usually avoid presenting alternatives in terms of finely calculated probabilities. Scenarios tend to extend too far into the future to allow probability calculations and besides, assigning probabilities directs atten- tion to the most likely scenario rather than to the whole range. The point of scenarios is more to learn than to predict. Scenarios are used to explore the way in which environmental factors inter-relate and to help keep managers’ minds open to alternative possibilities in the future. A scenario with a very low likelihood may be valuable in deepening managers’ understanding even if it never occurs.

Illustration 2.4 shows an example of scenario planning for information technology to 2030, published by the international advisory firm Gartner. Rather than incorporating a multitude of factors, Gartner focused on two key drivers which are clearly differentiated on the dimensions of the scenario cube in terms of having (i) high potential impact; (ii) high uncertainty; (iii) high independence from each other (see Figure 2.9 and below). The first of these two drivers are technological, in other words the extent to which information technologies are more interconnected; the second is regulatory, with regard to the extent to which technologies are controlled. Both of these drivers may produce very different futures, which can be combined to create four internally consistent scenarios for the next decade and a half. Gartner does not predict that one scenario will prevail over the others, nor do they allocate relative probabilities. Prediction would close managers’ minds to alternatives, while probabilities would imply a spurious kind of accuracy over this period of time.

Figure 2.9 The scenario cube: selection matrix for scenario key drivers

Low

Low

Low

Select key drivers in the high-impact, high-uncertainty, high-independence box

High

High

High

Independence

Impact

Uncertainty

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ILLUSTRaTION 2.4

In 2014, Gartner, a leading information technology and research company, published a major report on four scenarios for IT developments to 2030.

Gartner had identified a major switch to digitisation of products and services in the world and wanted to consider the alternative implications of this change. Accordingly, the company used crowdsourcing to get ideas for future scenarios, bringing in 132 responses from volunteers across the world. The most frequent terms in the responses were initially analysed using a word cloud, in which words such as ‘privacy’ and ‘trust’ and ‘personalization’ were prominent. Next a form of PESTEL analysis was used to group assumptions by different factors, subdividing them into ‘utopian’ (pos- itive) and ‘dystopian’ (negative) groups. Gartner then derived two basic dimensions for scenario analysis:

1 The extent to which the world would be ‘connected’ or ‘conflicted’. In a connected world, technologies would interact easily with each other, and goals would be aligned. In a conflicted world, technolo- gies would often be used to block each other, with conflicting goals.

2 The extent to which the world would be ‘controlled’ or run ‘amok’. In a controlled world, society would be able to manage the direction of technological developments, but in an ‘amok’ world, technologies would run beyond society’s control.

These two dimensions yielded four scenario stories, as summarised in the figure below. Briefly, the four scenarios were as follows:

1 Society, Inc. extends today’s world, in which big corpo- rations and governments control reams of data about individuals. Surveillance will be the norm and privacy disappears. Both organisations’ and individuals’ data

will be regulated (independent storage mechanisms such as USB sticks might even be banned).

2 Sorcerer’s Apprentice takes its title from the Disney story in which brooms come to life but run out of con- trol. Technologies can talk to each other, so that peo- ple’s identities will be easy to track. Regulation of data usage will continuously be behind what new entrepre- neurial companies dream up for their own profit.

3 Digital Wild West describes a world where public out- cry over data abuses stimulates new technologies that protect individuals, for instance widespread use of encryption. Companies will charge fees for privacy, a form of ‘protection money’.

4 Datatopia is a utopian scenario in which privacy problems are solved by new technologies such as randomly fragmented storage, with personal keys necessary to reintegrate the information. All infor- mation is protected by copyright law. All activities – from power to parking – will be ‘smart’.

Source: Adapted from Gartner Inc., ‘ Last Call for Datatopia . . . Boarding Now! Four future scenarios on the role of information and technology in society, business and personal life, 2030’, 2014.

Datatopia?

Questions 1 Which scenario would companies like Google

and Facebook most desire and which would they most fear?

2 What are the implications of these scenarios for industries outside information technology, for example publishing and hotels?

Source: Adapted from Gartner Inc. (2014), p. 6 .

Society, Inc. ‘Whatever’

Sorcerer’s Apprentice ‘Ruled by machines’

Digital Wild West ‘State of nature’

Datatopia ‘Aspiring creativity’

Conflicted Connected

Control

Amok

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While there are many ways to carry out scenario analyses, the process often follows five basic steps (summarised in Figure 2.10):22

● Defining scenario scope is an important first step in the process. Scope refers to the subject of the scenario analysis and the time span. For example, scenario analyses can be carried out for a whole industry globally, or for particular geographical regions and markets. While businesses typically produce scenarios for industries or markets, governments often conduct scenario analyses for countries, regions or sectors (such as the future of health- care or higher education). Scenario time spans can be either a decade or so (as in Illustra- tion 2.4) or perhaps just five years ahead. The appropriate time span is determined partly by the expected life of investments. In the energy business, where oil fields, for example, might have a life span of several decades, scenarios often cover 20 years or more.

● Identifying the key drivers for change comes next. Here PESTEL analysis can be used to uncover issues likely to have a major impact upon the future of the industry, region or market. In the information technology, key drivers range from regulation to innovation. The scenario cube (Figure 2.9) helps identify the most significant key drivers. As well as the size of impact, the scenario cube underlines two additional criteria for key drivers: uncertainty, in order to make different scenarios worthwhile (there’s no point in devel- oping alternative scenarios when only one outcome is likely); and mutual independence, so that the drivers are capable of producing significantly divergent or opposing outcomes (there’s no point in considering factors individually if they lead to the same outcome anyway). In the oil industry, for example, political stability in the oil-producing regions is one major uncertainty; another is the development of new exploration technologies, enabling the quick and efficient identification of new oil fields. These could be selected as key drivers for scenario analysis because both are uncertain and regional stability is not closely correlated with technological advance.

● Developing scenario ‘stories’. As in films, scenarios are basically stories. Having selected opposing key drivers for change, it is necessary to knit together plausible stories that incorporate both key drivers and other factors into a coherent whole. These stories are often encapsulated with striking titles: for example, oil company Shell launched two opposing scenarios entitled simply ‘Oceans’ and ‘Mountains’, the first describing a more free-market world with solar power important, the second a more government-led world, with gas power important.23 Striking titles help to communicate scenarios and embed them in strategic discussions (see also Illustration 2.4).

● Identifying impacts of alternative scenarios on organisations is the next key stage of sce- nario building. For example, in Illustration 2.4, the possibility of private data would pose major challenges to companies making their living from the assembly, analysis and sale of data. It is important for an organisation to carry out robustness checks in the face of each plausible scenario and to adapt strategies that appear vulnerable and develop contingency plans in case they happen.

Figure 2.10 The scenario process

Define scope

(industry, region, years)

Identify key drivers

(PESTEL, forecasts, cube)

Develop distinct scenario ‘stories’ (name scenarios)

Identify impacts

(check and adapt strategies)

Monitor progress

(early warning indicators)

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● Monitor progress. Once the various scenarios are drawn up, organisations should moni- tor progress over time, to alert themselves to whether and how developments actually fit scenario expectations. Here it is important to identify indicators that might give early warning about the final direction of environmental change, and at the same time set up systems to monitor these. Effective monitoring of well-chosen indicators should facilitate prompt and appropriate responses. In Illustration  2.4 , a clear indicator of a coming Sor- cerer’s Apprentice world would be relaxation of data-protection laws.

Because debating and learning are so valuable in the scenario-building process, and they deal with such high uncertainty, some scenario experts advise managers to avoid producing just three scenarios. Three scenarios tend to fall into a range of ‘optimistic’, ‘middling’ and ‘pessimistic’. Managers naturally focus on the middling scenario and neglect the other two, reducing the amount of organisational learning and contingency planning. It is therefore typically better to have two or four scenarios, avoiding an easy mid-point. It does not matter if the scenarios do not come to pass: the value lies in the process of exploration and contin- gency planning that the scenarios set off.

ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

Do we need experts to forecast anymore?

We usually think of forecasts as the product of small groups of experts. But there is a different way. Fore- casts can be ‘crowdsourced’, using the collective judgement of many different kinds of people, not just experts. There are two principal ways of using the ‘wis- dom of crowds’ in forecasting: prediction markets and internet media analysis.

Prediction markets are markets designed specifi- cally to combine the scattered information of many participants into values (for instance, market prices or betting odds) that can be used to make predictions about specific future events. 24 An example is the Iowa Electronic Market (IEM) for betting on the outcome of American Presidential elections. Market participants buy a contract that pays a dollar if, for instance, a Democrat wins the election. The more money partici- pants are prepared to pay for that contract, the more likely it appears that a Democrat will indeed win that election. Google uses similar prediction markets to forecast the success of possible new products: if many people within the company are prepared to bet on their

success, then probably the new products will indeed turn out well. The bets of many employees may be more reliable than the self-interested forecasts of the product’s own developers.

Internet media such as Twitter and Google can also provide forecasts, drawing on the inputs of many thousands of users. For example, Google Trends anal- yses the frequency with which people search about flu symptoms to predict the onset of flu epidemics. Others analyse the mix of positive and negative sentiments expressed by ordinary people in Twitter feeds to fore- cast the direction of financial markets, up or down. 25 Data about what people are interested in, or how they feel, provides valuable clues to what will happen next.

The crowdsourced forecast

Question Why might experts make bad forecasters in the case of (i) Presidential elections; (ii) new product developments?

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WORK ASSIGNMENTS

55

SUMMaRY ● Environmental influences can be thought of as layers around an organisation, with the outer layer making up

the macro-environment, the middle layer making up the industry or sector and the inner layer strategic groups and market segments.

● The macro-environment can be analysed in terms of the PESTEL factors – political, economic, social, tech- nological, ecological and legal.

● Macro-environmental trends can be forecast according to different levels of uncertainty, from single-point, through ranges to multiple-futures.

● A PESTEL analysis helps identify key drivers of change, which managers need to address in their strategic choices. Alternative scenarios about the future can be constructed according to how the key drivers develop.

WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

2.1 For an organisation of your choice, carry out a PESTEL analysis and identify key opportunities and threats. Use Illustration 2.1 as a model. For simplicity, choose an organisation that is focused on a limited number of industries.

2.2 For your own country, or any other country with which you are familiar, look up the political risk as assessed by Aon, the Economist Intelligence Unit or similar (see references in endnote 4). How far do you agree with this assessment?

2.3 For the last year or two, review the forecasts for economic growth made by key forecasting organisations such as the OECD or the World Bank (see references in endnote 5). How accurate were they? What accounts for any difference between forecast and outcomes?

2.4✱ For the same organisation as in 2.1, and using Illustration 2.4 as a model, construct four scenarios for the evolution of its macro-environment (or main industry or sector). What implications are there for the organisation’s strategy?

Integrative assignment

2.5 Carry out a full analysis of an industry or sector of your choice (using for example PESTEL and scenarios). Draw also on the five forces and strategic groups analyses of Chapter 3. Consider explicitly how the industry or sector is affected by globalisation (see Chapter 9, particularly Figure 9.2 on drivers) and innovation (see Chapter 10, particularly Figure 10.5 on product and process innovation).

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ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● For an overview of techniques for thinking ahead, see P. Tetlock and D. Gardner, Superforecasting: The art and sci- ence of prediction, Crown, 2015. For approaches to how environments change, see K. van der Heijden, Scenarios: The art of strategic conversation, 2nd edn, Wiley, 2005; and R. Ramírez, J.W. Selsky and K. Van der Heijden (eds),

Business Planning for Turbulent Times: New methods for applying scenarios, Taylor & Francis, 2010.

● A collection of academic articles on PEST, scenarios and similar is the special issue of International Studies of Management and Organization, vol. 36, no. 3 (2006), edited by Peter McKiernan.

ReFeReNCeS

1. PESTEL is an extension of PEST (Politics, Economics, Social and Technology) analysis, taking more account of ecological (‘green’) and legal issues. PEST is sometimes called STEP analysis. PESTEL is sometimes called PESTLE and is also sometimes extended to STEEPLE in order to include Ethical issues. For an application of PEST analysis to the world of business schools, see H. Thomas, ‘An analysis of the environ- ment and competitive dynamics of management education’, Journal of Management Development, vol. 26, no. 1 (2007), pp. 9–21.

2. D. Bach and D. Allen, ‘What every CEO needs to know about nonmarket strategies’, Sloan Management Review, vol. 51, no. 3 (2010), pp. 41–8; J. Doh, T. Lawton and T. Rajwani, ‘Advancing nonmarket strategy research: institutional per- spectives in a changing world’, Academy of Management Perspectives, August (2012), pp. 22–38.

3. I. Alon and T. Herbert, ‘A stranger in a strange land: micro political risk and the multinational firm,’ Business Horizons, vol. 52, no. 2 (2009), pp. 127–37; J. Jakobsen, ‘Old problems remain, new ones crop up: political risk in the 21st century’, Business Horizons, vol. 53, no. 5 (2010), pp. 481–90.

4. Organisations such as the insurance company Aon, and economic media such as the Economic Intelligence Unit and Euromoney, publish regular rankings of country political risk.

5. Macroeconomic forecasts can be found at: http://www.oecd. org/eco/outlook/; http://www.imf.org/external/; http://www. worldbank.org/.

6. For a summary, see B. de Groot and P.H. Franses, ‘Stabil- ity through cycles’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 75, no. 3 (2008), pp. 301–11. Economists some- times also highlight the 50-year long Kondratieff ‘innovation’ cycle: in this perspective, the world economy may still be on the upswing of the internet innovation cycle.

7. M.E. Porter, ‘Clusters and the new economics of competi- tion’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 76, no. 6 (1997), pp. 77–90.

8. A useful review of research on this topic is R. Suddaby, K.D. Elsbach, R. Greenwood, J.W. Meyer, and T.B. Zilber, ‘Organ- izations and their institutional environments – bringing meaning, values, and culture back in: Introduction to the special research forum’, Academy of Management Journal,

vol. 53, no. 6 (2010), pp. 1234–40. For a more general review, see G. Johnson and R. Greenwood, ‘Institutional theory and strategy’ in M. Jenkins and V. Ambrosini (eds), Strategic Management: a Multiple-Perspective Approach, V. Palgrave, 3rd edn, 2015.

9. R.S. Burt, M. Kilduff and S. Tasselli, ‘Social network analy- sis: foundations and frontiers on advantage’, Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 64 (2013), pp. 527–47.

10. M.A. Sytch, A. Tatarynowicz and R. Gulati, ‘Toward a the- ory of extended contact: the incentives and opportunities for bridging across network communities’, Organization Science, vol. 23, no. 6 (2012), pp. 1658–81.

11. J. Hagedoorn and M. Cloodt, ‘Measuring innovative perfor- mance: is there an advantage in using multiple indicators?’, Research Policy, vol. 32, no. 8 (2003), pp. 1365–79.

12. A.C. Ferrari, F. Bonaccorso, V. Falko, K.S. Novoselov, S. Roche, P. Bøggild and S. Borini, ‘Science and technology roadmap for graphene, related two-dimensional crystals, and hybrid systems’, Nanoscale, vol. 7, no. 11 (2015), pp. 4598–810.

13. J.H. Lee, H.I. Kim and R. Phaal, ‘An analysis of factors improving technology roadmap credibility: a communica- tions theory assessment of roadmapping processes’, Techno- logical Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 79, no. 2 (2012), pp. 263–80.

14. S.L. Hart and G. Dowell, ‘A natural-resource-based view of the firm: fifteen years after’, Journal of Management, vol. 37, no. 5 (2010), pp. 1464–79.

15. J. Cantwell, J.H. Dunning and S.M. Lundan, ‘An evolu- tionary approach to understanding international business activity: the co-evolution of MNEs and the institutional environment’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 41, no. 4 (2010), pp. 567–86.

16. M.A. Witt, and G. Redding, ‘Asian business systems: insti- tutional comparison, clusters and implications for varieties of capitalism and business systems theory’, Socio-Economic Review, vol. 11, no. 2 (2013), pp. 265–300; M.R. Schneider and M. Paunescu, ‘Changing varieties of capitalism and revealed comparative advantages from 1990 to 2005: a test of the Hall and Soskice claims’, Socio-Economic Review, vol. 10, no. 4 (2012), pp. 731–53.

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REFERENCES

17. U. Haran and D.A. Moore, ‘A better way to forecast’, Cal- ifornia Management Review, vol. 57, no. (2014), pp. 5–15; H. Courtney, J. Kirkland and P. Viguerie, ‘Strategy under uncertainty’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 75, no. 6 (1997), pp. 67–79.

18. R.A. Slaughter, ‘Looking for the real megatrends’, Futures, October (1993), pp. 823–49.

19. A. Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive, Profile Books, 1998. 20. S. Mendonca, G. Caroso and J. Caraca, ‘The strategic

strength of weak signals’, Futures, 44 (2012), pp. 218–28; P. Schoemaker and G. Day, ‘How to make sense of weak signals’, Sloan Management Review, vol. 50, no. 3 (2009), pp. 81–9.

21. For a discussion of scenario planning in practice, see R. Ramirez, R. Osterman and D. Gronquist, ‘Scenarios and early warnings as dynamic capabilities to frame managerial attention’, Technological Forecasting and Strategic Change, vol. 80 (2013), pp. 825–38. For how scenario planning fits with other forms of environmental analysis such as PESTEL, see G. Burt, G. Wright, R. Bradfield and K. van der Heijden, ‘The role of scenario planning in exploring the environment

in view of the limitations of PEST and its derivatives’, Inter- national Studies of Management and Organization, vol. 36, no. 3 (2006), pp. 50–76. For the grid method, see R. Ramirez and A. Wilkinson, ‘Rethinking the 2 × 2 scenario method: grid or frames?’ Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 86 (2014), pp. 254–64.

22. Based on P. Schoemaker, ‘Scenario planning: a tool for stra- tegic thinking’, Sloan Management Review, vol. 36 (1995), pp. 25–34.

23. http://www.shell.com/global/future-energy/scenarios/ new-lens-scenarios.html.

24. G. Tziralis and I. Tatsiopoulos, ‘Prediction markets: an extended literature review’, Journal of Prediction Markets, vol. 1, no. 1 (2012), pp. 75–91 and K. Matzler, C. Grabher, J. Huber and Füller, J. ‘Predicting new product success with prediction markets in online communities’, R&D Manage- ment, vol. 43, no. 5 (2013), pp. 420–32.

25. P. Wlodarczak, ‘An approach for big data technologies in social media mining’, Journal of Art Media and Technology, vol. 1, no. 1 (2015), pp. 61–6.

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almost anything: the American security services have even set up a sting operation on Alibaba to catch trad- ers selling uranium to Iran. At the start of 2015, Alibaba had approaching 80 per cent of the e-commerce market in China, the largest e-commerce market in the world, and also had strong positions in Brazil and Russia. Inter- national e-commerce represented nearly 10 per cent of the company’s total sales of 76.2bn Yuan in the financial year ending 2015 (about $12.3bn, £11.2bn, €8.2bn: see Table  1 ).

Alibaba had always had an international bent. Founder Jack Ma had started his career as an English language teacher in the city of Hangzhou, not far from Shanghai. As early as 2000, Ma had persuaded both the leading American investment bank Goldman Sachs and the Japa- nese internet giant Softbank to invest. The then ascend- ant America internet company Yahoo had bought nearly a quarter of the Group in 2005. Post-IPO, SoftBank still held 32.4 per cent of the shares and Yahoo 15 per cent. The Alibaba Group board counted as members Yahoo’s founder Jerry Yang, Softbank’s founder Masayoshi Son and Michael Evans, former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Even so, Jack Ma was ambivalent about Western investors: ‘Let the Wall Street investors curse us if they wish!,’ Ma had proclaimed at a staff rally. ‘We will still follow the principle of customers first, employees second and investors third!’

Strictly, overseas investors do not directly own stakes in the Alibaba Group, instead owning shares in a shell company – a so-called variable interest entity (VIE) – that has a contractual claim on Alibaba’s profits. This VIE structure is a common way for Western-listed Chinese firms to get around Beijing’s foreign-ownership rules. But the Chinese government could close the loophole at any

In May 2015, the Alibaba Group – China’s largest e- commerce company – got a new Chief Executive. Daniel Zhang was 43 years old, with a career in the accounting firms Arthur Andersen and PwC before joining Alibaba in 2007. Zhang’s experience in international firms was reflected in an early statement: ‘We must absolutely glo- balize,’ he said during a company-wide strategy session. ‘We will organize a global team and adopt global thinking to manage the business and achieve the goal of global buy and global sell. ’

Zhang’s appointment as CEO came at a difficult time. Alibaba had undergone the largest ever Initial Public Offer- ing (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014, achieving a total valuation of $231bn (£138.6bn, €173.3bn). But the first quarter of 2015 had seen profits at half those of the same period in the previous year. The Group’s share price was down a third from its post-IPO peak. Zhang’s predecessor as CEO had been dismissed after just two years in the job.

The man who appointed Zhang was Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba just 16 years earlier. Alibaba started as China’s first business-to-business portal connecting domestic manufacturers with overseas buyers. Since then, the Group had grown in many directions. 1688.com was founded for business-to-business trade within China. Ali- baba’s Taobao Marketplace serves small businesses and individuals. Tmall.com provides electronic shop fronts to help overseas companies such as Nike, Burberry and Decathlon to reach Chinese consumers. Juhuasuan offers daily deals on everything from toys to laptops. There is also Alipay, effectively under Ma’s personal control but functioning as the Group’s equivalent to PayPal, which processes 75 per cent of Group transactions. One way or another, it is possible for Alibaba’s customers to trade

alibaba – the Yangtze River Crocodile Richard Whittington

CaSe eXaMpLe

Table 1 Key statistics

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Alibaba Group Sales Yuan bn 6.7 11.9 20.0 34.5 52.5 76.2 Chinese GDP Yuan Tr. 40.4 48.4 53.4 58.8 63.6 66.8 Chinese ecommerce market Yuan Tr. 4.6 6.4 8.1 10.5 13.4 16.2 Per cent of Chinese using Internet 34.3 38.3 42.3 45.8 49.3 51.3

Sources: iResearchChina.com ; InternetLiveStats.com ; Statista.com .

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ALIBABA – THE YANGTZE RIVER CROCODILE

growth is very respectable by world standards. Besides, faced with rising domestic concern about the environ- ment, President Xi was happy to restrain the expansion of high polluting industries such as cement, coal and steel. At the same time, the Chinese government was promoting e-commerce as a key area for future economic growth. However, there were causes for concern. Many local authorities and firms had borrowed heavily on expecta- tions of higher growth, and there were fears that financial institutions had over-lent. Some warned of a consequent crash. Moreover, it was hard to see China’s growth rate picking up again, on account of an ageing population and the drying up of the traditional supply of young labour from rural villages: by 2015, the Chinese workforce was falling by about three million workers a year. Although the government relaxed the famous one-child per family rule in 2013, Chinese parents are still reluctant to have more children because of the cost of housing and a good education in the main urban centres. It is predicted that by the early 2030s, about a quarter of China’s population will be over 65 (against 17 per cent in the United King- dom). Slower economic growth in China overall is being matched by some slowing in the rate of growth of the Chinese e-commerce market (see Table 1).

At the same time, Alibaba faces greater competition. A decade ago, Alibaba had seen off an attack by American rival eBay in the Chinese market with a fierce price-war. Jack Ma had proclaimed: ‘EBay is a shark in the ocean; we are a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we will lose, but if we fight in the river, we will win.’ A combination of cultural, linguistic and government policy factors kept Western internet companies at arm’s length in the Chinese market: Google has been reduced to a market share of about one per cent, while Amazon eventually chose to list on Alibaba’s TMall site after a decade pushing its own venture in China.

But now Alibaba’s home-market dominance is facing a local challenge from the aggressive JD.com. While Alibaba still depends on China’s unreliable postal service to get its goods to customers’ doors, JD.com has been more like Amazon in investing in its own distribution centres and delivery services. As a result, JD.com can promise same- day delivery in 43 of China’s biggest cities. Moreover, JD.com is well-placed to benefit from the shift to smart- phones for e-commerce. Tencent, China’s largest social networking and online games company, has taken a 15 per cent stake in JD.com, giving the challenger access to more than 400 million users of its WeChat phone mes- saging app. WeChat allows users to scan product bar codes with their smartphone cameras to make instant purchases through JD.com. Alibaba too has been entering

time, and it gives foreign shareholders limited recourse against abuses by Chinese companies’ managers. Ironi- cally, the most notorious VIE controversy so far involved Alibaba’s Jack Ma, who in 2011 separated Alipay from the rest of the Group without board approval. Ma said new Chinese regulations forced him to make the move. Yahoo was only told about the spin-off five weeks after it had happened. A fund-raising round for Alipay’s new parent company valued Alipay at nearly $50bn.

Alibaba’s relationship with the Chinese government is hard to read. Jack Ma insists that he has never taken loans or investment from the Chinese government or its banks: he had gone to overseas investors instead. However, given that a third of Chinese business activity is carried out within state-owned enterprises, the government is bound to be in close liaison with the dominant national player in e-commerce. Ma explained his philosophy as: ‘Always try to stay in love with the government, but don’t marry them.’ The Alibaba Group has built up its political connections. Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first chief executive after its return to China, served on its board of directors. Alibaba has also allied with several so-called ‘princelings’, children of important political leaders. Princeling investors include Winston Wen, son of a former Chinese premier; Alvin Jiang, grandson of a former Chinese President; He Jinlei, son of a former Politburo member and a senior manager of the state Chinese Development Bank; and Jeffrey Zang, son of a former vice premier and a senior manager at China’s state sovereign wealth fund, Citic Capital.

Given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sweeping political and economic reform campaign, there are no guarantees of Alibaba’s position domestically. In 2015, princeling investor He Jinlei’s older brother was under house arrest because of accusations of corruption. The beginning of the year had also seen the publication of an investigation by China’s State Administration for Industry and Com- merce into counterfeit goods and fake listings on the Group’s Taobao site, leading to a 10 per cent fall in Ali- baba’s share price. Jack Ma commented on his relations with Chinese regulators: ‘Over the past two years, not only was I a very controversial figure, but also these days, the disputes are bigger and bigger.’ He continued, ‘I, too, felt puzzled, sometimes wronged – how did things become this way?’ Nonetheless, Ma promised to clean up the site. Even so, just a few months later, fake Apple Watches were on sale on Taobao weeks before their official launch in the United States.

President Xi Jinping’s reform campaigns were partly in response to changing economic conditions in China. After three decades of double-digit growth, China’s growth rate has slowed to around 7 per cent a year (see Table 1). Such

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ChapTeR 2 MACRO-ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

60

One target now is the United States, only second to China in market size. The Yangtze River crocodile is aiming to attack the ocean sharks in their home seas. Sources: China Daily, 8 and 13 May 2015; eMarketer, 23 December 2014; Financial Times, 16 June and 9 September 2014; South China Morning Post, 12 February 2015; Washington Post, 23 November 2014. With thanks to Mariya Eranova and Robert Wright for comments on an earlier version of this case.

smartphone e-commerce, and in early 2015, smartphone sales accounted for half of its retail Chinese sales, twice the proportion of a year earlier. But smartphone screen- sizes are less attractive to advertisers, an important part of Alibaba’s traditional PC-based business model. JD.com’s domestic growth in the year to 2015 has been twice that of Alibaba’s. Although JD.com was still only about 15 per cent of its rival’s size, founder and chief executive Richard Liu has declared a goal of beating Ali- baba to the top position: ‘The competition makes the two companies stronger. I’m actually enjoying competing.’

Thus Alibaba’s new chief executive Daniel Zhang faced many opportunities and threats in 2015. There were already promising signs in favour of the globalisation strategy, though. Alibaba’s international flagship AliEx- press had rapidly taken the number one position in Russia and the number three position in Brazil, with local users delighted to have direct access to cheap Chinese goods.

Questions 1 Carry out a PESTEL analysis of Alibaba at

the time of the case. Evaluate the balance of opportunities and threats, using the same kind of figure as in Illustration 2.1.

2 Draw a basic sociogram of Alibaba’s network (see Section 2.2.3 and Figure 2.5). Explain why this network may be useful.

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61

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Strategic choices

Macro- environment

Stakeholders

Resources Culture

Industry

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Use Porter’s Competitive Five Forces Framework to analyse industries or sectors: rivalry, threat of entrants, substitute threats, customer’s power and supplier power.

● On the basis of the five competitive forces and complementors and network effects, define industry attractiveness and identify ways of managing these.

● Understand different industry types and how industries develop and change in industry life cycles and how to make five force analyses dynamic through compar- ative industry structure analysis.

● Analyse strategic and competitor positions in terms of strategic groups, market segments and the strategy canvas.

● Use these various concepts and techniques together with those from Chapter  2 in order to recognise threats and opportunities in the industry and marketplace.

3 INDUSTRY AND SECTOR ANALYSIS

Blue Oceans p.86

complementors p.69

critical success factors p.85

industry p.63

market p.63

market segment p.84

network effects p.71

porter’s Five Forces Framework p.64

strategic groups p.81

strategic lock-in p.71

strategy canvas p.85

value net p.70

Key terms

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INTRODUCTION

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3.1 INTRODUCTION

In the last chapter, we considered how the broad macro-environment influences opportu- nities and threats. The impact of these general factors tends to surface in the immediate environment of the specific industry or sector. The immediate and direct opportunities and threats of this environment are the focus of this chapter. For example, Samsung’s strategy depends on the smartphone industry: here it must take account of competitors’ strategies, customers’ needs and the supply of phone components, for example microchips. Similarly, a hospital needs to consider actors in the healthcare sector including clients, other health- care providers and the supply of healthcare inputs such as pharmaceuticals. This suggests that it is crucial for managers to examine the industry or sector and the actors these involve carefully in order to determine what strategy to pursue.

The focus here is thus on the middle ‘industry’ and ‘sector’ layer in Figure 2.1 (see the last chapter), which involves central actors that influence an organisation’s long-term survival and success including competitors, customers or clients, and suppliers. An industry is a group of firms producing products and services that are essentially the same.1 Examples are the automobile industry and the airline industry. Industries are also often described as ‘sectors’, especially in public services (e.g. the health sector or the education sector). Industries and sectors are often made up of several specific markets or market segments. A market is a group of customers for specific products or services that are essentially the same (e.g. a particular geographical market). Thus the automobile industry has markets in North America, Europe and Asia, for example.

This chapter examines three main topics and provides different frameworks and concepts for understanding the industry or sector:

● Industry analysis through the use of the Competitive Five Forces Framework, which exam- ines five essential industry forces: competitors, customers, potential entrants, suppliers and substitutes. Two additional factors are complementors and network effects. Together these forces and factors provide an understanding of industry attractiveness and compet- itive strategy.

● Fundamental industry structures and dynamics, which include examinations of underlying economic industry types and how industries evolve through industry life cycles, which might influence changes in the five forces that can be examined with a comparative five force analysis.

● Competitor groups and segments including examinations of strategic groups, groups of organisations with similar strategies and of market segments, groups of customers with similar needs. This focus provides a more fine-grained understanding of competition within an industry or sector.

The structure and topics of this chapter are summarised in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Industry and sector environments: the key topics

Industry types and dynamics

Industry analysis

Competitor groups and segments

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3.2 The COMpeTITIVe FORCeS

Industries vary widely in terms of their attractiveness, as measured by how easy it is for participating firms to earn high profits. A key determinant of profitability is the extent of competition and the strength of buyers and suppliers, and this varies between industries. Where competition and buyer and supplier strengths are low, and there is little threat of new competitors, participating firms should normally expect good profits. Profitability between industries can thus vary considerably; for example, the pharmaceutical industry has per- formed very well while others, like the airline industry, have underperformed.2

porter’s Five Forces Framework3 helps to analyse an industry and identify the attractiveness of it in terms of five competitive forces: (i) extent of rivalry between competitors (ii) threat of entry, (iii) threat of substitutes, (iv) power of buyers and (v) power of suppliers. These five forces together constitute an industry’s ‘structure’ (see Figure 3.2), which is typically fairly stable. Porter’s main message is that where the five forces are high and strong, industries are not attractive. Excessive competitive rivalry, powerful buyers and suppliers and the threat of substitutes or new entrants will all combine to squeeze profitability.

Figure 3.2 The Five Forces Framework Source: Adapted from Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael E. Porter, copyright © 1980, 1998 by The Free Press. All rights reserved.

Potential entrants

Threat of entry

Threat of substitutes

Suppliers

Bargaining power

Bargaining power

Competitive rivalry

Buyers

Substitutes

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Although initially developed with businesses in mind, the five forces framework is relevant to most organisations. It can provide a useful starting point for strategic analysis even where profit criteria may not apply. In the public sector, it is important to understand how powerful suppliers can push up costs; in the charity sector, it is important to avoid excessive rivalry within the same market. Moreover, once the degree of industry attractiveness has been under- stood, the five forces can help set an agenda for action on the various critical issues that they identify: for example, what specific strategy to pursue in order to control excessive rivalry in a particular industry? Managers should try to finds positions where the organisation can best defend itself against strong competitive forces or where they can influence them in its favour. The rest of this section introduces each of the five forces in more detail and discusses industry definition and the implications of the forces. Illustration 3.3 at the very end of this section summarises industry and sector analysis and provides an overview of its various steps.

3.2.1 Competitive rivalry

At the centre of five forces analysis is the rivalry between the existing players – ‘incumbents’ – in an industry. The more competitive rivalry there is, the worse it is for incumbents. Compet- itive rivals are organisations aiming at the same customer groups and with similar products and services (i.e. not substitutes). In the European airline industry, Air France and British Airways are rivals; high-speed trains are a ‘substitute’ (see below). Five factors tend to define the extent of rivalry in an industry or market:

● Competitor concentration and balance. Where competitors are numerous or of roughly equal size or power there is the danger of intensely rivalrous behaviour as competitors attempt to gain dominance over others, through aggressive price cuts, for example. Conversely, less rivalrous industries tend to have one or two dominant organisations, with the smaller players reluctant to challenge the larger ones directly (e.g. by focusing on niches to avoid the ‘attention’ of the dominant companies).

● Industry growth rate. In situations of strong growth, an organisation can grow with the market, but in situations of low growth or decline, any growth is likely to be at the expense of a rival, and meet with fierce resistance. Low-growth markets are therefore often associ- ated with price competition and low profitability. The industry life cycle influences growth rates, and hence competitive conditions: see Section 3.3.2.

● High fixed costs. Industries with high fixed costs, perhaps because they require high investments in capital equipment or initial research, tend to be highly rivalrous. Compa- nies will seek to spread their costs (i.e. reduce unit costs) by increasing their volumes: to do so, they typically cut their prices, prompting competitors to do the same and thereby triggering price wars in which everyone in the industry suffers. Similarly, if extra capacity can only be added in large increments (as in many manufacturing sectors, for example a chemical or glass factory), the competitor making such an addition is likely to create short-term over-capacity in the industry, leading to increased competition to use capacity.

● High exit barriers. The existence of high barriers to exit – in other words, closure or disinvestment – tends to increase rivalry, especially in declining industries. Excess capac- ity persists and consequently incumbents fight to maintain market share. Exit barriers might be high for a variety of reasons: for example, high redundancy costs or high investment in specific assets such as plant and equipment which others would not buy.

● Low differentiation. In a commodity market, where products or services are poorly dif- ferentiated, rivalry is increased because there is little to stop customers switching between competitors and the only way to compete is on price. Petrol is a commodity market, for instance.

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3.2.2 The threat of entry

How easy it is to enter the industry influences the degree of competition. The greater the threat of entry, the worse it is for incumbents in an industry. An attractive industry has high barriers to entry that reduce the threat of new competitors. Barriers to entry are the factors that need to be overcome by new entrants if they are to compete in an industry. Illustra- tion 3.1 describes the entry barriers into the banking industry and the obstacles they provide for new entrants. Five important entry barriers are:

● Scale and experience. In some industries, economies of scale are extremely important: for example, in the production of automobiles or the advertising of fast-moving consumer goods (see Chapter 7). Once incumbents have reached large-scale production, it will be very expensive for new entrants to match them and until they reach a similar volume they will have higher unit costs. This scale effect is increased where there are high capital investment requirements for entry, for example research costs in pharmaceuticals or cap- ital equipment costs in automobiles. Barriers to entry also come from experience curve effects that give incumbents a cost advantage because they have learnt how to do things more efficiently than an inexperienced new entrant could possibly do (see Section 7.2.1). Until the new entrant has built up equivalent experience over time, it will tend to produce at higher cost. In some industries there are ‘demand or buyer side’ economies of scale or network effects as buyers value being in a ‘network’ of a large number of other customers (see Section 3.2.6 below).

● Access to supply or distribution channels. In many industries manufacturers have had control over supply and/or distribution channels. Sometimes this has been through direct ownership (vertical integration), sometimes just through customer or supplier loyalty. In some industries this barrier has been overcome by new entrants who have bypassed retail distributors and sold directly to consumers through e-commerce (e.g. Dell Computers and Amazon).

● Expected retaliation. If an organisation considering entering an industry believes that the retaliation of an existing firm will be so great as to prevent entry, or mean that entry would be too costly, this is also a barrier. Retaliation could take the form of a price war or a marketing blitz. Just the knowledge that incumbents are prepared to retaliate is often sufficiently discouraging to act as a barrier.

● Legislation or government action. Legal restraints on new entry vary from patent pro- tection (e.g. pharmaceuticals), to regulation of markets (e.g. pension selling), through to direct government action (e.g. tariffs). Of course, organisations are vulnerable to new entrants if governments remove such protection, as has happened with deregulation of the airline industry over the last couple of decades.

● Incumbency advantages. Incumbents may have cost or quality advantages not available to entrants including access to proprietary technology, raw material sources and geographical locations or an established brand identity. The medical instruments industry is, for exam- ple, protected by many patents and Coca Cola and Pepsi have brand loyalties developed over decades that few can overcome.

3.2.3 The threat of substitutes

Substitutes are products or services that offer the same or a similar benefit to an industry’s products or services, but have a different nature. For example, aluminium is a substitute for steel; a tablet computer is a substitute for a laptop; charities can be substitutes for

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ILLUSTRaTION 3.1

The barriers to entry into the retail banking industry have traditionally been very high, but there are signs they could possibly be tumbling.

The high barriers to entry in financial services include two economic categories. First are the structural barri- ers due to basic industry conditions, and in this indus- try they include economies of scale, network effects and regulation. The last is significant; to protect the safety and stability of the financial system there are high regulatory walls. Second, incumbents may delib- erately promote strategic barriers to keep or drive competitors out, like setting prices artificially low or spending heavily on product and brand advertising. The latter has some importance in banking, but the former does not. However, structural regulation barriers could be considered strategic in this industry as incumbents tend to exploit and lobby for them to their own advan- tage to keep competitors out.

In the UK, these barriers have resulted in the ‘Big Five’ domination: HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scot- land, Lloyds and Santander. Other markets are very similar with a ‘Big Five’ in Canada, ‘Big Threes’ in Spain and the Netherlands and a ‘Big Four’ in Swe- den. It seemed as if regulators would lower barriers to increase competition. However, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis regulations have increased. The dilemma for regulators is that they have two partly conflicting objectives. First, to secure the stability of the financial system they need to increase capital requirements regulation for banks. The second aim is to deliver more efficiency and more services for cus- tomers through increased competition. To act on this second objective, regulators have started to encourage more entrants and assist them to find cracks in the barriers without totally breaking them. For example, Britain’s Payment Systems Regulator has proposed that banks should cut their ownership stakes in the core payment systems as Managing Director Hannah Nixon confirms:

‘There needs to be a fundamental change in the industry to encourage new entrants to compete on service, price and innovation in an open and trans- parent way.’

The UK’s financial regulators have even launched a start-up unit to help new players to enter as Andrew

Bailey, former CEO of the Prudential Regulation Author- ity explained:

‘The New Bank Start-Up Unit builds on the work we have already done to reduce the barriers to entry for prospective banks, which has led to twelve new banks now authorised since April 2013.’

It remains to be seen if competition will increase, but adding to the regulators’ aspirations is a new breed of potent rivals that may prove more powerful. Helped by new IT technologies, software and mobile banking there are over a hundred so-called ‘fintech’ (finance and technology) start-ups as confirmed in a Deloitte report:

‘New, agile and hitherto unregulated players are emerging and are disintermediating the traditional incumbents.’

Even if incumbents also try to jump on this fintech bandwagon they may not be able to dominate it. In contrast to the flourishing fintech start-ups, they are not only behind the entry barriers, but bound by them as the report continued:

‘Regulation is making it harder to innovate and grow, whilst legacy strategy, infrastructure and thinking, are preventing the existing players from responding aggressively from this threat.’

Sources: E. Robinson, BloombergBusiness, 16 February 2016; H. Jones, Reuters, 25 February 2016; Financial Conduct Authority, 20 January 2016; J. Cumbo, Financial Times, 6 December 2015; FCA, 25 February 2016; Deloitte, ‘Digital disruption: threats and opportunities for retail financial services’, 2014.

Busted banking barriers?

Questions 1 Evaluate the strengths of the banking

industry’s entry barriers according to Porter’s criteria.

2 How would you evaluate the ethical behaviour of banks trying to keep competition out?

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public services. Managers often focus on their competitors in their own industry, and neglect the threat posed by substitutes. Substitutes can reduce demand for a particular type of product as customers switch to alternatives – even to the extent that this type of product or service becomes obsolete. However, there does not have to be much actual switching for the substitute threat to have an effect. The simple risk of substitution puts a cap on the prices that can be charged in an industry. Thus, although Eurostar has no direct competitors in terms of train services from Paris to London, the prices it can charge are ultimately limited by the cost of flights between the two cities.

There are two important points to bear in mind about substitutes:

● The price/performance ratio is critical to substitution threats. A substitute is still an effective threat even if more expensive, so long as it offers performance advantages that customers value. Thus aluminium is more expensive than steel, but its relative lightness and its resistance to corrosion gives it an advantage in some automobile manufacturing applications. It is the ratio of price to performance that matters, rather than simple price.

● Extra-industry effects are the core of the substitution concept. Substitutes come from outside the incumbents’ industry and should not be confused with competitors’ threats from within the industry. The value of the substitution concept is to force managers to look outside their own industry to consider more distant threats and constraints. If the buyers’ switching costs for the substitute are low the threat increases and the higher the threat, the less attractive the industry is likely to be.

3.2.4 The power of buyers

Buyers are the organisation’s immediate customers, not necessarily the ultimate consumers. If buyers are powerful, then they can demand low prices or costly product or service improvements.

Buyer power is likely to be high when some of the following four conditions prevail:

● Concentrated buyers. Where a few large customers account for the majority of sales, buyer power is increased. This is the case for items such as milk in the grocery sector in many European countries, where just a few retailers dominate the market. If a product or service accounts for a high percentage of total purchases of the buyer their power is also likely to increase as they are more likely to ‘shop around’ to get the best price and therefore ‘squeeze’ suppliers more than they would for more trivial purchases.

● Low switching costs. Where buyers can easily switch between one supplier and another, they have a strong negotiating position and can squeeze suppliers who are desperate for their business. Switching costs are typically low for standardised and undifferentiated products like commodities such as steel. They are also likely to be low when the buyers are fully informed about prices and product performance.

● Buyer competition threat. If the buyer has the capability to supply itself, or if it has the possibility of acquiring such a capability, it tends to be powerful. In negotiation with its suppliers, it can raise the threat of doing the suppliers’ job themselves. This is called back- ward vertical integration (see Section 8.5), moving back to sources of supply, and might occur if satisfactory prices or quality from suppliers cannot be obtained. For example, some steel companies have gained power over their iron ore suppliers as they have acquired iron ore sources for themselves.

● Low buyer profits and impact on quality. For industrial or organisational buyers there are two additional factors that can make them price sensitive and thus increase their threat: first, if the buyer group is unprofitable and pressured to reduce purchasing costs and, second, if the quality of the buyer’s product or services is little affected by the purchased product.

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It is very important that buyers are distinguished from ultimate consumers. Thus for com- panies like Procter & Gamble or Unilever (makers of shampoo, washing powders and so on), their buyers are retailers such as Carrefour or Tesco, not ordinary consumers. Carrefour and Tesco have much more negotiating power than an ordinary consumer would have. The high buying power of such supermarkets is a strategic issue for the companies supplying them. It is often useful therefore to distinguish ‘strategic customers’, powerful buyers (such as the retailers) towards whom the strategy should be primarily orientated. In the public sector, the strategic customer is typically the provider of funds, rather than the consumer of services: for a phar- maceutical company, the strategic customer is the hospital, not the patient.

3.2.5 The power of suppliers

Suppliers are those who supply the organisation with what it needs to produce the product or service. As well as fuel, raw materials and equipment, this can include labour and sources of finance. The factors increasing supplier power are the converse to those for buyer power. Thus supplier power is likely to be high where there are:

● Concentrated suppliers. Where just a few producers dominate supply, suppliers have more power over buyers. The iron ore industry is now concentrated in the hands of three main pro- ducers, leaving the steel companies, still relatively fragmented, in a weak negotiating position for this essential raw material.

● High switching costs. If it is expensive or disruptive to move from one supplier to another, then the buyer becomes relatively dependent and correspondingly weak. Microsoft is a pow- erful supplier because of the high switching costs of moving from one operating system to another. Buyers are prepared to pay a premium to avoid the trouble, and Microsoft knows it.

● Supplier competition threat. Suppliers have increased power where they are able to enter the industry themselves or cut out buyers who are acting as intermediaries. Thus airlines have been able to negotiate tough contracts with travel agencies as the rise of online book- ing has allowed them to create a direct route to customers. This is called forward vertical integration, moving up closer to the ultimate customer.

● Differentiated products. When the products or services are highly differentiated, suppliers will be more powerful. For example, although discount retailers like Walmart are extremely powerful, suppliers with strong brands, like P&G with Gilette, still have high negotiating power. Also, if there is no or few substitutes for the input the supplier group will be more powerful, like pilots’ unions in the airline industry.

Most organisations have many suppliers, so it is necessary to concentrate the analysis on the most important ones or types. If their power is high, suppliers can capture all their buy- ers’ own potential profits simply by raising their prices. Star football players have succeeded in raising their rewards to astronomical levels, while even the leading football clubs – their ‘buyers’ – struggle to make money.

3.2.6 Complementors and network effects

The five forces framework has to be used carefully and is not necessarily complete. Some industries may need the understanding of a ‘sixth force’, organisations that are complemen- tors rather than simple competitors. An organisation is your complementor if it enhances your business attractiveness to customers or suppliers.4 On the demand side, if customers value a product or service more when they also have the other organisation’s product there is a

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complementarity with respect to customers. For example, app providers are complementors to Apple and other smartphone and tablet suppliers because customers value the iPhone and iPad more if there are a wide variety of appealing apps to download. This suggests that Apple and other actors in this industry need to take the app providers into consideration when forming their strategies. On the supply side, another organisation is a complementor with respect to suppliers if it is more attractive for a supplier to deliver when it also supplies the other organisation. This suggests that competing airline companies, for example, can be complementary to each other in this respect because for a supplier like Boeing it is more attractive to invest in particular improvements for two customers rather than one.

Complementarity implies a significant shift in perspective. While Porter’s Five Forces sees organisations as battling against each other for share of industry value, complementors may cooperate to increase the total value available.5 Opportunities for cooperation can be seen through a value net: a map of organisations in a business environment demonstrating opportunities for value-creating cooperation as well as competition. In Figure 3.3 Sony is a

Figure 3.3 The value net Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review. From ‘The Right Game’ by A. Brandenburger and B. Nalebuff, July–August 1996, pp. 57–64. Copyright © 1996 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Customers

Company Product

(e.g. Apple iPod)

Complementors (e.g. Sony Music)

Competitors (Sony Walkman MP3 players)

Suppliers (e.g. Sony lithium polymer battery)

* An organisation is your complementor if: (i) customers value your product more when they have the other organisation’s product than when they have the product alone (e.g. sausage and mustard); (ii) it’s more attractive for suppliers to provide resources to you when it’s also supplying the other organisation than when it’s supplying you alone (airlines and Boeing).

Note: Organisations can play more than one role. In this figure, Sony Music (publisher of AC/DC, Sade etc) is a complementor to Apple’s iPod; Sony is also a supplier of batteries to the iPod; Sony also competes with its own MP3 players.

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complementor, supplier and competitor to Apple’s iPod. Sony and Apple have an interest in cooperating as well as competing.

Customers may not only value a product more if they also have another product or service as discussed above, but if other customers use the same product or service. When this is the case the product or service shows network effects or network externalities. There are network effects in an industry when one customer of a product or service has a positive effect on the value of that product for other customers. This implies that the more customers that use the product, the better for everyone in the network.6 For example, the value of the online auction site eBay increases for a customer as the network of other sellers and buyers grows on the site. The more goods that are offered on the site, the better for customers and this makes eBay’s site and services more attractive to users than smaller competitors. Network effects are very important for Facebook too (see in Illustration 3.2). Network effects can make an industry structurally attractive with high barriers to entry, low intensity of rivalry and power over buyers as entrants and rivals can’t compete with other companies’ larger networks and buyers become locked into them. If these effects are present in an industry they need to be carefully considered in addition to the five forces when trying to understand industry structure and strategic positioning.7 For hardware and software computer products the number of users in a network is often referred to as an ‘installed base’.

In some industries complementors and network effects work in tandem. In the smart- phone and tablet industries, for example, they operate in two steps. First, app providers are complementors to Apple as customers are more attracted to the iPhone and iPad if there are many apps. Second, when more customers are attracted to these products the network of users grows, which increases the user value even further. For Apple then the complementary app providers attract more users and this in turn provide for network effects that attract even further users. Other industries where competitors need to consider both complementors and network effects are video gaming (e.g. Nintendo) and computer operating systems industries (e.g. Microsoft).

Both complementors and network effects can create lock-ins. Strategic lock-in is where users become dependent on a supplier and are unable to use another supplier without sub- stantial switching costs.8 Strategic lock-in is related to the concept of path dependency (see Section 6.2.1) and is particularly valuable to differentiators. With customers securely locked in, it becomes possible to keep prices well above costs. For example, customers that bought music on Apple’s iTunes store could earlier only play it on Apple’s own iPod players. To switch to a Sony player would mean losing access to all the iTunes music previously pur- chased. Network effects can also create lock-in because when more and more users use the same product and technology it becomes more expensive to switch to another product or service. Sometimes companies are so successful that they create an industry standard under their own control. Microsoft built this kind of proprietary standard with its Windows oper- ating system, which holds more than 90 per cent of the market. For a business to switch to another operating system would mean retraining staff and translating files onto the new system, while perhaps creating communications problems with network members (such as customers or suppliers) who had stuck with Windows.

3.2.7 Defining the industry

The first step in an industry analysis is to define the industry and there are several issues to consider here. First, and most generally, the industry must not be defined too broadly or narrowly. For example, if an entrepreneur considers starting a taxi busi- ness in Stockholm it would be much too broad to define the industry as ‘the personal

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ILLUSTRaTION 3.2

Considering Facebook’s dominance they should have nothing to fear, but internet history is littered with fast rising and fast falling social networks.

A Statista survey found that with 1.5 billion users Face- book is not only the largest social network globally, but they control the second, third and seventh largest net- works: WhatsApp (900m users), Facebook Messenger (800m) and Instagram (400m). It seems they are well ahead of everyone else in network effects and have cre- ated high switching costs for users to move to another social network. When users have built up a set-up of perhaps hundreds of friends and have archives of their whole life including photos they don’t easily switch to another company and network just because it’s some- thing fresh.

Nevertheless, despite Facebook’s clear lead, his- tory shows it’s far from obvious that any social network incumbent can stay relevant and dominate long term. Friendster pioneered the online community in 2002, three years before Facebook, and gained over three million users within a year; attracting tens of millions of users at its height. It was, however, soon overtaken by MySpace that appealed to even more and younger users with their more hip feature-filled environment including music and music videos. By 2008, it was the leading US social networking site with over 75 million users and consistently ahead of Facebook in traffic. However, soon Facebook started to attract teenagers with their new features with corresponding losses for MySpace. This overview illustrates that networks can quickly gain millions of users and huge valuations, but can just as quickly face slowing growth, users leaving in millions and final implosion. Further back in internet history, there are several other implosions of those with social network ambitions: BBS, CompuServe, AOL, etc.

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has, however, seen the threats and taken action. Instagram was acquired in 2012 when they were becoming the biggest mobile photo-sharing service with many younger users posting content there rather than on Facebook’s own web-based photo service. Next was WhatsApp, the biggest messaging service globally; it was bought in 2014 as users started to move their activities to mobile platforms. To fence off LinkedIn

they have launched ‘Facebook at Work’. Not even Google has managed to remove Facebook from the social networking throne. Google’s first social net- working effort was Buzz, based on its Gmail service, but it never managed to attract enough users. Many Facebook users tried Google’s next and even big- ger bet, but soon discovered that not many of their friends followed so they returned and Google Plus, although still existing in another format, also flopped.

As of 2016, Facebook remains unbeaten and has perhaps learnt from social networking history. With their current valuation they can possibly continue to make defensive acquisitions as users are attracted to com- peting platforms, content and media, like Snapchat. But how long will it last? Some question Facebook’s staying power and claim it’s quite possible they will be overtaken. However, as reported by Forbes, Mark Zuck- erberg, however, only sees this as inspiration to build Facebook even stronger:

’This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underesti- mating us. It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people.’

Sources: Statista 2016; R. Waters, Financial Times, 29 January 2016; J. Gapper, Financial Times, 12 April 2015; J. Bercovici, Forbes, 11 September 2012; A. Liu, digitaltrends.com , 5 August 2014; R. Waters, Financial Times, 21 February 2014; and J. Gapper, Financial Times, 3 October 2013.

Facebook’s network fears

Questions 1 Why are network effects important for

Facebook? Would you switch to another social network if it had better features even if it was considerably smaller?

2 What other social media networks and apps do you use that you think could beat Facebook? Why?

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transportation industry’ while ‘the minicab industry in central Stockholm’ would be too narrow. The first definition would include such a wide variety of actors that the analysis would become meaningless, while the second risks excluding important competitors (e.g taxi firms from the suburbs).

Secondly, the broader industry value chain needs to be considered. Different industries often operate in different parts of a value chain or value system and should be analysed separately (see Section 4.4.2 for a discussion of value systems). For example, the iron ore industry (including companies like Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton) delivers to the steel manufacturing industry (including companies like Mittal Steel and Tata Steel) that in turn deliver to a wide variety of industries such as automobiles and construction. These three stages in the broader value chain or system should be analysed separately.

Thirdly, most industries can be analysed at different levels, for example different geogra- phies, markets and even different product or service segments within them (see Section 3.4.2 below). Thus the airline industry has different geographical markets (Europe, China and so on) and it also has different service segments within each market (e.g. leisure, business and freight). The competitive forces are likely to be different for each of these markets and segments, with distinct buyers, suppliers and barriers, etc. Michael Porter has his own rule of thumb here and suggests that you are likely dealing with distinct industries if there are differences between them in more than one force, or where differences in any force are large.9 In brief, it is important to consider both to what extent a market is national, regional or global (see Section 9.4 for a discussion of degree of internationalisation) and if product and service segments differ.

Larger corporations are often organised based on diverse markets and segments and would thus analyse each separately. For example, Electrolux, the Swedish appliance manufacturer, organises its major appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, etc.) in regional geographical markets, but also has two global business segments (small appliances and professional products) and would analyse all of these separately. The specific strategy question or organisation at issue might also provide a good indication of how to define the industry. Sometimes there is no ideal way of drawing the industry borders. Under these circumstances, the important thing is to draw the industry bor- ders clearly. They have to be drawn consistently when it comes to what actors are inside and outside the industry. In particularly complex cases it might be necessary to try out both more narrow definitions to identify details and broader ones to avoid overlooking important actors.

3.2.8 Implications of the Competitive Five Forces

The Competitive Five Forces Framework provides several useful insights into the forces and actors at work in the industry or market environment of an organisation. The objective is more than simply listing the strength of the forces and their underlying driving factors. The ultimate aim is rather to determine whether the industry is a good one to compete in or not and to what extent there are strategic positions where an individual organisation can defend itself against strong competitive forces, can exploit weak ones or can influence the forces in its favour. The aim of the five force analysis is thus an assessment of the attractiveness of the industry and any possibilities to manage strategies in relation to the forces to promote long-term survival and competitive advantage. These considerations make up the last three steps in an industry analysis together with an assessment of industry

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change, which is discussed in the next section. See Illustration 3.3 for the different steps in an industry analysis. When each of the five forces has been evaluated, the next step is thus to understand the implications of these:

● Which industries to enter (or leave)? One important purpose of the five forces framework is to identify the relative attractiveness of different industries: industries are attractive when the forces are weak. In general, entrepreneurs and managers should invest in industries where the five forces work in their favour and avoid, or disinvest from, markets where they are strongly unfavourable. Entrepreneurs sometimes choose markets because entry barri- ers are low: unless barriers are likely to rise quickly, this is precisely the wrong reason to enter. Here it is important to note that just one significantly adverse force can be enough to undermine the attractiveness of the industry as a whole. For example, powerful buyers can extract all the potential profits of an otherwise attractive industry structure by forcing down prices. Chapter 8 further examines these strategic choices and corporate strategy and what to consider when deciding to invest into or divest out of various industries.

● How can the five forces be managed? Industry structures are not necessarily fixed, but can be influenced by deliberate managerial strategies. Managers should identify strategic positions where the organisation best can defend itself against strong competitive forces, can exploit weak ones or can influence them. As a general rule, managers should try to influence and exploit any weak forces to its advantage and neutralise any strong ones. For example, if barriers to entry are low, an organisation can raise them by increasing advertising spending to improve customer loyalty. Managers can buy up competitors to reduce rivalry and to increase power over suppliers or buyers. If buyers are very strong, an organisation can try to differentiate products or services for a specific customer group and thus increase their loyalty and switching costs. Managing and influencing industry structure involves many issues relating to strategic choices and business strategy and will be a major concern of Chapter 7.

● How are competitors affected differently? Not all competitors will be affected equally by changes in industry structure, deliberate or spontaneous. If barriers are rising because of increased R&D or advertising spending, smaller players in the industry may not be able to keep up with the larger players, and be squeezed out. Similarly, growing buyer power is likely to hurt small competitors most. Strategic group analysis is helpful here (see Section 3.4.1).

Although originating in the private sector, five forces analysis can have important impli- cations for organisations in the public and charity sectors too. For example, the forces can be used to adjust the service offer or focus on key issues. Thus it might be worth switching managerial initiative from an arena with many crowded and overlapping services (e.g. social work, probation services and education) to one that is less rivalrous and where the organi- sation can do something more distinctive. Similarly, strategies could be launched to reduce dependence on particularly powerful and expensive suppliers, for example energy sources or high-shortage skills.

3.3 INDUSTRY TYpeS aND DYNaMICS

The five forces framework is the most well-known strategy tool for industry analysis, but it has to be used carefully. First, industry types and their underlying economic characteris- tics should be considered as there will have major implications on industry attractiveness and what competitive strategies are available. Second, even though industry structures are

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ILLUSTRaTION 3.3

There are several important steps in an industry analysis before and after analysing the fi ve forces.

Emily wants to start a coffee shop and perhaps even try to grow the business into several outlets. She needs to consider the following steps and questions:

1 Define the industry clearly. Do the actors in the industry face the same buyers, suppliers, entry bar- riers and substitutes? ● Vertical scope: What stages of the industry value

chain/system? ● Product or service scope: What products or ser-

vices? Which ones are actually parts of other, separate industries? What segments?

● Geographic scope: local, national, regional or global competition?

Emily should consider that many diverse businesses serve coffee. They include not only local cafés and coffee shop chains, but fast food chains, kiosks and restaurants. The definition also depends on whether Emily intends to start in an urban or rural area.

2 Identify the actors of each of the five forces and, if relevant, define different groups within them and the basis for this. Which are the . . .  ● competitors that face the same competitive

forces? (compare point 1 above) ● buyers and buyer groups (e.g. end customers vs

intermediaries, individual vs organisational)? ● suppliers and supplier groups (e.g. diverse

supplier categories)? ● potential entrants? ● substitutes?

Provided there is a clear industry definition the iden- tification of the actors for each force should be rather straightforward for Emily, but groups within them need to be considered. On the supplier side, for example, they include not only inputs like coffee but also the location of the premises and labour supply.

3 Determine the underlying factors and total strength of each force. ● Which are the main underlying factors for each

force? Why? ● Which competitive forces are strong? Which are

weak? Why?

Not all underlying factors on the five force checklists will be equally relevant for Emily. With respect to buy- ers, for example, the products’ degree of standardi- sation and prices matters most, while others are less important.

4 assess the overall industry structure and attractiveness. ● How attractive is the industry? Why? ● Which are the most important competitive

forces? Which control profitability? ● Are more profitable competitors better positioned

in relation to the five forces?

For Emily several of the forces are quite strong, but some are relatively more important for profitability. In addition, some competitors, like large coffee chains, are better positioned versus the five forces than others.

5 assess recent and expected future changes for each force. ● What are the potential positive/negative changes?

How likely are they? ● Are new entrants and/or competitors changing

the industry structure in any way?

For example, Emily needs to consider the proliferation of coffee chains during the last few years and that pubs and bakers have improved their coffee offerings lately. Maybe she can also spot possible changes in consumer trends and growth.

6 Determine how to position your business in relation to the five forces. Can you: ● exploit any of the weak forces? ● neutralise any of the strong forces? ● exploit industry change in any way? ● influence and change the industry structure to

your advantage?

To cope with the forces Emily could possibly identify a concept that would attract a certain group of customers even if buyers have many choices in urban areas. This could neutralise threats from competition and entry some- what and perhaps provide loyalty from some customers. Sources: M.E. Porter, ‘The five competitive forces that shape strategy’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (2008), pp. 58–77; J. Magretta, Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Com- petition and Strategy, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

Steps in an industry analysis

Questions 1 Help Emily and go through each step above.

Answer the questions and make a complete analysis. What is your assessment of the industry?

2 Based on your analysis: How should Emily handle the different forces? What strategic options should she consider?

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often stable they do change, and some can be in flux for considerable periods of time. This suggests that basic industry types and industry dynamics in competitive forces need to be considered. This section thus first examines fundamental industry types and then industry change and dynamics.

3.3.1 Industry types

The five forces framework builds on theories in economics10 and it helps to identify main types of industry structure. These vary from consolidated industries with just one or a few firms with high profitability to fragmented ones with many, sometimes thousands, as firms with lower profitability (see Table 3.1). In practice, particular industries are typically not pure representatives of these types, but none the less it is helpful to have these broad categories in mind in order to compare the attractiveness of industries and likely broad patterns of competitive behaviour within them. Three basic types are:

● Monopoly industries. A monopoly is formally an industry with just one firm with a unique product or service and therefore no competitive rivalry. Because of the lack of choice between rivals and few entrants, there is potentially very great power over buyers and suppliers. This can be very profitable. Firms can still have monopoly power where they are simply the dominant competitor: for example, Google’s 65 per cent share of the American search market gives it price-setting power in the internet adver- tising market. Some industries are monopolistic because of economies of scale: water utility companies are often monopolies in a particular area because it is uneconomic for smaller players to compete. For this reason, the government sometimes gives one firm the right to be the only supplier of a product or service. Other industries are monopolistic because of ‘network effects’, where a product is more valuable because of the number of other people using it: Facebook and Microsoft Office are so powerful precisely because so many are already users.11 See Illustration 3.2 for a discussion of Facebook’s dominance.

● Oligopoly industries. An oligopoly is where just a few often large firms dominate an industry, with the potential for limited rivalry and threat of entrants and great power over buyers and suppliers. With only a few competitors the actions of any one firm are likely highly influential on the others: therefore all firms must carefully consider the actions of all others. The iron ore market is an oligopoly, dominated by Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. In theory, oligopoly can be highly profitable, but much depends on the extent of

Table 3.1 Industry types

Industry structure Characteristics Competitive five forces threats

Monopoly – One firm – Often unique product or service – Very high entry barriers

Very low

Oligopoly – Few competitors – Product and service differences vary – High entry barriers

Varies

perfect competition – Many competitors – Very similar products or services – Low entry barriers

Very high

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rivalrous behaviour, the threat of entry and substitutes and the growth of final demand in key markets. Oligopolistic firms have a strong interest in minimising rivalry between each other so as to maintain a common front against buyers and suppliers.12 Where there are just two oligopolistic rivals, as for Airbus and Boeing in the civil airline industry, the situation is a duopoly.

● Perfectly competitive industries. Perfect competition exists where barriers to entry are low, there are countless equal rivals each with close to identical products or services, and information about prices, products and competitors is perfectly available. Competi- tion focuses heavily on price, because products are so similar and competitors typically cannot fund major innovations or marketing initiatives to make them dissimilar. Under these conditions, firms are unable to earn more profit than the bare minimum required to survive. Agriculture often comes close to perfect competition (e.g. potatoes, apples, onions, etc.) and so do street food vendors in major cities. Few markets, however, are absolutely perfectly competitive. Markets are more commonly slightly imperfect so that products can be differentiated to a certain degree and with information not completely available for everyone. A number of small firm service industries have this character, like restaurants, pubs, hairdressers, shoe repairs, but also the shampoo, cereal and toothpaste markets.13

It has also been argued that there are ‘hypercompetitive industries’. Hypercompetition occurs where the frequency, boldness and aggression of competitor interactions accelerate to create a condition of constant disequilibrium and change.14 Under hypercompetition, rivals tend to invest heavily in destabilising innovation, expensive marketing initiatives and aggressive price cuts, with negative impacts on profits. Hypercompetition often breaks out in otherwise oligopolistic industries. Competitive moves under conditions of hypercompetition are discussed in Section 7.3.1.

Industry structures change over time and industries can evolve from one type to another depending on the macro-environment and the degree of industry maturity with consequences for competitive force strengths. These industry dynamics are discussed next.

3.3.2 Industry structure dynamics

Industry structure analysis can easily become too static: after all, structure implies stability.15 However, industries are not always stable. To begin with, industry borders can change over time and this needs to be considered when first defining an industry. For example, many industries, especially in high-tech arenas, are converging. Convergence is where previously separate industries begin to overlap or merge in terms of activities, technologies, products and customers.16 Technological change has brought convergence between the telephone, pho- tographic and the PC industries, for example, as mobile phones have become smartphones and include camera and video, emailing and document editing functions. Hence, companies that once were in separate industries, like Samsung in mobile phones, Sony in cameras and Microsoft in PC software, are now in the same smartphone industry.

As discussed in the previous chapter, the broader macro-environment also tends to influ- ence the more specific industry environment through changes in the industry structure. These key drivers for change are likely to alter the industry, and scenario analyses can be used to understand possible impacts (see Section 2.4). An illustration of changing industry structure, and the competitive implications of this, is provided by Illustration 3.4 on the UK charity and public sector. This sub-section examines two additional approaches to under- standing change in industry structure: the industry life-cycle concept and comparative five forces analyses.

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ILLUSTRaTION 3.4

Consolidating the structure of the UK charity sector and of public-sector organisations may help improve effi ciency and services.

The UK charity sector is fragmented with over 180,000 charities including multiple charities for similar causes; 700 charities for blindness, 900 for the armed forces, 500 for animal welfare, etc. These charities compete for the same fund-raising and resources and some argue that fragmentation has resulted in questionable fund-raising techniques, poor governance and outdated business processes. It has therefore been proposed that restructuring and consolidation of the sector is needed to help improve efficiency and services. As stated in a report of the Charity Commission, the reg- ulator for charities in England and Wales:

‘Some people believe that there are too many char- ities competing for too few funds and that a signif- icant amount of charitable resource could be saved if more charities pooled their resources and worked together . . . ’ 1

Consolidation of charities has started and, accord- ing to one report, 2 129 charities carried out mergers with a transfer of £110m (€132m, $165m) to form new organisations in 2014/15. While many of the mergers or takeovers are smaller – an average of £2.4m income – there have been larger strategic deals. For example, Addaction (focused on drug and alcohol problems) took mental health provider KCA and Breast Cancer Cam- paign and Breakthrough Breast Cancer joined forces. Many small charities are forced into takeovers due to financial distress because of the overcrowded sector. Leisure trusts have been very active consolidators with three of the top ten deals, representing 5 per cent of all leisure trusts in England and Wales. Despite this, con- solidation activity is still at an early stage as reported in The Good Merger Index (2013/14):

‘The emerging picture was one of a small number of large transformative mergers, and a comparatively long-tail of local small mergers.’ 2

Richard Litchfield writing for Charity Times com- mented that:

‘This shows trustees aren’t proactively exploring merger and giving their charities space to think

strategically about the future. Boards should look objectively at their charity’s position in an increas- ingly volatile sector, and plan in the best interest of beneficiaries – could we maximise our reach and impact by joining forces, and indeed are our ser- vices better housed elsewhere?’ 3

The public sector is also changing to increase efficiencies and improve services. One significant merger was the creation in 2013 of the combined Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, enabling a budget saving of £13m. 4 This new national service for Scot- land involved the merger of the eight former local fire authorities. The NHS has also experienced consider- able consolidation activities. For example, 25 mental health trusts in London have been consolidated into ten that also work in a network of partnership with each other.

Charity and public-sector consolidations are not without problems, however, and, as with private-sector mergers, integration difficulties can be severe. Never- theless, there are also other forms of collaborations that offer opportunities to find efficiencies and improved services across charities and public-sector organisa- tions. For example, joint procurement, sharing facilities, equipment and administration and combining different service deliveries to clients.

Sources: (1) ‘RS 4a – Collaborative working and mergers: Sum- mary’, http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/rs4a.asp ; (2) The Good Merger Index, Eastside Primetimers, 2014/15 and 2013/14; (3) R. Litchfield , Charity Times, ‘Trustees need more help looking at mergers’, 13 November 2015; (4) ‘ Fire and rescue collaboration’, Grant Thornton, 26 March 2014.

Consolidation across the UK charity and public sectors

Questions 1 How would you describe the current charity

industry structure? How could it change if consolidation increases and what would be the benefits and disadvantages?

2 Which of Porter’s five forces are creating problems for the UK’s charity sector?

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The industry life cycle

The industry life-cycle concept proposes that industries start small in their development or introduction stage, then go through a period of rapid growth (the equivalent to ‘adolescence’ in the human life cycle), culminating in a period of ‘shake-out’. The final two stages are first a period of slow or even zero growth (‘maturity’), and then the final stage of decline (‘old age’). The power of the five forces typically varies with the stages of the industry life cycle.17

The development stage is an experimental one, typically with few players, little direct rivalry and highly differentiated products. The five forces are likely to be weak, therefore, though profits may actually be scarce because of high investment requirements. The next stage is one of high growth, with rivalry low as there is plenty of market opportunity for everybody. Low rivalry and keen buyers of the new product favour profits at this stage, but these are not certain. Barriers to entry may still be low in the growth stage, as existing competitors have not built up much scale, experience or customer loyalty. Suppliers can be powerful too if there is a shortage of components or materials that fast-growing businesses need for expansion. The shake-out stage begins as the market becomes increasingly satu- rated and cluttered with competitors (see Illustration 3.4). Profits are variable, as increased rivalry forces the weakest competitors out of the business. In the maturity stage, barriers to entry tend to increase, as control over distribution is established and economies of scale and experience curve benefits come into play. Products or services tend to standardise, with relative price becoming key. Buyers may become more powerful as they become less avid for the industry’s products and more confident in switching between suppliers. Profitability at the maturity stage relies on high market share, providing leverage against buyers and competitive advantage in terms of cost. Finally, the decline stage can be a period of extreme rivalry, especially where there are high exit barriers, as falling sales force remaining competitors into dog-eat-dog competition. However, survivors in the decline stage may still be profitable if competitor exit leaves them in a monopolistic position. Figure 3.4 summarises some of the conditions that can be expected at different stages in the life cycle.

Figure 3.4 The industry life cycle

Market size

Development Growth Shake-out Maturity Decline

Typical five forces

Low rivalry: High

differentiation Innovation key

Low rivalry: High growth and weak

buyers, but low entry barriers Growth ability

key

Increasing rivalry: Slower growth and some exits Managerial and

financial strength key

Extreme rivalry: Typically many exits and price competition

Cost and commitment

key

Stronger buyers: Low growth

and standard products, but higher entry

barriers Market share and cost key

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It is important to avoid putting too much faith in the inevitability of life-cycle stages. One stage does not follow predictably after another. First, industries vary widely in the length of their growth stages. For example, many internet-based industries have matured quickly and moved through the stages in less than a decade, like online travel and dating services. Second, some industries can rapidly ‘de-mature’ through radical innovation. Thus the telephony industry, based for nearly a century on fixed-line telephones, rejuvenated rapidly with the introduction of mobile and internet telephony. Likewise, since the mobile telephony industry matured it has later been revived by the introduction of smartphones and smartwatches. Anita McGahan of Toronto University warns of the ‘maturity mindset’, which can leave many managers complacent and slow to respond to new competition.18 Managing in mature industries is not necessarily just about waiting for decline. However, even if the various stages are not inevitable, the life-cycle concept does remind managers that conditions are likely to change over time. Especially in fast-moving industries, five forces analyses need to be reviewed quite regularly.

Comparative industry structure analyses

The previous section raised the issue of how competitive forces may change over time. The industry life cycle thus underlines the need to make industry structure analysis dynamic. This implies that we not only need to understand the current strength of the competitive forces, but how it may change over time. One effective means of doing this is to compare the competitive five forces over time in a simple ‘radar plot’.

Figure 3.5 provides a framework for summarising the power of each of the five forces on five axes. Power diminishes as the axes go outwards. Where the forces are low, the total area enclosed by the lines between the axes is large; where the forces are high, the total area enclosed by the lines is small. The larger the enclosed area, therefore, the greater is the profit potential. In Figure 3.5, the industry at Time 0 (represented by the red lines) has relatively low rivalry (just a few competitors) and faces low substitution threats. The threat of entry is moderate, but both buyer power and supplier power are relatively high. Overall, this looks like only a moderately attractive industry to invest in.

Figure 3.5 Comparative industry structure analysis

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However, given the dynamic nature of industries, managers need to look forward, perhaps using scenario analysis. Figure 3.5 represents five years forward by the green lines. Managers are predicting in this case some rise in the threat of substitutes (perhaps new technologies will be developed). On the other hand, they predict a falling entry threat, while both buyer power and supplier power will be easing. Rivalry will reduce still further. This looks like a classic case of an industry in which a few players emerge with overall dominance. The area enclosed by the green lines is large, suggesting a relatively attractive industry. For a firm confident of becoming one of the dominant players, this might be an industry well worth investing in.

Comparing the five forces over time on a radar plot thus helps to give industry structure analysis a dynamic aspect. Similar plots can be made to aid diversification decisions (see Chapter 8), where possible new industries to enter can be compared in terms of attractive- ness. The lines are only approximate, of course, because they aggregate the many individual elements that make up each of the forces into a simple composite measure. Notice too that if one of the forces is very adverse, then this might nullify positive assessments on the other four axes: for example, an industry with low rivalry, low substitution, low entry barriers and low supplier power might still be unattractive if powerful buyers were able to demand highly discounted prices. With these warnings in mind, such radar plots can nonetheless be both a useful device for initial analysis and an effective summary of a final, more refined and dynamic analysis.

3.4 COMpeTITORS aND MaRKeTS

An industry or sector may be too high a level to provide for a detailed understanding of competition. The five forces can impact differently on different kinds of players, which requires a more fine-grained understanding. For example, Hyundai and Porsche may be in the same broad industry (automobiles), but they are positioned differently: they are pro- tected by different barriers to entry and competitive moves by one are unlikely to affect the other. It is often useful to disaggregate. Many industries contain a range of companies, each of which have different capabilities and compete on different bases. Some of these competitor differences are captured by the concept of strategic groups. Customers too can differ significantly and these can be captured by distinguishing between different market segments. Thinking in terms of different strategic groups and market segments provides opportunities for organisations to develop highly distinctive positionings within broader industries. Besides disaggregating the analysis of industry competition, these approaches may help in understanding how value is created differently by different competitors. Com- petitor differences, both actual and potential, including the identification of entirely new market spaces can also be analysed using the strategy canvas and ‘Blue Ocean’ thinking, the last topic in this section.

3.4.1 Strategic groups19

Strategic groups are organisations within the same industry or sector with similar strategic characteristics, following similar strategies or competing on similar bases. These charac- teristics are different from those in other strategic groups in the same industry or sector. For example, in the grocery retailing industry, supermarkets, convenience stores and corner shops each form different strategic groups. There are many different characteristics that

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distinguish between strategic groups, but these can be grouped into two major categories (see Figure 3.6):20 first, the scope of an organisation’s activities (such as product range, geograph- ical coverage and range of distribution channels used); second, the resource commitment (such as brands, marketing spend and extent of vertical integration). Which characteristics are relevant differs from industry to industry, but typically important are those characteristics that separate high performers from low performers.

Strategic groups can be mapped onto two-dimensional charts – for example, one axis might be the extent of product range and the other axis the size of marketing spend. One method for choosing key dimensions by which to map strategic groups is to identify top performers (by growth or profitability) in an industry and to compare them with low performers. Characteristics that are shared by top performers, but not by low perform- ers, are likely to be particularly relevant for mapping strategic groups. For example, the most profitable firms in an industry might all be narrow in terms of product range, and lavish in terms of marketing spend, while the less profitable firms might be more widely spread in terms of products and restrained in their marketing. Here the two dimensions for mapping would be product range and marketing spend. A potential recommendation for the less profitable firms would be to cut back their product range and boost their marketing.

Figure  3.7 shows strategic groups among Indian pharmaceutical companies, with research and development intensity (R&D spend as a percentage of sales) and overseas focus (exports and patents registered overseas) defining the axes of the map. These two axes do explain a good deal of the variation in profitability between groups. The most profitable group is the Emergent globals (11.3 per cent average return on sales), those with high R&D intensity and high overseas focus. On the other hand, the Exploiter group

Figure 3.6 Some characteristics for identifying strategic groups

It is useful to consider the extent to which organisations differ in terms of characteristics such as:

• Extent of product (or service) diversity • Extent of geographical coverage • Number of market segments served • Distribution channels used

• Extent (number) of branding • Marketing effort (e.g. advertising spread, size of salesforce) • Extent of vertical integration • Product or service quality • Technological leadership (a leader or follower) • Size of organisation

Scope of activities

Resource commitment

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spends little on R&D and is focused on domestic markets, and enjoys only 2.0 per cent average return on sales.

This strategic group concept is useful in at least three ways:

● Understanding competition. Managers can focus on their direct competitors within their particular strategic group, rather than the whole industry as rivalry often is strongest between these. In general, strategic groups are influenced differently by the competitive forces and this focus thus allows for a more specific industry structure analysis. They can also establish the dimensions that distinguish them most from other groups, and which might be the basis for relative success or failure. This suggests that there may be profita- bility differences between different strategic groups and the differing dimensions can then become the focus of their action.

● Analysis of strategic opportunities. Strategic group maps can identify the most attractive ‘strategic spaces’ within an industry. Some spaces on the map may be ‘white spaces’, relatively under-occupied. In the Indian pharmaceutical industry, the white space is high R&D investment combined with focus on domestic markets. Such white spaces might be unexploited opportunities. On the other hand, they could turn out to be ‘black holes’, impossible to exploit and likely to damage any entrant. A strategic group map is only the first stage of the analysis. Strategic spaces need to tested carefully.

● Analysis of mobility barriers. Of course, moving across the strategic group map to take advantage of opportunities is not costless. Often it will require difficult decisions and rare resources. Strategic groups are therefore characterised by ‘mobility barriers’, obstacles to movement from one strategic group to another. These are the equivalent to barriers

Figure 3.7 Strategic groups in the Indian pharmaceutical industry Source: Developed from R. Chittoor and S. Ray, ‘Internationalisation paths of Indian pharmaceutical firms: a strategic group analysis’, Journal of International Management, vol. 13 (2009), pp. 338–55.

Emergent globals

(4)* RoS: 11.3%

Outsourcers (2)

RoS: 7.8% Exploiters

(18) RoS: 2.0%

Explorers (15)

RoS: 10.8%R&D intensity

* Brackets: Number of firms in group RoS: Group average return on sales

Low

High

Low High Overseas focus

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to entry in five forces analysis, but between different strategic groups within the same industry.

Although movement from the Exploiter group in Indian pharmaceuticals to the Emergent global group might seem very attractive in terms of profits, it is likely to demand very sub- stantial financial investment and strong managerial skills. Mobility into the Emergent global group will not be easy. As with barriers to entry, it is good to be in a successful strategic group protected by strong mobility barriers, to impede imitation.

3.4.2 Market segments

The concept of strategic groups discussed above helps with understanding the similari- ties and differences in terms of competitor characteristics. Industries can also be disag- gregated into smaller and specific market sections known as segments. The concept of market segment focuses on differences in customer needs. A market segment21 is a group of customers who have similar needs that are different from customer needs in other parts of the market. Where these customer groups are relatively small, such market segments are often called ‘niches’. Dominance of a market segment or niche can be very valuable, for the same reasons that dominance of an industry can be valuable following five forces reasoning.

Segmentation should reflect an organisation’s strategy22 and strategies based on market segments must keep customer needs firmly in mind. Therefore, two issues are particularly important in market segment analysis:

● Variation in customer needs. Focusing on customer needs that are highly distinctive from those typical in the market is one means of building a long-term segment strategy. Customer needs vary for a whole variety of reasons – some of which are identified in Table 3.2. Theoretically, any of these factors could be used to identify distinct market segments. However, the crucial bases of segmentation vary according to market. In industrial markets, segmentation is often thought of in terms of industrial classification of buyers: steel producers might segment by automobile industry, packaging industry and construction industry, for example. On the other hand, segmentation by buyer behaviour (e.g. direct buying versus those users who buy through third parties such as contractors) or purchase value (e.g. high-value bulk purchasers versus frequent low- value purchasers) might be more appropriate. Being able to serve a highly distinctive segment that other organisations find difficult to serve is often the basis for a secure long-term strategy.

● Specialisation within a market segment can also be an important basis for a successful segmentation strategy. This is sometimes called a ‘niche strategy’. Organisations that have built up most experience in servicing a particular market segment should not only have lower costs in so doing, but also should have built relationships which may be difficult for others to break down. Experience and relationships are likely to protect a dominant position in a particular segment. However, precisely because customers value different things in different segments, specialised producers may find it very difficult to compete on a broader basis. For example, a small local brewery competing against the big brands on the basis of its ability to satisfy distinctive local tastes is unlikely to find it easy to serve other segments where tastes are different, scale requirements are larger and distribution channels are more complex.

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3.4.3 Critical success factors and ‘Blue Oceans’

Industry or sector analysis should also include an understanding of competitors and the dif- ferent ways they offer value to customers. As Michael Porter’s five forces framework under- lines, reducing industry rivalry involves competitors finding differentiated positions in the marketplace. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne at INSEAD propose two concepts that help think creatively about the relative positioning of competitors in the environment and finding uncontested market spaces: the strategy canvas and ‘Blue Oceans’.23

A strategy canvas compares competitors according to their performance on key success factors in order to establish the extent of differentiation. It captures the current factors of competition of the industry, but also offers ways of challenging these and creatively trying to identify new competitive offerings. Figure 3.8 shows a strategy canvas for three electrical components companies. The canvas highlights the following three features:

● Critical success factors (CSFs) are those factors that either are particularly valued by cus- tomers (i.e. strategic customers) or provide a significant advantage in terms of cost. Criti- cal success factors are therefore likely to be an important source of competitive advantage or disadvantage. Figure 3.8 identifies five established critical success factors in this electri- cal components market (cost, after-sales service, delivery reliability, technical quality and testing facilities). Note there is also a new sixth critical success factor, design advisory services, which will be discussed under the third subhead, value innovation.

● Value curves are a graphic depiction of how customers perceive competitors’ relative performance across the critical success factors. In Figure 3.8, companies A and B perform well on cost, service, reliability and quality, but less well on testing. They do not offer any design advice. They are poorly differentiated and occupy a space in the market where

Table 3.2 Some bases of market segmentation

Type of factor Consumer markets Industrial/organisational markets

Characteristics of people/organisations Age, gender, ethnicity Income Family size Life-cycle stage Location Lifestyle

Industry Location Size Technology Profitability Management

purchase/use situation Size of purchase Brand loyalty Purpose of use Purchasing behaviour Importance of purchase Choice criteria

Application Importance of purchase Volume Frequency of purchase Purchasing procedure Choice criteria Distribution channel

Users’ needs and preferences for product characteristics

Product similarity Price preference Brand preferences Desired features Quality

Performance requirements Assistance from suppliers Brand preferences Desired features Quality Service requirements

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profits may be hard to get because of excessive rivalry between the two. Company C, on the other hand, has a radically different value curve, characteristic of a ‘value innovator’.

● Value innovation is the creation of new market space by excelling on established critical success factors on which competitors are performing badly and/or by creating new critical success factors representing previously unrecognised customer wants. Thus in Figure 3.8, company C is a value innovator in both senses. First, it excels on the established customer need of offering testing facilities for customers’ products using its components. Second, it offers a new and valued design service advising customers on how to integrate their components in order for them to create better products.

A value innovator is a company that competes in ‘Blue Oceans’. Blue Oceans are new mar- ket spaces where competition is minimised.24 Blue Oceans contrast with ‘Red Oceans’, where industries are already well defined and rivalry is intense. Blue Oceans evoke wide empty seas. Red Oceans are associated with bloody competition and ‘red ink’, in other words financial losses. The Blue Ocean concept is thus useful for identifying potential spaces in the envi- ronment with little competition. These Blue Oceans are strategic gaps in the marketplace.

In Figure 3.8, company C’s strategy exemplifies two critical principles of Blue Ocean thinking: focus and divergence. First, company C focuses its efforts on just two factors, testing and design services, while maintaining only adequate performance on the other critical success factors where its competitors are already high performers. Second, it has created a value curve that significantly diverges from its competitors’ value curves, creating a substantial strategic gap, or Blue Ocean, in the areas of testing and design services. This is shrewd. For company C, beating companies A and B in the areas where they are performing well anyway would require major investment and likely provide little advantage given that customers are already highly satisfied. Challenging A and B on cost, after-sales service, delivery or quality would be a Red Ocean strategy, increasing industry rivalry. Far better is to concentrate on where a large gap can be created between competitors. Company C faces little competition for those customers who really value testing and design services, and

Figure 3.8 Strategy canvas for electrical components companies Note: cost is used rather than price for consistency of value curves.

Source: Developed from W.C. Kim and R. Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

Company A

High

Company B

Company C

Blue Ocean

Low Cost After-sales

service Delivery

reliability Technical quality

Testing services

Design advice

Perceived performance

Critical success factors

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consequently can charge good prices for them. The task for companies A and B now is to find strategic gaps of their own.

3.5 OppORTUNITIeS aND ThReaTS

The concepts and frameworks discussed above and in Chapter 2 should be helpful in under- standing the factors in the macro-, industry and competitor/market environments of an organisation. However, the critical issue is the implications that are drawn from this under- standing in guiding strategic decisions and choices. The crucial next stage, therefore, is to draw from the environmental analysis specific strategic opportunities and threats for the organisation. Identifying these opportunities and threats is extremely valuable when thinking about strategic choices for the future (the subject of Chapters 7 to 11). Opportunities and threats form one half of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analyses that shape many companies’ strategy formulation (see Section 4.4.5). In responding strategically to the environment, the goal is to reduce identified threats and take advantage of the best opportunities.

The techniques and concepts in this and the previous chapter should help in identifying environmental threats and opportunities, for instance:

● PESTEL analysis of the macro-environment might reveal threats and opportunities pre- sented by technological change, or shifts in market demographics or such like factors.

● Identification of key drivers for change can help generate different scenarios for manage- rial discussion, some more threatening and others more favourable.

● Porter’s five forces analysis might, for example, identify a rise or fall in barriers to entry, or opportunities to reduce industry rivalry, perhaps by acquisition of competitors.

● Blue Ocean thinking might reveal where companies can create new market spaces; alter- natively, it could help identify success factors which new entrants might attack in order to turn ‘Blue Oceans’ into ‘Red Oceans’.

While all these techniques and concepts are important tools for understanding environ- ments, it is important to recognise that any analysis is likely to be somewhat subjective. Entrepreneurs and managers often have particular blinkers with regard to what they see and prioritise. Techniques and concepts can be helpful in challenging existing assumptions and encouraging broader perspectives, but they are unlikely to overcome human subjectivity and biases completely.

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ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

a new competition view focuses on how value is created and captured.

A new ‘value capture model’ based on game theory aspires to replace Porter’s competitive forces frame- work. 25 The power of his five competitive forces defines the opportunities of a firm. The new model rather emphasises how the firm’s opportunities depend on how the firm, suppliers and buyers create value together. They then compete for a share of that value based on a single competition force that each player has.

Compared to Porter’s framework, the emphasis in this model is more on how value is created between parties. The firm and its suppliers and buyers comprise a value network of transactions that create value to be shared among them. They then compete for their share based on the single competition force each has: suppliers compete for firms, and vice versa; firms compete for buyers and vice versa. A firm, for exam- ple, wants to make transactions with certain suppliers and customers to create value, but also to capture as much of that value as possible. The strength of each

player’s competition force then depends on how many others it could create value with. For example, if a firm has many alternative suppliers and buyers to create value with, its competition force would go up as it can threaten to make transactions with someone else and thus bargain up its share of the value pie this way. This suggests that value creation and value appropriation are linked in this model. The more value the firm can create with various suppliers and buyers the larger por- tion of this value it can capture.

From five forces to one

Question How would you compare the ‘value capture model’ with Porter’s five forces when making an industry analysis? What’s the benefits and drawback of each?

SUMMaRY ● The environment influence closest to an organisation includes the industry or sector (middle layer in

Figure  2.1 ).

● Industries and sectors can be analysed in terms of Porter’s five forces – barriers to entry, substitutes, buyer power, supplier power and rivalry. Together with complementors and network effects, these determine industry or sector attractiveness and possible ways of managing strategy.

● Industries and sectors are dynamic, and their changes can be analysed in terms of the industry life cycle and comparative five forces radar plots.

● Within industries strategic group analysis and market segment analysis can help identify strategic gaps or opportunities (the inner layers in Figure  2.1 ).

● Blue Ocean strategies are a means of avoiding Red Oceans with many similar rivals and low profitability and can be analysed with a strategy canvas.

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WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

3.1 Drawing on Section 3.2, carry out a five forces analysis of the pharmaceutical industry* or SAB Miller’s position in the brewing industry (Megabrew*). What do you conclude about that industry’s attractiveness?

3.2 Drawing on Section 3.2.7, identify an industry with network effects. Consider what those might involve; why customers prefer certain services, products and companies over others; and why they may not easily switch to other services and companies.

3.3✱ Drawing on Section 3.3, and particularly using the radar plot technique of Figure 3.5, choose two industries or sectors and compare their attractiveness in terms of the five forces (a) today; (b) in approximately three to five years’ time. Justify your assessment of each of the five forces’ strengths. Which industry or sector would you invest in?

3.4 With regard to Section 3.4.1 and Figure 3.6, identify an industry (e.g. the motor industry or clothing retailers) and, by comparing competitors, map out the main strategic groups in the industry according to key strategic dimensions. Try more than one set of key strategic dimensions to map the industry. Do the resulting maps identify any under-exploited opportunities in the industry?

3.5✱ Drawing on Section 3.4.3, and particularly on Figure 3.8, identify critical success factors for an industry with which you and your peers are familiar (e.g. clothing retailers or mobile phone companies). Using your own estimates (or those of your peers), construct a strategy canvas comparing the main competitors, as in Figure 3.8. What implications does your strategy canvas have for the strategies of these competitors?

Integrative assignment

3.6✱ Carry out a full analysis of an industry or sector of your choice (using, for example, five forces and strategic groups). Consider explicitly how the industry or sector is affected by globalisation (see Chapter 9, particularly Figure 9.2 on drivers) and innovation (see Chapter 10, particularly Figure 10.5 on product and process innovation).

ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● The classic book on the analysis of industries is M.E. Por- ter, Competitive Strategy, Free Press, 1980. An updated view is available in M.E. Porter, ‘The five competitive forces that shape strategy’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (2008), pp. 58–77.

● For an in-depth discussion of how to apply Porter’s Com- petitive Force Frameworks, see J. Magretta, Understanding

Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

● An influential development on Porter’s basic ideas is W.C. Kim and R. Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competi- tion Irrelevant, Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

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ReFeReNCeS

1. See M.E. Porter, Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Ana- lyzing Industries and Competitors, Free Press, 1980, p. 5.

2. See endnote 1 above and see M. Porter, ‘The five competitive forces that shape strategy’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (2008), pp. 58–77; and G. Yip, T.M. Devinney and G. Johnson, ‘Measuring long-term superior performance: The UK’s long-term superior performers 1984-2003’, Long Range Planning, vol. 42, no. 3 (2009), pp. 390–413. See also http://www.damodaran.com for industry profitability differ- ences in various geographical regions.

3. An updated discussion of the classic framework is M. Por- ter, ‘The five competitive forces that shape strategy’, Har- vard Business Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (2008), pp. 58–77 and ‘Strategy and the Internet’, Harvard Business Review, no. 3 (2001), pp. 62–78. For a discussion and guide to Porter’s ideas about strategy see Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy, Harvard Busi- ness Review Press, 2012. C. Christensen, ‘The past and future of competitive advantage’, Sloan Management Review, vol. 42, no. 2 (2001), pp. 105–9 provides an interesting critique and update of some of the factors underlying Porter’s five forces. A critical overview of Porter’s thinking is also pro- vided in R. Huggins and H. Izushi (eds), Competition, Competitive Advantage, and Clusters: The Ideas of Michael Porter, Oxford University Press, 2011.

4. A. Brandenburger and B. Nalebuff, ‘The right game’, Harvard Business Review, July–August 1995, pp. 57–64.

5. See K. Walley, ‘Coopetition: an introduction to the sub- ject and an agenda for research’, International Studies of Management and Organization, vol. 37, no. 2 (2007), pp. 11–31. On the dangers of ‘complementors’, see D. Yoffie and M. Kwak, ‘With friends like these’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no. 9 (2006), pp. 88–98.

6. For an overview of recent empirical research of strategy and network effects see D.P. McIntyre and M. Subrama- niam, ‘Strategy in network industries: a review and research agenda’, Journal of Management (2009), pp 1–24. For a general discussion of the role of networks externalities and standards, see C. Shapiro and H.R. Varian, Information Rules: a Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.

7. If network effects are present, a standard strategic advice for companies has been to move in first and grow fast to capture those effects before anyone else as this would pro- vide an advantage over competitors, but it has recently been demonstrated that there are other issues to consider: H. Hal- aburda and F. Oberholzer-Gee, ‘The limits of scale’, Harvard Business Review, April 2014, pp. 95–99.

8. W.B. Arthur, ‘Increasing returns and the new world of busi- ness’, Harvard Business Review, July–August (1996), pp. 100–109. See also the concept of system lock-in in A. Hax and D. Wilde, ‘The Delta Model – discovering new sources of profitability in a networked economy’, European Manage- ment Journal, vol. 19, no. 4 (2001), pp. 379–91.

9. For an in-depth discussion of how to apply Porter’s com- petive forces framework, see J. Magretta, Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

10. The five forces framework builds on the structure– conduct–performance (SCP) model in industrial organi- sation economics. It stipulates that the industry structure determines firm conduct that in turn influences industry performance. SCP categorises industry structure into four main types: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition and perfect competition. See J. Lipczyn- ski, J. Wilson and J. Goddard, Industrial Organization: Competition, Strategy, Policy, Prentice Hall/Financial Times, 2009.

11. D. McIntyre and M. Subramarian, ‘Strategy in network industries: a review and research agenda’, Journal of Man- agement, vol. 35 (2009), pp. 1494–512.

12. Explicit cooperation among the firms to limit competition or cartels are prohibited in most developed nations, but there is also ‘tacit collusion’. In tacit collusion, companies coop- erate to reduce competition without any formal agreement. It is facilitated by a small numer of rivals, a homogenous product or service and costs and high barriers to entry. Tacit collusion can also be illegal under certain circumstances. See Lipczynski, Wilson and Goddard endnote 10.

13. Economists name these markets ‘monopolistic competition’ as firms can still create a position or niche for which they have some monopoly power over pricing.

14. This definition is from R. D’Aveni, Hypercompetition: Man- aging the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering, Free Press, 1994, p. 2.

15. There is a discussion of the static nature of the Porter model, and other limitations in M. Grundy, ‘Rethinking and rein- venting Michael Porter’s five forces model’, Strategic Change, vol. 15 (2006), pp. 213–29.

16. See for example F. Hacklin, B. Battistini and G. Von Krogh, ‘Strategic choices in converging industries’, MIT Sloan Management Review vol. 51, no. 1 (2013), pp. 65–73.

17. A classic academic overview of the industry life cycle is S. Klepper, ‘Industry life cycles’, Industrial and Corporate Change, vol. 6, no. 1 (1996), pp. 119–43. See also A. McGa- han, ‘How industries evolve’, Business Strategy Review, vol. 11, no. 3 (2000), pp. 1–16.

18. A. McGahan, ‘How industries evolve’, Business Strategy Review, vol. 11, no. 3 (2000), pp. 1–16.

19. For examples of strategic group analysis, see G. Leask and D. Parker, ‘Strategic groups, competitive groups and per- formance in the UK pharmaceutical industry’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28, no. 7 (2007), pp. 723–45; and W. Desarbo, R. Grewal and R. Wang, ‘Dynamic strategic groups: deriving spatial evolutionary paths’, Strategic Man- agement Journal, vol. 30, no. 8 (2009), pp. 1420–39.

20. These characteristics are based on Porter, endnote 1 above.

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21. A useful discussion of segmentation in relation to competi- tive strategy is provided in M.E. Porter, Competitive Advan- tage, Free Press, 1985, Chapter 7. See also the discussion on market segmentation in P. Kotler, G. Armstrong, J. Saunders and V. Wong, Principles of Marketing, 5th European edn, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2008, Chapter 9.

22. For a discussion of how market segmentation needs to be broadly related to an organisation’s strategy and not only narrowly focused on the needs of advertising, see D.

Yankelovich and D. Meer, ‘Rediscovering market segmenta- tion’, Harvard Business Review, February 2006, pp. 73–80.

23. W.C. Kim and R. Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy, Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

24. W.C. Kim and R. Mauborgne, ‘How strategy shapes structure’, Harvard Business Review, September 2009, pp. 73–80.

25. M.D. Ryall, ‘The new dynamics of competition’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 91, no. 60 (2013), pp. 80–87.

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example, the UK government had an advertising budget of £289m (€347m, $433m) in 2014. Charities, political groups, religious groups and other not-for-profit organi- sations also use the advertising industry to attract funds into their organisation or to raise awareness of issues. Together these account for approximately three per cent of advertising spend.

Advertisements are usually placed in selected media (TV, press, radio, internet, mobile, etc.) by an advertising agency acting on behalf of the client brand company: thus they are acting as ‘agents’. The client company employs the advertising agency to use its knowledge, skills, cre- ativity and experience to create advertising and market- ing to drive consumption of the client’s brands. Clients traditionally have been charged according to the time spent on creating the advertisements plus a commission based on the media and services bought on behalf of clients. However, in recent years, larger advertisers such as Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Unilever have been moving away from this compensation model to a ‘value’ or results-based model based on a number of metrics, including growth in sales and market share.

Growth in the advertising industry

Money spent on advertising has increased dramatically over the past two decades and in 2015 was over $180 billion (€166bn, £126bn) in the USA and $569 billion worldwide. While there might be a decline in recessionary years, it is predicted that spending on advertising will exceed $719 billion globally by 2019. Over 2014–15, the Dow Jones stock price index for the American media agencies sector (of which the leading advertising agencies are the largest members) rose about 15 per cent ahead of the New York Stock Exchange average (sources: bigcharts. com and dowjones.com ).

The industry is shifting its focus as emerging mar- kets drive revenues from geographic sectors that would not have been significant 5 to 10 years ago, such as the BRICS countries and the Middle East and North Africa. This shift has seen the emergence of agencies specialising in Islamic marketing, characterised by a strong ethical responsibility to consumers. Future trends indicate the

This case is centred on the global advertising industry which faces significant strategic dilemmas driven by the rise of consumer spending in developing economies, technological convergence and pressures from major advertisers for results-based compensation. Strategy in this industry is further explored in MyStrategyExperi- ence simulation ( https://heuk.pearson.com/simulations/ mystrategyexperience.html ).

In the second decade of the new millennium, advertising agencies faced a number of unanticipated challenges. Traditional markets and industry operating methods, developed largely in North America and Western Europe following the rise of consumer spending power in the twentieth century, were being radically reappraised.

The industry was subject to game-changing forces from the so-called ‘digital revolution’ with the entry of search companies like Google, Bing and Yahoo as rivals for advertising budgets. Changing patterns in global con- sumer markets impacted on both industry dynamics and structure. Budgets being spent through traditional adver- tising agencies were being squeezed as industry rivalry intensified.

Overview of the advertising industry

Traditionally, the business objective of advertising agen- cies is to target a specific audience on behalf of clients with a message that encourages them to try a product or service and ultimately purchase it. This is done largely through the concept of a brand being communicated via media channels. Brands allow consumers to differ- entiate between products and services and it is the job of the advertising agency to position the brand so that it is associated with functions and attributes which are valued by target consumers. These brands may be con- sumer brands (e.g. Coca-Cola, Nike and Mercedes Benz) or business-to-business (B2B) brands (e.g. IBM, Airbus Industrie and KPMG). Some brands target both consum- ers and businesses (e.g. Microsoft and Apple).

As well as private-sector brand companies, govern- ments spend heavily to advertise public-sector services such as healthcare and education or to influence indi- vidual behaviour (such as ‘Don’t drink and drive’). For

Global forces and the advertising industry Peter Cardwell

CaSe eXaMpLe

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GLOBAL FORCES AND THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY

Large multi-agency conglomerates compete on the basis of the quality of their creative output (as indicated by industry awards), the ability to buy media more cost- effectively, market knowledge, global reach and range of services. Some agency groups have integrated vertically into higher-margin marketing services. Omnicom, through its Diversified Agency Services, has acquired printing services and telemarketing/customer care companies. Other agency groups have vertically integrated to lesser or greater degrees.

Mid-sized and smaller boutique advertising agencies compete by delivering value-added services through in-depth knowledge of specific market sectors, special- ised services such as digital and by building a reputation for innovative and ground-breaking creative advertising/ marketing campaigns. However, they might be more reli- ant on outsourced creative suppliers than larger agencies.

Many small specialist agencies are founded by former employees of large agencies, such as the senior staff breakaway from Young & Rubicam to form the agency Adam + Eve. In turn, smaller specialist agencies are often acquired by the large multi-agency conglomerates in order to acquire specific capabilities to target new sectors or markets or provide additional services to existing clients, like WPP’s acquisition of a majority stake in the smaller ideas and innovation agency AKQA for $540m ‘to prepare for a more digital future’.

strong emergence of consumer brands in areas of the world where sophisticated consumers with brand aware- ness are currently in the minority (see Table 1).

In terms of industry sectors, three of the top 10 global advertisers are car manufacturers. However, the two major fmcg (fast-moving consumer goods) pro- ducers, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, hold the two top spots for global advertising spend. Healthcare and beauty, consumer electronics, fast food, beverage and confectionery manufacturers are all featured in the top 20 global advertisers. The top 100 advertisers account for nearly 50 per cent of the measured global adver- tising economy.

Competition in the advertising industry

Advertising agencies come in all sizes and include everything from one- or two-person ‘boutique’ operations (which rely mostly on freelance outsourced talent to per- form most functions), small to medium-sized agencies, large independents to multinational, multi-agency con- glomerates employing over 190,000 people. The indus- try has gone through a period of increasing concentration through acquisitions, thereby creating multi-agency con- glomerates such as those listed in Table 2. While these conglomerates are mainly headquartered in London, New York and Paris, they operate globally.

Table 1 Global advertising expenditure by region (US$ million, currency conversion at 2011 average rates)

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

N America 164,516 169,277 175,024 183,075 191,130 W Europe 107,520 111,300 114,712 119,531 124,790 Asia Pacific 113,345 122,000 130,711 137,639 145,695 C & E Europe 29,243 32,284 35,514 36,691 37,305 Latin America 31,673 34,082 36,836 38,530 39,226 Africa/ME/ROW 24,150 25,941 28,044 29,334 30,625 World 470,447 494,884 520,841 544,800 568,771

Source: Zenith, January 2016.

Table 2 Top five multi-agency conglomerates: 2014, by revenue, profit before interest and tax (PBIT), number of employees and agency brands

Group name Revenue pBIT employees advertising agency brands

WPP (UK) £11.5 bn £1.662 bn 190,000 JWT, Grey, Ogilvy, Y&R Omnicom (US) $15.32 bn $1.944 bn 74,000 BBDO, DDB, TBWA Publicis Groupe (France) €7.2 bn €829 m 77,000 Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, BBH IPG (US) $7.54 bn $788 m 48,700 McCann Erickson, FCB, Lowe & Partners Havas Worldwide (France) €1.865 bn €263 m 11,186 Havas Conseil

Sources: WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, IPG, Havas.

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differentiate themselves by offering a mix of web design/ development, search engine marketing, internet adver- tising/marketing, or e-business/e-commerce consulting. They are classified as ‘agencies’ because they create dig- ital media campaigns and implement media purchases of ads on behalf of clients on social networking and commu- nity sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and other digital media.

Digital search and mobile advertising budgets are increasing faster than other traditional advertising media as search companies like Google and Facebook generate revenues from paid search as advertisers discover that targeted ads online are highly effective (see Table 3). By 2015, Google had a 55 per cent market share of the $81.6 bn spent on online search advertising globally, with Facebook also increasing its share.

Mobile ad spending on sites such as YouTube, Pin- terest and Twitter continues to increase at the expense of desktop, taking a bigger share of marketers’ budgets. The shift to mobile ad spending is being driven mainly by consumer demand and is predicted to be over 28 per cent of total media ad spending in the US by 2019 which is why Google has made acquisitions in this sector (see Table 4).

Recent years have seen new competition in this indus- try as search companies such as Google, Yahoo and Micro- soft Bing begin to exploit their ability to interact with and gain information about millions of potential consumers of branded products.

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the world’s largest advertising and marketing services group, has pointed out that Google will rival his agency’s relationships with the biggest traditional media corporations such as TV, newspaper and magazine, and possibly even become a rival for the relationships with WPP’s clients. WPP group spent more than $4bn with Google in 2015 and $1bn with Facebook. Sorrell calls Google a ‘frenemy’ – the combina- tion of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’. Google is a ‘friend’ where it allows WPP to place targeted advertising based on Google analytics and an ‘enemy’ where it does not share these analytics with the agency and becomes a potential com- petitor for the customer insight and advertising tradition- ally created by WPP.

With the development of the internet and online search advertising, a new breed of interactive digital media agen- cies, of which AKQA is an example, established them- selves in the digital space before traditional advertising agencies fully embraced the internet. These agencies

Table 3 Global advertising expenditure by medium (US$ million, currency conversion at 2011 average rates)

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Newspapers 93,019 92,300 91,908 90,070 88,268 Magazines 42,644 42,372 42,300 40,185 39,391 Television 191,198 202,380 213,878 210,670 210,459 Radio 32,580 33,815 35,054 34,457 34,130 Cinema 2,393 2,538 2,681 2,767 2,850 Outdoor 30,945 32,821 34,554 36,143 36,324 Internet 70,518 80,672 91,516 130,019 156,543 Total 463,297 486,898 511,891 544,311 567,956

Note: The totals in Table 3 are lower than in Table 1, since that table includes advertising expenditure for a few countries where it is not itemised by advertising medium.

Source: Zenith, September 2015.

Table 4 US mobile ad spending 2015–2019

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Mobile ad spending (US$bn) 31.59 43.60 52.76 61.20 69.15 % change 65.00% 38.00% 21.00% 16.00% 13.00% % of digital ad spending 53.00% 63.40% 68.20% 70.70% 72.00% % of total media ad spending 17.30% 22.70% 26.20% 28.80% 31.00%

Source: eMarketer.com.

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GLOBAL FORCES AND THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY

Questions 1 Carry out a five forces analysis of the advertising

industry in 2015. What is the strength of the five forces and what underlying factors drive them? What is the industry attractiveness?

2 What are the changes in the industry? Which forces are becoming more negative or positive for the major advertising agencies?

Sources: Zenith, September 2015, http://www.zenithoptimedia.co.uk; Advertising Age; Omnicom Group, http://www.omnicomgroup.com; WPP Group, http://www.wpp.com; Publicis, http://www.publicisgroupe. com; Interpublic Group of Companies, http://www.interpublic.com; Havas Conseils, http://www.havas.com/havas-dyn/en/; http://www. financialcontent.com; and http://www.emarketer.com. See also MyStrategyExperience: the Strategy Simulation designed for Exploring Strategy: https://heuk.pearson.com/simulations/mystrategyexperience.html.

The disruptive change in the advertising industry at the beginning of the twenty-first century started with the internet. Many industry experts believe that convergence of internet, TV, smartphones, tablets and laptop comput- ers is inevitable, which in turn will have a further major impact on the advertising industry.

Factors that have driven competitive advantage to date may not be relevant in the future. Traditionally this industry has embodied the idea of creativity as the vital differentiator between the best and the mediocre. Individuals have often been at the heart of this crea- tivity. With the emergence of Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Bing, influencing and changing the media by which advertising messages are being delivered, a key ques- tion is whether creativity will be more or less important in the future, in relation to breadth of services and global reach.

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Strategic choices

Macro- environment

Stakeholders

Resources Culture

Industry

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Identify organisational resources and capabilities and how these relate to the strat- egies of organisations.

● Analyse how resources and capabilities might provide sustainable competitive advantage on the basis of their Value, Rarity, Inimitability and Organisational support (VRIO).

● Diagnose resources and capabilities by means of VRIO analysis, value chain analysis, activity systems mapping , benchmarking and SWOT analysis.

● Consider how resources and capabilities can be developed based on dynamic capabilities.

4 RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES

distinctive resources and capabilities p.100

dynamic capabilities p.119

inimitable resources and capabilities p.102

organisational knowledge p.105

profit pools p.112

rare resources and capabilities p.102

resource-based view p.97

resources and capabilities p.98

SWOT p.115

threshold resources and capabilities p.100

valuable resources and capabilities p.101

value chain p.107

value system p.107

VRIO analysis p.107

key terms

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4.1 INTRODUCTION

Chapters 2 and 3 emphasised the importance of the external environment of an organisation and how it can create both strategic opportunities and threats. However, it is not only the external environment that matters for strategy; there are also differences between organi- sations and companies that need to be taken into account. For example, manufacturers of saloon cars compete within the same industry and within the same technological environ- ment, but with markedly different success. BMW has been relatively successful consistently; Chrysler has found it more difficult to maintain its competitive position. And others, like SAAB in Sweden, have gone out of business (even though the brand as such has been acquired by others). It is not so much the characteristics of the environment which explain these differences in performance, but differences in their company-specific resources and capabili- ties. This puts the focus on variations between companies within the same environment and industry and how they vary in their resources and capabilities arrangements. It is the strategic importance of organisations’ resources and capabilities that is the focus of this chapter.

The key issues posed by the chapter are summarised in Figure 4.1. Underlying these are two key issues. The first is that organisations are not identical, but have different resources and capabilities; they are ‘heterogeneous’ in this respect. The second is that it can be difficult for one organisation to obtain or imitate the resources and capabilities of another. The implica- tion for managers is that they need to understand how their organisations are different from their rivals in ways that may be the basis of achieving competitive advantage and superior performance. These concepts underlie what has become known as the resource-based view (RBV) of strategy (sometimes labelled the ‘capabilities view’) pioneered by Jay Barney at University of Utah: that the competitive advantage and superior performance of an organ- isation are explained by the distinctiveness of its resources and capabilities.1 Resource – or capabilities – views have become very influential, but it should be borne in mind that while the terminology and concepts employed here align with these views, readers will find different terminology used elsewhere.

The chapter has four further sections:

● Section 4.2 discusses the foundations of what resources and capabilities are. It also draws a distinction between threshold resources and capabilities required to be able to compete in a market and distinctive resources and capabilities that may be a basis for achieving competitive advantage and superior performance.

Figure 4.1 Resources and capabilities: the key issues

What type of resources and capabilities can contribute to competitive advantage and superior performance?

What are resources and capabilities?

How can resources and capabilities be evaluated?

How can resources and capabilities be developed and managed?

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● Section 4.3 explains the ways in which distinctive resources and capabilities can contribute to sustained competitive advantage (in a public-sector context the equivalent concern might be how some organisations sustain relative superior performance over time). In particular, the importance of the Value, Rarity, Inimitability and Organisational support (VRIO) of resources and capabilities is explained.

● Section  4.4 moves on to consider different ways resources and capabilities might be diagnosed. These include VRIO analysis, value chain and system analysis, activity sys- tems mapping and benchmarking. The section concludes by explaining the use of SWOT analysis as a basis for pulling together the insights from the analyses of the environment (explained in Chapter 2 and 3) and of resources and capabilities in this chapter.

● Finally, Section 4.5 discusses some of the key issues of dynamic capabilities and how resources and capabilities can be developed and managed.

4.2 FOUNDaTIONS OF ReSOURCeS aND CapaBILITIeS

Given that different writers, managers and consultants use different terms and concepts, it is important to understand how concepts relating to resources and capabilities are used in this book. The resources and capabilities of an organisation contribute to its long-term survival and potentially to competitive advantage. However, to understand and to manage resources and capabilities it is necessary to explain their components.2

4.2.1 Resources and capabilities

Resources are the assets that organisations have or can call upon and capabilities are the ways those assets are used or deployed3 (earlier editions of this text used the term ‘competences’ for the latter and these terms are often used interchangeably).4 A shorthand way of thinking of this is that resources are ‘what we have’ (nouns) and capabilities are ‘what we do well’ (verbs). Other writers use the term intangible assets as an umbrella term to include capabilities as well as intangible resources such as brands.

Resources and capabilities are typically related, as Table 4.1 shows. Resources are certainly important, but how an organisation employs and deploys its resources matters at least as much. There would be no point in having state-of-the-art equipment if it were not used effectively. The efficiency and effectiveness of physical or financial resources, or the people in an organisation, depend not just on their existence, but on the systems and processes by which they are managed, the relationships and cooperation between people, their adaptability, their innovative capacity, the relationship with customers and suppliers, and the experience and learning about what

Resources: what we have (nouns), e.g. Capabilities: what we do well (verbs), e.g.

Machines, buildings, raw materials, patents, databases, computer systems

Physical Ways of achieving utilisation of plant, efficiency, productivity, flexibility, marketing

Balance sheet, cash flow, suppliers of funds Financial Ability to raise funds and manage cash flows, debtors, creditors, etc.

Managers, employees, partners, suppliers, customers Human How people gain and use experience, skills, knowledge, build relationships, motivate others and innovate

Table 4.1 Resources and capabilities

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ILLUSTRaTION 4.1

executives emphasise the importance of resources and capabilities in different organisations.

The australian Red Cross

To achieve the vision of improving the lives of vul- nerable people, the Australian Red Cross emphasises the crucial role of capabilities in its strategic plan ‘Strategy 2015’. ‘Capabilities are integral to our over- riding strategy to create one Red Cross,’ writes CEO Robert Tickner. The Australian Red Cross distinguish between technical competency and behavioural capa- bility. The former refers to specialist skills and may include such competencies as project management, financial management, community development, social work, administrative or information technology skills. Capabilities at the Red Cross refer to the behav- iours they expect its people to demonstrate in order to be successful in achieving the objectives. The organ- isation aims to increasingly invest in the capabilities and skills of Red Cross people and supporters includ- ing members, branches and units, volunteers, aid workers, staff and donors. For example, this involves investing in a diverse workforce and supporter base, with strong engagement of ‘young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and other cultur- ally and linguistically diverse people’. The emphasis is on people who are engaged, dynamic, innovative, entrepreneurial and motivated to realise the vision and goals. 1

Royal Opera house, London

Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House:

‘ “World-class” is neither an idle nor boastful claim. In the context of the Royal Opera House the term refers to the quality of our people, the standards of our productions and the diversity of our work and initiatives. Unique? Unashamedly so. We shy away from labels such as “elite”, because of the obvious negative connotations of exclusiveness. But I want people to take away from here the fact that we are elite in the sense that we have the best singers, dancers, directors, designers, orchestra, chorus, backstage crew and administrative staff. We are also among the best in our ability to reach out to as wide and diverse a community as possible.’ 2

Infosys

The Indian company Infosys is a global leader in information technology, outsourcing, system integra- tion services and IT consulting. It is listed as one of the world’s most reputable companies with close to 150,000 employees worldwide. The company’s ‘Infosys 3.0 strategy’ is taking a further step to provide more advanced IT products and services, which requires investments in new resources and capabilities. 3 Infosys CEO S.D. Shibulal: ‘We continue to make focused investments in our organisational capabilities.’ 4

The strategy emphasises innovation and focuses on higher-value software. Innovation abilities are central for this, as stated on the website: ‘The foundation of our innovation capability is our core lab network – Infosys Labs – and the new thinking that our team of over 600 researchers brings to the table.’ 5 The strategy thus requires human resource and training capabilities including the ability to attract, employ, educate and retain new high-quality engineers. As Srikantan Moorthy, Senior Vice President and Group Head, explains: ‘We are currently hiring and developing talent in the areas of cloud, mobility, sustainability, and product develop- ment. In addition, a key focus is also consultative skills. All of these are in line with our Infosys 3.0 strategy. We place significant value on continuous learning and knowledge sharing.’ 6

Sources: (1) Australian Red Cross Capability Framework, 2015; (2) Royal Opera House Annual Review 2005–6; (3) Financial Times, 12 August 2012; (4) Infosys Annual Report 2011–12; (5) http://www. infosys.com ; (6) SkillingIndia, 26 September 2012.

Resources and capabilities

Questions 1 Categorise the range of resources and

capabilities highlighted by the executives above in terms of Section  4.2 and Table  4.1 .

2 To what extent and why might these resources and capabilities be the basis of sustained competitive advantage?

3 Imagine you are the general manager of an organisation of your choice and undertake the same exercise as in Questions 1 and 2 above.

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works well and what does not. Illustration 4.1 shows examples of how executives explain the importance of the resources and capabilities of their different organisations.

4.2.2 Threshold and distinctive resources and capabilities

A distinction also needs to be made between resources and capabilities that are at a threshold level and those that might help the organisation achieve competitive advantage and superior performance. Threshold resources and capabilities are those needed for an organisation to meet the necessary requirements to compete in a given market and achieve parity with com- petitors in that market. Without these, the organisation could not survive over time. Indeed many start-up businesses find this to be the case. They simply do not have or cannot obtain the resources or capabilities needed to compete with established competitors. Identifying threshold requirements is, however, also important for established businesses. There could be changing threshold resources required to meet minimum customer requirements: for exam- ple, the increasing demands by modern multiple retailers of their suppliers mean that those suppliers have to possess a quite sophisticated IT infrastructure simply to stand a chance of meeting retailer requirements. Or there could be threshold capabilities required to deploy resources so as to meet customers’ requirements and support particular strategies. Retailers do not simply expect suppliers to have the required IT infrastructure, but to be able to use it effectively so as to guarantee the required level of service.

Identifying and managing threshold resources and capabilities raises a significant challenge because threshold levels will change as critical success factors change (see Section 3.4.3) or through the activities of competitors and new entrants. To continue the example above, suppliers to major retailers did not require the same level of IT and logistics support a decade ago. But the retailers’ drive to reduce costs, improve efficiency and ensure availability of mer- chandise to their customers means that their expectations of their suppliers have increased markedly in that time and continue to do so. So there is a need for those suppliers continu- ously to review and improve their logistics resource and capability base just to stay in business.

While threshold resources and capabilities are important, they do not of themselves create competitive advantage or the basis of superior performance. They can be thought of as ‘qualifiers’ to be able to compete at all with competitors while distinctive resources and capa- bilities are ‘winners’ required to triumph over competitors. Distinctive resources and capabilities are required to achieve competitive advantage. These are dependent on an organisation having a distinctiveness or uniqueness that are of value to customers and which competitors find difficult to imitate. This could be because the organisation has distinctive resources that critically underpin competitive advantage and that others cannot imitate or obtain – a long-established brand, for example. Or it could be that an organisation achieves competi- tive advantage because it has distinctive capabilities – ways of doing things that are unique to that organisation and effectively utilised so as to be valuable to customers and difficult for competitors to obtain or imitate. For example, Apple has distinctive resources in mobile technology and in the powerful brand, but also distinctive capabilities in design and in under- standing consumer behaviour.

Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad argue that distinctive capabilities or competences typi- cally remain unique because they comprise a bundle of constituent skills and technologies rather than a single, discrete skill or technology. They refer to this as core competences and the emphasis is thus on the linked set of resources, capabilities, skills and activities.5 In the Apple example above, it is thus the combination of the resources and capabilities that make them distinctive or core competences in Hamel’s and Prahalad’s words. Section 4.3 that follows discusses in more depth the role played by distinctive resources and capabilities in contributing to long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. Section 4.3.3 explores further the importance of linkages.

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4.3 DISTINCTIVe ReSOURCeS aND CapaBILITIeS aS a BaSIS OF COMpeTITIVe aDVaNTaGe

As explained above, distinctive resources and capabilities are necessary for sustainable competitive advantage and superior economic performance. This section considers four key criteria by which resources and capabilities can be assessed in terms of them providing a basis for achieving such competitive advantage: value, rarity, inimitability and organisational support – or VRIO.6 Figure 4.2 illustrates these four fundamental criteria and the questions they address.

4.3.1 V – value of resources and capabilities

Valuable resources and capabilities are those which create a product or a service that is of value to customers and enables the organisation to respond to environmental opportunities or threats. There are three components to consider here:

● Taking advantage of opportunities and neutralising threats. The most fundamental point is that to be valuable, resources and capabilities need to address opportunities and threats that arise in an organisation’s environment. This points to an important complementarity with the external environment of an organisation (Chapters 2 and 3). An opportunity is addressed when a resource or capability increases the value for customers either through lowering the price or by increasing the attractiveness of a product or service. For example, IKEA has valuable resources in its cost-conscious culture and size and in its interlinked capabilities that lower its costs compared to competitors, and this addresses opportunities and customer value of low-priced designer furniture that competitors do not attend to. Using a resource and capability that do not exploit opportunities or neutralise threats does not create value and even risks decreasing revenues and increasing costs.

● Value to customers. It may seem an obvious point to make that resources and capa- bilities need to be of value to customers, but in practice it is often ignored or poorly understood. For example, managers may seek to build on resources and capabilities that they may see as valuable but which do not meet customers’ critical success factors (see Section 3.4.3). Or they may see a distinctive capability as of value simply because it is unique, although it may not be valued by customers. Having resources and capa- bilities that are different from those of other organisations is not, of itself, a basis of competitive advantage.

Figure 4.2 VRIO

Value: Do resources and capabilities exist that are valued by customers and enable the organisation to respond to environmental opportunities or threats?V

R

I

O

Rarity: Do resources and capabilities exist that no (or few) competitors possess?

Inimitability: Are resources and capabilities difficult and costly for competitors to obtain and imitate?

Organisational support: Is the organisation appropriately organised to exploit the resources and capabilities?

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● Cost. The product or service needs to be provided at a cost that still allows the organ- isation to make the returns expected of it. The danger is that the cost of developing or acquiring the resources and/or capabilities to deliver what customers especially value is such that products or services are not profitable.

Managers should therefore consider carefully which of their organisation’s activities are especially important in providing such value and which are of less value. Value chain analysis and activity systems mapping, explained in Sections 4.4.2 and 4.4.3, can help here.

4.3.2 R – rarity

Resources and capabilities that are valuable, but common among competitors, are unlikely to be a source of competitive advantage. If competitors have similar resources and capa- bilities, they can respond quickly to the strategic initiative of a rival. This has happened in competition between car manufacturers as they have sought to add more accessories and gadgets to cars. As soon as it becomes evident that these are valued by customers, they are introduced widely by competitors who typically have access to the same technol- ogy. Rare resources and capabilities, on the other hand, are those possessed uniquely by one organisation or by a few others. Here competitive advantage is longer-lasting. For example, a company can have patented products or services that give it advantage. Some libraries have unique collections of books unavailable elsewhere; a company can have a powerful brand; or retail stores can have prime locations. In terms of capabilities, organisations can have unique skills or business processes developed over time or make use of special relationships with customers or suppliers not widely possessed by competitors. However, it can be dangerous to assume that resources and capabilities that are rare will remain so. So it may be necessary to consider other bases of sustainability in competitive advantage.

4.3.3 I – inimitability

It should be clear by now that the search for resources and capabilities that provide sustainable competitive advantage is not straightforward. Having resources and capabilities that are valuable to customers and relatively rare is important, but this may not be enough. Sustainable competitive advantage also involves identifying inimitable resources and capabilities – those that competitors find difficult and costly to imitate or obtain or substitute. If an organisation has a competitive advantage because of its particular marketing and sales skills it can only sustain this if competitors cannot imitate, obtain or substitute for them or if the costs to do so would eliminate any gains made. Often the barriers to imitation lie deeply in the organisation in linkages between activities, skills and people.

At the risk of over-generalisation, it is unusual for competitive advantage to be explain- able by differences in the tangible resources of organisations, since over time these can usually be acquired or imitated (key geographic locations, certain raw material resources, brands, etc., can, however, be exceptions). Advantage is more likely to be determined by the way in which resources are deployed and managed in terms of an organisation’s activities; in other words, on the basis of capabilities.7 For example, as indicated above, it is unlikely that an IT system will improve an organisation’s competitive standing in itself, not least because competitors can probably buy something very similar on the open market. On the other hand, the capabilities to manage, develop and deploy such a system to the benefit of customers may be much more difficult and costly to imitate. Compared to physical assets and patents, capabilities tend to involve more intangible imitation barriers. In particular,

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they often include linkages that integrate activities, skills, knowledge and people both inside and outside the organisation in distinct and mutually compatible ways. These linkages can make capabilities particularly difficult for competitors to imitate, and there are three pri- mary reasons why this may be so. These are summarised in Figure 4.3 and are now briefly reviewed.

Complexity

The resources and capabilities of an organisation can be difficult to imitate because they are complex and involve interlinkages. This may be for two main reasons:

● Internal linkages. There may be linked activities and processes that, together, deliver customer value. The discussion of activity systems in Section 4.4.3 below explains this in more detail and shows how such linked sets of activities might be mapped so that they can be better understood. However, even if a competitor possessed such a map, it is unlikely that it would be able to replicate the sort of complexity it represents because of the numerous interactions between tightly knit activities and decisions.8 This is not only because of the complexity itself but because, very likely, it has devel- oped on the basis of custom and practice built up over years and is specific to the organisation concerned. For example, companies like IKEA and Ryanair still enjoy competitive advantages despite the availability of countless case studies, articles and reports on their successes.

● External interconnectedness. Organisations can make it difficult for others to imitate or obtain their bases of competitive advantage by developing activities together with custom- ers or partners such that they become dependent on them. Apple, for example, has many and intricate linkages with various app developers and actors in the music industry that others may find difficult to imitate.

Figure 4.3 Criteria for the inimitability of resources and capabilities

Inimitability of resources and

strategic capabilities

Complexity • internal linkages • external linkages

Causal ambiguity • characteristic ambiguity • linkage ambiguity

Culture and history • taken-for-granted activities • path dependency

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Causal ambiguity9

Another reason why resources and capabilities might be difficult and costly to imitate is that competitors find it difficult to discern the causes and effects underpinning an organisation’s advantage. This is called causal ambiguity. Causal ambiguity may exist in two different forms:10

● Characteristic ambiguity. Where the significance of the characteristic itself is difficult to discern or comprehend, perhaps because it is based on tacit knowledge or rooted in the organisation’s culture. For example, the know-how of the buyers in a successful fashion retailer may be evident in the sales achieved for the ranges they buy year after year. But this may involve subtleties like spotting new trends and picking up feedback from pioneering customers that may be very difficult for competitors to comprehend so they will find it difficult to imitate.

● Linkage ambiguity. Where competitors cannot discern which activities and processes are dependent on which others to form linkages that create distinctiveness. The expertise of the fashion buyers is unlikely to be lodged in one individual or even one function. It is likely that there will be a network of suppliers, intelligence networks to understand the market and links with designers. Indeed, in some organisations the managers themselves admit that they do not fully comprehend the linkages throughout the organisation that deliver customer value. If this is so it would certainly be difficult for competitors to under- stand them.

Culture and history

Resources and capabilities that involve complex social interactions and interpersonal rela- tions within an organisation can be difficult and costly for competitors to imitate system- atically and manage. For example, capabilities can become embedded in an organisation’s culture. Coordination between various activities occurs ‘naturally’ because people know their part in the wider picture or it is simply ‘taken for granted’ that activities are done in particular ways. We see this in high-performing sports teams or in groups of people that work together to combine specialist skills as in operating theatres. Linked to this cultural embeddedness is the likelihood that such capabilities have developed over time and in a par- ticular way. The origins and history by which capabilities and resources have developed over time are referred to as path dependency.11 This history is specific to the organisation and cannot be imitated (see Section 6.2.1). As explained in Chapter 6, there is, however, a danger that culturally embedded resources and capabilities built up over time become so embedded that they are difficult to change: they become rigidities.

4.3.4 O – organisational support

Providing value to customers and possessing capabilities that are rare and difficult to imi- tate provides a potential for competitive advantage. However, the organisation must also be suitably arranged to support these capabilities including appropriate organisational pro- cesses and systems.12 This implies that in order to fully take advantage of the resources and capabilities an organisation’s structure and formal and informal management control sys- tems need to support and facilitate their exploitation (see Sections 14.1 and 14.2 for further discussions of organisational structure and systems). The question of organisational support works as an adjustment factor. Some of the potential competitive advantage can be lost if the organisation is not organised in such a way that it can fully take advantage of valuable and/or rare and/or inimitable resources and capabilities. For example, if an organisation

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has a unique patent underlying a product that customers value it may still not be able to convert this into a competitive advantage if it does not have the appropriate sales force to sell the product. Supporting capabilities have been labelled complementary capabilities as, by themselves, they are often not enough to provide for competitive advantage, but they are useful in the exploitation of other capabilities that can provide for competitive advantage.13 In brief, even though an organisation has valuable, rare and inimitable capabilities some of its potential competitive advantage may not be realised if it lacks the organisational arrange- ments to fully exploit these.

In summary, and from a resource-based view of organisations, managers need to consider whether their organisation has resources and capabilities to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. To do so they need to consider how and to what extent it has capabilities which are (i) valuable, (ii) rare, (iii) inimitable and (iv) supported by the organisation. Illustra- tion 4.2 gives an example of the challenges in meeting these criteria in the context of the internet-based company Groupon.

4.3.5 Organisational knowledge as a basis of competitive advantage

A good example of how both resources and capabilities may combine to produce com- petitive advantage for an organisation is in terms of organisational knowledge.14 Organisational knowledge is organisation-specific, collective intelligence, accumulated through formal systems and people’s shared experience.

The reasons why organisational knowledge is seen as especially important illustrate many of the points made above. As organisations become larger and more complex, the need to share what people know becomes more and more important but increasingly challenging. So organisations that can share knowledge especially well may gain advantage over those that do not. Computerised information systems are available or have been developed by organisations to codify technological, financial and market data that are valuable to them; indeed without which they probably could not compete effectively. However, the technol- ogy that forms the basis of information systems is hardly rare; it is widely available or can be developed. It is therefore less likely that organisations will achieve competitive advan- tage through such resources and more likely that it will be achieved through the way they manage and develop organisational knowledge more broadly. This may be to do with the capabilities they employ to utilise and develop information technology. But it is also likely to be about how they draw on and develop the accumulated and dispersed experience-based knowledge in the organisation.

The distinction between explicit and tacit organisational knowledge made by Ikijuro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi15 helps explain why this is important in terms of achieving competitive advantage. Explicit or ‘objective’ knowledge is transmitted in formal sys- tematic ways. It can take the form of a codified information resource such as a systems manual or files of market research and intelligence. In contrast, tacit knowledge is more personal, context-specific and therefore hard to formalise and communicate. For example, it could be the knowledge of a highly experienced sales force or research and development team; or the experience of a top management team in making many successful acquisi- tions. It is therefore not only distinctive to the organisation, but likely to be difficult to imitate or obtain for the reasons explained in Section 4.3.3 above.

Many organisations that have tried to improve the sharing of knowledge by relying on IT-based systems have come to realise that, while some knowledge can usefully be codified and built into computer-based systems, it can be very difficult to codify the knowledge that truly bestows competitive advantage.16

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ILLUSTRaTION 4.2

When a fi rm identifi es a new market niche it must also make sure its resources and capabilities are valuable, rare, inimitable and supported by the organisation.

Chicago-based Groupon was launched in 2008 by Andrew Mason with the idea to email subscribers daily deals of heavily discounted coupons for local restau- rants, theatres, spas, etc. Groupon sells a coupon for a product and takes up to half of the proceeds, which represent a big discount on the product’s usual price. In return, Groupon aggregates demand from customers who receive emails or visit the website and this pro- vides exposure and increased business for local mer- chants. The venture rapidly became the fastest-growing internet business ever and grew into a daily-deal indus- try giant. In 2010, Groupon rejected a $6bn (£3.6bn, €4.5bn) takeover bid by Google and instead went pub- lic at $10bn in November of 2011.

While Groupon’s daily deals were valued by customers – the company quickly spread to over 40 countries – they also attracted thousands of copycats worldwide. Investors questioned Groupon’s business and to what extent it had rare and inimitable resources and capabilities. CEO Andrew Mason denied in Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ) that the model was too easy to replicate:

‘There’s proof. There are over 2000 direct clones of the Groupon business model. However, there’s an equal amount of proof that the barriers to success are enormous. In spite of all those competitors, only a handful is remotely relevant.’

This, however, did not calm investors and Groupon shares fell by 80 per cent at its all-time low. One rare asset Groupon had was its customer base of more than 50 million customers, which could possibly be difficult to imitate. The more customers, the better deals, and this would make customers come to Groupon rather than the competitors and the cost for competitors to acquire customers would go up. Further defending Groupon’s competitiveness, the CEO emphasised in WSJ that it is not as simple as providing daily deals, but that a whole series of things have to work together and competitors would have to replicate everything in its ‘operational complexity’:

‘People overlook the operational complexity. We have 10,000 employees across 46 countries.

We have thousands of salespeople talking to tens of thousands of merchants every single day. It’s not an easy thing to build.’

Mason also emphasised Groupon’s advanced tech- nology platform that allowed the company to ‘provide better targeting to customers and give them deals that are more relevant to them’. Part of this platform, however, was built via acquisitions – a route compet- itors possibly also could take.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery Groupon has been highly complimented, but investors have not been flattered. Andrew Mason was forced out in 2013, succeeded by the chairman Eric Lefkofsky. Even though Amazon and many other copycats left the daily- deals business, he struggled to explain how Groupon would fight off imitators and was forced to exit several international markets. In November 2015, he returned to his chairman role and was followed by Rich Williams who stated:

‘As CEO, my top priority is to unlock the long-term growth potential in the business by demonstrating everything the new Groupon has to offer.’

Sources: ‘Groupon shares crumble after company names new CEO’, 3 November 2015, Forbes ; ‘Groupon names Rich Williams CEO’, 3 Novem- ber 2015, Wall Street Journal ; All Things Digital, 2 November 2012, Wall Street Journal ; Financial Times, 2 March 2013; ‘Groupon and its “weird” CEO’, Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2012.

Groupon and the sincerest form of flattery

Questions 1 Andrew Mason admits that Groupon has

thousands of copycats, yet his assessment is that imitating Groupon is difficult. Do you agree?

2 Assess the bases of Groupon’s resources and capabilities using the VRIO criteria ( Figure  4.2 and Table  4.2 ).

3 If you were the new Groupon CEO, what resources and capabilities would you build on to give the company a sustainable competitive advantage?

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4.4 DIaGNOSING ReSOURCeS aND CapaBILITIeS

So far, this chapter has been concerned with explaining concepts associated with the stra- tegic significance of organisations’ resources and capabilities. This section now provides some ways in which they can be understood and diagnosed. If managers are to manage the resources and capabilities of their organisation, the sort of diagnosis explained here, the VRIO analysis tool, the value chain and system, activity systems, benchmarking and SWOT, are centrally important. If resources and capabilities are not understood at these levels, there are dangers that managers can take the wrong course of action.

4.4.1 VRIO analysis

One lesson that emerges from an understanding of the strategic importance of resources and capabilities is that it can be difficult to discern where the basis of competitive advantage lies. The strict criteria of the VRIO framework discussed above (see Section 4.3) can conveniently be used as a tool to analyse whether an organisation has resources and capabilities to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. A VRIO analysis thus helps to evaluate if, how and to what extent an organisation or company has resources and capabilities that are (i) valuable, (ii) rare, (iii) inimitable and (iv) supported by the organisation . Table 4.2 summarises the VRIO analysis of capabilities and shows that there is an additive effect. Resources and capabilities provide sustainable bases of competitive advantage the more they meet all four criteria. This analysis can be done for different functions in an organisation (technology, manufacturing, purchasing, marketing and sales, etc.) or more fine-grained for individual resources and capabilities (see Table 4.1). Another approach is to evaluate different sections of the value chain or system with this tool (see Section 4.4.2 below).

Sometimes it may be challenging to establish the exact competitive implication, for exam- ple when a resource or capability is on the border between sustained or temporary com- petitive advantage (Illustration 4.2 demonstrates this). However, for managers it is most important to distinguish between sustained or temporary competitive advantage vs compet- itive parity or competitive disadvantage (see Table 4.2). If it is difficult to discern whether a function or resource or capability provides for sustained competitive advantage, it may help to divide it into subparts. For example, manufacturing in itself may not provide for competitive advantage, but perhaps product engineering or design do. And even if machines and equipment generally do not provide for competitive advantage there may be a particular type of equipment that does.

4.4.2 The value chain and value system

The value chain describes the categories of activities within an organisation which, together, create a product or service. Most organisations are also part of a wider value system, the set of inter-organisational links and relationships that are necessary to create a product or service. Both are useful in understanding the strategic position of an organisation and where valuable resources and capabilities reside.

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The value chain

If organisations are to achieve competitive advantage by delivering value to customers, man- agers need to understand which activities their organisation undertakes that are especially important in creating that value and which are not. This can then be used to model the value generation of an organisation. The important point is that the concept of the value chain invites the strategist to think of an organisation in terms of sets of activities. There are dif- ferent frameworks for considering these categories: Figure 4.4 is a representation of a value chain as developed by Michael Porter.17

Primary activities are directly concerned with the creation or delivery of a product or service. For example, for a manufacturing business:

● Inbound logistics are activities concerned with receiving, storing and distributing inputs to the product or service including materials handling, stock control, transport, etc.

Is the resource or capability . . . 

valuable? rare? inimitable? supported by the organisation?

Competitive implications

No – – No Competitive disadvantage

Yes No – Competitive parity

Yes Yes No Temporary competitive advantage

Yes Yes Yes Yes Sustained competitive advantage

Source: Adapted from J.B. Barney and W.S. Hesterly, Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage, Pearson Education, 2012.

Table 4.2 The VRIO framework

Figure 4.4 The value chain within an organisation Source: Adapted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E. Porter. Copyright © 1985, 1998 by Michael E. Porter. All rights reserved.

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● Operations transform these inputs into the final product or service: machining, packaging, assembly, testing, etc.

● Outbound logistics collect, store and distribute the product or service to customers; for example, warehousing, materials handling, distribution, etc.

● Marketing and sales provide the means whereby consumers or users are made aware of the product or service and are able to purchase it. This includes sales administration, advertising and selling.

● Service includes those activities that enhance or maintain the value of a product or service, such as installation, repair, training and spares.

Each of these groups of primary activities is linked to support activities which help to improve the effectiveness or efficiency of primary activities:

● Procurement. Processes that occur in many parts of the organisation for acquiring the various resource inputs to the primary activities. These can be vitally important in achiev- ing scale advantages. So, for example, many large consumer goods companies with mul- tiple businesses nonetheless procure advertising centrally.

● Technology development. All value activities have a ‘technology’, even if it is just know- how. Technologies may be concerned directly with a product (e.g. R&D, product design) or with processes (e.g. process development) or with a particular resource (e.g. raw mate- rials improvements).

● Human resource management. This transcends all primary activities and is concerned with recruiting, managing, training, developing and rewarding people within the organisation.

● Infrastructure. The formal systems of planning, finance, quality control, information management and the structure of an organisation.

The value chain can be used to understand the strategic position of an organisation and analyse resources and capabilities in three ways:

● As a generic description of activities it can help managers understand if there is a cluster of activities providing benefit to customers located within particular areas of the value chain. Perhaps a business is especially good at outbound logistics linked to its marketing and sales operation and supported by its technology development. It might be less good in terms of its operations and its inbound logistics.

● In analysing the competitive position of the organisation by using the VRIO analysis for individual value chain activities and functions (see Section 4.4.2 above).

● To analyse the cost and value of activities of an organisation. This could involve the following steps:

● Identify sets of value activities. Figure 4.4 might be appropriate as a general framework here or a value chain more specific to an organisation can be developed. The important thing is to ask (i) which separate categories of activities best describe the operations of the organisation and (ii) which of these are most significant in delivering the strategy and achieving advantage over competitors? For example, it is likely that in a branded pharmaceutical company research and development and marketing activities will be crucially important.

● Assess the relative importance of activity costs internally. Which activities are most significant in terms of the costs of operations? Does the significance of costs align with the significance of activities? Which activities add most value to the final product or service (and in turn to the customer) and which do not? It can also be important to establish which sets of activities are linked to or are dependent on others and which, in

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effect, are self-standing. For example, organisations that have undertaken such analyses often find that central services have grown to the extent that they are a disproportionate cost and do not add value to other sets of activities or to the customer.

● Assess the relative importance of activities externally. How does value and the cost of a set of activities compare with the similar activities of competitors? For example, although they are both global oil businesses, BP and Shell are different in terms of the significance of their value chain activities. BP has historically outperformed Shell in terms of exploration, but the reverse is the case with regard to refining and marketing.

● Identify where and how can costs be reduced? Given the picture that emerges from such an analysis it should be possible to ask some important questions about the cost structure of the organisation in terms of the strategy being followed (or that needs to be followed in the future). For example, is the balance of cost in line with the strategic significance of the elements of the value chain? Can costs be reduced in some areas without affecting the value created for customers? Can some activities be outsourced (see Section 8.5.2), for example those that are relatively free-standing and do not add value significantly? Can cost savings be made by increasing economies of scale or scope; for example, through central procurement or consolidating currently fragmented activ- ities (e.g. manufacturing units)?

The value system

A single organisation rarely undertakes in-house all of the value activities from design through to the delivery of the final product or service to the final consumer. There is usually specialisation of roles so, as Figure 4.5 shows, any one organisation is part of a wider value system of different interacting organisations. There are questions that arise here that build on an understanding of the value chain itself:

● The ‘make or buy’ or outsourcing decision for a particular activity is critical: which activ- ities most need to be part of the internal value chain because they are central to achieving competitive advantage? There may also be activities that do not generate competitive

Figure 4.5 The value system Source: Adapted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E. Porter. Copyright © 1985, 1998 by Michael E. Porter. All rights reserved.

Supplier value chains

Organisation’s value chain

Customer value chains

Channel value chains

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advantage in themselves, but which the organisation needs to control as they enable the exploitation of competitive advantage in other parts of the value chain, as indicated in Section 4.3.4. Illustration 4.3 shows this in relation to the Nepalese poultry industry. Value system analysis was used by the Valley Group as a way of identifying what they should focus on in securing a steady supply of chicken and developing a more profitable struc- ture. While their analysis resulted in integration along the value system, it is increasingly common to outsource activities as a means of lowering costs (see Section 8.5.2). Just as costs can be analysed across the internal value chain, they can also be analysed across the value system. If activities are less costly when performed by others without any adverse effects, it may make more sense to leave these to others along the value system.

● What are the activities and cost/price structures of the value system? Understand the entire value system and its relationship to an organisation’s value chain is essential as changes in the environment may require outsourcing or integration of activities depending on changing cost/price structures. The more an organisation outsources, the more its ability to evaluate and influence the performance of other organisations in the value system may become a critically important capability in itself and even a source of competitive advantage. For example, the quality of a cooker or a television when it reaches the final purchaser is influenced not only by the activities undertaken within the manufacturing company itself, but also by the quality of components from suppliers and the performance of the distributors.

● Where are the profit pools?18 profit pools refer to the different levels of profit available at different parts of the value system. Some parts of a value system can be inherently more profitable than others because of the differences in competitive intensity (see Sec- tion 3.2.1). For example, in the computer industry microprocessors and software have historically been more profitable than hardware manufacture. The strategic question becomes whether it is possible to focus on the areas of greatest profit potential. Care has to be exercised here. It is one thing to identify such potential; it is another to be successful in it given the capabilities an organisation has. For example, engineering firms may recog- nise the greater profit potential in providing engineering consulting services in addition to or instead of manufacturing. Nonetheless, many have found it difficult to develop such services successfully either because their staff do not have consultancy capabilities or because their clients do not recognise the firms as having them.

● Partnering. Who might be the best partners in the various parts of the value system? And what kinds of relationships are important to develop with each partner? For example, should they be regarded as suppliers or should they be regarded as alliance partners (see Section 11.4)?

4.4.3 activity systems

The discussion so far highlights the fact that all organisations comprise sets of resources and capabilities, but that these are likely to be configured differently across organisations. It is this variable configuration that makes an organisation and its strategy more or less unique. So for the strategist, understanding this matters a good deal.

VRIO and value chain analysis can help with this, but so too can understanding the more fine-grained activity systems of an organisation. As the discussion above in Section 4.3 has made clear, the way in which resources are deployed through the organisation actually takes form in the activities pursued by that organisation; so it is important to identify what these activities are, why they are valuable to customers, how the various activities fit together and how they are different from competitors’.

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ILLUSTRaTION 4.3

Integrating the value system under complex conditions.

The Valley Group has moved from backyard farming and selling 13 kilograms of broilers’ meat in 1981 to becoming the Nepal poultry market leader despite a context includ- ing decades of political insurgency, economic turmoil and social unrest. They have managed the value system and sup- ply chain problems of Nepal’s decentralised and scattered poultry-keeping activities. Gradually they have integrated various elements of the value system while leaving supple- mentary elements to other organisations.

The complex context, including an absence of law and order, frequent general strikes, shortage of supplies and energy and poor transport infrastructure, resulted in irreg- ularities in the supply of commercial chicks, their feeds and medicines. The Valley Group managers recognised that var- ious industrial customers, such as hotels and food process- ing firms, preferred those suppliers that could meet their steady demand for poultry products. Supply regularity thus emerged as a primary determinant of business success. The managers then vertically and horizontally integrated vari- ous parts of the value system. They developed a sustained network of reciprocal interdependence in order to ensure the quality and regularity of poultry products and services thereof, even under the difficult circumstances prevailing.

The poultry value system begins from genetic engineering that passes through the foundation stock, primary breeder (known as grandparents that produce the parent stock – the breeders), parent stock, hatcheries, farm houses, slaughter/ processing houses and finally the selling outlets (see table). The primary breeder produces breeder eggs that hatch into breeder chicks, whose eggs further hatch into day-old com- mercial chicks. These chicks (baby chickens hatched from the breeder eggs) are raised into live broilers (reaching slaughter-weight at between five and seven weeks) in farm houses. The live broilers are then transported to slaughter/

processing houses in order to portion, pack and prepare them for sales outlets.

The Valley Group integrated itself into various parts of the value system in order to secure a regular supply of live broilers to meet the steady demand for poultry products from the market. First, the difficult circumstances made it diffi- cult for poultry farmers to receive live broilers and feed them consistently and this resulted in irregular supply. To address this problem, the Valley Group established Valley Poultry and Valley Feed in order to ensure a steady supply of chicks and feeds, respectively, to the farmers, who could then grow the chicks to live broilers on a regular basis. A second element that prevented regular supply from the farmers was that they were not confident that there would be a steady market demand for their live broilers. This resulted in the Valley Mart that buys live broilers directly from the farmers. The broilers are then slaughtered and processed and, finally, high-quality chicken, chicken sections, processed and packed items are steadily made available in Valley Cold Store.

Source: Prepared by Raj Kumar Bhattarai, Nepal Commerce Campus,

Tribhuvan University.

An integrated value system in the Nepalese poultry industry

Questions 1 Draw up a value system and value chains for

another business and organisation in terms of the activities conducted within each part (see Figure  4.5 ).

2 Would it make sense to integrate or outsource some of the various value chain activities in this value system in relation to the focal organisation?

3 What are the strategic implications of your analysis – what would you do?

Major actors in the poultry value system

Breeding farm Valley poultry Farmers Valley Feed Valley Mart Valley Cold Store

Input Primary breeder: – Feed – Medicine and

vaccine

Breeder chickens: – Feed – Medicine and

vaccine

Chickens: – Feed – Medicine and

vaccine

– Food grains and remains

– Other items

Live broiler feed

Live broilers

Output – Breeder eggs – Breeder

chickens

– Eggs – Chicks/

chickens

– Live broilers – Food grains – Remains

– Feed for poultry and cattle

Live broilers

Poultry: whole chicken, parts and processed items

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Some scholars,19 including Michael Porter, have written about the importance of mapping activity systems and shown how this might be done. The starting point is to identify what Porter refers to as ‘higher order strategic themes’. In effect, these are the ways in which the organisation meets the critical success factors determining them in the industry. The next step is to identify the clusters of activities that underpin each of these themes and how these do or do not fit together. The result is a picture of the organisation represented in terms of activity systems such as that shown in Figure 4.6. It shows an activity systems map for the Scandinavian strategic communications consultancy, Geelmuyden.Kiese.20 The core higher-order theme at the heart of its success is its knowledge, built over the years, of how effective communications can influence ‘the power dynamics of decision-making processes’. However, as Figure 4.6 shows, this central theme is related to other higher-order strategic themes (rectangles) as listed below (each of which is underpinned by clusters of supporting activities; see ovals in Figure 4.6):

● The company seeks to work at a strategic level based on its own in-house methodology, prioritising those clients where such work is especially valued.

● The company takes a clear stance on integrity of communication, always advising open- ness of communication rather than suppression of information and only dealing with clients that will accept such principles.

Figure 4.6 Activity systems at Geelmuyden.Kiese

Freedom with responsibility

Clear stance on integrity

Value-driven recruitment

Knowledge of power dynamics in decision making

Best learning opportunities in

Scandinavia

Strong incentives for top performers

Use of in-house methodology

Higher-order themes

Work at a strategic level

Rules for handling confidential information

+ strict sanctions

Always advise openness, not suppression

Recruitment criteria of openness,

integrity and humour

Junior-rather than senior-level

recruitment

Partners rewarded for development

of juniors

Mentoring and systems for

competence development

Internal evaluation of leadership

Supporting activities

Assignment reviews and client

surveys Key:

Selective acceptance of clients

Prioritise clients demanding

strategic advice

High/ controversial

profile in public debates

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● Staff are given high degrees of freedom but with some absolute criteria of responsibility including strict rules for handling clients’ confidential information and strict sanctions if such rules are broken.

● Recruitment aims to ensure this responsibility and is carried out largely on the basis of values of openness and integrity but also humour. The emphasis is on recruiting junior personnel and developing them based on a mentoring system and, thus, the company believes it offers the best learning opportunities in Scandinavia for young consultants.

● There are strong financial incentives for top performance, including rewards for the devel- opment of junior personnel and based on internal evaluation of leadership qualities and performance.

When mapping activity systems four points need to be emphasised:

● Relationship to the value chain. The various activities represented in an activity map can also be seen as parts of a value chain. The in-house methodology is, in effect, part of Geel- muyden.Kiese’s operations; its recruitment practices are a component of its human resource management; its stance on integrity and insistence on openness rather than suppression of the information part of its service offering; and so on. However, activity systems map- ping encourages a greater understanding of the complexity of resources and capabilities – important if bases of competitive advantage are to be identified and managed.

● The importance of linkages and fit. An activity systems map emphasises the importance of different activities that create value to customers pulling in the same direction and sup- porting rather than opposing each other. So the need is to understand (i) the fit between the various activities and how these reinforce each other and (ii) the fit externally with the needs of clients. There are two implications:

● The danger of piecemeal change or tinkering with such systems which may damage the positive benefits of the linkages that exist.

● The consequent challenge of managing change. When change is needed, the implication is that change to one part of the system will almost inevitably affect another; or, put another way, change probably has to be managed over the whole system.

● Relationship to VRIO. It is these linkages and this fit that can be the bases of sustainable competitive advantage. In combination they may be valuable to clients, truly distinctive and therefore rare. Moreover, while individual components of an activity system might be relatively easy to imitate, in combination they may well constitute the complexity and causal ambiguity rooted in culture and history that makes them inimitable. Finally, there can be activities in the system that in themselves do not provide for competitive advantage, but that provide organisational support for other activities that do.

● Superfluous activities. It should also be asked if there are activities that are not required in order to pursue a particular strategy or if some activities do not contribute to value creation. If activities do not do this, why are they being pursued by the organisation? Whether Ryanair used activity mapping or not, it has systematically identified and done away with many activities that other airlines commonly undertake.

4.4.4 Benchmarking

Benchmarking is used as a means of understanding how an organisation compares with others.21 It may be organisations that compete in the same industry, typically competitors, or other organisations that perform the same or similar functions. Many benchmarking exercises focus on outputs such as standards of product or service, but others do attempt to take account of organisational capabilities.

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Broadly, there are two approaches to benchmarking:

● Industry/sector benchmarking. Insights about performance standards can be gleaned by com- paring performance against other organisations in the same industry sector or between similar service providers against a set of performance indicators. Some public-sector organisations have, in effect, acknowledged the existence of strategic groups (see Section 3.4.1) by bench- marking against similar organisations rather than against everybody: for example, local gov- ernment services and police treat ‘urban’ differently from ‘rural’ in their benchmarking and league tables. However, an overriding danger of industry norm comparisons (whether in the private or the public sector) is that the whole industry can be performing badly and losing out competitively to other industries that can satisfy customers’ needs in different ways.

● Best-in-class benchmarking. Best-in-class benchmarking compares an organisation’s perfor- mance or capabilities against ‘best-in-class’ performance – from whichever industry – and therefore seeks to overcome some of the above limitations. It may also help challenge man- agers’ mindsets that acceptable improvements in performance will result from incremental changes in resources or capabilities. For example, Southwest Airlines improved refuelling time by studying the processes surrounding Formula One Grand Prix motor racing pit stops.22

The importance of benchmarking is, then, not so much in the detailed ‘mechanics’ of comparison but in the impact that these comparisons might have on reviewing resources and capabilities underlying performance. But it has two potential limitations:

● Surface comparisons. If benchmarking is limited to comparing outputs, it does not directly identify the reasons for relative performance in terms of underlying resources and capabil- ities. For example, it may demonstrate that one organisation is poorer at customer service than another, but not show the underlying reasons.

● Simply achieving competitive parity. Benchmarking can help an organisation to develop capabilities and create value in the same way as its competitors and those best-in-class. However, the best performance that can be expected out of this exercise is to achieve a threshold level and competitive parity. For organisations with competitive disadvantage, this can be highly rewarding, but to achieve competitive advantage an organisation needs to move further and develop its own distinctive resources and capabilities.

4.4.5 SWOT23

It can be helpful to summarise the key issues arising from an analysis of resources and capabilities discussed in this chapter and the analysis of the business environment discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 to gain an overall picture of an organisation’s strategic position. SWOT provides a general summary of the Strengths and Weaknesses explored in an analysis of resources and capabilities (Chapter 4) and the Opportunities and Threats explored in an analysis of the environment (Chapters 2 and 3). This analysis can also be useful as a basis for generating strategic options and assessing future courses of action.

The aim is to identify the extent to which strengths and weaknesses are relevant to, or capable of dealing with, the changes taking place in the business environment. Illustration 4.4 takes the example of a pharmaceuticals firm (Pharmcare).24 It assumes that key environ- mental impacts have been identified from analyses explained in Chapters 2 and 3 and that major strengths and weaknesses have been identified using the analytic tools explained in this chapter. A scoring mechanism (plus 5 to minus 5) is used as a means of getting manag- ers to assess the interrelationship between the environmental impacts and the strengths and weaknesses of the firm. A positive (+) denotes that the strength of the company would help it take advantage of, or counteract, a problem arising from an environmental change or that

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ILLUSTRaTION 4.4

a SWOT analysis explores the relationship between the environmental infl uences and the resources and capabilities of an organisation compared with its competitors.

(a) SWOT analysis for pharmcare

SWOT analysis of Pharmcare

(b) Competitor SWOT analyses

environmental change (opportunities and threats)

healthcare rationing

Complex and changing buying structures

Increased integration of healthcare

Informed patients + −

Strengths Flexible sales force +3 +5 +2 +2 +12 0 Economies of scale 0 0 +3 +3 +6 0 Strong brand name +1 +3 0 −1 +4 −1 Healthcare education department +3 +3 +4 +5 +15 0

Weaknesses Limited capabilities in biotechnology and genetics

−1 0 −4 −3 0 −8

Ever lower R&D productivity −3 −2 −1 −2 0 −8 Weak ICT capabilities −3 −2 −5 −5 0 −15 Over-reliance on leading product −2 −1 −3 −1 0 −7

Environmental impact scores +7 +11 +9 +10 −9 −5 −13 −12

environmental change (opportunities and threats)

healthcare rationing

Complex and changing buying structures

Increased integration of healthcare

Informed and passionate patients

Overall impact

pharmcare −2 +6 −4 −2 −2 Big global player suffering fall in share price, low research productivity and post- mega-merger bureaucracy

Struggling to prove cost- effectiveness of new drugs to new regulators of healthcare rationing

Well-known brand, a flexible sales force combined with a new healthcare education department creates positive synergy

Weak ICT and lack of integration following mergers means sales, research and admin are all under performing

Have yet to get into the groove of patient power fuelled by the internet

Declining performance over time worsened after merger

Company W −4 −4 +0 +4 −4 Big pharma with patchy response to change, losing ground in new areas of competition

Focus is on old-style promotional selling rather than helping doctors control costs through drugs

Traditional sales force not helped by marketing which can be unaccommodating of national differences

Alliances with equipment manufacturers but little work done across alliance to show dual use of drugs and new surgical techniques

New recruits in the ICT department have worked cross- functionally to involve patients like never before

Needs to modernise across the whole company

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Questions 1 What does the SWOT analysis tell us about

the competitive position of Pharmcare within the industry as a whole?

2 How readily do you think executives of Pharmcare identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitors?

3 Identify the benefits and dangers (other than those identified in the text) of a SWOT analysis such as that in the illustration.

environmental change (opportunities and threats)

healthcare rationing

Complex and changing buying structures

Increased integration of healthcare

Informed and passionate patients

Overall impact

Organisation X +3 +2 +2 +3 +10 Partnership between a charity managed by people with venture capital experience and top hospital geneticists

Potentially able to deliver rapid advances in genetics-based illnesses

Able possibly to bypass these with innovative cost- effective drug(s)

Innovative drugs can help integrate healthcare through enabling patients to stay at home

Patients will fight for advances in treatment areas where little recent progress has been made

Could be the basis of a new business model for drug discovery – but all to prove as yet

Company y +3 0 +2 +1 +6 Only develops drugs for less common diseases

Partnering with big pharma allows the development of drugs discovered by big pharma but not economical for them to develop

Focus on small market segments so not as vulnerable to overall market structure, but innovative approach might be risky

Innovative use of web to show why products still worthwhile developing even for less common illnesses

Freephone call centres for sufferers of less common illnesses

Company, like patients, is passionate about its mission

Novel approach can be considered either risky or a winner, or both!

Source: Prepared by Jill Shepherd, Segal Graduate School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.

(b) Competitor SWOT analyses (continued)

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a weakness would be offset by that change. A negative (−) score denotes that the strength would be reduced or that a weakness would prevent the organisation from overcoming prob- lems associated with that change.

Pharmcare’s share price had been declining because investors were concerned that its strong market position was under threat. This had not been improved by a merger that was proving problematic. The pharmaceutical market was changing with new ways of doing busi- ness, driven by new technology, the quest to provide medicines at lower cost and politicians seeking ways to cope with soaring healthcare costs and an ever more informed patient. But was Pharmcare keeping pace? The strategic review of the firm’s position (Illustration 4.4a) confirmed its strengths of a flexible sales force, well-known brand name and new healthcare department. However, there were major weaknesses, namely relative failure on low-cost drugs, competence in information and communication technology (ICT) and a failure to get to grips with increasingly well-informed users.

However, in the context of this chapter, if this analysis is to be useful, it must be remem- bered that the exercise is not absolute but relative to its competitors. So SWOT analysis is most useful when it is comparative – if it examines strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to competitors. When the impact of environmental forces on competitors was analysed (Illustration 4.4b), it showed that Pharmcare was still outperforming its tra- ditional competitor (Company W), but potentially vulnerable to changing dynamics in the general industry structure courtesy of niche players (X and Y).

There are two main dangers in a SWOT exercise:

● Listing. A SWOT exercise can generate very long lists of apparent strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, whereas what matters is to be clear about what is really impor- tant and what is less important. So prioritisation of issues matters. Three brief rules can be helpful here. First, as indicated above, focus on strengths and weaknesses that differ in relative terms compared to competitors or comparable organisations and leave out areas where the organisation is at par with others. Second, focus on opportunities and threats that are directly relevant for the specific organisation and industry and leave out general and broad factors. Third, summarise the result and draw concrete conclusions.

● A summary, not a substitute. SWOT analysis is an engaging and fairly simple tool. It is also useful in summarising and consolidating other analysis that has been explained in this chapter and also in Chapters 2 and 3. It is not, however, a substitute for that analysis. There are two dangers if it is used on its own. The first is that, in the absence of more thorough analysis, managers rely on preconceived, often inherited and biased views. The second is again the danger of a lack of specificity. Identifying very general strengths, for example, does not explain the underlying reasons for those strengths.

SWOT can also help focus discussion on future choices and the extent to which an organ- isation is capable of supporting these strategies. A useful way of doing this is to use a TOWS matrix25 as shown in Figure 4.7. This builds directly on the information in a SWOT exer- cise. Each box of the TOWS matrix can be used to identify options that address a different combination of the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and the external factors (opportunities and threats). For example, the top left-hand box prompts a consideration of options that use the strengths of the organisation to take advantage of opportunities in the business environment. An example for Pharmcare might be the re-training of the sales force to deal with changes in pharmaceuticals buying. The bottom right-hand box prompts options that minimise weaknesses and also avoid threats; for Pharmcare, this might include the need to develop its ICT systems to better service more informed patients. Quite likely this would also help take advantage of opportunities arising from changes in the buying structure of the industry (top right). The bottom left box suggests the need to use strengths to avoid threats, perhaps by building on the success of the healthcare education department to also better service informed patients.

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4.5 DyNaMIC CapaBILITIeS

The previous section was concerned with diagnosing resources and capabilities. This sec- tion considers what managers might do to manage and improve resources and capabilities. If resources and capabilities for competitive advantage do not exist, then managers need to consider if they can be developed. Also, if they are to provide a basis for long-term success, resources and capabilities cannot be static; they need to change. University of Berkeley econ- omist David Teece has introduced the concept of dynamic capabilities, by which he means an organisation’s ability to renew and recreate its resources and capabilities to meet the needs of changing environments.26 He argues that the resources and capabilities that are necessary for efficient operations, like owning certain tangible assets, controlling costs, maintaining quality, optimising inventories, etc., are unlikely to be sufficient for sustaining superior per- formance.27 These ‘ordinary capabilities’ allow companies to be successful and earn a living now by producing and selling a similar product or service to similar customers over time, but are not likely to provide for long-term survival and competitive advantage in the future.28

In other words, there is a danger that capabilities and resources that were the basis of competitive success can over time be imitated by competitors, become common practice in an industry or become redundant as its environment changes. So, the important lesson is that if resources and capabilities are to be effective over time they need to change; they cannot be static. Dynamic capabilities are directed towards that strategic change. They are dynamic in the sense that they can create, extend or modify an organisation’s existing ordinary capabil- ities. Teece suggests the following three generic types of dynamic capabilities:

● Sensing. Sensing implies that organisations must constantly scan, search and explore opportunities across various markets and technologies. Research and development and investigating customer needs are typical sensing activities. For example, companies in the PC operating systems industry, like Microsoft, sensed the threats from and opportunities in tablets and smartphones.

● Seizing. Once an opportunity is sensed it must be seized and addressed through new products or services, processes, activities, etc. Microsoft, for example, has tried to seize opportunities by launching its own tablet device and software, Surface, and by acquiring the mobile phone company Nokia (now under the brand name Microsoft Lumia).

Figure 4.7 The TOWS matrix

Internal factors

Strengths (S)

SO Strategic options Generate options here that use strengths to take advantage of opportunities

WO Strategic options Generate options here that take advantage of opportunities by overcoming weaknesses

WT Strategic options Generate options here that minimise weaknesses and avoid threats

ST Strategic options Generate options here that use strengths to avoid threats

External factors

Opportunities (O)

Threats (T)

Weaknesses (W)

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ILLUSTRaTION 4.5

Dynamic capabilities can help fi rms sense and seize opportunities and reconfi gure ordinary capabilities in changing environments.

Companies in the mobile telephone industry have built on their dynamic capabilities in their effort to adapt to environmental changes and dominate the market. They have identified and evaluated new opportunities (sens- ing); addressed these opportunities with new products (seizing); and renewed and redeployed their capabili- ties accordingly (reconfiguring). This is illustrated in the table.

The pioneers in mobile telephony, Ericsson and Motorola, managed to sense and explore an entirely new mobile telephony market. They satisfied and cap- tured value in that market by recombining and rede- ploying telecommunication and radio capabilities. However, they got stuck in these early mobile tele- phone capabilities and were followed by Nokia. Nokia sensed new opportunities as it realised that mobile phones’ awkward design and functionality was not suited to what had become a mass consumer and fash- ion market. The company seized and addressed these new opportunities, offering improved design and func- tionality, building on design and consumer behaviour capabilities. Finally, Apple, with a long legacy in con- sumer products, explored even further opportunities. Apple realised that most phones, even the new smart- phones, still maintained a complex and unintuitive interface with limited multimedia functionalities. Apple addressed this by introducing an upgraded multimedia platform smartphone with an intuitive and simple inter- face combined with complementary services like the

App Store and iTunes Music Store. Apple built on a recombination of its prior design, interface and con- sumer behaviour capabilities and (for them) new mobile phone capabilities.

While the dynamic capabilities of the mobile phone companies helped them adapt, they are no guarantee for keeping ahead permanently as the ordinary capabil- ities they developed risk becoming rigidities as markets and technologies change even further. If dynamic capa- bilities do not manage to detect and alleviate rigidities, competitors may emerge over time with more appropri- ate dynamic capabilities for the constantly changing environment.

Dynamic capabilities (and rigidities) in mobile telephone companies

Questions 1 What type of dynamic capabilities could

help mobile phone companies like Apple and Samsung avoid becoming stuck in their old resources and capabilities?

2 Based on your own experience of using mobile and smartphones:

a What are the possible future opportunities in mobile telephones?

b How could they possibly be sensed and seized?

● Reconfiguring. To seize an opportunity may require renewal and reconfiguration of organisational capabilities and investments in technologies, manufacturing, markets, etc. For example, Microsoft’s inroad into tablets, smartphones and related software and apps requires major changes in its current resources and capabilities. The company must discard some of its old capabilities, acquire and build new ones and recombine them, which may prove quite challenging.

This view of dynamic capabilities relates directly to the framework for this book: strategic position, strategic choices and strategy in action (see Figure  1.3 ). Sensing capabilities is to do with understanding an organisation’s strategic position; seizing opportunities relates to making strategic choices; and reconfiguration is to do with enacting strategies. Illustration  4.5

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Companies approximate time period

product Sensing Seizing Reconfiguring

ericsson (primarily Europe) Motorola (primarily the USA)

Mid-1980s–late 1990s

Mobile phones Need for mobile telephones: fixed telephony did not offer mobility

Creating the first mobile telephone systems and telephones

Creating a new mobile telephone market

Acquiring and building mobile telephone capabilities

Nokia Late 1990s– early 2000s

Mobile phones with improved design and functionality

Need for well- designed and fashionable mobile phones: existing mobile phones were close to their car- phone origins and maintained their awkward design and functionality

Upgrading the mobile phone to provide a richer experience in design, fashion and functionality

Entering the mobile telephone market

Acquiring and building mobile telephony capabilities

Building design and marketing capabilities

apple Late 2000s– Mobile or smartphones with perfected design, functionality and interface

Need for smartphones with multimedia functionality: existing smartphones maintained a complex and unintuitive interface with limited functionalities

Upgrading the mobile phone to include an intuitive interface and multimedia functionalities containing the App store and iTunes

Entering the mobile telephone market

Acquiring mobile telephony capabilities and recombining them with existing design and interface capabilities

Cooperating with the music and telephone app industries

provides an example of dynamic capabilities in the context of mobile telephones, but also shows that they are no guarantee for future success.

New product development is a typical example of a dynamic capability and strategic analysis and planning is another. They both involve activities that can sense and seize oppor- tunities and that are intended to reconfigure resources and capabilities. Outlet proliferation by chain retailers such as Starbucks or Zara is another example of a dynamic capability as it extends ordinary capabilities. 29 Dynamic capabilities may also take the form of relatively formal organisational systems, such as reorganisation, 30 recruitment and management devel- opment processes and cooperating with others through alliances or acquisitions, by which new skills are learned and developed. 31

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As Teece acknowledges, however, dynamic capabilities are likely to have ‘micro-founda- tions’32 in people’s behaviour within organisations, such as the way in which decisions get taken, personal relationships and entrepreneurial and intuitive skills. This puts the focus on behaviour and the significance of beliefs, social relationships and organisational processes in capability management, which is discussed in ‘Thinking Differently’ at the end of the chapter.33

In brief, dynamic capabilities can change ordinary capabilities in case the environment changes. However, as they are focused on finding solutions beyond and outside current ordi- nary capabilities there is a trade-off and tension between the two that can make it difficult to achieve an optimal balance between them. This is sometimes referred to as exploration/ exploitation trade-offs and they are further discussed in Chapter 15.

As suggested above, dynamic capabilities may take different forms and there are thus many ways in which managers might create, extend or upgrade resources and capabilities including more experimental ones.34 Several approaches to manage resources and capabilities are discussed in other parts of this book:35

● Internal capability development. Could resources and capabilities be added or upgraded so that they become more reinforcing of outcomes that deliver against critical success factors? This might be done, for example, by:

● Building and recombining capabilities. Creating entirely new capabilities that provide for competitive advantage requires entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship skills. Man- agers can build managerial systems and a culture that promote capability innovation or form new venture units outside the rules of ordinary R&D and product development (see Chapter 10).36

● Leveraging capabilities. Managers might identify resources and capabilities in one area of their organisation, perhaps customer service in one geographic busi- ness unit of a multinational, which are not present in other business units. They might then seek to extend this throughout all the business units, but capabilities might not be easily transferred because of the problems of managing change (see Chapter 15).

● Stretching capabilities. Managers may see the opportunity to build new products or services out of existing capabilities. Indeed, building new businesses in this way is the basis of related diversification, as explained in Chapter 8.

● External capability development. Similarly, there may be ways of developing resources and capabilities by looking externally. For example, they could be attained or developed by acquisition or entering into alliances and joint ventures (see Chapter 11).

● Ceasing activities. Could current activities, not central to the delivery of value to cus- tomers, be done away with, outsourced or reduced in cost? If managers are aware of the resources and capabilities central to bases of competitive advantage, they can retain these and focus on areas of cost reduction that are less significant (see Chapter 7).

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ThINkING DIFFeReNTLy

a new view emphasises the individuals behind capabilities.

In the discussion of dynamic capabilities above ( Sec- tion  4.5 ) it was noted that ‘micro-foundations’ of peo- ple’s behaviour underlie them, which suggests that strategy is rooted in individual action. From this per- spective then the focus is not so much on organisa- tion’s resources and capabilities as on the individuals behind them. The emphasis is on how managers’ deci- sions and actions aggregate up to the organisational level and shape resources and capabilities. 37

The emphasis of this alternative micro-foundations approach is thus on individuals and their social interac- tions and how they form organisational resources and capabilities. Instead of taking resources and capa- bilities as the point of departure, micro-foundations starts with individuals’ beliefs, preferences, interests and activities. The focus is on the role of key individu- als, particularly those at the top, and their ambitions, competences and social networks. It is these individu- als’ decisions and choices that determine capabilities, strategy and performance.

The focus on micro-foundations suggests that managers should not take resources and capabilities for granted. Instead, they should carefully consider

how their skills, activities and choices can develop and change them. For strategy then the focus is pri- marily on individual managers’ capabilities rather than those of the whole organisation. However, it needs to be emphasised that there are limits to how manag- ers can influence resources and capabilities. First, they are often built over extended periods of time (see Chapter  13 ), even over decades, which often go beyond the tenure of individual CEOs or managers. Second, cognitive and psychological biases often put a limit to managerial judgments and achievements (see Chapter  16 ).

Micro-foundations of capabilities

Question Pick an organisation mentioned in this chapter (e.g. Apple, IKEA, Microsoft, Ryanair, Starbucks, Zara) or one you admire and would like to work for. What micro-foundations (e.g. individuals and their competences, skills, networks, choices, activities) do you think underlie their resources and capabilities?

● Awareness development. One of the lessons of this chapter is that the bases of competitive advantage often lie in the day-to-day activities that people undertake in organisations, so developing the ability of people to recognise the relevance of what they do in terms of how that contributes to the strategy of the organisation is important. This suggests that staffing policies, training and development, including developing employee’s awareness of how they contribute to competitive advantage, are all central to capability deployment and development. Together with organisational learning, these issues are discussed in later chapters on organising and leading strategic change (see Chapters  14 and 15 ).

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WORk aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

4.1 Using Table 4.1 identify the resources and capabilities of an organisation with which you are familiar, your university or school, for example. Alternatively, you can answer this in relation to H&M* or Formula One* if you wish.

4.2✱ Undertake a VRIO analysis of the resources and capabilities of an organisation with which you are familiar in order to identify which resources and capabilities meet the criteria of (a) value, (b) rarity, (c) inimitability and (d) organisational support (see Section 4.3; Figure 4.2 and Table 4.2). You can answer this in relation to H&M* or Formula One* or the end of chapter case, Rocket Internet, if you wish.

4.3✱ For an industry or public service of your choice consider how the resources and capabilities that have been the basis of competitive advantage (or best value in the public sector) have changed over time. Why have these changes occurred? How did the relative strengths of different companies or service providers change over this period? Why? Did dynamic capabilities play any role? Which?

4.4 Undertake a value chain or system analysis for an organisation of your choice (referring to Illustration 4.3 could be helpful). You can answer this in relation to a case study in the book such as Ryanair* or the end of chapter case, Rocket Internet, if you wish.

4.5✱ For a benchmarking exercise to which you have access, make a critical assessment of the benefits and dangers of the approach that was taken.

Integrative assignment

4.6 Prepare a SWOT analysis for an organisation of your choice (see Illustration 4.5). Explain why you have chosen each of the factors you have included in the analysis, in particular their relationship to other analyses you have undertaken in Chapters 2 and 3. What are the conclusions you arrive at from your analysis and how would these inform an evaluation of strategy (see Chapter 12)?

SUMMaRy ● To be able to compete at all in a market an organisation needs threshold resources and capabilities, but to

achieve sustained competitive advantage they also need to be unique and distinctive.

● To be distinctive and provide for sustainable competitive advantage, resources and capabilities need to fulfil the VRIO criteria of being Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and supported by the Organisation.

● Ways of diagnosing organisational resources and capabilities include:

● VRIO analysis of resources and capabilities as a tool to evaluate if they contribute to competitive advantage.

● Analysing an organisation’s value chain and value system as a basis for understanding how value to a customer is created and can be developed.

● Activity systems mapping as a means of identifying more detailed activities which underpin resources and capabilities.

● SWOT analysis as a way of drawing together an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats an organisation faces.

● Benchmarking as a means of understanding the relative performance of organisations.

● Managers need to adapt and change resources and capabilities if the environment changes and this can be done based on dynamic capabilities.

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ReCOMMeNDeD key ReaDINGS

● For an understanding of the resource-based view of the firm, an early and much cited paper is by Jay Barney: ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’, Journal of Management, vol. 17 (1991), pp. 99–120. An overview of RBV research is written by Jay B. Barney, David J. Ketchen Jr and Mike Wright: ‘The future of resource-based theory: revitalization or decline?’, Journal of Management, vol. 37, no. 5 (2011), pp. 1299–315.

● A comprehensive book on dynamic capabilities is written by C. Helfat, S. Finkelstein, W. Mitchell, M. Peteraf, H. Singh, D. Teece and S. Winter, Dynamic

Capabilities: Understanding Strategic Change in Organ- isations, Blackwell Publishing, 2007. For a discussion of micro-foundations and dynamic capabilities, see D.J. Teece, ‘Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise perfor- mance’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28 (2007), pp. 1319–50.

● For a critical discussion of the use and misuse of SWOT analysis, see T. Hill and R. Westbrook, ‘SWOT analysis: it’s time for a product recall’, Long Range Planning, vol. 30, no. 1 (1997), pp. 46–52.

ReFeReNCeS

1. The concept of resource-based strategies was introduced by B. Wernerfelt, ‘A resource-based view of the firm’, Strate- gic Management Journal, vol. 5, no. 2 (1984), pp. 171–80. The seminal and most cited paper is by Jay Barney, ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’, Journal of Management, vol. 17, no. 1 (1991), pp. 99–120. There are many books and papers that explain and summarise the approach: for example, J. Barney, D.J. Ketchen Jr and M. Wright: ‘The future of resource-based theory: revitali- zation or decline?’, Journal of Management, vol. 37, no. 5, (2011), pp. 1299–315; and J. Barney and D. Clark, Resource- Based Theory: Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advan- tage, Oxford University Press, 2007.

2. The literature most commonly differentiates between ‘resources’ and ‘capabilities’. See, for example, an early article by Raphael Amit and J.H. Paul Schoemaker: ‘Stra- tegic assets and organizational rent’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 14 (1993), pp. 33–46; and Jay Barney’s book: J.B. Barney, Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Addison-Wesley, 1997.

3. Please note that we use the terms ‘resources’ and ‘capabil- ities’ as most contemporary strategy texts do and the lat- ter corresponds to what we in earlier editions referred to as ‘competences’ (earlier we also, somewhat idiosyncratically, used the umbrella term ‘strategic capabilities’ to refer to resources and capabilities).‘Capabilities’ is commonly used in both research and in practice-oriented writings and in discussions within organisations. As Illustration 4.1 shows, organisations frequently refer to their capabilities when describing their strategies. Nevertheless, the term ‘compe- tences’ is still used by some organisations and managers; ‘core competences’ in particular. Hence, we also refer to this latter term in the text (see also the next two endnotes).

4. Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad popularised the term core competences in the early 1990s to refer to an organisation’s unique competences. See G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, ‘The core competence of the corporation’, Harvard Business

Review, vol. 68, no. 3 (1990), pp. 79–91. Please note, how- ever, that ‘capabilities’ rather than ‘competences’ is a more common term today (see also next endnote).

5. G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, ‘The core competence of the corporation’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 68, no. 3 (1990), pp. 79–91. This idea of driving strategy development from the resources and capabilities or competences of an organ- isation is also discussed in G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, ‘Strategic intent’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 67, no. 3 (1989), pp. 63–76; and G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, ‘Strat- egy as stretch and leverage’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 71, no. 2 (1993), pp. 75–84.

6. The VRIO criteria were introduced by Jay Barney in J.B. Barney, Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Addison- Wesley, 1997. Originally the acronym VRIN was used to also emphasise non-substitutability and how competitors must not be able to substitute a valuable, rare and inimitable capability for another, but this is now encompassed in the inimitability criterion (see endnote 1; Barney, 1991). See also endnote 12 on VRIN.

7. This is borne out in a meta-study of research on RBV by S.L. Newbert, ‘Empirical research on the Resource Based View of the firm: an assessment and suggestions for future research’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28 (2007), pp. 121–46.

8. For an explanation of how complex capabilities and strat- egies contribute to inimitability, see J.W. Rivkin, ‘Imitation of complex strategies’, Management Science, vol. 46, no. 6 (2000), pp. 824–44.

9. The seminal paper on causal ambiguity is S. Lippman and R. Rumelt, ‘Uncertain imitability: an analysis of interfirm differences in efficiency under competition’, Bell Journal of Economics, vol. 13 (1982), pp. 418–38. For a summary and review of research on causal ambiguity, see A.W. King, ‘Disentangling interfirm and intrafirm causal ambiguity: a conceptual model of causal ambiguity and sustainable competitive advantage, Academy of Management Review, vol. 32, no. 1 (2007), pp. 156–78.

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10. The distinction between and importance of characteris- tic and linkage ambiguity is explained by A.W. King and C.P. Zeithaml, ‘Competencies and firm performance: exam- ining the causal ambiguity paradox’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 22, no. 1 (2001), pp. 75–99.

11. For a fuller discussion of path dependency in the context of resources and capabilities, see D. Holbrook, W. Cohen, D. Hounshell and S. Klepper, ‘The nature, sources and consequences of firm differences in the early history of the semiconductor industry’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21, nos 10/11, 2000, pp. 1017–42.

12. While the original framework (‘VRIN’) included ‘non- substitutability’ (‘N’) as a separate component, it is now encompassed by the ‘Imitation’ factor. Hence, in the VRIO framework ‘Imitation’ encompasses both direct replication of a resource and capability and substitution for it. Direct replication refers to the difficulty or impossibility of repli- cating resources and capabilities. Substitution refers rather to the difficulty of substituting one resource or capability for another. For example, if it is impossible to replicate a spe- cific marketing expertise of a leading firm a competitor may instead try to substitute for it by cooperating with a market- ing consultancy. If neither direct replication nor substitution via consultancy is possible then this capability is inimitable.

13. For an extensive discussion about complementary assets and capabilities, see D. Teece, ‘Profiting from technological inno- vation’, Research Policy, vol. 15, no. 6 (1986), pp. 285–305.

14. The knowledge-based view was pioneered by B. Kogut and U. Zander, ‘Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology’, Organization Science, vol. 3, no. 3 (1992), pp. 383–97. The importance of analysing and understanding knowledge is discussed in I. Nonaka and H. Takeuchi, The Knowledge-creating Company, Oxford University Press, 1995. More recently, Mark Easterby-Smith and Isabel Prieto have explored the relationships in ‘Dynamic capabilities and knowledge management: an integrative role for learning’, British Journal of Management, vol. 19 (2008), pp. 235–49.

15. See I. Nonaka and H. Takeuchi, endnote 14 above. 16. See S. Gabriel, ‘Exploring internal stickiness’, Strategic

Management Journal, vol. 17, no. 2 (1996), pp. 27–43; and D. Leonard and S. Sensiper, ‘The role of tacit knowledge in group innovation’, California Management Review, vol. 40, no. 3 (1998), pp. 112–32.

17. An extensive discussion of the value chain concept and its application can be found in M.E. Porter, Competitive Advan- tage, Free Press, 1985.

18. The importance of profit pools is discussed by O. Gadiesh and J.L. Gilbert, ‘Profit pools: a fresh look at strategy’, Har- vard Business Review, vol. 76, no. 3 (1998), pp. 139–47.

19. See M. Porter, ‘What is strategy?’, Harvard Business Review, November–December (1996), pp. 61–78; N. Siggelkow, ‘Evo- lution towards fit’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1 (2002), pp. 125–59; and M. Porter and N. Siggelkow, ‘Contextuality within activity systems and sustainability of competitive advantage’, Academy of Management Perspec- tives, vol. 22, no. 2 (2008), pp. 34–56.

20. We are grateful for this example based on the doctoral disser- tation of Bjorn Haugstad, Strategy as the Intentional Struc- turation of Practice: Translation of Formal Strategies into Strategies in Practice, submitted to the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, 2009.

21. See R. Camp, Benchmarking: the Search for Industry Best Practices that Lead to Superior Performance, Quality Press, 2006.

22. See A. Murdoch, ‘Lateral benchmarking, or what Formula One taught an airline’, Management Today (November 1997), pp. 64–7. See also the Formula One case study in the case study section of this book (Text and Cases version only).

23. The idea of SWOT as a common-sense checklist has been used for many years: for example, S. Tilles, ‘Making strategy explicit’, in I. Ansoff (ed.), Business Strategy, Penguin, 1968. See also T. Jacobs, J. Shepherd and G. Johnson’s chapter on SWOT analysis in V. Ambrosini (ed.), Exploring Techniques of Strategy Analysis and Evaluation, Prentice Hall, 1998. For a critical discussion of the (mis)use of SWOT, see T. Hill and R. Westbrook, ‘SWOT analysis: it’s time for a prod- uct recall’, Long Range Planning, vol. 30, no. 1 (1997), pp. 46–52. For a more recent evaluation of the use of SWOT, see M.M. Helms and J. Nixon. ‘Exploring SWOT analysis – where are we now? A review of academic research from the last decade’, Journal of Strategy and Management, vol. 3, no. 3, 2010, pp. 215–51.

24. For background reading on the pharmaceutical industry see, for example, ‘From vision to decision Pharma 2020’, PWC, www.pwc.com/pharma, 2012; ‘The pharmaceutical industry’, Scherer, F.M., Handbook of Health Economics, vol. 1 (2000), part B, pp. 1297–336; ‘A wake-up call for Big Pharma’, McKinsey Quarterly, December 2011; and Gary Pisano, Science Business, Harvard Business School Press, 2006.

25. See H. Weihrich, ‘The TOWS matrix – a tool for situational analysis’, Long Range Planning, April 1982, pp. 54–66.

26. For summary papers on dynamic capabilities, see I. Bar- reto, ‘Dynamic capabilities: a review of past research and an agenda for the future’, Journal of Management, vol. 36, no. 1 (2010), pp. 256–80; C.L. Wang and P.K. Ahmed, ‘Dynamic capabilities: a review and research agenda’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 9, no. 1 (2007), pp. 31–52; and V. Ambrosini and C. Bowman, ‘What are dynamic capabilities and are they a useful con- struct in strategic management?’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 11, no. 1 (2009), pp. 29–49. The most comprehensive book on dynamic capabilities is written by C. Helfat, S. Finkelstein, W. Mitchell, M. Peteraf, H. Singh, D. Teece and S. Winter, Dynamic Capa- bilities: Understanding Strategic Change in Organizations, Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

27. David Teece has written about dynamic capabilities origi- nally in D.J. Teece, G. Pisano and A. Shuen, ‘Dynamic capa- bilities and strategic management’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 18, no. 7 (1997), pp. 509–34. More recently, he has expanded his explanation in the book Dynamic

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Capabilities and Strategic Management – Organizing for innovation and growth, Oxford University Press, 2009.

28. A distinction is made between what is labelled ‘ordinary’ (sometimes called ‘operational’) and ‘dynamic’ capabilities. Sid Winter has explained the difference between ordinary (or operational) and dynamic capabilities in S.G. Winter, ‘Understanding dynamic capabilities’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 24, no. 10 (2003), pp. 991–5 and David J. Teece, explains the linkage between them in ‘The foundations of enterprise performance: dynamic and ordinary capabilities in an (economic) theory of firms’, The Academy of Manage- ment Perspectives vol. 28, no. 4 (2014), pp. 328–52.

29. For a discussion of outlet proliferation as dynamic capability, see S.G. Winter, ‘Understanding dynamic capabilities’, Stra- tegic Management Journal, vol. 24, no. 10 (2003), pp. 991–5.

30. See G. Stephane and R. Whittington, ‘Reconfiguration, restructuring and firm performance: dynamic capabilities and environmental dynamism,’ Strategic Management Jour- nal, online and forthcoming, 2016.

31. For a list of examples of dynamic capabilities, see K.M. Eisenhardt and J.A. Martin, ‘Dynamic capabilities: what are they?’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 10/11 (2000), pp. 1105–21.

32. For a discussion of micro-foundations of capabilities and managerial beliefs, see G. Gavetti, ‘Cognition and hierarchy: rethinking microfoundations of capabilities development’, Organization Science, vol. 16 (2005) pp. 599–617; and for an

overview see J.B. Barney and T. Felin, ‘What are microfoun- dations?’, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 27, no. 2 (2013), pp. 138–55.

33. For a discussion of how resources and capabilities relate to strategy practices and processes, see P. Regnér, ‘Relating strat- egy as practice to the resource-based view, capabilities per- spectives and the micro-foundations approach’, D. Golsorkhi, L. Rouleau, D. Seidl and E. Vaara (eds), in Cambridge Hand- book of Strategy-as-Practice, London, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 301–316.

34. See J. Teece, ‘Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise perfor- mance’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28, no. 1, (2007), pp. 1319–50.

35. For a fuller discussion of how managers may manage resources and capabilities, see C. Bowman and N. Collier, ‘A contingency approach to resource-creation processes’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 8, no. 4 (2006), pp. 191–211.

36. For a discussion of how the periphery in organisations can build radically new capabilities, see P. Regnér, ‘Strategy cre- ation in the periphery: inductive versus deductive strategy making’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 40, no. 1 (2003), pp. 57–82.

37. J.B. Barney and T. Felin, ‘What are microfoundations?’, Academy of Management Perspectives vol. 27, no. 2 (2013), pp. 138–55.

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Introduction

Rocket Internet is a very successful Berlin-based start-up incubator and venture capital firm. It starts, develops and funds e-commerce and other online consumer businesses. With over 700 employees and an additional 30,000 across its network of portfolio companies, the firm has helped cre- ate and launch over 100 start-ups and is currently active in more than 70 companies across more than 100 countries.

The company was founded by the Samwer brothers, Alexander, Oliver and Marc. After going to Silicon Valley in the late 1990s they became inspired by the Californian entrepreneurial culture and especially eBay. The broth- ers contacted eBay offerring to create a German version of the online auction house, but they received no reply from eBay. Instead they launched their own eBay clone, Alando. A month later they were acquired by eBay for $50m (£30m, €37.5m). This was to be their first great online success, but far from the last.

Next the brothers created Jamba, a mobile phone content platform. It was sold to VeriSign, a network infrastructure

company, for $273m in 2004. Since then they have become experts in spotting promising business models, especially in the USA, and imitating and scaling them internationally quicker than the originals. This model is the basis of Rocket Internet, which was founded in 2007 and stock listed in Germany in 2014 valued at $8.2bn. Several of their ven- tures have been acquired by the company with the original idea (see Table  1 ). Two of their most high-profile ventures after Alando were CityDeal, which was sold off to American Groupon, and eDarling sold to American eHarmony.

The company has frequently been criticised for simply being a copycat machine without any original ideas, and some have even claimed it is a scam that rips off the originals. However, the question remains: if Rocket Inter- net has been so incredibly successful and what it does is simply copying, why has no one successfully imitated Rocket Internet yet? The brothers, through Oliver Samwer, defend their model in Wired: 1

‘But look at the reality. how many car manufacturers are out there? how many washing-machine manufacturers are there? how many Best Buys? Did someone write that Dixons copied Best Buy, or did anyone ever write that Best Buy copied Dixons, or that [German electronics retailer] Media Markt copied Dixons? No, they talk about Media Markt. They talk about Dixons. They talk about Best Buy. What is the difference? Isn’t it all the same thing?’

Finance and expert teams

Rocket Internet has strong financial backup from its main investor globally, Kinnevik, a Swedish investment company with a 14 per cent stake. Other investors invest

CaSe eXaMpLe

Rocket Internet – will the copycat be imitated? Patrick Regnér

The Samwer brothers

Source: Dieter Mayr Photography.

Company Founded Business Buyer Founded price, $m Transaction date

Alando 1999 Online marketplace eBay 1995 50 1999 cember.net 2005 Online business

network Xing 2003 6.4 2008

eDarling 2009 Online dating eHarmony 1998 30% stake* 2010 GratisPay 2009 Virtual currency for

online games SponsorPay 2009 na 2010

CityDeal 2009 Discount deals for consumers

Groupon 2008 126† 2010

viversum 2003 Online astrology Questico 2000 na 2010

*With option to buy more † Including a stake in Groupon

Source: Attack of the clones, The Economist, 6th August 2011, © The Economist Newspaper Limited, London, 2011.

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ROCKET INTERNET – WILL THE COPYCAT BE IMITATED?

directly in the start-ups and in the later growth stages, among them the American investment bank J.P. Morgan. To work with the investors and structure the financial solu- tions, Rocket Internet has a large team of finance experts at the Berlin headquarters.

Besides financial skills Rocket Internet also develops the concepts of new ventures, provides the technology platforms and combines various skills necessary for set- ting up new ventures. It has about 250 specialists working at the Berlin head office. These specialists are part of diverse expert teams. Engineering, including IT software, programming and web design skills, is essential for prod- uct development and there are around 200 engineers with access to state-of-the-art technologies.

The expert team in marketing includes experts in customer management, customer relationship marketing and online marketing. Other teams include Operations, Business Intelligence and HR. Apart from this, there is a Global Venture Development programme including a global mobile task force of entrepreneurial talents that can bring further know-how to all international markets. This task force includes venture developers with func- tional skills in product development, supply management, operations and online marketing. They rotate every 4–6 months to a new venture in another part of the world.

human resource management and culture

The HR team recruit regular staff support for Rocket Inter- net and specialists for the expert teams and Global Venture Development programme and, not least, the founders of the ventures. Based on their entrepreneurial spirit they empha- sise personal drive rather than good school grades. Head of HR, Vera Termuhlen, explains to VentureVillage.com:2

‘all in all, it doesn’t matter if an applicant is from an elite university. For the area of global venture devel- opment, we look for applicants that are hands-on, first-class, have analytical skills, describe them- selves as entrepreneurs, have a passion for the online start-up scene along and a willingness to work inter- nationally, often in exotic locations like the philip- pines or Nigeria.’

The co-founders and managing directors of the indi- vidual ventures establish all operations, build the team around a venture, and develop the business; acting as entrepreneurs and holding personal stakes in the ven- ture’s equity. Recruiting them is central and Rocket Inter- net normally recruits extraordinary, ambitious MBA-level graduates with high analytic skills from within the local regions where the venture is set up. As Alexander Kudlich, Managing Director of Rocket Internet, says:3

‘We are looking for those who from an analytical point of view understand the beauty of the business model, understand the rationale and understand what a huge opportunity is. Sometimes we say we are looking for analytical entrepreneurs rather than accidental billionaires.’

The company emphasises not only strong expertise, but ‘a close cultural connection to Rocket Internet’. Rocket Internet has an intense entrepreneurial working culture that is highly performance driven including high pressure, long working hours, often from 09.00 to 23.00, and little job security. While this is attractive to some, the culture has also been criticised for being too tough and aggressive. Rocket Internet’s Managing Director Alexander Kudlich comments on the culture:3

‘I would describe our culture as very focused, we have young teams – the average age is below 30. There is no place where you get more freedom and where you can take as much responsibility as you want. The only thing we want back is accountability.’

Identification of business models and execution

While some of Rocket Internet’s skills are common among other European incubators, the company is more of an international venture builder compared to most. Expertise is shared throughout the portfolio of ventures globally and its best practice can be applied across diverse business models (ranging from online fashion to payments to deals to social networking). Compared to many other incubators, the function of the headquarters is central. While entre- preneurs are hired to oversee individual ventures, overall strategy for Rocket Internet is largely shaped at the head office. The managing directors at head office lead the scanning for and identification of novel and proven online and mobile transaction-based business models that are internationally scalable. Former Managing Director Florian Heinemann explains in Wired: ‘We take a pretty system- atic look at business models that are already out there and we basically try to define whether a model suits our competence and is large enough that it’s worth it for us to go in there.’

Another significant aspect of Rocket Internet’s central- ised model is the speed at which it can launch novel busi- ness models internationally. This is different compared to many US and European counterparts. Rocket Internet has an international infrastructure and distribution network with the capacity to build ventures on an international scale in just a few months. As Managing Director Kudlich explains in Wall Street Journal:3

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‘When we identify a business model we can, within a few weeks, build a platform out of our central teams. In the meantime the local Rocket offices will have hired or allo- cated the people who will execute on the ground . . . That gives us the speed. The combination of access to the best talent in each country combined with highly stand- ardised or modular approach in terms of platform and systems which are rolled out by our headquarters.’

In brief, Rocket Internet specialises in execution rather than innovation. This is also how the management defend their model when they are blamed for simply being a clone machine. Oliver Samwer says that they are ‘execu- tion entrepreneurs’ rather than ‘pioneering entrepreneurs’.4 Managing Director Kudlich explains to Inc. Magazine: ‘Which is harder: to have the idea of selling shoes online or to build a supply chain and warehouse in Indonesia? Ideas are important. But other things are more important.’5

Paradoxically, even though Rocket Internet often builds on others’ ideas, it prefers to keep its own ideas for itself as explained by Marc Samwer in the International Herald Tribune: ‘We really don’t like to speak about our investments since our track record encourages people to set up competing sites . . . Ideas travel much faster these days.’6

The future

Rocket Internet’s success has continued. Zalando, which initially mimicked the online shoe retailing business in the USA by Zappos, now part of Amazon, has expanded into clothing and jewellery. Sales are rising rapidly: annual revenues for 2014 were $2.5bn and $94m in profit; and at its German stock listing the same year it was valued at €5.3bn. Other fashion brands have also been launched under the umbrella Global Fashion Group: Dafiti (Latin America), Jabong (India), Lamoda (Russia), Namshi (Mid- dle East) and Zalora (South East Asia and Australia). After the IPO some investors complained that the company had become too complex to analyse and understand. In the Financial Times, Oliver Samwer describes it as a ‘killer cocktail’ including proprietary software, its training pro- grammes and its ‘matter-of-fact and objective’ culture and claims: ‘I don’t think we have to change our successful model because of public investors’.7

Rocket Internet has, however, started to attract imita- tors of its own. One of the operations is Wimdu, a copy of the American Airbnb, which allows individual home and apartment owners to list their properties as holiday accommodation. However, Airbnb quickly formed a part- nership with another Berlin incubator, Springstar, and they have since been rolling out Airbnb globally. Similarly, the original company responded swiftly when Rocket Internet

imitated Fab.com, a designer deal site, with its Bamarang. Fab acquired Casacanda, a parallel European site, and quickly re-launched it as Fab internationally and Rocket Internet had to close down Bamarang. Rocket Internet is even facing imitators from within. Two of its managing directors have, together with other former employees, left to set up the Berlin incubator ‘Project A Ventures’. Inter- nationally there is also increasing competition including The Hut Group in the UK. There are thus signs that Rocket Internet may eventually be imitated itself.

Questions 1 Based on the data from the case (and any other

sources available), use the frameworks from the chapter and analyse the resources and capabilities of Rocket Internet:

a What are its resources and capabilities?

b What are its threshold, distinctive and dynamic resources and capabilities?

2 Based on your initial analysis and answers to question 1, carry out a VRIO analysis for Rocket Internet. What do you conclude? To what extent does Rocket Internet have resources and capabilities with sustained competitive advantage?

3 What is the importance of the Samwer brothers? What would happen if they left or sold the company?

Sources: G. Wiesmann, ‘Zalando to set foot in seven new countries’, Financial Times, 26 March 2012; T. Bradshaw, ‘Facebook backers to take stake in Zalando’, Financial Times, 2 February 2012; R. Levine, ‘The kopy kat kids’, Cnnmoney.com, 2 October 2007; The Economist, ‘Attack of the clones’, 6 August 2011 and ‘Launching into the unknown’, 4 Octo- ber 2014.

References 1. M. Cowan, ‘Inside the clone factory’, Wired UK, 2 March 2012; http://

www.economist.com/node/21525394\#. 2. J. Kaczmarek, ‘An inside look at Rocket Internet’, VentureVillage.com, 18

November 2012. 3. B. Rooney, ‘Rocket Internet leads the clone war’, Wall Street Journal, 14

May 2012. 4. C. Winter, ‘How three Germans are cloning the web’, Bloomberg,

1 March 2012. 5. M. Chafkin, ‘Lessons from the world’s most ruthless competitor’, Inc.

Magazine, 29 May 2012. 6. T. Crampton, ‘German brothers break the mold’, International Herald

Tribune, 3 Decmeber 2006. 7. S. Gordon and D. McCrum, ‘Rocket Internet: waiting for the lift-off,

Financial Times, 19 October 2015.

Suggested video clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq7WnzY89KE

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Strategic choices

Macro- environment

Stakeholders

Resources Culture

Industry

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Undertake stakeholder analysis in order to identify the power and attention of dif- ferent stakeholder groups.

● Analyse the strategic significance of different ownership models for an organisa- tion’s strategy.

● Evaluate the implications for strategic purpose of the shareholder and stakeholder models of corporate governance.

● Relate corporate social responsibility and personal ethics to strategy.

5 STAKEHOLDERS AND GOVERNANCE

corporate governance p.141

corporate social responsibility p.150

governance chain p.143

power p.136

stakeholder mapping p.136

stakeholders p.134

Key terms

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5.1 INTRODUCTION

The 2015 controversy surrounding Sepp Blatter, President of the world football’s governing body FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Associations), points to crucial stakeholder and governance issues in strategy. Blatter’s longstanding strategy of developing football out- side the traditional heartlands of Western Europe and South America had won him sufficient support from many African, Asian and Caribbean nations to see him elected for a fifth term as FIFA president. Football in these regions had grown hugely thanks to Blatter’s support, but controversy about FIFA corruption and the award of the World Cup competitions to Russia and Qatar was damaging the game’s image. Powerful World Cup sponsors such as Coca Cola, Visa and McDonalds put FIFA under pressure. A month after his re-election, Sepp Blatter announced his resignation as FIFA President.

At FIFA, stakeholders such as Coca Cola were able effectively to reverse the earlier wishes of other stakeholders, even those expressed through the formal governance mechanism of the presidential election. The strategy of developing football in previously neglected regions was consequently in question. This chapter will deal with the importance of different organ- isational stakeholders – including owners, employees, customers, suppliers and communi- ties – and the role of formal governance mechanisms – in FIFA’s case, elected officials – in representing these stakeholders. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of ethics, a significant issue in FIFA’s strategy.

The three issues of stakeholders, governance and ethics recall Chapter 1’s discussion of purpose, as reflected in organisational missions, visions, values and objectives. The wishes of key stakeholders should define the purpose of an organisation; formal govern- ance mechanisms and ethical considerations should then guide the translation of that purpose into strategy. Figure 5.1 depicts the flow: strategy originates from stakeholders, whose wishes are processed through governance and ethical screens before finally being put into action.

Figure 5.1 Stakeholders, governance and ethics

Stakeholders

Purpose (Chapter 1: vision, mission,

values, objectives)

Strategy

Governance Ethics

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The chapter continues therefore as follows:

● Section 5.2 introduces the various types of stakeholder who may be involved in strategy, and shows how to map their power and attention using stakeholder analysis. The section then focuses on one crucial set of stakeholders, that is owners (shareholders), and their roles under different ownership models.

● Section 5.3 addresses the formal corporate governance mechanisms within which organi- sations operate. Governance is concerned with the way in which legally constituted bodies such as boards of directors influence strategy through formalised processes for supervising executive decisions and actions.

● Section 5.4 is concerned with issues of social responsibility and ethics. How should man- agers respond strategically to the expectations society has of their organisations, in terms of both corporate responsibility and the behaviour of individuals within organisations, not least themselves?

5.2 STaKehOLDeRS1

Strategic decisions are influenced by the expectations of stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who have some kind of stake in the future of the business. More formally, stakeholders are those individuals or groups that depend on an organisation to fulfil their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organisation depends. These stakeholders can be very diverse, including owners, customers, suppliers, employees and local communities. FIFA has stakeholders both in the form of young African footballers who benefit from grants for training facilities, and in the form of major sponsors such as Coca Cola who benefit from association with the World Cup. To the extent their organisations depend on them, managers must take all stakehold- ers into account. However, stakeholder demands can diverge widely, especially in the short term: for instance, profit maximisation on the part of owners may come at the expense of customers who want quality products and employees who want good jobs. It is important therefore that managers understand who their stakeholders are, what they want and which have most influence upon their organisations. This section describes stakeholders in general, then introduces the power/attention matrix for assessing their influence and finally focuses on owners, typically one of the most important stakeholders.

5.2.1 Stakeholder groups

External stakeholders can be usefully divided into five (potentially overlapping) types, cat- egorised according to the nature of their relationship with the organisation and how they might affect the success or failure of a strategy (see Figure 5.2):

● Economic stakeholders, including suppliers, customers, distributors, banks and owners (shareholders).

● Social/political stakeholders, such as policy-makers, local councils, regulators and govern- ment agencies that may influence the strategy directly or via the context in which strategy is developed.

● Technological stakeholders, such as key adopters, standards agencies and ecosystem members supplying complementary products or services (e.g. apps for particular mobile phones).

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● Community stakeholders, who are affected by what an organisation does: for example, those who live close to a factory or, indeed, groups in the wider society. These stakeholders typically have no formal relationship with the organisation but may, of course, take action (e.g. through lobbying or activism) to influence the organisation.

● Internal stakeholders, who may be specialised departments, local offices and factories or employees at different levels in the hierarchy.

Individuals may belong to more than one stakeholder group and such groups may ‘line up’ differently depending on the issue or strategy in hand. External stakeholders may seek to influence an organisation’s strategy through their links with internal stakeholders. For example, customers may exert pressure on sales managers to represent their interests within the company.

The influence of these different types of stakeholders is likely to vary in different situa- tions. For example, technological stakeholders will be crucial for strategies of new product development, while the social/political stakeholders are usually particularly influential in the public-sector context or for multinational companies operating in countries with demanding political and legal systems.

Since the expectations of stakeholder groups will differ, it is normal for conflict to exist regarding the importance or desirability of aspects of strategy. In most situations, a com- promise will need to be reached. Table 5.1 shows some typical situations which give rise to conflicting stakeholder expectations.

Figure 5.2 Stakeholders of a large organisation Source: Adapted from R.E. Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman, 1984.

Owners/ shareholders

Political groups

Government

Suppliers

Competitors

Trade associations

Employees

Unions

Managers

Firm Customers

Activist groups

Financial community

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The stakeholder concept, and its sensitivity to different wants, helps in understanding the organisational politics of strategic decision-making. Taking stakeholder expectations and influence into account is an important aspect of strategic choice, as will be seen in Chapter 12. Stakeholder mapping also helps in managing the organisational politics of strategy.

5.2.2 Stakeholder mapping2

Given that there are often so many stakeholders, it is useful to categorise them according to their likely influence on strategic decisions. Stakeholder mapping identifies stakeholder power and attention in order to understand political priorities. The underlying view is that organ- isations involve political coalitions of stakeholders, each of which has different kinds of power and each of which pays different amounts of attention to issues.3 It is important there- fore to understand the power different stakeholders have and their likely attention to issues.

These two dimensions form the basis of the power/attention matrix shown as Figure 5.3. The matrix classifies stakeholders in relation to the power they hold and the extent to which they are likely to attend actively to a particular strategic issue. The matrix allows different stakeholders to be plotted either according to the simple dichotomy of low or high, or more subtly according to their relative positions along continuous axes from low to high. The positions of different stakeholders on the matrix are likely to vary according to each issue: stakeholders may have more power in some domains than others, and will care more about some issues than others. Power and attention can be assessed as follows.

power4

In designing strategy, it is important to understand which stakeholders are most powerful. For the purposes of this discussion, power is the ability of individuals or groups to persuade, induce or coerce others into following certain courses of action. As Table 5.2 shows, there are different sources of power. Power is not only derived from people’s hierarchical position within an organisation or from formal corporate governance arrangements. It could be a function of the resources or know-how they control or the networks they have built up, for example.

Since power is not just a matter of formal rank, it is useful to look for a variety of indi- cators of power. These include: the status of the individual or group (such as job rank or reputation); the claim on resources (such as budget size); representation in powerful positions or committees; and symbols of power (such as office size or use of titles and names). For external stakeholders, a key indicator is the organisation’s resource dependence, for example

● Pursuit of short-term profits may suit shareholders and managerial bonuses but come at the expense of investment in long-term projects.

● Family business owners may want business growth, but also fear the loss of family control if they need to appoint professional managers to cope with larger-scale operations.

● Investing in growth strategies may require additional funding through share issue or loans, but thereby risk financial security and independence.

● Going public on the stock market may raise funds, but require unwelcome degrees of openness and accountability from management.

● Expanding into mass markets may require a reduction in quality standards. ● In public services, excellence in specialised services might divert resources from standard services

used by the majority (e.g. heart transplants come at the cost of preventative dentistry). ● In large multinational organisations, conflict can result because of a local division’s responsibilities

simultaneously to the company head office and to its host country.

Table 5.1 Some common conflicts of stakeholder interests and expectations

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its dependence on particularly large shareholders, lenders, customers or suppliers. One way of assessing resource dependence is to consider the ease with which a supplier, funder or customer could switch away from your organisation or, conversely, you could switch away from them.

attention

Attention matters as well as power.5 Stakeholders vary in the attention they pay to the organ- isation and particular issues within it. Even powerful stakeholders may not attend closely to everything. For example, many companies have institutional shareholders (e.g. pension

Table 5.2 Sources and indicators of power

Sources of power

Within organisations For external stakeholders

● Hierarchy (formal power), e.g. autocratic decision-making ● Influence (informal power), e.g. charismatic leadership ● Control of strategic resources, e.g. strategic products ● Possession of knowledge and skills, e.g. computer

specialists ● Control of the human environment, e.g. negotiating skills ● Involvement in strategy implementation, e.g. by exercising

discretion

● Control of strategic resources, e.g. materials, labour, money

● Involvement in strategy implementation, e.g. distribution outlets, agents

● Possession of knowledge or skills, e.g. subcontractors, partners

● Through internal links, e.g. informal influence

Indicators of power

Within organisations For external stakeholders

● Status ● Claim on resources ● Representation ● Symbols

● Status ● Resource dependence ● Negotiating arrangements ● Symbols

Figure 5.3 Stakeholder mapping: the power/attention matrix Source: Adapted from R. Newcombe, ‘From client to project stakeholders: a stakeholder mapping approach’, Construction Management and Economics, vol. 21, no. 8 (2003), pp. 841–8.

Level of attention

A Minimal effort

C Keep satisfied

D Key players

B Keep informed

Low High

High

Low

Power

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funds) as major shareholders but, because these shareholders hold shares in many diverse companies, they may not care greatly about the detailed strategy of any single company.

In assessing the attention that stakeholders are likely to pay, three factors are particularly important:

● Criticality. Stakeholders will pay more attention to issues that are critical for them. For example, shareholders might not see health and safety at work as critical, but employees very likely will.

● Channels. Stakeholders will pay more attention where there are good channels of infor- mation and communication. For example, it is increasingly common nowadays for Chief Executives to invite their shareholders to ‘strategy days’ or ‘strategy reviews’, thereby providing a channel for a detailed discussion of strategy that might not otherwise be possi- ble.6 Where channels are poor, stakeholders may be unable to pay sufficient attention even to issues they regard as critical: for example, many ethical investors (such as Church and political groups) care passionately about employment conditions for overseas workers, but lack the channels effectively to find out about them.

● Cognitive capacity. Sometimes stakeholders simply do not have the cognitive capacity to process all the information they have. Channels can even be so good that they overwhelm organisations’ ability to attend to the flood of information that flows through them. Thus institutional investors may have access to a host of information about the strategies of all the various companies they invest in, but be obliged to reduce complexity by focusing on simple measures such as forecast financial earnings, rather than the details of company strategy.

In order to show the way in which the power/attention matrix may be used, take the exam- ple of a business where managers see themselves as formulating strategy by trying to ensure the compliance of stakeholders with their own assessment of strategic imperatives. In this context, the matrix indicates the type of relationship that managers might typically establish with stakeholder groups in the different quadrants. Clearly, the acceptability of strategies to key players (segment D) is of major importance. It could be that these are major investors or particular agencies with a lot of power – for example, a major shareholder in a family firm or a government funding agency in a public-sector organisation. Often the most difficult issues relate to stakeholders in segment C. Although these might, in general, be relatively passive, a disastrous situation can arise when their level of attention is underrated and they reposition to segment D and frustrate the adoption of a new strategy. Institutional shareholders such as pension funds or insurance firms can fall into this category. They may show little interest unless share prices start to dip, but may then demand to be heard by senior management. Managers might choose to address the expectations of stakeholders in segment B, for exam- ple community groups, through information provision. It may be important not to alienate such stakeholders because they can be crucially important allies in influencing the attitudes of more powerful stakeholders: for example, through lobbying.

The power/attention matrix is a useful tool for analysing potential coalitions of stakehold- ers for or against particular decisions. Aligning potential supporters for strategic initiatives, and buying-off opponents, are often crucial moves in the process of strategic change (see Chapter 15). Building stakeholder coalitions is at the core of strategy, therefore. Stakeholder mapping can help in three aspects of the coalition-building process:

● Analysing who the key blockers and facilitators of a strategy are likely to be and the appropriate response.

● Repositioning of certain stakeholders is desirable and/or feasible: for example, to lessen the influence of a key player or, in certain instances, to ensure that there are more key players who will champion the strategy (this is often critical in the public-sector context).

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● Maintaining the level of attention or power of some key stakeholders: for example, pub- lic ‘endorsement’ by powerful suppliers or customers may be critical to the success of a strategy. It may also be necessary to discourage some stakeholders from repositioning themselves. This is what is meant by keep satisfied in relation to stakeholders in segment C, and to a lesser extent keep informed for those in segment B.

5.2.3 Owners

Owners are typically key stakeholders in strategic decisions. However, their power and atten- tion can vary according to different ownership models.

There are many different ways firms are owned, and the boundaries between them often blur.7 However, it is useful to distinguish four main ownership models, each with different implications for strategy. Figure 5.4 ranges these four models along two axes. The horizon- tal axis describes the dominant modes of management, ranging from wholly professional (with managers employed for their professional expertise) to wholly personal (with managers employed because of their personal relationships with owners). The vertical axis describes the extent to which purpose is focused on profit as an exclusive goal or on profit as just one of a mix of motives. In each case, there is a range along the axes: organisations vary in their relative positioning and sometimes organisations do not conform to the typical behaviour of their ownership model. Nonetheless organisations with particular ownership models do tend to behave in distinctive ways.

The four main ownership models are as follows:

● Publicly-quoted companies (often called publicly traded companies or public limited companies) are the most important ownership model in economies such as those of the USA, northern Europe, Japan and many others. These companies’ shares are ‘quoted’ on public stock exchanges. In other words, their shares can be bought and sold by the public, either in the form of individual investors or, frequently, institutions such as pension funds, banks or insurance companies.8 Usually owners do not manage publicly-quoted compa- nies themselves, but delegate that function to professional managers. In this sense, owners of publicly-quoted companies sacrifice some power, and reduce their attention. However, in principle, company managers work to make a financial return for their owners – that is why the public usually buy the shares in the first place. If shareholders are not satisfied financially, they can either sell the shares or seek the removal of the managers. In terms of Figure 5.4 therefore, most publicly-quoted companies focus strongly on profit. How- ever, profit maximisation is rarely a simple goal for companies. There is often a delicate balance to be struck between short-run profits and long-term survival, for example. Short- term profits might be improved by cutting research budgets or taking advantage of loyal customers, but such action may well be at the expense of the long run. In relation to the vertical axis in Figure 5.4, publicly-quoted companies may therefore vary in how high is their focus on profit objectives.

● State-owned enterprises are wholly or majority owned by national or sometimes regional governments. They are very important in many developing economies: about 80 per cent of stock market value is accounted for by state-owned companies in China, 60 per cent in Russia and 40 per cent in Brazil.9 Privatisation has reduced the role of state-owned enter- prises in many developed economies, but quasi-privatised agencies (such as hospital trusts and school academies in the United Kingdom) operate in a similar way. In state-owned enterprises, politicians typically delegate day-to-day control to professional managers, though they may attend more closely to major strategic issues. State-owned enterprises usually have to earn some kind of profit or surplus in order to fund investment and build

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financial reserves, but they are also likely to pursue a range of other objectives that are in keeping with government policy. For Chinese state-owned enterprises, for example, secur- ing access to overseas resources such as minerals and energy is an important objective, worthwhile sacrificing some profits for.

● Entrepreneurial businesses are businesses that are substantially owned and controlled by their founders. Founders are typically very powerful, because of their ownership, the respect they are held in and their deep knowledge of their businesses. Founders head some major companies. For example, Lakshmi Mittal remains chairman and chief executive of his creation, Arcelor Mittal, the largest steel company in the world. Mark Zuckerberg is still CEO of Facebook, which he co-founded in 2004. Nonetheless, as they grow, entrepre- neurial businesses are likely both to rely more on professional managers and to draw in external investors in order to fund new opportunities. Typically entrepreneurial compa- nies need to attend closely to profit in order to survive and grow. However, entrepreneurs may attend to some issues more than others.10 For example, the founders of Twitter have consistently focused on increasing usage, while downgrading the importance of monetis- ing their user-base.

● Family businesses are typically businesses where ownership by the founding entrepreneur has passed on to his or her family, on account of the founder’s death or retirement for instance. Most family businesses are small to medium-sized enterprises, but they can be very big: Ford, Fiat, Samsung and Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, are all under family ownership and retain significant family involvement in top management roles. Quite often the family retains a majority of the voting shares, while releasing the remain- der to the public on the stock market: thus half of stock market-listed companies in the ten largest Asian markets are effectively family-controlled.11 However, family members may lack the skill and inclination to attend closely to strategy. Family businesses therefore often bring in professional managers, even while retaining ultimate family control: thus

Figure 5.4 Ownership, management and purpose

Many publicly- quoted corporations

Many entrepreneurial businesses

Profit focus Exclusive

Management

Mixed

Professional Personal

Many family businesses

Many state- owned enterprises

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the Chief Executive of Ford is a non-family member, but the Executive Chairman is still William Ford Jr. For family businesses, retaining control over the company, passing on management to the next generation and ensuring the company’s long-term survival are often very important objectives, and these might rule out profit-maximising strategies that involve high risk or require external finance. Thus a family business might diversify into lots of small businesses rather than engage in one large one, because that would minimise risk and give a chance to younger family members to work in distinct areas of activity.12

As well as these four main types of ownership model, there are several other variants that play smaller but still significant roles in the economy.13 Not-for-profit organisations, such as Mozilla (Illustration 5.1), are typically owned by a charitable foundation: they may need to make some kind of surplus to fund investment and protect against hard times, but they fun- damentally exist to pursue social missions. The partnership model, in which the organisation is owned and controlled by senior employees (its partners), is important in many professional services such as law and accounting. There are also employee-owned firms, which spread ownership among employees as a whole. Prominent examples of employee-owned firms include W. L. Gore & Associates, famous for Gore-Tex, the Spanish Mondragon Cooper- ative, with 75,000 employees, and John Lewis, one of the UK’s leading retailers. Typically these not-for-profits, partnerships and employee-owned firms are restricted in their ability to raise external finance, making them more conservative in their strategies. As the Thinking Differently illustration at the end of this chapter indicates, there are also Benefit Corpora- tions in the USA that formally tie themselves to social missions.

Clearly, everybody should know how the ownership of their own organisation relates to its strategy: as above, strategy for a state-owned business is likely to be very different to that for a publicly-quoted company. However, it is also important for managers to understand the ownership of other organisations with which they engage, for example competitors and partners. Different ownership models will drive their strategic decisions in sometimes unconventional directions. Without understanding the relationship between ownership and strategies, it is easy to be surprised by competitors and partners with different priorities to your own. For example, Western public mining companies have often found themselves outbid for overseas mining opportunities by Chinese state-owned companies keen to secure raw material supplies at almost any price.

5.3 CORpORaTe gOveRNaNCe

The varying power and attention of owners, and their frequent reliance on professional managers, raise issues of corporate governance.14 Corporate governance is concerned with the structures and systems of control by which managers are held accountable to those who have a legitimate stake in an organisation.15 Key stakeholders in corporate governance are typically the owners, but may include other groups such as employee representatives. Con- necting stakeholder interests with management action is a vital part of strategy. Failures in corporate governance have contributed to calamitous strategic choices in many leading com- panies, even resulting in their complete destruction: in 2014, Portugal’s second largest bank, Banco Espirito Sanctu, disappeared after the discovery of financial irregularities involving €5bn losses. With the survival of whole organsations at stake, governance is increasingly recognised as a key strategic issue.

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ILLUSTRaTION 5.1

Is the Mozilla Foundation’s army of volunteers enough to save the Firefox browser?

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organisation that originated in the late 1990s from the old web-browser company Netscape. Mozilla’s best known product is the Firefox open source web-browser, produced largely for free by volunteer software developers committed to the ideal of an open internet. Four thousand volunteers (‘Mozillians’) contributed to the original 2003 browser development, each of their names commemorated on a 14-foot high monolith outside Mozilla’s San Francisco offices.

Mozilla’s mission is summed up by its ‘Manifesto’ declaration: ‘the Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible . . . individuals must have the ability to shape the Internet and their own experiences on it’. Mozilla typically does not pat- ent its innovations. Volunteers meet annually at the so-called MozFest in London to learn from one another and develop new ideas for building the open internet. In early 2016, Mozilla claimed 10,500 active volun- teers around the world. Volunteers are able to partic- ipate in weekly ‘all hands meetings’ by global phone conferences. There are also many financial donors (both individuals and large charitable foundations: the MacArthur Foundation gave more than $2m (£1.2m, €1.5m) in 2014) and about 250 paid staff.

The Mozilla non-profit foundation is governed by six directors, chosen from the community by the directors themselves. The Foundation in turn owns the Mozilla Corporation, which directly manages the various Mozilla products and which has a conventional organisational structure with a CEO. In 2014, this structure was chal- lenged when new CEO Brendan Eich was forced to resign by protests from volunteers and donors over his public opposition to gay marriage.

But Mozilla faces a commercial challenge too. Most of its revenue comes from partnerships with search engine companies (e.g. Yahoo and Baidu), who pay to be the Firefox browser’s default search engine. Mozilla can offer access to 500 million users all over the world. However, the Firefox browser is losing market share rapidly. In 2009, Firefox had about 30 per cent of the worldwide market; by early 2016, this share was less than 10 per cent.

A major problem for Mozilla has been the switch from desktop computing to mobile computing. The two

dominant operating systems (OS), Apple’s iOS and Goog- le’s Android, come with their own browsers and tightly- integrated applications. Developers are more interested in developing apps for these operating systems than something that will work with Mozilla’s declining browser.

In 2011, Mozilla responded by launching its own Firefox OS for smartphones, aiming to offer a lower cost alternative to Apple and Android. Volunteers from Spain’s mobile carrier Telefónica offered help to get the new Firefox OS into Spanish America; a designer from Berlin developed a distinctive type- face; a Spaniard in Amsterdam implemented the swipe-function; and a Canadian created more than 600 unique emoji. Alliances were negotiated with chip makers such as Qualcomm, handset makers such as South Korean LG, and carriers in South American, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. The new phone launched in 2013.

But the new Firefox OS phone had very limited apps: the philosophy of offering everything for free gave little incentive for app developers. The messaging service WhatsApp only launched on Firefox OS in 2015. Many standard sites like Yelp and LinkedIn performed badly. Google then took Firefox by surprise by slashing prices charged to handset makers for Android. By 2015, the Firefox OS had less than one per cent world market share. In 2016, Mozilla announced it was abandon- ing the Firefox OS to concentrate its resources on ‘the Internet of Things’.

Sources: www.mozilla.org ; www.technologyreview.com/s/537661/ firefox-maker-battles-to-save-the-internet-and-itself/ .

Firefox burns out

Questions 1 Compare the power and attention of Mozilla’s

various stakeholders with regard to: (i) the former CEO Brendan Eich’s position on gay marriage; (ii) the development of the Firefox OS (see Section  5.2.2 ).

2 What are the advantages and disadvantages of Mozilla’s ownership model (see Section  5.2.3 )?

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5.3.1 The governance chain

Managers and stakeholders are linked together via the governance chain. The governance chain shows the roles and relationships of different groups involved in the governance of an organ- isation. In a small family business, the governance chain is simple: there are family share- holders, a board with some family members and there are managers, some of whom may be family too. Here there are just three layers in the chain. In large publicly-quoted corporations, however, influences on governance can be complex. Figure 5.5 shows a governance chain for a typical large, publicly-quoted corporation. Here the size of the organisation means there are extra layers of management internally, while being publicly-quoted introduces more investor layers too. Individual investors (the ultimate beneficiaries) often invest in public corporations through investment funds, i.e. institutional investors such as unit trusts or pension funds, which then invest in a range of companies on their behalf. Funds are typically controlled by trustees, with day-to-day investment activity undertaken by investment managers. So the ultimate beneficiaries may not even know in which companies they have a financial stake and have little power to influence the companies’ boards directly.

Figure 5.5 The chain of corporate governance: typical reporting structures Source: Adapted from David Pitt-Watson, Hermes Fund Management.

Reports/actions

Limited reports

Beneficiaries

Investment funds

Board

Executive directors

Senior executives

Managers

Accounts Analysts’ reports Company briefings Buying/selling shares

Budgets/targets Qualitative reporting

Budgets/targets Qualitative reporting

Budgets/simplified targets Operating reports

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Economists analyse the relationships in such governance chains in terms of the principal– agent model.16 Here ‘principals’ employ ‘agents’ to act on their behalf, just as homeowners pay estate agents to sell their homes. Classically, the principal is simply the owner and the agent is the manager. However, the reality for large publicly-quoted corporations is usually more complex, with principals and agents at every level. In Figure 5.5, the beneficiaries are the ultimate principals and fund trustees and investment managers are their immediate agents in terms of achieving good returns on their investments. Further down the chain, company boards can be considered as principals too, with senior executives their agents in managing the company. Thus there are many layers of agents between ultimate principals and the managers at the bottom, with the reporting mechanisms between each layer liable to be imperfect.

The governance issues in principal–agent theory arise from three problems:

● Knowledge imbalances. Agents typically know more than principals about what can and should be done. After all, it is they who are actually doing the job and they have presum- ably been hired for their expertise.

● Monitoring limits. It is very difficult for principals to monitor closely the performance of their agents. This limit is made worse because principals usually have many investments, so their attention is likely to be split several ways.

● Misaligned incentives. Unless their incentives are closely aligned to principals’ interests, agents are liable to pursue other objectives that reward them better. Principals might introduce bonus schemes in order to incentivise desired performance, but then agents may game the system: for example, they might use their superior knowledge to negotiate bonus targets that are in reality easy to meet.

Principal–agent theory therefore stresses the importance of knowledgeable principals, effective monitoring systems and well-designed incentives in order to make sure that large organisations actually pursue the purposes that their owners set for them. Illustration 5.2 asks what changes at scandal-hit Toshiba would help it avoid governance failures in the future.

5.3.2 Different governance models

The governing body of an organisation is usually a board of directors. Although the legal requirements vary in detail around the world, the primary responsibility of a board is typi- cally to ensure that an organisation fulfils the wishes and purposes of those whom it repre- sents. However, whom the board represents varies. In most parts of the world, private-sector boards primarily represent shareholders, but in some parts of the world they represent a broader or different stakeholder base. In the public sector, the governing body is accountable to the political arm of government – possibly through some intermediary such as a funding body. These differences have implications for organisational purpose and strategy as well as the role and composition of boards.

At the most general level, there are two governance models: the shareholder model, prior- itising shareholder interests; and the stakeholder model, recognising the wider set of actors that have a stake in an organisation’s success.17 These two models are pure types, and there are many variants on each. The question for managers, therefore, is where their organisation is positioned on the range between the pure shareholder and pure stakeholder models of governance.

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ILLUSTRaTION 5.2

a determination to meet profi t targets results in the leading Japanese company misstating its accounts.

Toshiba is one of the largest corporations in Japan, with interests in information technology, power sys- tems, electronic components, consumer electronics, medical and office equipment, lighting and logistics. In 2015, its shares were held roughly equally by for- eign investors, individual Japanese investors and Jap- anese financial institutions. The largest investor, with just under five per cent of the shares, was the Master Trust Bank of Japan, which is a major asset manage- ment bank principally owned by the giant Mitsubi- shi Trust and Banking Corporation and Nippon Life Insurance.

Toshiba was apparently a model of corporate govern- ance. It was one of the earliest adopters of Japanese corporate governance reforms. In 2001, it had intro- duced three external directors, with the formal author- ity to name top executives and an auditing committee to monitor company management. In 2013, Toshiba’s corporate governance was ranked ninth out of 120 publicly-quoted Japanese companies in a list com- piled by the Japanese Corporate Governance Network, a non-profit organisation promoting better governance. One of Japan’s biggest law firms, Mori Hamada & Mat- sumoto, even published a case study of Toshiba as an exemplar of good corporate governance practices.

However, in early 2015, Seiya Shimaoka, an internal auditor in Toshiba, began to ask the head of Toshiba’s auditing committee, Makoto Kubo, to examine the accounts of Toshiba’s laptop business. Kubo refused to investigate further, warning that doing so would make the company miss its deadline for reporting earnings. It emerged soon after that the laptop business was sig- nificantly over-stating its profits. Indeed, in a company where the only significantly profitable business was the semiconductor division, overstatements were rife and longstanding. The total misreported was $1.2bn (£720m, €900m).

It transpired that the head of the audit committee had known about the exaggerated profits since 2008, when the company began to come under pressure after the global financial crisis of that period. The disrup- tion to Toshiba’s nuclear power business following the

2011 tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident had prompted further large-scale misstatements. Sen- ior management was determined that the company’s various businesses would still meet challenging per- formance targets. An independent panel investigating the accounting scandal explained: ‘Within Toshiba, there was a corporate culture in which one could not go against the wishes of superiors.  .  .  . Therefore, when top management presented “challenges”, divi- sion presidents, line managers and employees below them continually carried out inappropriate accounting practices to meet targets in line with the wishes of their superiors.’

As it became clear that the misstatements had been widely known at the top for several years, September 2015 saw sweeping management dismissals. The com- pany’s CEO, Hsiao Tanaka, and Makoto Kubo, the audit head, both resigned. Two further senior board members resigned also, one a former CEO and the other a former company president. The company’s share price, having fallen by 20 per cent on the news of the accounting misstatements, recovered some of its losses. As the accounting errors were corrected, Toshiba declared at the end of 2015 losses of $4.5bn and cuts to 6,800 jobs. Small Japanese investors declared that they would sue the guilty senior managers for recovery of their losses. Regulators fined the Japanese branch of accounting firm Ernst & Young, Toshiba’s auditor, $17m for its failures.

Sources : BBC News, 21 July 2015 and 21 December 2015; Financial Times, 21 July 2015.

A load of tosh? Toshiba’s accounting scandal

Questions 1 Which parts of the governance chain –

principals and agents (see Section  5.3.1 ) – failed at Toshiba?

2 What problems (knowledge, monitoring or incentives) led to the scandal? What would you change to avoid these problems in the future?

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a shareholder model of governance

The shareholder model is dominant in publicly-quoted companies, especially in the USA and the UK. Shareholders have priority in regard to the wealth generated by the company, as opposed to employees, for example. The shareholder interest in a company is assumed to be largely financial. Shareholders can vote for the board of directors according to the number of their shares and, in the pure model at least, there are many shareholders so that no single shareholder dominates. Shareholders can also exert control indirectly through the trading of shares. Dissatisfied shareholders may sell their shares, leading to a drop in the company’s share price and an increased threat to directors of takeover by other firms.

There are arguments for and against the shareholder model. The argued advantages include:

● Higher rates of return. The unambiguous focus on shareholder interests means that inves- tors typically get a higher rate of return than in the stakeholder model. Managers are not distracted by the interests of other stakeholders, and potentially have more money to invest in the future of the organisation.

● Reduced risk. Shareholders face less risk in the shareholder model, especially if operating within an economy with an efficient stock market. Shareholders can diversify their risk by using the stock market to buy shares in many different companies. They can also use the stock market to sell the shares of companies that look in danger.

● Increased innovation and entrepreneurship. Since the system facilitates higher risk-taking by investors, the shareholder model should promote entrepreneurship, innovation and higher growth. It is easier to attract capital investment where investors know that they can easily diversify their shareholdings and trade their shares.

● Better decision-making. Arguably the separation of ownership and management makes strategic decisions more objective in relation to the potentially different demands of vari- ous owners. If ownership is widely spread, no one shareholder is likely to exercise undue control of management decisions.

Potential disadvantages of the shareholder model include:

● Diluted attention. Where there are many shareholders, each with small stakes and often with many other investments, the principal–agent problem is exacerbated. Any single shareholder may not think it worthwhile monitoring performance closely, but rather assume that other shareholders are doing so. If shareholders all assume that others are monitoring performance, managers may feel free to sacrifice shareholder value to pursue their own agendas. For example, CEOs may further their own egos and empires with acquisition strategies that add no value to shareholders.

● Vulnerable minority shareholders. On the other hand, especially where corporate govern- ance regulation is weak, the shareholder model can be abused to allow the emergence of dominant shareholders. Such dominant shareholders may exploit their voting power to the disadvantage of minority shareholders. This is the principal–principal problem: the dominant shareholder (principal) may appoint managers, make acquisitions, guarantee debts or sell assets contrary to the interests of the other shareholders (also principals).18 Minority shareholders do not have enough votes to control abusive majority shareholders.

● Short-termism. The need to make profits for shareholders may encourage managers to focus on short-term gains at the expense of long-term projects, such as research and devel- opment. Some high-technology public companies such as Alphabet (owner of Google) and Facebook have deliberately adopted a dual-class shareholder structure, where the original founders and their associates have more votes for each of their shares in order to protect

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these companies’ commitment to long-term innovation. Thus the Alphabet founders’ B class shares each carry ten times the voting rights of ordinary A class shares, and C class shareholders have no votes at all.

The stakeholder model of governance

An alternative model of governance is the stakeholder model. This is founded on the principle that wealth is created by a variety of stakeholders, all of whom deserve a portion. It is not just shareholders who have a stake in the future of a business. Thus in the stakeholder governance model, management need to attend to multiple stakeholders. In some governance systems, some of these stakeholders, for example banks and employees, may be formally represented on boards (as at Volkswagen, see Illustration 5.3). Moreover, shareholders in the stakeholder model often take larger stakes in their companies than in the pure shareholder model, and hold these stakes longer term.

The argued advantages for the stakeholder model of governance include:

● Long-term horizons. It is argued that when shareholders hold large blocks of shares, they are likely to regard their investments as long term. It is harder to dispose of large shareholdings when business is going wrong, and the incentive to get involved in order to maintain the value of the stake is proportionately greater. Thus the predominance of large investors in the stakeholder model reduces the pressure for short-term results as against longer-term performance. It might therefore even increase shareholder returns over the long run.

● Less reckless risk-taking. Many stakeholders are more risk-averse than the diversified shareholders typical in the shareholder model. Employees as stakeholders depend entirely on their particular organisation for income and so may avoid risky projects because they fear losing their jobs. Major shareholders have more to lose, and find it harder to exit in the case of difficulty. Local government bodies may face the loss of major employers in their regions. The stakeholder model therefore discourages excessive risk-taking.

● Better management. Given stakeholders’ concern for the long-term prosperity of the com- pany, there may be a closer level of monitoring of management and greater demands for information from within the firm. Management are under greater pressure to perform. Further, because power may reside with a limited number of large shareholders, it is easier to intervene in the case of management failure.

There are also possible disadvantages to the stakeholder model of governance:

● Weaker decision-making. Intervention by powerful stakeholders with different interests could lead to confusion, slowing down of decision processes and the loss of management objectivity when critical decisions have to be made.

● Uneconomic investments. Due to lack of financial pressure from shareholders, long- term investments may also be made in projects where the returns may be below market expectations.

● Reduced innovation and entrepreneurship. Because investors fear conflicts with the inter- ests of other stakeholders, and because selling shares may be harder, they are less likely to provide capital for risky new opportunities.

The stakeholder model recognises that organisations typically operate within a complex set of relationships, going beyond simple economic ones. As discussed in Chapter 2, organ- isations participate in organisational fields in which legitimacy matters, not just profits.19 Legitimacy typically means more than sticking to the letter of the law; it involves following

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ILLUSTRaTION 5.3

Spring 2015 saw a boardroom battle at one of the world’s leading car companies; autumn brought scandal. The Volkswagen Group was founded in 1937 to manufacture the famous VW Beetle, designed by the engineering genius Ferdinand Porsche. The Porsche family’s own car company held an ownership stake that eventually rose to 50.7 per cent by 2009. That year, Volkswagen cemented the relationship by agreeing to take over the Porsche company, creating a single group that became the second largest car company in the world. The German state of Lower Saxony, the location of Volkswagen’s huge Wolfsberg factory complex, owns 20 per cent of Volkswagen as well. External investors only hold 12 per cent of the company’s voting shares.

The Spring 2015 boardroom battle concerned a member of the Porsche family, Ferdinand Piëch. Piëch had served as Volkswagen CEO from 1993 to 2002, and had then become chairman of the company’s supervisory board (‘Aufsichtsrat’). Piëch was a cousin of Wolfgang Porsche, who also sat on the supervisory board. Piëch’s wife, a former kindergarten teacher, was another member of the supervisory board, as in recent times were two of his nieces. Half the 20 members of the supervisory board are worker representatives; two are representatives of the Lower Saxony government; 17 were either German or Austrian; one represented a Swedish bank, and two more represented investments by the Qatari state.

Ferdinand Piëch had been in dispute over Volkswagen’s strategy and performance with the com- pany’s CEO since 2007, Martin Winterkorn. On appoint- ment, Winterkorn had announced his ‘Strategie 2018’, aiming to become the world’s largest carmaker by the year 2018. Winterkorn had increased sales by more than 50 per cent, and Volkswagen Group cars had won World Car of the Year awards five times under his leadership. However, Piëch was allegedly disappointed about profit margins, falling sales in the USA and the failure to develop a budget car for China. The dispute was carried out behind closed doors, but finally Winter- korn triumphed and Piëch resigned at the end of April.

The triumphant Martin Winterkorn signalled he wanted to move on from the internal politicking: ‘Much has been written about alleged problems and

improvements that need to be made . . . [but] don’t be fooled. We know what we have to do . . . and we started doing it some time ago. The supervisory board has been a crucial supporter in every step of this journey.’

However, in September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued Volkswagen a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act. The company had been found to have fitted its diesel engines with a so-called ‘defeat device’ that allowed vehicles’ nitrogen oxide (NOx) output to meet US standards during regulatory testing, while emitting up to 40 times more NOx in real-world driving. NOx is a major pollutant, associated with potentially fatal diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis. Volkswagen installed its defeat device in about 11 million cars worldwide between 2009 and 2015. According to some estimates, the cost of legal claims, fixes to cars and regulatory fines could exceed €30 bn (€24bn, $39bn).

A few days after the EPA notice, Martin Winterkorn resigned as CEO. He denied knowing about the defeat devices, but he was the executive ultimately respon- sible and he was blamed for an expansion strategy that encouraged risk-taking and a corporate culture that was too inward-looking. Volkswagen announced that Hans Dieter Pötsch would become the company’s chairman (filling the slot left empty by Piëch in April): Pötsch had been Volkswagen’s Chief Financial Officer since 2003. Matthias Müller, who had spent a life-long career in Volkswagen, was appointed CEO.

Sources: Financial Times, 26 April 2015, 5 May 2015 and 4 October 2015.

Volkswagen’s governance crisis

Questions 1 To what extent does Volkswagen reflect the

strengths and weaknesses of the stakeholder model of governance ( Section  5.3.2 )?

2 What should Volkwagen have done with regard to governance and management after the resignation of Martin Winterkorn?

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norms of appropriate conduct in the eyes of key members of an organisation’s institutional field (e.g. governments, regulators, trade unions and customers, as well as shareholders). Legitimacy is an overarching concept of purpose, where profits, ethical conduct and fairness to stakeholders all play a role. Even if an organisation does not operate explicitly according to a stakeholder model, it is typically important that strategies be legitimate in this wider sense of satisfying all key stakeholders’ expectations of appropriate conduct. Firms operating on a shareholder model also need to maintain legitimacy in their field if they are to avoid interference by regulators, consumer boycotts and demoralised employees.

5.3.3 how boards of directors influence strategy

A central governance issue is the role of boards of directors. Since boards have the ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of an organisation, they must be concerned with strategy.

Under the shareholder model there is typically a single-tier board structure, with a major- ity of ‘non-executive’ directors, outsiders who do not have day-to-day managerial respon- sibilities but provide oversight on behalf of shareholders. Outside non-executive directors are supposed to bring greater independence to the primary role of the board, protecting shareholders’ interests. However, as explained above, this is not without its problems since the choice of non-executives is often influenced by the executive directors themselves.

The stakeholder model can involve a two-tier board structure. For example, in Germany for firms of more than 500 employees there is a supervisory board (Aufsichtsrat) and a management board (Vorstand) (see Volkswagen, Illustration 5.3). The supervisory board is a forum where the interests of various stakeholder groups, for instance employees and banks, are represented, as well as shareholders. Strategic planning and operational control are vested with the management board, but major decisions like mergers and acquisitions require approval of the supervisory board. Two-tier boards also exist in other European countries, notably the Netherlands and France.

Two issues are especially significant here:

● Delegation. Boards have to delegate a great deal to managers in order to get ordinary business done. Here there is a risk that an organisation’s strategy becomes ‘captured’ by management at the expense of other stakeholders. The two-tier board system seeks to prevent this: the supervisory board has to approve major decisions, while also having the right to interrogate management regarding strategic plans. In the single-board structure typical of the shareholder model, it is more difficult for non-executives to separate them- selves sufficiently from executive directors to interrogate them as a group.

● Engagement. Non-executive directors may wish to engage in the strategic management process, but face practical problems in terms of the time and knowledge level required to attend effectively to complex strategic issues. This problem can be especially pronounced in organisations such as charities or public bodies with governing boards: these boards are often made up of people passionately committed to the mission of the organisation, but without the time and understanding to get properly involved.

In the guidelines increasingly issued by governments20 or advocated by commentators there are some common themes:

● Boards must be seen to operate ‘independently’ of the management of the company. So the role of non-executive directors is heightened.

● Boards must be competent to scrutinise the activities of managers. So the collective expe- rience of the board, its training and the information available to it are crucially important.

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● Directors must have the time to do their job properly. So limitations on the number of directorships that an individual can hold are also an important consideration.

However, it is the behaviour of boards and their members that are likely to be most signifi- cant whatever structural arrangements are put in place.21 Important, therefore, are respect, trust, ‘constructive friction’ between board members, fluidity of roles, individual as well as collective responsibility, and the evaluation of individual director and collective board performance.

5.4 SOCIaL ReSpONSIBILITY aND eThICS22

Underlying the discussion of corporate governance is an issue highlighted in the introduction to this chapter. Are organisations just for the benefit of a primary stakeholder, such as the shareholders of a company, or do they have a responsibility to a wider group of stakeholders? This section considers, first, corporate social responsibility: the role businesses and other organisations might take in society. Second, it considers the ethics of the behaviour and actions of people in relation to the strategy of their organisations.

5.4.1 Corporate social responsibility

The sheer size and global reach of many companies means that they are bound to have significant influence on society. In 2015, Facebook had 1.44 billion users worldwide. Fur- ther, the widely publicised corporate scandals and failures of the last two decades have fuelled a concern about the role they play. The regulatory environment and the corpo- rate governance arrangements for an organisation determine its minimum obligations towards its stakeholders. However, such legal and regulatory frameworks set minimum obligations and stakeholders typically expect greater responsibility on the part of organi- sations. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the commitment by organisations to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large.23 CSR is therefore concerned with the ways in which an organisation exceeds its minimum legal obligations.

Different organisations take different stances on CSR. Table 5.3 outlines four basic types to illustrate these differences. They represent a progressively more inclusive ‘list’ of stake- holder interests and a greater breadth of criteria against which strategies and performance will be judged. The discussion that follows also explains what such stances typically involve in terms of the ways companies act.24 Illustration 5.4 discusses how leading clothing retailer H&M pursues social responsibility in order to give it a more ethical profile than some of its rivals and pre-empt protests against the clothing industry’s traditionally wasteful and exploitative practices.

The laissez-faire view (literally ‘let do’ in French) represents an extreme stance. In this view, organisations should be let alone to get on with things on their own account. Propo- nents argue that the only responsibility of business is to make a profit and provide for the interests of shareholders.25 It is for government to protect society through legislation and regulation; organisations need do no more than meet these minimum obligations. Expecting companies to exercise social duties beyond this only confuses decision-making, introduces

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additional costs and undermines the accountability of managers to their shareholders. In this view, society benefits anyway from the profits: after all, these can either be used for further investment in the business or be paid out to shareholders, who may be pensioners relying on the income or similar. This laissez-faire stance may be taken by executives who are persuaded of it ideologically or by smaller businesses that do not have the resources to do other than minimally comply with regulations.

Enlightened self-interest is guided by recognition of the potential long-term financial benefit to the shareholder of well-managed relationships with other stakeholders. Here the justification for social responsibility is that it makes good business sense. For most organi- sations a good reputation in the eyes of customers and suppliers is important to long-term financial success. Working constructively with suppliers or local communities can actually increase the ‘value’ available for all stakeholders to share: for example, helping improve the quality of marginal suppliers in the developing world is likely to create a stronger overall supply chain; supporting education in the local workforce will increase the availability of skilled labour. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that responsible strategies can also reward shareholders.26 Thus, like any other form of investment or promotion expenditure, corporate philanthropy or welfare provision might be regarded as sensible expenditure.

Managers with this enlightened self-interest stance take the view that organisations have not only responsibilities to society, but also relationships with other stakeholders. So com- munication with stakeholder groups is likely to be more interactive than for laissez-faire-type organisations. They may well also set up systems and policies to ensure compliance with best practice (e.g. ISO 14000 certification, the protection of human rights in overseas operations, etc.) and begin to monitor their social responsibility performance. Top management may also play more of a part, at least insofar as they support the firm taking a more proactive social role.

A forum for stakeholder interaction27 explicitly incorporates multiple stakeholder inter- ests and expectations rather than just shareholders as influences on organisational purposes and strategies. Here the argument is that the performance of an organisation should be measured in a more pluralistic way than just through the financial bottom line. Such organ- isations adopt the principle of sustainability in strategy, one that ensures a better quality of

Laissez-faire enlightened self-interest

Forum for stakeholder interaction Shaper of society

Rationale Legal compliance: make a profit, pay taxes and provide jobs

Sound business sense

Sustainability or triple bottom line

Social and market change

Leadership Peripheral Supportive Champion Visionary

Management Middle-management responsibility

Systems to ensure good practice

Board-level issue; organisation-wide monitoring

Individual responsibility throughout the organisation

Mode Defensive to outside pressures Reactive to outside pressures

Proactive Defining

Stakeholder relationships

Unilateral Interactive Partnership Multi-organisation alliances

Table 5.3 Corporate social responsibility stances

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ILLUSTRaTION 5.4

Swedish clothing retailer h&M claims to be pursuing a strategy that delivers profi ts, environmental gains and worker benefi ts. H&M is the world’s second-largest clothing retailer, just behind Inditex, owner of Zara. It has 2500 stores worldwide, operating in 44 countries. It sells about 550 million items of clothing per year. As such, it has traditionally been a leader in so-called ‘fast-fashion’, the retailing of cheap fashion items which are designed to be worn only a few times before disposal.

Fast-fashion is a voracious industry. There are now 30–50 trend-driven fashion seasons a year. Eighty bil- lion garments are made annually worldwide, from virgin resources. There are 40 million garment workers in the world, predominantly making fast-fashion. A garment worker in Bangladesh, a major supplier, earns an aver- age monthly wage of $40 (£24bn, €30bn). A pair of underpants costs about one pence (or roughly a Euro cent) to make in a Third World sweat shop. Fast-fashion is a target of international campaign groups such as the ‘Clean Clothes Campaign’.

During 2012, the Clean Clothes Campaign organ- ised mass ‘faint-ins’ in prominent stores such as Gap, Zara and H&M across Europe, drawing attention to how undernourished women workers frequently faint at work in Third World garment factories. A Clean Clothes spokesperson says: ‘The human cost of brands like H&M or Zara paying poverty wages is seen when hundreds of workers pass out due to exhaustion and malnutrition. . . . For decades, global fashion brands have made excuses about why they shouldn’t pay a living wage. It’s not a choice, it’s a pressing necessity. Hiding behind . . . company codes of conduct is no longer acceptable.’

In 2012, H&M launched its new ‘Conscious’ range of clothing, making use of a large proportion of recy- cled materials and more environmentally friendly vir- gin materials such as hemp. The company’s website explained the motivation: ‘Our vision is that all busi- ness operations shall be run in a way that is econom- ically, socially and environmentally sustainable.’ This was accompanied by a Sustainability Report with some impressive statistics: for example, 2.5 million shoes were made during 2011 using lower-impact

water-based solvents and H&M was the biggest user of organic cotton in the world.

Guardian journalist Lucy Siegle asked H&M’s Head of Sustainability, Helena Helmersson, whether she could offer guarantees for the sustainability of the company’s products across its ranges. Helmersson responded:

‘I don’t think guarantee is the right word. A lot of people ask for guarantees: “Can you guarantee labour conditions? Can you guarantee zero chem- icals?” Of course we cannot when we’re such a huge company operating in very challenging con- ditions. What I can say is that we do the very best we can with a lot of resources and a clear direction of what we’re supposed to do. We’re working really hard. . . . Remember that H&M does not own any factories itself. We are to some extent dependent on the suppliers – it is impossible to be in full control.’

Between 2006 and 2012, H&M’s share price increased by more than a third, well ahead of the local Stockholm market index. Sales too increased by a third and total operating profit after tax in this period was nearly SEK98bn (€11bn, £9.2bn, $13.75bn). H&M’s return on capital employed for year-end 2011 was 47.1 per cent.

Main sources: Clean Clothes Campaign, 18 September 2013; Guard- ian, 7 April 2012; Ecouterre, 21 September 2012; www.hm.com ; H&M Conscious Actions and Sustainability Report, 2011.

H&M’s sustainability strategy

Questions 1 Where would you place H&M in terms of

the four stances on social responsibility in Table  5.2 ?

2 What are the kinds of triple-bottom-line measures that would be appropriate for a sustainable strategy in clothing retail (see also Section  12.2.1 )?

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life by attending to all three dimensions of environmental protection, social responsibility and economic welfare. Social responsibility here can be measured in terms of the triple bottom line – social and environmental benefits as well as profits (see Section 12.2.1). Com- panies in this category might retain uneconomic units to preserve jobs, avoid manufactur- ing or selling ‘anti-social’ products and be prepared to bear reductions in profitability for the social good. Sustainability will typically have board-level champions in these kinds of organisations.

Shapers of society regard financial considerations as of secondary importance or a constraint. These are visionary organisations seeking to change society and social norms. Public-sector organisations and charities are typically committed to this kind of stance. There are also social entrepreneurs who found new organisations that earn revenues but pursue a specific social purpose (see Chapter 10 and Thinking Differently at the end of this chapter). For example, Traidcraft UK is a public limited company with a chain of retail shops that fights developing world poverty by promoting ‘fair trade’. For shapers of society, the social role is the raison d’être of the business, not profits (see Illustration 8.1 on Baking Change). Financial viability is important only as providing the means for continuing the social mission.

Table 5.4 provides some questions against which an organisation’s actions on CSR can be assessed.

5.4.2 The ethics of individuals and managers

Ethical issues have to be faced at the individual as well as corporate level and can pose difficult dilemmas for individuals and managers. For example, what is the responsibility of an individual who believes that the strategy of his or her organisation is unethical (e.g. its trading practices) or is not adequately representing the legitimate interests of one or more stakeholder groups? Should that person leave the company on the grounds of a mismatch of values; or is whistle-blowing appropriate, such as divulging information to outside bodies, for example regulatory bodies or the press?

Given that strategy development can be an intensely political process with implications for the personal careers of those concerned, managers can find difficulties establishing and maintaining a position of integrity. There is also potential conflict between what strategies are in managers’ own best interests and what strategies are in the longer-term interests of their organisation and the shareholders. Some organisations set down explicit guidelines they expect their employees to follow. Texas Instruments posed these questions:28

Is the action legal? . . . If not, stop immediately.

Does it comply with our values? . . . If it does not, stop.

If you do it would you feel bad? . . . Ask your own conscience if you can live with it.

How would this look in the newspaper? . . . Ask if this goes public tomorrow would you do it today?

If you know it’s wrong . . . don’t do it.

If you are not sure . . . ask; and keep asking until you get an answer.

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Should organisations be responsible for . . . 

INTeRNaL aSpeCTS

employee welfare

. . . providing medical care, assistance with housing finance, extended sick leave, assistance for dependants, etc.?

Working conditions

. . . job security, enhancing working surroundings, social and sporting clubs, above-minimum safety standards, training and development, etc.?

Job design

. . . designing jobs to the increased satisfaction of workers rather than just for economic efficiency? This would include issues of work/life balance?

Intellectual property

. . . respecting the private knowledge of individuals and not claiming corporate ownership?

eXTeRNaL aSpeCTS

environmental issues

. . . reducing pollution to below legal standards if competitors are not doing so?

. . . energy conservation?

products

. . . dangers arising from the careless use of products by consumers?

Markets and marketing

. . . deciding not to sell in some markets?

. . . advertising standards?

Suppliers

. . . ‘fair’ terms of trade?

. . . blacklisting suppliers?

employment

. . . positive discrimination in favour of minorities?

. . . maintaining jobs?

Community activity

. . . sponsoring local events and supporting local good works?

human rights

. . . respecting human rights in relation to: child labour, workers’ and union rights, oppressive political regimes? Both directly and in the choice of markets, suppliers and partners?

Table 5.4 Some questions of corporate social responsibility

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ThINKINg DIFFeReNTLY

Start-ups are adopting new forms of company in order to reconcile profi ts with social benefi ts. Increasingly, entrepreneurs no longer believe that the profit requirements of an ordinary company are com- patible with social objectives. In the USA especially, it is the legal duty of directors to maximise profits for their investors. Ordinarily, investors will allow directors some discretion to pursue social objectives, especially if justified in terms of boosting customer or employee attractiveness. But in hard times, investors are liable to squeeze anything that does not clearly contribute to financial performance.

A new solution for not-for-profit organisations ( Sec- tion  5.2.3 ) is to establish their companies as ‘benefit corporations’ (or community interest companies in the UK). Benefit corporations support non-profit objec- tives because they must commit themselves not only to commercial goals but to some public benefit, for example environmental sustainability. In hard times, profits and the public benefit have equal claims, hard- wired into the legal status of the corporation. 29

Thus the benefit corporation allows entrepreneurs to raise capital from investors – as a charity typ- ically could not – while guaranteeing public benefit objectives. More than 30,000 new companies have

registered as benefit corporations (or equivalent) in the USA. Leading benefit corporations include the trendy Warby Parker glasses company, which donates glasses to people in need, and Patagonia, the outdoors com- pany that supports the environment.

The benefit corporation does have downsides. Cor- porations must report extensively on how they have delivered their public benefits. Investors may expect lower financial returns and fear they won’t be able to realise their investments through the sale of the com- pany to another company. With less investor support, benefit corporations may be able to do less than if they were free to pursue social objectives as and when they could.

Benefit corporations

Question What would you argue as a director of a benefit corporation when the survival of your company depended on suspending expenditure on social objectives?

SUMMaRY ● The purpose of an organisation will be influenced by the expectations of its stakeholders. Different stake-

holders exercise different influence on organisational strategy, dependent on the extent of their power and attention. Managers can assess the influence of different stakeholder groups through stakeholder analysis.

● The influence of some key stakeholders will be represented formally within the governance structure of an organisation. This can be represented in terms of a governance chain, showing the links between ultimate beneficiaries and the managers of an organisation.

● There are two generic governance structure systems: the shareholder model and the stakeholder model, though there are variations of these internationally.

● Organisations adopt different stances on corporate social responsibility depending on how they perceive their role in society. Individual managers may also be faced with ethical dilemmas relating to the purpose of their organisation or the actions it takes.

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WORK aSSIgNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

5.1 For Drinking Partners (end of chapter case) or Adnams* or an organisation of your choice, map out a governance chain that identifies the key players through to the beneficiaries of the organisation’s good (or poor) performance. To what extent do you think managers are:

a knowledgeable about the expectations of beneficiaries;

b actively pursuing their interests;

c keeping them informed?

5.2 What are your own views of the strengths and weaknesses of the stakeholder and shareholder models of governance?

5.3✱ Identify organisations that correspond to the overall stances on corporate social responsibility described in Table 5.3.

5.4 Identify the key corporate social responsibility issues which are of major concern in the brewing* or advertising (Chapter 3 end case) industries or an industry or public service of your choice (refer to Table 5.4). Compare the approach of two or more organisations in that industry, and explain how this relates to their competitive standing.

5.5✱ Using the stakeholder mapping power/attention matrix, identify and map out the stakeholders for Manchester United*, Aurizon (formerly QR National)* or an organisation of your choice in relation to:

a current strategies;

b different future strategies of your choice.

What are the implications of your analysis for the strategy of the organisation?

Integrative assignment

5.6 Using specific examples, suggest how changes in corporate governance and in expectations about corporate social responsibility may require organisations to deal differently with environmental opportunities and threats (Chapters 2 and 3) or develop new capabilities (Chapter 4).

ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINgS

● A good review of important ideas in both corporate governance and corporate social responsibility is S. Benn and D. Bolton, Key Concepts in Corporate Responsibility, Sage, 2011.

● Specifically on corporate governance, a leading guide is B. Tricker, Corporate Governance: Principles, Policies and Practices, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 2012.

● For a comprehensive review of corporate social respon- sibility, see A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten and D. Siegel, The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility, Oxford University Press, 2009.

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REFERENCES

157

ReFeReNCeS

1. R.E. Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Cambridge University Press, 2010 (revised edi- tion). Also see L. Bidhan, A. Parmar and R.E. Freeman, ‘Stakeholder theory: the state of the art’, Academy of Management Annals, vol. 4, no. 1 (2010), pp. 403–45. Our approach to stakeholder mapping has been adapted from A. Mendelow, Proceedings of the 2nd International Con- ference on Information Systems, Cambridge, MA, 1991. See also Graham Kenny, ‘From the stakeholder viewpoint: designing measurable objectives’, Journal of Business Strat- egy, vol. 33, no. 6 (2012), pp. 40–6.

2. D. Walker, L. Bourne and A. Shelley, ‘Influence, stakeholder mapping and visualization’, Construction Management and Economics, vol. 26, no. 6 (2008), pp. 645–58. In this edition, we have replaced ‘interest’ by ‘attention’ in line with recent theoretical literature: for example, D.A. Shepherd, J.S. McMullen and W. Ocasio, ‘Is that an opportunity? An atten- tion model of top managers’ opportunity beliefs for stra- tegic action,’ Strategic Management Journal (2016), DOI: 10.1002/smj.2499

3. W. Ocasio, ‘Attention to attention’, Organization Science, vol. 22, no. 5 (2011), pp. 1286–96.

4. D. Buchanan and R. Badham, Power, Politics and Organi- sational Change: Winning the Turf Game, Sage, 1999, pro- vide a useful analysis of the relationship between power and strategy.

5. W. Ocasio, ‘Attention to attention’, Organization Science, vol. 22, no. 5 (2011), pp. 1286–96. See also Chapter 16.

6. R. Whittington, B. Yakis-Douglas and K. Ahn, ‘Cheap talk? Strategy presentations as a form of impression manage- ment, Strategic Management Journal (2016), DOI: 10.1002/ smj.2482

7. See for instance M. Nordqvist and L. Melin, ‘Entrepreneurial families and family firms’, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, vol. 22, no. 3–4 (2010), pp. 211–39.

8. In the UK and associated countries, this kind of corpora- tion is called a public limited company (plc); in Francophone countries, it is the Société Anonyme (SA); in Germany, it is the Aktiengesellschaft (AG).

9. The Economist, ‘The rise of state capitalism’ (21 January 2012); and G. Bruton, M. Peng, D. Ahstrand, C. Stan and K. Xu, ‘State-owned enterprises around the world as hybrid organisations’, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 20, no. 1 (2015), pp. 92–114.

10. For a discussion, see R. Rumelt, ‘Theory, strategy and entre- preneurship’, Handbook of Entrepreneurship Research, vol. 2 (2005), pp. 11–32.

11. Credit Suisse, Asian Family Businesses Report 2011: Key Trends, Economic Contribution and Performance, Singa- pore, 2011.

12. I. Le Bretton-Miller, D. Miller and R.H. Lester, ‘Stewardship or agency? A social embeddedness reconciliation of conduct and performance in public family businesses’, Organization Science, vol. 22, no. 3 (2011), pp. 704–21.

13. The Ownership Commission, Plurality, Stewardship and Engagement, London, 2012.

14. A useful general reference on corporate governance is: R. Monks and N. Minow (eds), Corporate Governance, 4th edn, Blackwell, 2008. Also see Ruth Aguilera and Gregory Jackson, ‘The cross-national diversity of corporate govern- ance: dimensions and determinants’, Academy of Manage- ment Review, vol. 28, no. 3 (2003), pp. 447–65.

15. This definition is adapted from S. Jacoby, ‘Corporate govern- ance and society’, Challenge, vol. 48, no. 4 (2005), pp. 69–87.

16. A recent debate on principal–agent theory is D. Miller and C. Sardais, ‘Angel agents: agency theory reconsidered’, Acad- emy of Management Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 2 (2011), pp. 6–13; and V. Mehrotra, ‘Angel agents: what we can (and can- not) learn from Pierre Lefaucheux’s stewardship of Régie Renault’, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 2 (2011), pp. 14–20.

17. S. Letza, X. Sun and J. Kirkbride, ‘Shareholding versus stake- holding: a critical review of corporate governance’, Corpo- rate Governance, vol. 12, no. 3 (2005), pp. 242–62. Within this broad classification, there are other models: see, for example, A. Murphy and K. Topyan, ‘Corporate governance: a critical survey of key concepts, issues, and recent reforms in the US’, Employee Responsibility and Rights Journal, vol. 17, no. 2 (2005), pp. 75–89.

18. M.N. Young, M.W. Peng, D. Ahlstrom, G.D. Bruton and Y. Jiang, ‘Corporate governance in emerging economies: a review of the principal–principal perspective’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 45, no. 1 (2008), pp. 1467–86.

19. R. Greenwood, M. Raynard, F. Kodeih, E. Micelotta and M. Lounsbury, ‘Institutional complexity and organisational responses’, Academy of Management Annals, vol. 5, no. 1 (2011), pp. 317–71.

20. In the USA: the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (2002). In the UK: D. Higgs, ‘Review of the role and effectiveness of non-execu- tive directors’, UK Department of Trade and Industry, 2003.

21. J. Sonnenfeld, ‘What makes great boards great’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 80, no. 9 (2002), pp. 106–13.

22. B. Kelley, Ethics at Work, Gower, 1999, covers many of the issues in this section and includes the Institute of Man- agement guidelines on ethical management. Also see M.T. Brown, Corporate Integrity: Rethinking Organisational Eth- ics and Leadership, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

23. This definition is based on that by the World Business Coun- cil for Sustainable Development.

24. P. Mirvis and B. Googins, ‘Stages of corporate citizenship’, California Management Review, vol. 48, no. 2 (2006), pp. 104–26.

25. Often quoted as a summary of Milton Friedman’s argument is M. Friedman: ‘The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits’, New York Times Magazine (13 Septem- ber 1970). See also A. McWilliams and D. Seigel, ‘Corporate social responsibility: a theory of the firm perspective’, Acad- emy of Management Review, vol. 26 (2001), pp. 117–27.

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26. See M. Porter and M. Kramer, ‘Creating shared value’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 89, no. 1/2 (2011), pp. 62–77; and D. Vogel, ‘Is there a market for virtue? The business case for corporate social responsibility’, Califor- nia Management Review, vol. 47, no. 4 (2005), pp. 19–45. For a sceptical view, see A. Karnani, ‘Doing well by doing good: the grand illusion’, California Management Review, vol. 53, no. 2 (2011), pp. 69–86. For some evidence, see C.E. Hull and S. Rothenberg, ‘Firm performance: the interactions of corporate social performance with

innovation and industry differentiation’, Strategic Man- agement Journal, vol. 29 (2008), pp. 781–9.

27. H. Hummels, ‘Organizing ethics: a stakeholder debate’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 17, no. 13 (1998), pp. 1403–19.

28. We are grateful to Angela Sutherland of Glasgow Caledonian University for this example.

29. J.E. Hasler, ‘Contracting for good: how benefit corporations empower investors and redefine shareholder value’, Virginia Law Review, vol. 100, no. 6 (2014), pp. 1279–1322.

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spirits and 50 per cent of its beer. The group was organ- ised into four main businesses: brewing, spirits, airlines and chemicals. External shareholders had substantial ownership stakes in each of these businesses, reducing the capital obligations on UBHL. However, Mallya guar- anteed effective control of each business by ensuring that in each case UBHL was the largest shareholder, if not the majority owner. Mallya’s overall control of the par- ent company UBHL was assured by dominance of the voting A class shares, while Indian and foreign insti- tutional shareholders held the overwhelming majority of non-voting B class shares. Non-executive directors included Mallya’s son, ‘Sid’ Mallya, pursuing a mod- elling career in the USA, the British businesswoman Dajlit Mahal, an associate of Mallya’s for 22 years, and V K Rekhi, who had been associated with UBHL for nearly 40 years, and was a former president of United Spirits.

Though a shrewd businessman, Mallya was extravagant in his personal life. Playing on the name of his most prom- inent beer brand, Kingfisher, he often described himself as ‘King of the Good Times’. He surrounded himself with beautiful models and actresses, and the annual Kingfisher Calendar became famous in India for its photographs of scantily-clad women. He owned several expensive yachts and a fleet of luxury vintage cars. In 2008, Mallya and a business partner bought a Formula One racing team,

By 2015, one of India’s most powerful and dynamic conglomerates, United Breweries Holdings Ltd (UBHL), was on the brink of disintegration. In the preceding three years, it had been forced to sell down its ownership stakes in India’s largest brewery (United Breweries), India’s larg- est spirits company (United Spirits) and a substantial chemicals and fertiliser company, MCF. UBHL’s chairman and dominant shareholder, Vijay Mallya, was struggling to retain the last vestiges of control. His key brewing and spirits businesses now depended on partnerships with two Western multinationals, Heineken and Diageo. Relations with the first were amiable; with the second, they were bitterly acrimonious.

King of the good Times

Vijay Mallya had inherited control of the UBHL conglom- erate at the age of 28, upon the death of his father in 1983. He had divested non-core businesses and reor- ganised the tangle of remaining subsidiaries into a clear divisional structure based on coherent business areas. UBHL grew rapidly and by 2007 Vijay Mallya ranked 664 on the Forbes global list of billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $1.5bn (about £950m or €1.2bn).

As it entered the second decade of the twenty-first century, UBHL was selling about 60 per cent of India’s

Drinking partners – India’s United Breweries holdings Ltd CaSe

eXaMpLe

Figure 1 United Breweries Holdings Ltd, principal businesses, 2011

UBHL

(51.5%)

Kingfisher Airlines (2011: 50.2%; 2015: insolvent)

MCF (2011: 30.4%; 2015: 22.0%)

United Spirits (2011: 28.0%; 2015: 13.2%)

United Breweries (2011: 37.5%; 2015: 33.0%)

As of 2015, Vijay Mallya and associates controlled 51.5 per cent of UBHL. Shares in each of the principal businesses owned directly by UBHL or by Mallya and associates indicated in brackets, respectively for 2011 and 2015.

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renamed Force India. A similar patriotic theme under- pinned his acquisition of the sword of the great Indian leader, Tipu Sultan, captured by the British in the eight- eenth century, and his generous assistance with the repa- triation of some of the few surviving artefacts owned by Mahatma Gandhi, India’s campaigner for Independence. Mallya’s personal popularity was reflected in his election to the Upper House of India’s federal parliament. But it was Mallya’s extravagance in the business realm that finally pushed UBHL to disaster.

Internationalisation and diversification

The first of two fatally extravagant moves had been Mal- lya’s diversification into airlines. To celebrate his son’s 18th birthday, Mallya launched Kingfisher Airlines in 2005, with 50.2 per cent of the ownership in his hands. It might have been a good opportunity: the Indian air mar- ket was growing fast with increasing economic growth. Mallya gave the new airline a glitzy launch. Promoting its superior food and pretty female staff, Mallya declared that the Kingfisher Airline would have neither business class nor economy class, but its own ‘K class’ – a rather pricey compromise. In 2008, Kingfisher paid over the odds to buy India’s pioneering low-cost carrier, Deccan Airlines. The merged airline boasted 100-plus aircraft, 300 daily flights, over 7,000 employees and a domes- tic market share of about 30 per cent. With Deccan’s track-record, Kingfisher was able to launch international services as well, with an order for the new Airbus A380 superjumbo jet. Mallya, sporting long hair and a beard, did not discourage comparisons with another flamboyant airline boss, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin.

Unfortunately, domestic deregulation brought a surge of new competitors in the Indian airline market. At the same time, fuel prices rose and crowded airports demanded higher landing fees. Kingfisher never made a profit in its whole existence. After failure to pay airports, fuel suppliers and employees, including pilots, over a period of several months, the Indian government sus- pended Kingfisher’s licence to fly in 2012. Kingfisher’s total debts and losses stood at about $4.5bn. UBHL had been forced to dilute its ownership to about 12 per cent, and the holding company still guaranteed $2.2bn of the airline’s debt.

The second extravagant move by Mallya was into inter- national markets, with the 2007 acquisition of the leading Scottish whisky company Whyte & Mackay for £595m. UBHL’s United Spirits business needed access to genu- ine Scotch whisky brands as its increasingly sophisticated Indian customers sought higher-quality spirits than those traditionally made in India. Acquisition of Whyte & Mackay gave United Spirits control over more than 140 venerable

whisky brands, all genuine Scotch. United Spirits became the third-largest spirits producer in the world, behind Per- nod Ricard and Diageo.

But Mallya had paid more for Whyte & Mackay than he could really afford: the United Spirits business was left with heavy debts. In the economic downturn of 2009, Whyte & Mackay was forced to cut about 15 per cent of its jobs. Subsequent years saw difficulties with the organisation of its American export business. At the same time, there was tension over United Spirits’ record of try- ing to sell cheap Indian spirits into European markets. A 2013 partnership with Diageo, the world’s largest spirits producer, was leading to regulatory concerns about mar- ket power. Needing a cash injection, in 2014 UBHL sold Whyte & MacKay to the Philippines drinks group, Alliance, for just £430m.

Foreign rescuers?

The sale of Whyte & MacKay was just one of a series of disposals. During 2014, Mallya sold key stakes in his chemical company MCF, leaving him with just 22 per cent ownership. The most important deals however were with Diageo, which by 2014 had acquired the majority of shares in United Spirits, and with longstanding partner Heineken, which by 2015 had acquired 43 per cent of United Breweries, leaving UBHL with just 33 per cent.

The Dutch beer company Heineken had first entered into partnership with United Breweries in 2009, acquiring a 37.7 per cent stake. Heineken saw a long-term growth market in India, with 700 million people under 30 years of age and a shift towards premium beers such as Heine- ken’s. United Breweries could give Heineken excellent dis- tribution channels and deep local knowledge, while the Dutch brought new brands and expertise in marketing and manufacturing. Heineken is the only global brewing company in the world that is still family-owned. A senior United Breweries manager commented in 2015 that the relationship between the Dutch and Indian companies was ‘great’: ‘I think Heineken and UBL have enormous respect for each other. Heineken chief executive Jean-Francois van Boxmeer and Vijay Mallya have a great personal equa- tion. The same holds true with the Heineken family.’ In 2015, Mallya attended the 61st birthday celebrations of major shareholder, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, reput- edly the tenth richest woman in the world.

Diageo, a public company based in London, had a more difficult relationship with UBHL. The company’s original deal with UBHL in 2013 had been complex, designed to allow Mallya a considerable degree of control. Diageo bought 19.3 per cent of United Spirits’ existing shares from Mallya’s personal and related holdings, while United Spirits issued new equity, amounting to 10 per cent of the

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DRINKING PARTNERS – INDIA’S UNITED BREWERIES HOLDINGS LTD

expanded capital base, to Diageo. Together, these steps gave Diageo an initial 27 per cent of the voting shares in United Spirits. However, Diageo also launched an open offer to external shareholders in United Spirits, in order to take its total holding up to 53.4 per cent. The total deal cost Diageo up to $1.9bn. The price valued United Spirits at 20 times annual earnings (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), about a third more than usual for acquisitions in the international drinks business.

Mallya described the deal as a ‘win–win’. Diageo would be able to use United Spirits’ unparalleled Indian distribu- tion channels for its high-profile brands, such as the Captain Morgan rum, Johnnie Walker whiskey and Smirnoff vodka. UBHL meanwhile would be able to ease its various debts. Mallya himself would be left in control of 13.5 per cent of United Spirits’ expanded equity and was allowed to continue his position as United Spirits chairman. Mallya insisted to the media: ‘I have not sold the family silver, or family jewels; I have only embellished them . . . If you have the impression that I have passed on control, and moved out, that is not the correct impression.’

However, Diageo’s chief worry as a large multinational was its exposure to the somewhat idiosyncratic Vijay Mallya. In 2011, Diageo itself had been fined $15m by the American Securities and Exchange Commission for bribing government officials in India, Thailand and South Korea. The company had given a pledge to ‘cease and

desist’ from such corrupt practices, and risked much larger penalties for any repeat offences. Even as a minor- ity partner, Diageo would be liable for any corruption at United Spirits. However, Mallya was set upon maintaining control. He told the Indian Business Standard newspaper: ‘One must also understand that running an alcohol bever- ages business in India across 28 cities is not an easy task for a relatively new player (like Diageo). They will require me to run their business effectively and control of the business is one aspect of that.’

Principal sources: Business Standard, 27 September 2012; India Business Journal, 6 November 2012; Financial Times, 9 November 2012; Times of India, 11 November 2012 and 12 July 2015.

Questions 1 Consider the governance chain leading from the

various shareholders of UBHL to the managers in the main businesses, with particular reference to United Spirits. Why might there be breakdowns in accountability and control in this chain?

2 Group the various key stakeholders discussed in this case (economic, social/political, community and technological). What risks do key stakeholder groups face (including Diageo)?

Figure 2 UBHL stock price performance, 2009–16 (rupees) Source: www.moneycontrol.com, 21 April 2016 (‘D’ refers to dividend payments).

Jan 12 Jan 13 Jan 14 Jan 15 Jan 16

100

Jan 11Jan 10Jan 09

200

300 D

D

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Strategic choices

Macro- environment

Stakeholders

Resources Culture

Industry

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Analyse how history influences the strategic position of an organisation, especially via path dependence.

● Distinguish different kinds of cultures, national-geographical, field-level and organisational.

● Analyse the influence of an organisation’s culture on its strategy using the cultural web.

● Identify organisations which may be experiencing the symptoms of strategic drift.

6 HISTORY AND CULTURE

cultural web p.175

legitimacy p.171

organisational culture p.171

organisational identity p.172

paradigm p.172

path dependency p.164

recipe p.170

strategic drift p.180

Key terms

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6.1 INTRODUCTION

The preceding chapters in this section of the book have considered various implications of position for strategy, including the influences of the environment, organisational capabilities and stakeholder expectations. This chapter considers two last important and interconnected aspects of position: organisational history and culture.

Many organisations have long histories. The large Japanese Mitsui Group was founded in the seventeenth century; automobile company Daimler was founded in the nineteenth century; the University of Bologna was founded in the eleventh century. But even newer organisations are marked by their histories: for instance, the airline and consumer group Virgin is still influenced by its hippy origins from the early 1970s (see Chapter 8 end case). Such histories become embedded in organisational cultures, shaping strategic options and decisions. Virgin’s culture is very different to that of its rival airline British Airways, which had its origins as a state-owned airline in the 1940s. Sometimes an organisation’s cultural her- itage can give it a unique advantage, but sometimes it can be a significant barrier to change. Either way, if an organisation’s strategy is to be understood, so must the history and culture that influenced it. This is the focus of this chapter, as summarised in Figure 6.1.

The chapter starts in Section 2.2 with history, examining its influence on organisational strategy and considering how that history can be analysed. History shapes culture, so Sec- tion 6.3 moves on to examine cultural aspects of organisations, in particular how cultural influences at geographical, institutional and organisational levels impact current and future strategy. This section also explores how a culture can be analysed and its influence on strategy understood. Section 6.4 explains the phenomenon of strategic drift, a frequent consequence of historical and cultural influences and hard for managers to correct. Finally, Thinking Differently introduces the conflicts and diversity introduced institutional logics.

Figure 6.1 The influence of history and culture

Historical influences

Cultural influences

Cultural analysis: the cultural web

The problem of strategic

drift

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The theme of this chapter, then, is the significance of history and culture for strategy. A sense of history is important for environmental analysis, particularly understanding posi- tions on economic cycles (Chapter 2) or industry life cycles (Chapter 3). History and culture are relevant to the capabilities of an organisation (Chapter 4), especially those that have built up over time in ways unique to that organisation. The power and influence of different stakeholders (Chapter 5) are also likely to have historical origins. An understanding of an organisation’s history and culture also helps explain how strategies develop (Chapter 12) and informs the challenges of strategic change (Chapter 15).

6.2 WhY IS hISTORY IMpORTaNT?

This section starts by introducing the concept of path dependency as one way of examining how history can shape organisations over time. It then brings out positive aspects of history, in terms of it being a managerial resource. The section concludes by describing several ways of analysing an organisation’s history.

6.2.1 path dependency

A useful way of thinking of the influence of history is the concept of path dependency, where early events and decisions establish ‘policy paths’ that have lasting effects on subsequent events and decisions.1 This suggests that organisational strategies may be historically con- ditioned. Path dependency has been described as like the ruts made in a dirt track by the passing of vehicle wheels over time. These ruts become deeper and deeper as more and more vehicles go along. Once that happens, vehicles have no option but to continue along those ruts. Future direction is dependent on the paths laid down in the past.

Examples of path dependency often relate to technology. There are many instances where the technology we employ is better explained by path dependency than by deliberate opti- misation. A famous example is the layout of keyboard characters in most English-speaking countries: QWERTY. This originated in the nineteenth century as a way of reducing the prob- lem of the keys on mechanical typewriters getting tangled when sales people demonstrated the machine at maximum speed by typing the word ‘typewriter’. There are more optimal layouts, but QWERTY has remained with us for over 150 years despite radical changes in keyboard technology with the development of computers, tablets and mobile phones.2

Path dependency is not only about technology. It also relates to any form of behaviour that has its origins in the past and becomes so entrenched that it becomes locked-in. ‘Lock-in’ occurs where the infrastructure of an organisation (or even whole industry) is so strongly entrenched around a technology, product or service that the costs of switching from the established offering become prohibitive. Lock-in could begin with a decision which, of itself, may not appear especially significant, but which then has unforeseen and hard to reverse con- sequences. For example, airlines easily become ‘locked-in’ on particular aircraft types (e.g. Boeing), because once systems for crew-training and spare parts availability have become optimised for that particular aircraft type, it is extremely disruptive to start switching to another aircraft type (e.g. Airbus). Thus an initial, maybe chance, decision leads to the development of self-reinforcing mechanisms that lock-in on a particular path.

As Figure 6.2 shows, lock-in can be reinforced by a system of technologies, material objects (such as infrastructure or standardised forms), customers and suppliers in the value system, the day-to-day habits of managers, employees and users, formal and informal industry or pro- fessional standards, and the training systems that reproduce appropriate patterns of behav- iour.3 An example is the accounting business, where particular approaches are reinforced by

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technologies such as specialised software, by fixed-format forms such as capital expenditure proposals, by the ingrained expectations of customers, by the habits of accountants, by pro- fessional standards and by the training of successive generations of accounting practitioners. All these have developed over time and mutually reinforce each other. They also persist despite increasing numbers of experts, both in the accountancy profession and elsewhere, who point to fundamental weaknesses in such systems, not least the failure of accounting to provide measures for many of the factors that account for the market value of firms.4

Path dependency tends to reinforce the importance of three aspects of strategy:

● Comprehensive change. Because of the system of reinforcing elements, trying to change just one aspect without changing the others is likely to fall short. For an airline to switch from Boeing planes to Airbus planes without changing training and spare parts systems would be highly inefficient and dangerous.

● Conservatism. Because the reinforcing elements may make an otherwise maladapted approach work fairly well, it is often not worth the costs of changing everything to gain a small improve- ment in the performance of one particular element. In India, Japan and the UK roads retain left-hand drive, even though there might be cost advantages for automobile importers and exporters of standardising on the world’s dominant right-hand drive approach.

● Path creation. Because initial decisions (such as starting with Boeing) can have longstand- ing repercussions, it is important for managers to recognise that what they choose to do at the start of an initiative or enterprise may lock them into a long-term path. Apple’s original investment in graphics capabilities for its computers in the 1980s, and Microsoft’s prioritisation of business users in the same period, still resonate in relative market posi- tions three decades or so later.

Figure 6.2 Path dependency and lock-in

Technology

Objects: equipment; documents

Value system, e.g. suppliers,

customers

Institutionalised standards, rules,

systems, language

Training and education

People’s day-to-day behaviour

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ILLUSTRaTION 6.1

The history of an organisation can defi ne culture and strategy.

India’s first train journey in April 1853 took 75 min- utes to travel 39km on a stretch of rail near Mum- bai. More than a century and a half later, the journey still takes 57 minutes. But the Indian railway system has grown enormously since its origins. The network is 64,000km long, with 21,000 trains carrying about 23 million passengers and three million tonnes of freight per day.

The railway system originated under the British Empire (the Raj) and its dependent princely states. It gained impetus with the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when the British learnt the importance of rail for ferrying troops around their vast domain. The railway’s res- taurant wagons still reflect these origins in the British Empire, with ‘Anglo-Indian’ food such as omelettes, ‘cutlets’ and baked beans on the menu. Station bag- gage carriers are known as ‘coolies’, the derogatory name for the indentured labourers who served the Raj. Just as colonial officers would travel and stay in railway hotels for free, so too do contemporary politicians and their associates today.

Soon after independence, the various regional railway companies were brought together to form the state-owned Indian Railways in 1951. Socialist-style politics left an enduring mark on the new Indian Rail- ways. Price rises for passengers were extremely rare, with freight used to subsidise transport for ‘the com- mon man’. Continuing policies that had been started to support privileged British staff under the Raj, Indian Railways developed a vast social system of employee housing, sports stadia, nursing homes and hospitals, with 2500 doctors by the second decade of this cen- tury. Many jobs were passed on almost by family inher- itance. All was presided over by a Delhi headquarters (Bhavan) with 140 senior managers. There were 13 levels of hierarchy in every department. Bhavan jobs were sold illegally and many senior managers had never worked outside the Delhi headquarters building. It was said that it took approval from ten departments to change the soap in the first-class carriages.

Although there were pockets of excellence and inno- vation – for example, the Delhi metro – Indian Railways as a whole stagnated. Its share of passenger traffic

declined from 74 per cent in 1951 to 12 per cent in 2011. Indian Railways’ productivity trailed interna- tional peers: traffic units/employee was 0.84 for India, 1.4 for China and 15.1 for the USA. Bribes were nec- essary for seat reservations. There were 27,000 rail- way related deaths in 2014, many involving unguarded crossings and people falling off over-laden trains.

The problems of Indian Railways were well- recognised. A government report of 2015 noted with some irony that there had been 21 government inquiries into the railways since 1951: ‘On the pos- itive side, this large number illustrates the impor- tance attached to the railways. On the negative side, repeated reports highlight the non-implementation of recommendations’.

Nonetheless, the government was determined to reform the railways. In 2014, the Chairman of the Rail- way Board declared: ‘The need of the hour is to bring in a total change in the work culture and delivery of railway services by going in for large scale integrated computerisation of major functions of Indian Railways’. A new accounting system was introduced, which began for the first time to record outcomes as well as expendi- tures. Coolies would be given uniforms, trained in soft skills and renamed as ‘sahayaks’ (‘helpers’ in Hindi). Dozens of senior managers were moved out of the Delhi Bhavan. Deloitte Consulting was brought in to do com- prehensive work studies. Private investors were allowed to operate services on Indian Railways track. After 16 years of price-freezes and years of financial losses, small price increases were approved.

Sources: Guardian, 30 December 2011; Economic Times, 8 July 2014; S. Debroy, ‘Interim Report of the Committee for Mobilization of Resources for Major Railway Projects and Restructuring of Railway Ministry and Railway Board’, Indian Government publication, 2015.

Indian Railways and Empire

Questions 1 How would you sum up (i) the strategy (ii) the

culture of Indian Railways in the early years of this century?

2 In what ways can you trace this strategy and culture to the Indian Railways’ history?

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Path dependency is a useful concept because it provides an explanation for why appar- ently inefficient historical patterns are allowed to continue: in the short term at least, it can be more costly to change than keep things the same. Sometimes though history continues to influence because of managerial inertia or self-interest. These too contribute to the phe- nomenon of ‘strategic drift’, as described in Section 6.4. Either way, the hand of history can be heavy. Illustration 6.1 illustrates the lingering influence on Indian Railways of events and strategies from the British Empire, nearly three quarters of a century after independence.

6.2.2 history as a resource

Although historical lock-in does create inflexibility, history can be a useful managerial resource as well. There are at least three ways that managers can use history:5

● Learning from the past. Understanding the current strategic position of an organisation in terms of the past can provide useful lessons. For example, have there been historical trends or cycles that may repeat themselves? The construction industry for instance has a regular pattern of boom and crisis. Managers in this industry should not expect that good times will continue forever. How have competitors responded to strategic moves in the past? Consumer good companies Unilever and Procter & Gamble have nearly a century’s history of move and counter-move from which to learn. These companies’ managers can examine past experience in order to predict their rival’s likely response to any competitive move.

● Building capabilities. In the BMW museum in Munich there is a quote: ‘Anyone who wants to design for the future has to leaf through the past.’6 While the museum is about the his- tory of BMW, it is also about how the lessons of the past can give rise to new ideas and innovation. Indeed the Innovation and Technology Division of BMW is sited next to the museum and the archives of BMW. Innovation may build on historic capabilities in at least two ways. First, as technologies change, firms with experience and skills built over time that are most appropriate to those changes tend to innovate more than those that do not.7 Or it could be that there are new combinations of knowledge as capabilities built up in adjacent technologies are adapted in innovative ways to new technological opportunities. For example, successful firms in the creation of the TV industry were previously radio manufacturers. They were more effective innovators than the non-radio producers because of their historic capabilities in assembling small components and in mass distribution.8

● Legitimising strategy and change. History can be used as a resource to legitimise strategies or strategic change. For example, at technology enterprise Hewlett Packard, CEO Carly Fiorina legitimised her strategy by summarising it in terms of ‘rules for the garage’, refer- ring to the company’s famous origins in Dave Packard’s garage.9 Past successes effecting strategic change may also be used as evidence of the organisational potential in managing change and innovation or to encourage commitment to future changes. Thus Microsoft appealed to its earlier success in overcoming the challenge of the internet as it faced the threat of mobile computing.

6.2.3 historical analysis

If history matters so much, how might managers undertake an historical strategic analysis of their own organisation or of their competitors? There are four ways this may be done:10

● Chronological analysis. This involves setting down a chronology of key events showing changes in the organisation’s environment – especially its markets – how the organisation’s

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strategy itself has changed and with what consequences – not least financial. Organisa- tions will often provide a basic chronology on their websites, but crises and strategic reversals are likely to be underplayed on these, so further analysis using media and other sources will normally be useful.

● Cyclical influences. Is there evidence of cyclical influences? These include economic cycles, but perhaps also cycles of strategic activity, such as periods of high levels of mergers and acquisitions. Understanding when these cycles might occur and how industry and market forces can change during such cycles can inform decisions on whether to build strategy in line with those cycles or in a counter-cyclical fashion.

● Key events and decisions. History may be regarded as continuous, but historical events can also be significant for an organisation at particular points in time. These could be particularly significant events, in terms of either industry change or an organisation’s stra- tegic decisions: for example, Apple remembers the return of founder Steve Jobs in 1997, 12 years after he had previously been sacked. Or they might be policies laid down by a founder or defining periods of time that have come to be seen as especially important: for example, Alex Ferguson’s successful years at Manchester United. Key events or decisions could, of course, be for the good: they may help provide a clear overall strategic direction that contributes to the sort of vision discussed in the previous chapter. They can, on the other hand, be a major barrier to challenging existing strategies or changing strategic direction. A famous example is Henry Ford’s maxim ‘You can have any colour provided it’s black’, which set a trajectory for mass production and low variety that inhibited the Ford company’s response to the more varied cars eventually produced by General Motors and Chrysler in the 1930s.

● Historical story-telling. How do people tell their organisation’s history? As above, many organisations will have parts of their websites dedicated to their histories, and some even commission business historians to write books on their histories.11 The stories people tell can offer revealing clues about how the organisation sees its past, not least in terms of the origins of success. IKEA often tells the story of how flat-packed furniture began at the company when a worker of the company disassembled a table to fit inside of a car. And there may be implications in their stories for future strategy development. For IKEA, the story of flat-pack promotes practical improvisation in strategy. Does what people say sug- gest an organisation with historic capabilities relevant to current markets and customers? Is the organisation capable of innovation and change or so rooted in the glories of the past that it will be difficult to change?

History, then, is important in terms of how it influences current strategy, for better or for worse. History also feeds into organisational culture: history becomes ‘encapsulated in culture’.12 The next section goes on to explain what culture is and how it can be analysed.

6.3 WhaT IS CULTURe aND WhY IS IT IMpORTaNT?

There are many ways to define culture, but typically definitions emphasise a set of taken- for-granted beliefs and values that are shared within a particular group. What individual managers believe in and value obviously influences their strategic decisions. Strategy is influ- enced by culture, therefore. However, because we all belong to many groups, these cultural influences can be very diverse. As in Figure 6.3, we shall analyse three kinds of cultural influences: geographical cultures, field cultures and organisational cultures and subcultures, all of which impinge on individual managers.

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6.3.1 Geographically-based cultures

Many writers – perhaps the most well-known of whom is Geert Hofstede – have shown how attitudes to work, authority, equality and other important factors vary in different geographies, national or regional. Such differences have been shaped by powerful forces con- cerned with history, religion and even climate over many centuries. Hofstede traces cultural differences between the countries of southern and northern Europe to the boundaries of the Roman Empire 2000 years ago.13

According to Hofstede, there are at least four key dimensions upon which national cul- tures tend to differ:

● Power distance, referring to relationships with authority and acceptance of inequality. In Hofstede’s studies, and those of his associates, many Asian countries are found to have high power distance, and therefore quite authoritarian management styles. Australia has a low power distance and therefore is more democratic in style.

● Individualism–collectivism, referring to the relationship between the individual and the group. According to Hofstede’s research, some national cultures are highly individualistic, for example the USA. South American cultures are apparently more collectivist, valuing team approaches.

● Long-term orientation, referring to the extent to which people look to the future, some- thing essential to strategy. Hofstede suggests that many Asian cultures tend to be long- term orientated. North American and African cultures are supposedly more short term.

● Uncertainty avoidance, referring to tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity. According to Hofstede, Japan is associated with relatively high intolerance for uncertainty. Chinese culture appears more pragmatic and accepting of uncertainty.

Hofstede’s research pioneered understanding about geographical variations in culture, but it has since been criticised for its generalisations about whole countries. After all, countries vary widely within themselves: consider the cultural differences between different regions in Nigeria, Southern and Northern Italy or the East and West Coasts of the USA.14 Individuals too differ very widely within a particular geographical culture. It is important not to stereotype. Nev- ertheless, certain national or subnational cultural tendencies can be observed and Hofstede’s

Figure 6.3 Cultural frames of reference

Geography (national/ regional)

Organisational field

(e.g. sector, profession)

Organisation (e.g. subculture,

identity)

The individual

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four dimensions are valuable in alerting us to some of the ways in which people from different geographies may vary. When discussing strategic options in an international management team, it might be helpful to be aware that not everybody will be equally comfortable with uncertainty, heroic individualisism, the use of authority to make final decisions, or projecting far out into the long-term future. For example, the joint venture between American tyre-maker Cooper and the Chinese tyre-maker Chengshan fell apart because of very different attitudes to acceptable levels of risk: the American partner, backed by billionaire hedge-fund investor John Paulson, was much more aggressive financially than the state-owned Chinese company.

6.3.2 Organisational fields15

As in Chapter 2, an organisational field is a community of organisations that interact more frequently with one another than with those outside the field and that have developed a shared culture. Fields can extend beyond the firms, customers and suppliers in particular industries; they can include relevant regulators, professional bodies, university researchers, specialist media and even campaign groups. An important characteristic of fields is that they involve not just economic transactions, but shared assumptions and beliefs about how the field works.

For example, in the organisational field of ‘justice’ there are many different types of organisation, such as law firms, police forces, courts, prisons and probation services. The roles of each are different, they all have their own specific organisational cultures and their detailed prescriptions as to how justice should be achieved differ. However, despite their dif- ferences, they are all committed to the principle that justice is a good thing which is worth striving for; they interact frequently on this issue; they have developed shared ways of under- standing and debating issues that arise; and they operate a set of common routines helping them interact with each other. Similar cultural coherence is common in other organisational fields: for example, professional services such as accountancy and medicine or sectors such as software development or journalism.

Where such shared assumptions and beliefs are powerful, these organisational fields help set the institutional ‘rules of the game’ (Section 2.2.6) or ‘institutional logics’ (see final Thinking Differently). Fields influence the ways managers see their activities, define strategic options and decide what is appropriate. Three concepts are useful here:

● Categorisation. The ways in which members of an organisational field categorise (or label) themselves and their activities has significant implications for what they do.16 To catego- rise a mobile phone as primarily a personal computer or a fashion-statement rather than a phone changes the whole strategy. Over time, members of an organisational field tend to converge on dominant categorisation schemes. For instance, the early car industry had competing categories of ‘horseless carriage’ and ‘automobile’; in computing, there were competing categories of ‘pen-computing’ and ‘tablets’ to describe more or less the same thing. Converging on the categories of automobile and tablet helped define the respective industries’ subsequent developments.

● Recipes. Because of their shared cultures, organisational fields tend to cohere around stand- ard ways of doing things, or ‘recipes’. A recipe is a set of assumptions, norms and routines held in common within an organisational field about the appropriate purposes and strat- egies of field members.17 In effect, a recipe is the ‘shared wisdom’ about what works best. In English Premier league football, the standard approach is a ‘talent-based recipe’, where teams compete each year to hire the best players because they believe that individual talent is what delivers results. An alternative recipe, for instance of developing team spirit and skills over the long term as in Germany, is little contemplated in the English Premier league.

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● Legitimacy. Where categories and recipes have become strongly institutionalised over time, they become the only legitimate way of seeing and behaving. Legitimacy is concerned with meeting the expectations within an organisational field in terms of assumptions, behav- iours and strategies. By conforming to legitimate norms within the field, organisations secure approval, support and public endorsement, thus increasing their legitimacy. Step- ping outside that strategy may be risky because important stakeholders (such as customers or bankers) may not see such a move as appropriate. Therefore, organisations tend to mimic each other’s strategies. There may be differences in strategies between organisa- tions, but those differences tend to be limited to the bounds of legitimacy.18 Legitimacy helps explain why accounting firms and universities, for example, tend to follow similar strategies to each other, promote similar products and hire similar people.

6.3.3 Organisational culture

Edgar Schein defines organisational culture as the ‘basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation, that operate unconsciously and define in a basic taken-for-granted fashion an organisation’s view of itself and its environment’.19 Related to this are the taken-for-granted ‘ways we do things around here’20 that accumulate over time. So organisational culture is the taken-for-granted assumptions and behaviours of an organ- isation’s members. This culture helps make sense of people’s organisational context and therefore contributes to how they respond to issues they face.

An organisation’s culture can be conceived as consisting of different layers. The four proposed by Edgar Schein21 are (see Figure 6.4):

● Values may be easy to identify in terms of those formally stated by an organisation since they are often explicit, perhaps written down (see Chapter 1). The values driving a strategy may, however, be different from those in formal statements. For example, in the early 2000s, many banks espoused values of shareholder value creation, careful risk

Figure 6.4 Culture in four layers

Values

Beliefs

Behaviours

Paradigm (or taken-for-granted

assumptions)

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management and, of course, high levels of customer service. But in practice they indulged in highly risky lending, resulting in the need for huge government financial support in the financial crisis of 2008–09. It is therefore important to delve beneath espoused values to uncover underlying, perhaps taken-for-granted, values that can help explain the strategy actually being pursued by an organisation (see Section 6.3.6 below).

● Beliefs are more specific. They can typically be discerned in how people talk about issues the organisation faces; for example, a belief that the company should not trade with particular countries or a belief in the rightness of professional systems and standards.

● Behaviours are the day-to-day way in which an organisation operates and that be seen by people both inside and often outside the organisation. This includes the work routines, how the organisation is structured and controlled and ‘softer’ issues around symbolic behaviours (see Section 6.3.5 below). These behaviours may become the taken-for-granted ‘ways we do things around here’ that are potentially the bases for inimitable strategic capabilities (see Section 4.3.3) but also significant barriers to achieving strategic change if that becomes necessary (see Chapter 15).

● Taken-for-granted assumptions are the core of an organisation’s culture which, in this book, we refer to as the organisational paradigm. The paradigm is the set of assumptions held in common and taken for granted in an organisation. In effect these shared assump- tions represent collective experience about fundamental aspects of the organisation that, in turn, guide people in that organisation about how to view and respond to different cir- cumstances that they face. The paradigm can underpin successful strategies by providing a basis of common understanding in an organisation but, again, can be a major problem when major strategic change is needed (see Chapter 15). The importance of the paradigm is discussed further in Section 6.3.5.

The concept of culture implies coherence, hence the common expression ‘corporate cul- ture’. Illustration 6.2 on the AB InBev brewery describes a company that works hard to create a coherent corporate culture. However, there are at least two ways in which cultures can be subdivided in practice:

● Organisational subcultures. Just as national cultures can contain local regional cultures, there are often subcultures in organisations. These subcultures may relate to the struc- ture of the organisation: for example, the differences between geographical divisions in a multinational company, or between functional groups such as finance, marketing and operations. Differences between divisions may be particularly evident in organisations that have grown through acquisition. Also different divisions may be pursuing different types of strategy that require or foster different cultures. Indeed, aligning strategic positioning and organisational culture is a critical feature of successful organisations. Differences between business functions can also relate to the different nature of work in different functions. For example, in a major oil company differences are likely between those functions engaged in ‘upstream’ exploration, where time horizons may be in decades, and those concerned with ‘downstream’ retailing, with much shorter market-driven time horizons. Arguably, this is one reason why the oil company Shell took the decision to sell its retail outlets and other downstream activities. In strategic decision-making, therefore, it is important to recognise the different subcultural assumptions managers may be bringing to the processes: finance managers may have different subcultural assumptions to marketing managers, and so on.

● Organisational identity. An organisation’s culture covers a wide range of aspects, for instance how it sees its environment, but an important part is how the organisation views itself. Organisational identity refers to what members believe and understand about who they specifically are as an organisation.22 Managers and entrepreneurs often try to manip- ulate organisational identity because it is important for recruiting and guiding employees,

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ILLUSTRaTION 6.2

‘Brito’, Chief executive of the world’s largest brewery, has culture as one of his three buzzwords.

AB InBev’s clumsy name reflects the manner of its growth. It has its origins in the 1999 merger of two Brazilian brewers, Antarctica (founded in 1880) and Brahma (founded in 1886). The new ‘AmBev’ then merged with Belgian brewer InterBrew to become InBev in 2004, before taking over the American giant Anheuser-Busch in 2008. By 2015, AB InBev was the largest brewer in the world, with its headquarters in Belgium and a 25 per cent share of the global beer business. Its brands included Beck’s, Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois. AB InBev employed 155,000 people in 25 countries. The company had its eyes on taking over one of its last major rivals, the South Afri- can brewer SABMiller.

AB InBev’s Chief Executive was the Brazilian Carlos Brito, known simply as ‘Brito’ (never Carlos, never Mr Brito). He had originally begged the former Brazilian tennis champion and investor Jorge Paolo Lemann to fund his MBA at Stanford University. On completion of his MBA, he had joined Brahma, a brewery that Lemann had just bought. By 2004, Brito was CEO of AmBev. With the InterBrew merger, he played second fiddle initially, but by 2005 – aged 45 – he emerged as CEO of the newly-created company InBev.

Brito’s three buzzwords, repeated by executives throughout the company, are: ‘Dream. People. Cul- ture’. The culture he has sought to create at AB InBev is intense. He himself is away from home travelling on business more than half the year. He claims no hobbies, unless a daily 30 minutes on the treadmill counts. He and his top team fly economy class except on the longest haul flights and they all use mid-market hotels. The top team’s desks are placed at the centre of open-plan offices.

Lemann (with a 12.5 per cent stake in the com- pany) describes the culture of AB InBev thus: ‘You are always running, always close to the limit. You’re work- ing very hard and being evaluated all the time. People

either like it or don’t like it.’ Zero-based budgeting is practised, with all budgets negotiated from scratch at the beginning of each year. Costs and performance are monitored closely. On buying Anheuser-Busch, Brito fired 1400 staff, with the whole top tier of manag- ers going: according to Brito, ‘Some were too rich to care, some were too old to work, some wouldn’t fit the culture anyway.’ Throughout the company, employee metrics are all public and managers are subject to 360 degree feedback systems. The internal joke is that to get promoted, you have to kill three people.

But the rewards are high for good performers, and promotion fast. Young managers rarely spend more than two or three years in a single posting, moved on as soon as they start to get comfortable. In 2014, more than 100,000 people applied for 147 gradu- ate level jobs. Brito personally addresses each class of graduate trainees, looking for talent. He always encourages his trainees to ‘dream big’. Luiz Fernando Edmond, head of sales worldwide, was on the compa- ny’s first management trainee programme in Brazil in 1990. He remarks: ‘I came here with nothing. If you work hard, you focus on your results and you work with people, bring people together, promote people better than you, you have a chance to become a CEO of the company.’

Sources: Fortune, 15 August 2013; Financial Times, June 15 and 16, 2015.

Dream. People. Culture.

Questions 1 Why do you think that creating a common

culture might be important for a company like AB InBev?

2 What mechanisms are used to reinforce such a common culture (see also Chapter  14 ).

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interacting with customers and dealing with regulators. Organisational identity claims are often prominent on websites and other official materials. Thus the Danish lager company Carlsberg went through a very deliberate process of changing its claimed identity from a brewer to a fast-moving consumer goods company, with important ramifications for the skills it required. Plausible identity claims are important for entrepreneurial start-ups also: there are significant benefits with customers and investors if they can define themselves as the next generation, rather than a ‘me-too’.

6.3.4 Culture’s influence on strategy

Mark Fields, President of Ford Motor Company in 2006, famously argued that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’, by which he emphasised the importance of culture for the strategy of the business. The importance of culture does not mean that strategy is irrelevant of course: culture should be seen as part of the strategy, something that can be a source of competitive advantage and, to some degree, something that can be adjusted.

The enduring influence of culture on strategy is shown in Figure 6.5.23 Faced with a stim- ulus for action, such as declining performance, managers first try to improve the implemen- tation of existing strategy (step 1). This might be through trying to lower cost, improve efficiency, tighten controls or improve accepted ways of doing things. If this is not effective, a change of strategy may occur, but a change in line with the existing culture (step 2). For example, managers may seek to extend the market for their business, but assume that it will be similar to their existing market, and therefore set about managing the new venture in much the same way as they have been used to. Alternatively, even where managers know intellectu- ally that they need to change strategy, they find themselves constrained by path-dependent

Figure 6.5 Culture’s influence on strategy development Source: Adapted from P. Grinyer and J.-C. Spender, Turnaround: Managerial Recipes for Strategic Success, Associated Business Press, 1979, p. 203.

Culture Development of strategy Implementation

Corporate performance

Step 1 Tighter control

If unsatisfactory

Step 2 Reconstruct or develop

new strategy

Step 3 Change of

culture

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organisational routines and assumptions or political processes, as seems likely in the case of Kodak (see Illustration 6.4 later). This often happens, for example, when there are attempts to change highly bureaucratic organisations to be customer-orientated. Even if people accept the need to change a culture’s emphasis on the importance of conforming to established rules, routines and reporting relationships, they do not readily do so. It is a fallacy to assume that reasoned argument necessarily changes deeply embedded assumptions rooted in collective experience built up over long periods of time. Readers need only think of their own experi- ence in trying to persuade others to rethink their religious beliefs, or, indeed, allegiances to sports teams, to realise this. Changes in strategy which entail a fundamental change to an organisation’s culture (step 3) are likely to be rare and triggered by dramatic evidence of the redundancy of that culture such as a financial crisis or major loss of market share.

6.3.5 analysing culture: the cultural web

In order to understand the existing culture and its effects it is important to be able to ana- lyse an organisation’s culture. The cultural web24 is a means of doing this (see Figure 6.6). The cultural web shows the behavioural, physical and symbolic manifestations of a culture that inform and are informed by the taken-for-granted assumptions, or paradigm, of an organisation. It is in effect the inner two ovals in Figure 6.4. The cultural web can be used to understand culture in any of the frames of reference discussed above, but it is most often used at the organisational and/or subunit levels in Figure 6.3.25 The seven elements of the cultural web are as follows:

● The paradigm is at the core of Figure 6.6. As previously defined, the paradigm is the set of assumptions held in common and taken for granted in an organisation. The paradigmatic assumptions are, quite likely, very basic. For example, a common problem in technology and engineering firms is the propensity of people to focus on the technical excellence of products rather than customer-perceived needs. Or the paradigm of practitioners in the National

Figure 6.6 The cultural web of an organisation

Stories Symbols

Power structures

Paradigm

Organisational structures

Rituals and routines

Control systems

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Health Service in the UK is about curing illnesses. It is quite likely that, even if the rational view is to build a strategy around the engineering business’ customer needs or the need for prevention (as distinct from curing) of illnesses, people in those organisations may still interpret issues and behave in line with its paradigm. So it is really important to understand the paradigm and how it informs debate on strategy. The problem is that, since it is unlikely to be talked about, or even be something that people are conscious of, trying to identify it can be difficult, especially if you are part of that organisation. Outside observers may find it easier to identify simply by listening to what people say and emphasise. One way of ‘insiders’ getting to see the assumptions they take for granted is to focus initially on other aspects of the cultural web because these are to do with more visible manifestations of culture. Moreover these other aspects are likely to act to reinforce the assumptions of the paradigm.

● Rituals and routines point to the repetitive nature of organisational cultures. Routines refer to ‘the way we do things around here’ on a day-to-day basis. At their best, routines lubricate the working of the organisation, and may provide a basis for distinctive organi- sational capabilities. However, they can also represent a taken-for-grantedness about how things should happen which, again, can guide how people deal with situations and be difficult to change. For example, managers trying to achieve greater customer focus in engineering firms often report that customer-facing sales engineers routinely tend to tell customers what they need rather than listening to their needs. The rituals26 of organisa- tional life are particular activities or special events that emphasise, highlight or reinforce what is important in the culture. Examples include training programmes, interview panels, promotion and assessment procedures, sales conferences and so on. An extreme example, of course, is the ritualistic training of army recruits to prepare them for the discipline required in conflict. However, rituals can also be informal activities such as drinks in the pub after work or gossiping around watercoolers. A checklist of organisational rituals is provided in Chapter 15 (see Table 15.2).

● The stories told by members of an organisation to each other, to outsiders, to new recruits, and so on may act to embed the present in its organisational history and also flag up important events and personalities. They typically have to do with successes, disasters, heroes, villains and mavericks (who deviate from the norm). They can be a way of letting people know what is conventionally important in an organisation.

● Symbols are objects, events, acts or people that convey, maintain or create meaning over and above their functional purpose. For example, offices and office layout, cars and job titles have a functional purpose, but are also typically signals about status and hierarchy. Particular people may come to represent especially important aspects of an organisation or historic turning points. The form of language used in an organisation can also be particu- larly revealing, especially with regard to customers or clients: defining executive education clients as ‘course participants’ rather than ‘students’ makes a significant difference to how teaching staff interact with them. Although symbols are shown separately in the cultural web, it should be remembered that many elements of the web are symbolic. So, routines, control and reward systems and structures are not only functional but also symbolic.

● Power was defined in Chapter 5 as the ability of individuals or groups to persuade, induce or coerce others into following certain courses of action. So power structures are distribu- tions of power to groups of people in an organisation. The most powerful individuals or groups are likely to be closely associated with the paradigm and long-established ways of doing things. In analysing power, the guidance given in Chapter 5 (Section 5.2.2) is useful.

● Organisational structures are the roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships in organisations. These are likely to reflect power structures and how they manifest them- selves. Formal hierarchical, mechanistic structures may emphasise that strategy is the province of top managers and everyone else is ‘working to orders’. Structures with less emphasis on formal reporting relationships might indicate more participative strategy

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making. Highly decentralised structures (as discussed in Chapter 14) may signify that collaboration is less important than competition and so on.

● Control systems are the formal and informal ways of monitoring and supporting people within and around an organisation and tend to emphasise what is seen to be important in the organisation. They include measurements and reward systems. For example, public- service organisations have often been accused of being concerned more with stewardship of funds than with quality of service. This is reflected in their control systems, which are more about accounting for spending rather than with quality of service. Remuneration schemes are a significant control mechanism. Individually-based bonus schemes related to volume are likely to signal a culture of individuality, internal competition and an emphasis on sales volume rather than teamwork and an emphasis on quality.

Illustration 6.3 describes the culture of the American fund manager Vanguard Asset Man- agement (see also Illustration 7.1). It can be seen that the central paradigm of low-cost investing has been supported by many mutually-reinforcing elements of the cultural web.

6.3.6 Undertaking cultural analysis

When analysing the culture of an organisation, there are important issues to bear in mind:

● Questions to ask. Figure 6.7 outlines some of the questions that might help build up an understanding of culture using the cultural web.

● Statements of cultural values. As explained in Chapter 1, organisations may make public statements of their values, beliefs and purposes, for example in annual reports, mission or values statements and business plans. There is a danger that these are seen as useful descriptions of the organisational culture. But this is likely to be at best only partially true, and at worst misleading. This is not to suggest that there is any organised deception. It is simply that the statements of values and beliefs are often carefully considered and carefully crafted statements of the aspirations of a particular stakeholder (such as the CEO) rather than descriptions of the actual culture. For example, an outside observer of a police force might conclude from its public statements of purpose and priorities that it had a balanced approach to the various aspects of police work – catching criminals, crime prevention, community relations. However, a deeper probing might reveal that (in cultural terms) there is the ‘real’ police work (catching criminals) and the ‘lesser work’ (crime prevention, community relations).

● Pulling it together. The detailed ‘map’ produced by the cultural web can be a rich source of information about an organisation’s culture, but it is useful to be able to character- ise the culture that the information conveys. Sometimes this is possible by means of graphic descriptors. For example, managers who undertook a cultural analysis in the UK National Health Service (NHS) summed up their culture as ‘The National Sickness Service’. Although this approach is rather crude and unscientific, it can be powerful in terms of organisational members seeing the organisation as it really is – which may not be immediately apparent from all of the detailed points in the cultural web. It can also help people to understand that culture may drive strategy; for example, a ‘national sick- ness service’ will prioritise strategies that are about developments in curing sick people above strategies of health promotion and prevention. So those favouring health promotion strategies need to understand that they are facing the need to change a culture.

If managers are to develop strategies that are different from those of the past, they need to be able to challenge, question and potentially change the organisational culture that under- pins the current strategy. In this context, the cultural analysis suggested in this chapter can

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ILLUSTRaTION 6.3

Vanguard’s culture of low-cost investing is supported by many elements of the cultural web.

Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard Asset Management in 1974, tells a story about a summer job as a messenger at a Wall Street broker when he was a student. One of the other messengers said to him: “Let me tell you all you need to know about the investment business”. Bogle said, “What’s that?” He said, “Nobody knows nuthin’.” It was on this principle that investment pro- fessionals know nothing that Bogle built what became the largest mutual fund in the world.

Bogle developed a model of index funds in which, instead of trying to pick winners, stocks were chosen simply to match the various stock market indices (for example, the S&P 500). As an investor, he did not claim to know more than other investors. All he did was make sure that his portfolio exactly reflected whatever index he was aiming to follow. There were none of the costs of stock-picking, investment research or frequent trades. His funds would never beat the index, but, unlike the vast majority of funds at the time, his expenses were significantly lower. Moreover, Bogle chose an unusual financial structure for Van- guard: it was owned by its own funds and, as a result, ultimately by the customers investing in the funds. This meant that there were no profits to be paid out to outside investors. Moreover, Bogle refused to pay fees to investment advisers for selling Vanguard products: price and performance should be enough to attract customers.

The result of these policies was what Vanguard describes as ‘a culture of low-cost investing’. A Vanguard index fund would charge investors fees of only 0.2 per cent of their investment, against fees approaching 2.0 per cent for an active stock-picker. Between 1983 and 1999, a Vanguard index fund tracking the S&P 500 would turn $10,000 (£6000, €7500) into $81,900, while an active stock-picking fund, allowing for the extra charges, would only make $62,700. Jack Bogle’s philosophy eventually attracted 25 million retail American investors, many of them enthusiastically describing themselves as ‘Bogle- heads’. Each year, these Bogleheads meet at Van- guard’s Pennsylvania headquarters to, in their phrase, ‘visit their money’. Even in his 80s, Jack Bogle would attend the Boglehead conferences to give his invest- ment advice.

Vanguard’s headquarters has some unusual features. There was a prominent mural reproducing a famous pic- ture of the 1798 Battle of the Nile, in which Nelson’s ship the Vanguard had led the British fleet to a decisive victory over Napoleon. The Vanguard is depicted firing upon the French ship La Fidelité, a reference to Bogle’s great active fund rival Fidelity. All 11 buildings on the Vanguard headquarters are named after Nelson’s ships and the restaurant is called the ‘galley’. To emphasise the mutual nature of relationships, Bogle insisted that Vanguard employees should be called ‘crew’.

The Vanguard crew are chosen carefully. For exam- ple, when Vanguard began to expand in the UK, the local head Thomas Rampulla interviewed every one of the first 250 staff personally: Bill McNabb, Vanguard’s CEO from 2008, described Rampulla as Vanguard’s ‘culture carrier’. Employees are under careful perfor- mance management, using portfolio attribution analy- sis to precisely measure their results against relevant indices: low performers are asked to ‘walk the plank’. Despite the continuing Bogleheads’ adoration of Jack Bogle, who still works in a research role at the head- quarters and is sometimes critical of Vanguard’s recent policies, Bill McNabb is firmly in control. While his predecessor as CEO fought bitterly with Bogle when the latter retained the executive chairmanship posi- tion, McNabb combines the roles of chief executive and company chairman, even though this contradicts the corporate governance arrangements Vanguard preaches for the companies it invests in. McNabb’s remuneration is secret and he is politely dismissive of Bogle’s criticisms.

Sources: New York Times, 11 August 2012; Financial Times, 27 May 2015; Reuters , 16 September 2014.

The Bogleheads and Vanguard Asset Management

Questions 1 Map Vanguard’s corporate culture to the

cultural web elements of paradigm, stories, symbols, power, organisation structure, control styles and rituals and routine.

2 How do the various elements of the web interrelate? Do any of the elements not fit together?

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inform aspects of strategic management discussed in other parts of this book. These include the following:

● Strategic capabilities. As Chapter 4 makes clear, historically embedded capabilities are, very likely, part of the culture of the organisation. The cultural analysis of the organisa- tion therefore provides a complementary basis of analysis to an examination of strategic capabilities. In effect, such an analysis of capabilities should end up digging into the culture of the organisation, especially in terms of its routines, control systems and the everyday way in which the organisation runs.

● Strategy development. An understanding of organisational culture sensitises managers to the way in which historical and cultural influences will likely affect future strategy for good or ill. It therefore relates to the discussion on strategy development in Chapter 13.

Figure 6.7 The cultural web: some useful questions

Stories Symbols

Power structures

Paradigm

Organisational structures

Routines and rituals

Control systems

Stories • What core beliefs do stories reflect? • What stories are commonly told, e.g. to newcomers? • How do these reflect core assumptions and beliefs? • What norms do the mavericks deviate from?

Routines and rituals • Which routines are emphasised? • Which are embedded in history? • What behaviour do routines encourage? • What are the key rituals? • What assumptions and core beliefs do they reflect? • What do training programmes emphasise? • How easy are rituals/routines to change?

Control systems • What is most closely monitored/controlled? • Is emphasis on reward or punishment? • Are controls rooted in history or current strategies? • Are there many/few controls?

Symbols • What objects, events or people do people in the organisation particularly identify with? • What are these related to in the history of the organisation? • What aspects of strategy are highlighted in publicity?

Power structures • Where does power reside? Indicators include: (a) status (b) claim on resources (c) symbols of power • Who ‘makes things happen’? • Who stops things happening?

Organisational structures • What are the formal and informal structures? • How rigid are the structures? • Do structures encourage collaboration or competition? • What types of power structure do they support?

Overall • What do the answers to these questions suggest are the (few) fundamental assumptions that are the paradigm? • How would you characterise the dominant culture? • How easy is this to change? • How and to what extent do aspects of the web inter relate and re-enforce each other?

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● Managing strategic change. An analysis of the culture also provides a basis for the manage- ment of strategic change, since it provides a picture of the existing culture that can be set against a desired strategy so as to give insights as to what may constrain the development of that strategy or what needs to be changed in order to achieve it. This is discussed more extensively in Chapter 15 on managing strategic change.

● Leadership and management style. Chapter 15 also raises questions about leadership and management style. If one of the major requirements of a strategist is to be able to encour- age the questioning of that which is taken for granted, it is likely to require a management style – indeed a culture – that allows and encourages such questioning. If the leadership style is such as to discourage such questioning, it is unlikely that the lessons of history will be learned and more likely that the dictates of history will be followed.

● Culture and experience. There have been repeated references in this section to the role cul- ture plays as a vehicle by which meaning is created in organisations. This is discussed more fully in the Commentary on the experience lens and provides a useful way in which many aspects of strategy can be considered (see the Commentaries throughout the book).

6.4 STRaTeGIC DRIFT

The influence of an organisation’s history and culture on its strategic direction is evident in the pattern of strategy development depicted in Figure 6.8. Strategic drift27 is the tendency for strategies to develop incrementally on the basis of historical and cultural influences, but fail to keep pace with a changing environment. An example of strategic drift in Kodak is given in Illustration 6.4. The reasons for and consequences of strategic drift are important to understand, not only because it is common, but also because it helps explain why organisa- tions often seem to stagnate in their strategy development and their performance. Strategic drift also highlights some significant challenges for managers that, in turn, point to some important lessons.

Figure 6.8 Strategic drift

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ILLUSTRaTION 6.4

Knowledge of technological and market changes may not be enough to avoid strategic drift.

In the twentieth century, Kodak, the manufacturer of photographic film and cameras, was one of the world’s most valuable brands. Based in Rochester in New York State, by 1976 Kodak had 90 per cent of film and 85 per cent share of camera sales in the USA, and by 1996 turnover was $16bn (£9.6bn, €12bn) and in 1999 profits nearly $2.5bn. Initially known for its innovative technology and marketing, it had developed digital camera technology by 1975, but did not launch digital cameras until the late 1990s by when it was too late.

By 2011, its traditional photography business had been almost entirely eroded, first by digital cameras and then by smartphones. Turnover was only $6bn, it was loss making, the share price had plummeted and in 2012 it filed for bankruptcy protection. How did Kodak miss such a fundamental shift in the market?

According to Steve Sasson, the engineer who invented the first digital camera, the response to his invention in Kodak was dismissive because it was filmless photography. There were similar responses to early internal intelligence reports on digital technology: ‘Larry Matteson, a former Kodak executive . . . recalls writing a report in 1979, detailing fairly accurately how different parts of the market would switch from film to digital, starting with government reconnaissance, then professional photography and finally the mass mar- ket, all by 2010.’ 1 Another internal report in the early 1980s concluded that digital technology would take over the camera industry in about ten years; ten years in which Kodak could work out its response.

The Kodak response was to use digital to enhance the film business. For example, in 1996 Kodak launched a film system using digital technology to pro- vide users with a preview of shots taken and indicate the number of prints required. It flopped.

It was executives in the film division who carried most weight and they were over-confident about Kod- ak’s brand strength. They also misjudged the speed of the change in customer buying preferences. For

example, they believed that people in fast-developing markets such as China would buy lots of film, but many moved from no camera at all to digital. The profit margin on digital was also tiny compared with film and there was a real fear of product cannibal- isation. Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School also pointed to the Kodak culture: ‘Working in a one company town did not help … Kodak’s bosses in Rochester seldom heard much criticism … ’. More- over, ‘executives suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the hi-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it.’ 1 They also moved slowly: ‘Even when Kodak decided to diversify, it took years to make its first acquisition.’ 1 Kodak’s attempts to diversify by developing the thousands of chemicals its research- ers had created for use in film for the drug market also failed.

In 1989, the Kodak board needed to choose a new CEO. The choice was between Kay R. Whitmore, a long-serving executive in the traditional film busi- ness, and Phil Samper, who was more associated with digital technology. The board chose Whitmore, who insisted that he would make sure Kodak stayed closer to its core businesses in film and photographic chemicals. 2

As late as 2007, a Kodak marketing video announced that ‘Kodak is back’ and ‘wasn’t going to play grab ass anymore’ with digital. 3

Sources: (1) The Economist, 14 January 2012; (2) New York Times, 9 December 1989; (3) Forbes , 18 January 2012.

Kodak: the decline and fall of a market leader

Questions 1 Which of the reasons for strategic drift are

evident in the Kodak story?

2 Drawing on the lessons from Part I of the book as a whole, how might Kodak’s problems have been avoided?

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Figure 6.8 identifies four phases in the process of strategic drift, leading either to the organisation’s death or to transformational change:

● Incremental strategic change is the first phase, involving small changes. In many organ- isations, there are long periods of relative continuity during which established strategy remains largely unchanged or changes very incrementally. After all, where the environment is changing slowly (as in Figure 6.8 at this point), there is no need for more radical change. Where the pace of environmental change is slow, managers can also experiment with a variety of small-scale responses to change, waiting to see what works before adopting the best solution.

● Strategic drift emerges when the rate of environmental change starts to outpace the rate of the organisation’s strategic change. Phase 2 of Figure 6.8 shows environmental change accelerating. However, the organisation’s rate of change is still incremental, leading to a growing gap with the accumulated environmental change.

● Flux is the third phase, triggered by the downturn in performance caused by the growing gap between organisation and environment. In this phase, strategies may change but in no very clear direction: changes may even be reversed, so that strategies loop back on themselves. There may be internal disagreements amongst managers as to which strat- egy to follow, quite likely based on differences of opinion as to whether future strat- egy should be based on historic capabilities or whether those capabilities are becoming redundant.

● Transformation or death is the final phase in Figure 6.8. As things get worse, there are two possibilities: (a) The organisation may die, either through bankruptcy – as Kodak did in 2012 – or by takeover by another organisation; or (b) the organisation may go through a period of transformational change, which brings it back to the level of cumulated environmental change. Such change could take the form of multiple changes related to the organisation’s strategy or perhaps a change to its whole business model (see Section 7.4), as well as changes in top management, organisational culture and organisation structure.

Strategic drift is a common phenomenon. The consultants McKinsey & Co. point out that the tendency is for ‘most companies to allocate the same resources to the same business units year after year’.28 It usually takes significant performance decline to prompt transformational change: a study of 215 major UK firms over the 20-year period 1983–2003 identified only four that could be said to have both maintained consistently high levels of performance and effected major transformational change over that period.29 There are three main groups of reasons why it is hard to avoid strategic drift:

● Uncertainty. Strategic drift is not easy to see at the time. Chapters 2 and 3 provided ways of analysing the environment, but such analyses are rarely unambiguous. It takes time for managers to be sure of the direction and significance of environmental changes. Changes may be temporary, for instance the result of cyclical downturns that will soon be reversed or fashions that may soon pass. It is easier to see major and irreversible changes with hindsight; it is less easy to grasp their significance as they are happening.

● Path dependency and lock-in. As in Section 6.2, the historical trajectory of the organisa- tion might lock organisations into strategies that are costly to change, at least in the short term. For example, capabilities that have historically been the basis of competitive advan- tage can be difficult to abandon in favour of developing new and untested capabilities. In this sense, old capabilities can become core rigidities, rather than core competences capable of supporting new businesses.30 Similarly, existing relationships can become shack- les that inhibit significant change.31 Thus managers may be reluctant to break relationships

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with important customers, suppliers and employees built up over many years for the sake of some emerging and uncertain opportunity.

● Cultural entrenchment. As in Section  6.3 , culture can exert a strong influence over strat- egy. The paradigmatic set of taken-for-granted assumptions may prevent managers from seeing certain issues: organisational identities (such as ‘we are a brewing company’, not a ‘fast-moving consumer goods company’) can shape views of environmental opportunities and threats. Performance measures embedded in the organisation’s control systems can obscure the need for change. Thus many performance measures are lagged: in the early stages of strategic drift, sales figures may hold up because of customer loyalty or long customer waiting lists; profits may be buttressed by simple cost-cutting or staff working harder in an unsustainable way.

● Powerful people, whose skills and power bases relate to the old strategy, may naturally resist change too. These kinds of issues are explored further in Chapter  15 .

Thus history, culture and genuine uncertainty can easily support strategic drift. Rebecca Henderson of MIT suggested how a Kodak executive might have responded to reports on the threat of digital technology (see Illustration  6.4 ): ‘… you are suggesting that we invest

ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

Societal-level institutional logics can be both sources of confl ict and sources of inspiration for organisational cultures.

Institutional logics are socially constructed sets of material practices, assumptions, values and beliefs that shape human cognition and behaviour across domains of activity, typically at a societal level. 33 To put it more simply, what we think and how we behave are shaped by the informal rules of the society we live in. These rules come in distinct and coherent sets: for instance, every society has informal rules about how to behave in the different domains of business, the family, national politics and professions. However, we remain sensitive to all these rules even when we are operating in one particular domain.

This notion of institutional logics comes from the institutional theory tradition associated with the concept of organisational fields, with its emphasis on legitimate behaviour (see Section  6.3.2 ). It has at least two radical implications for the notion of organisational culture. First, organisational cultures can never be wholly ‘organisational’: they will certainly be impacted – and sometimes distorted – by logics from outside the organisation. Second, organisational cultures can never be entirely coherent and unified: they will always be ‘plural’, i.e. cross-cut by multiple logics from external society, such as those of the family or profession.

These institutional logics mean that business deci- sions are rarely purely business decisions. Familial responsibilities may be influential in a family business; professional identities and standards may be influential in a law firm or architectural practice; patriotism or home-country culture may shape local strategic moves in a multinational. These pluralistic logics can be a source of conflict, of course. But institutional logics can also be a source of inspiration for organisations: professionalism or family spirit can be powerful ingre- dients in organisational cultures.

Institutional logics versus organisational cultures

Question How might institutional logics shape such strategic choices as diversification, innovation and internationalisation (see Chapters  8 , 9 and 10 ) for (i) a family-business owner looking to pass on the business to the next generation of children; (ii) a state-owned enterprise from a commodity-hungry country such as China; (iii) a growth-seeking professional services firm, in law for example, considering new businesses and new countries to operate in?

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WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

6.1✱ In the context of Section 6.2, undertake a historical analysis of the strategy development of an organisation of your choice and consider the question: When has history mattered for strategy; when has it appeared not to matter?

6.2 Identify an organisation that describes its culture publicly (use a Google search on ‘our culture’ plus ‘business’, for example). What do they mean by culture and how does it fit with the description of culture in this chapter?

6.3 Identify a company reputed to have a strong and positive culture (e.g. via Fortune’s ‘Best Companies’, Glassdoor’s ‘Best Places to Work’ or LinkedIn’s ‘Most In-Demand Employers’). What is attractive about this company’s culture, how is it sustained and to what extent is it a competitive advantage?

6.4 Use the questions in Figure 6.8 to identify elements of the cultural web for Barclays Investment Bank (end of chapter case), Adnams* or an organisation of your choice (for example, your business school).

6.5 Identify an organisation that, in your view, is in one of the phases of strategic drift described in Section 6.4 (Google search ‘disappointing results’ or ‘slow growth’ plus ‘business’ or ‘company’). How and why did it get into this state?

Integrative assignment

6.6✱ Choose an example of a major change in strategy of an organisation. Explain to what extent and how its strategic capabilities and its organisation culture changed. (Refer to Chapters 4, 6 and 15.)

SUMMaRY ● Historical, path-dependent processes may play a significant part in the success or failure of an organisation

and need to be understood by managers. There are historical analyses that can be conducted to help uncover these influences.

● Cultural and institutional influences both inform and constrain the strategic development of organisations.

● Organisational culture is the basic taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs and behaviours shared by members of an organisation.

● The seven elements of the cultural web are useful for analysing organisational cultures and their relationships to strategy.

● Historic and cultural influences may give rise to strategic drift as strategy develops incrementally on the basis of such influences and fails to keep pace with a changing environment.

millions of dollars in a market that may, or may not exist but that is certainly smaller than our existing market, to develop a product that customers may or may not want using a business model that will almost certainly give us lower margins than our existing product lines … Tell me again just why we should make this investment?’32

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ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● For a historical perspective on strategy, see Manuel Hens- mans, Gerry Johnson and George Yip, Strategic Transfor- mation: Changing while Winning, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013 (summarised in G. Johnson, G. Yip and M. Hensmans, ‘Achieving successful strategic transformation’, MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 53, no. 3 (2012), pp. 25–32); and John T. Seaman Jr and George David Smith, ‘Your company’s history as a leadership tool’, Harvard Business Review (December 2012), pp. 1–10.

● For a summary and illustrated explanation of institu- tional theory, see Gerry Johnson and Royston Greenwood, ‘Institutional theory and strategy’, in Strategic Manage- ment: A Multiple-Perspective Approach, M. Jenkins and V. Ambrosini (eds), Palgrave, 2007.

● For a comprehensive and critical explanation of organisa- tional culture see Mats Alvesson, Understanding Organi- sational Culture, 2nd edn, Sage, 2012.

ReFeReNCeS

1. W.B. Arthur, ‘Competing technologies, increasing returns and lock in by historical events’, Economic Journal, vol. 99 (1989), pp. 116–31.

2. P.A. David, ‘Clio and the economics of QWERTY’, Ameri- can Economic Review, vol. 75, no. 2 (1985), pp. 332–7, but also for a challenge to David’s argument see S.J. Liebowitz and S.E. Margolis, ‘The fable of the keys’, Journal of Law & Economics, vol. 30, April (1990), pp. 1–26.

3. For discussions of path dependency in an organisational con- text, see Jorg Sydow, George Schraeyogg and Jochen Koch, ‘Organisational path dependance: opening the black box’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 34, no. 4 (2009), pp. 689–708. L. Dobusch and E. Schüssler discuss path depend- ence at Intel and Microsoft in ‘Theorizing path dependence: a review of positive feedback mechanisms in technology markets, regional clusters, and organizations’, Industrial and Corporate Change, vol. 22, no. 3 (2013), pp. 717–46.

4. The world’s biggest accounting firms have called for radical reform: ‘Big four in call for real time accounts’, Financial Times (8 November 2006), p. 1.

5. See J.T. Seaman Jr and G.D. Smith, ‘Your company’s history as a leadership tool’, Harvard Business Review, December 2012, pp. 1–10.

6. This quote by André Malroux and the story of the BMW museum was provided by the business historian Mary Rose.

7. See D. Holbrook, W. Cohen, D. Hounshell and S. Klepper, ‘The nature, sources and consequences of firm differences in the early history of the semiconductor industry’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 10–11 (2000), pp. 107–42.

8. S. Klepper and K.L. Simons, ‘Dominance by birthright: entry of prior radio producers and competitive ramifications in the US television receiver industry’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 10–11 (2000), pp. 987–1016.

9. S. Paroutis, M. Mckeown and S. Collinson, ‘Building cas- tles from sand: unlocking CEO mythopoetical behaviour in Hewlett Packard from 1978 to 2005’, Business History, vol. 55, no. 7 (2013), pp. 1200–27. See also O. Brunninge, ‘Using history in organization: how managers make purposeful

reference to history in strategy processes’, Journal of Organ- izational Change Management, vol. 22, no. 1 (2009), pp. 8–26.

10. Also see D.J. Jeremy, ‘Business history and strategy’, in A. Pettigrew, H. Thomas and R. Whittington (eds), The Hand- book of Strategy and Management, pp. 436–60, Sage, 2002.

11. For good examples of corporate histories see G. Jones, Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition, Oxford University Press, 2005; R. Fitzgerald, Rowntrees and the Marketing Revolution, 1862–1969, Cambridge University Press, 1995; and T.R. Gourvish, British Railways 1948–73, Cambridge University Press, 1986.

12. This quote is from S. Finkelstein, ‘Why smart executives fail: four case histories of how people learn the wrong les- sons from history’, Business History, vol. 48, no. 2 (2006), pp. 153–70.

13. See G. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences, Sage, 2nd edn, 2001; and M. Minkov and G. Hofstede, ‘The evolution of Hofstede’s doctrine’, Cross Cultural Management: An Inter- national Journal, vol. 18, no. 1 (2011), pp. 10–20.

14. For a critique of Hofstede’s work, see B. McSweeney, ‘Hofstede’s model of national cultural differences and their consequences: a triumph of faith – a failure of analysis’, Human Relations, vol. 55, no. 1 (2002), pp. 89–118. For example, differences in regional cultures impacted on the integration of banking mergers in Nigeria, as shown by E. Gomes, D. Angwin and K. Melahi, ‘HRM practices throughout the mergers and acquisi- tion (M&A) process: a study of domestic deals in the Nigerian banking industry’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 23, no. 14 (2012), pp. 2874–900.

15. A useful review of research on this topic is T. Dacin, J. Goodstein and R. Scott, ‘Institutional theory and institu- tional change: introduction to the special research forum’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 45, no. 1 (2002), pp. 45–57. For a more general review, see G. Johnson and R. Greenwood, ‘Institutional theory and strategy’, in M. Jenkins and V. Ambrosini (eds), Strategic Management: a Multiple-Perspective Approach, Palgrave, 2007.

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16. For discussion of a classic case, see J.F. Porac, H. Thomas and C. Baden-Fuller, ‘Competitive groups as cognitive communities: the case of Scottish knitwear manufactur- ers revisited’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 48, no. 3 (2011), pp. 646–64. See also F.F. Suarez, S. Grodal and A. Gotsopoulos, ‘Perfect timing? Dominant category, dominant design, and the window of opportunity for firm entry’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 36, no. 3 (2015), pp. 437–48.

17. The term ‘recipe’ was introduced to refer to industries by J.-C. Spender, Industry Recipes: the Nature and Sources of Management Judgement, Blackwell, 1989. We have broadened its use by applying it to organisational fields. For a recent application, see P. McNamara, S. I. Peck and A. Sasson, ‘Competing business models, value creation and appropriation in English football’, Long Range Planning, vol. 46, no. 61 (2013), pp. 475–487.

18. D. Deephouse, ‘To be different or to be the same? It’s a ques- tion (and theory) of strategic balance’, Strategic Manage- ment Journal, vol. 20, no. 2 (1999), pp. 147–66.

19. This definition of culture is taken from E. Schein, Organ- isational Culture and Leadership, 3rd edn, Jossey-Bass, 2004, p. 6.

20. This is how Terrence Deal and Alan Kennedy define organi- sational culture in Corporate Cultures: the Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, Addison-Wesley, 1982.

21. E. Schein (see end note 19) and A. Brown, Organisational Culture, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 1998 are useful in understanding the relationship between organisational culture and strategy. For a useful critique of the concept of organisational culture see M. Alvesson, Understanding Organizational Culture, Sage, 2002.

22. M.J. Hatch, M. Schultz and A.-M. Skov, ‘Organizational identity and culture in the context of managed change: trans- formation in the Carlsberg Group, 2009–2013’, Academy of Management Discoveries, vol. 1, no. 1 (2015), pp. 56–87; T. Wry, M. Lounsbury and M.A. Glynn, ‘Legitimating nascent collective identities: coordinating cultural entrepreneurship’, Organization Science, vol. 22. no. 2 (2011), pp. 449–63.

23. Figure 6.5 is adapted from the original in P. Grinyer and J.-C. Spender, Turnaround: Managerial Recipes for Strategic Suc- cess, Associated British Press, 1979, p. 203.

24. A fuller explanation of the cultural web can be found in G. Johnson, Strategic Change and the Management Pro- cess, Blackwell, 1987; and G. Johnson, ‘Managing strategic

change: strategy, culture and action’, Long Range Planning, vol. 25, no. 1 (1992), pp. 28–36.

25. A practical explanation of cultural web mapping is a ‘white paper’ by Gerry Johnson, ‘Mapping and Re-mapping Organ- isational Culture: a Local Government Example’, www.strat- egyexplorers.com.

26. See A.C.T. Smith and B. Stewart, ‘Organizational rituals: features, functions and mechanisms’, International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 13, no. 2 (2011), pp. 113–33; and G. Islam and M.J. Zyphur, ‘Rituals in organizations: a review and expansion of current theory’, Group & Organi- zation Management, vol. 34 (2009), pp. 114–39.

27. For an explanation of strategic drift, see G. Johnson, ‘Rethinking incrementalism’, Strategic Management Jour- nal, vol. 9 (1988), pp. 75–91; and ‘Managing strategic change – strategy, culture and action’, Long Range Planning, vol. 25, no. 1 (1992), pp. 28–36. Also see E. Romanelli and M.T. Tushman, ‘Organizational transformation as punctuated equilibrium: an empirical test’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 7, no. 5 (1994), pp. 1141–66. They explain the tendency of strategies to develop incrementally with periodic transformational change.

28. S. Hall, D. Lovallo and R. Musters, ‘How to put your money where your strategy is’, McKinsey Quarterley (March 2012).

29. See G. Yip, T. Devinney and G. Johnson, ‘Measuring long- term superior performance: the UK’s long term superior performers 1984–2003’, Long Range Planning, vol. 43, no. 3 (2009), pp. 390–413.

30. See D. Leonard-Barton, ‘Core capabilities and core rigidities: a paradox in managing new product development’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 13 (1992), pp. 111–25.

31. This is a term used by Donald S. Sull in accounting for the decline of high-performing firms (see ‘Why good compa- nies go bad’, Harvard Business Review, July/August 1999, pp. 42–52).

32. John Naughton, ‘The lessons we can learn from the rise and fall of Kodak’, Observer Discover, 22 January 2012.

33. M.L. Besharov and W.K. Smith, ‘Multiple institutional logics in organizations: explaining their varied nature and impli- cations’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 39, no. 3 (2014), pp. 364–81; and for a case of an international law firm, M. Smets, T. Morris and R. Greenwood, ‘From practice to field: a multilevel model of practice-driven institutional change’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 55, no. 4 (2012), pp. 877–904.

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‘The chief problem was culture. as Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker, a commentary on Wall Street in the 1980s, memorably put it, a commercial banker was someone who had a wife, a station wagon, 2.2 children and a dog that brought him his slippers when he returned home from work at 6 pm. an investment banker, by con- trast, was a breed apart, a member of a master race of dealmakers. he possessed vast, almost unimaginable talent and ambition. If he had a dog it snarled. he had two little red sports cars yet wanted four. To get them, he was, for a man in a suit, surprisingly willing to cause trouble.’

Investment banking was notorious for its ‘hard work and hard play’. It was common for investment bankers to work through the night, or at least to be seen to be doing so – stories had it that they would own two suit jackets so they could leave one on the back of the chair to pretend they were still in the office working. It was also a ‘can-do’ mentality which legitimated, for example, a day trip to Australia for a one-hour meeting. No expense was spared on flights, entertainment or accommodation provided a big deal was signed. There was also much

Barclays Bank is an international retail and investment bank based in London. It ranks amongst the ten larg- est banks in the world and has 130,000 employees. In the four years to 2015, it had four separate bosses: the aggressive investment banker Robert Diamond (‘Diamond Bob’), the reformist ‘Saint’ Antony Jenkins, ex-insurance titan John ‘Mack the Knife’ McFarlane; and lately another American investment banker James (‘Jes’) Staley.

Quaker origins – and beyond

Barclays Bank traces its origins to 1690. Its early address in Lombard Street – the heart of London’s financial district – was ‘the Sign of the Black Spread Eagle’. The Spread Eagle remains Barclays’ corporate logo even today. The bank’s founding families were from the Quaker religious move- ment, who emphasised sobriety, pacificism and high ethical standards. Their descendants were still in important exec- utive positions in the mid-twentieth century: the last family member served as Chairman during the 1980s. Reinforced by mergers, the company became one of the big four retail bankers in the UK. As the Financial Times observed:

‘In many ways the bank resembled a club and, as so often with British clubs, the thing worked surprisingly well despite its flaws … It was, in fact, the most innova- tive of the British clearing banks in the post-war period. In 1967 it installed the world’s first automated cash teller machine … Barclays also came up with the first plastic payment device, Barclaycard, still outstandingly successful.’

Since the early 1800s, Barclays had been accept- ing bills from other banks to reinvest in businesses – an early form of investment banking. The investment bank- ing business received a huge impetus after the 1986 Big Bang, the liberalisation of London’s stock market. Barclays embarked on acquisitions including a leading stock broker, de Zoete Wedd. This became the core of an investment bank, BZW. However, in common with other investment banks who got involved in equities trading, Barclays had great difficulty combining conventional and investment banking in a coherent model. As the Financial Times put it:

Culture clashes at Barclays Bank CaSe

eXaMpLe

Bob Diamond, Barclays CEO 2011–12

Source: Jerome Favre/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

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visible excess with traders spending thousands of pounds a night at champagne bars. Long hours and intense pres- sure tended to foster strong loyalties to team-mates, with bankers identifying with their work group rather than with the bank as a whole.

Diamond Bob

The American investment banker Bob Diamond joined Barclays in 1996, with a reputation as a successful trader earned in leading US banks. Throughout the first decade of this century, Bob Diamond grew in influence, becoming head of Barclays’ investment banking busi- nesses. A past employee of Barclays’ investment arm, interviewed in a BBC Panorama programme, claimed that Bob Diamond ‘installed Wall Street values into Barclays; it was every man for himself … It was all about doing ever bigger deals’ and being willing to take ‘extreme risks’ to make ‘super profits’ and generate huge bonuses for the traders involved. In 2008, Diamond was respon- sible for buying the failed Lehman Brothers Wall Street investment bank. Diamond also grew the much criticised Structured Capital Markets ‘tax planning’ business, which many saw as just about tax avoidance. Employing only 100 people, by 2010 this business was generating £1 (€1.2, $1.5) billion a year in profits. Bob Diamond also succeeded in growing the trading arm of the bank into a major profit contributor, accounting for 58 per cent of Barclays’ overall pre-tax earnings by 2011. Dia- mond became known as ‘Diamond Bob’, a reference both to his financial success and to a rather flashy lifestyle which included hanging out with Mick Jagger of the Roll- ing Stones.

In 2011, Diamond’s success was rewarded by appoint- ment as chief executive of the whole bank. But prob- lems were emerging. There were investigations into the mis-selling of payment protection insurance by the retail bank and into the manipulation of the inter-bank lend- ing rate, Libor, in the investment bank. Traders at Bar- clays were accused of manipulating Californian electricity prices. A mysterious rescue package involving Qatari cap- ital that had saved Barclays from nationalisation during the financial crisis of 2008 came under growing scrutiny. Barclays was criticised for continuing to pay high bonuses to staff even after the financial crisis of 2008–09. BBC’s Panorama calculated that in 2010–11 payments to shareholders had amounted to £1.4bn while payment of bonuses for staff amounted to £6bn. There was wide- spread criticism of the bank’s tax minimisation activities and public outrage at Bob Diamond’s huge remuneration package, estimated to be around £120m between 2007 and 2012. Barclays’ reputation was in tatters. Bob Dia- mond resigned in 2012.

Saint antony

Antony Jenkins was appointed Chief Executive of Barclays in August 2012. He had actually begun his career in the bank’s UK retail business in the early 1980s, before a time at Citigroup. He had returned to Barclays to run the credit card division in 2006, becoming head of retail and business banking in 2009. Jenkins was not an investment banker and declared himself determined to clean up Bar- clays’ reputation.

Jenkins commissioned a prominent City lawyer, Anthony Salz, to review Barclays’ culture. The review concluded:

‘We believe that the business practices for which Barclays has rightly been criticised were shaped pre- dominantly by its cultures, which rested on uncertain foundations. There was no sense of common purpose in a group that had grown and diversified significantly in less than two decades. and across the whole bank, there were no clearly articulated and understood shared values – so there could hardly be much consensus among employees as to what the values were and what should guide everyday behaviours. and as a result there was no consistency to the development of a desired culture.’

The review specifically identified pay, especially in the investment bank, as a source of many problems:

‘Most but not all of the pay issues concern the invest- ment bank. . . . Based on our interviews, we could not avoid concluding that pay contributed significantly to a sense among a few that they were somehow unaffected by the ordinary rules. a few investment bankers seemed to lose a sense of proportion and humility. . . . elevated pay levels inevitably distort culture, tending to attract people who measure their personal success principally on compensation. . . . Many interviewees [reported] a sense of an entitlement culture.

Antony Jenkins’ concurred with the criticisms of the Salz review, issuing a memo to all Barclays’ staff as follows:

‘Over a period of almost 20 years, banking became too aggressive, too focused on the short term, too discon- nected from the needs of our customers and clients, and wider society. We were not immune at Barclays from these mistakes  …  performance assessment will be based not just on what we deliver but on how we deliver it. We must never again be in a position of rewarding people for making the bank money in a way which is unethical or inconsistent with our values.’

All Barclays’ staff would receive training on the central importance of five core values: respect, integrity, service,

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excellence and stewardship. Jenkins became known in the bank as ‘Saint Antony’, wearing crisp white shirts and plain ties in the Barclays’ colour blue. In a saintly gesture, Jenkins waived his first year bonus of £2.75m. He also told his employees that anybody who did not like the new culture should leave.

In his first strategic review, Jenkins examined the per- formance and reputation of Barclays’ 75 business units. The review concluded that 39 business units were in good shape, 15 needed some attention, 17 needed serious attention to avoid closure or sale and four would definitely be sold or closed, one of which was its tax-avoiding Struc- tured Capital Markets unit. Basically though, investment banking would remain intact.

Nonetheless, Jenkins promised to bring pay at the investment bank down as a percentage of income to the mid-thirties. During 2014, however, rival banks started to poach top performers. Jenkins publicly warned of a ‘death spiral’ if pay did not match competitors’. The investment banking pay ratio increased from 39.6 to 43.2 per cent.

Mack the Knife

In May 2015, John McFarlane took over as Barclays chair- man on the retirement of his predecessor. McFarlane had acquired his nickname ‘Mack the Knife’ when he had despatched his CEO within a few weeks of arriving as chairman of Aviva, the large insurance company. Matters quickly came to a head at Barclays when the board had an off-site meeting in June at an exclusive country house hotel near Bath.

The investment bankers were already disgruntled with Jenkins. The latest irritation was when Jenkins had sent a letter to all staff celebrating the bank’s 325th anni- versary without mentioning the investment banking divi- sion. The Bath meeting was divided between Jenkins and the investment bankers about strategy for the next five years. McFarlane sided mostly with the investment bankers. Consulting with the non-executive directors pres- ent, McFarlane decided to dismiss Jenkins. McFarlane declared himself as executive chairman, filling the CEO role until another one could be put in place.

McFarlane did not commit himself to major changes in strategy, only to focus more on execution. He declared that Barclays was only halfway through its cultural change ‘journey’. But in almost the same breath, he added: ‘What we really need is a high energy, supercharged perfor- mance driven approach.’ He promised to double the Bar- clay’s share price in three to four years.

The Staley strategy

James Staley joined Barclays as CEO at the end of 2015, with McFarlane returning to a non-executive chairman role. Although recently working at a hedge-fund, Staley had spent his career mostly at JPMorgan, the largest bank in the USA and an investment banking powerhouse since the late nineteenth century. Staley quickly appointed for- mer JPMorgan colleagues as chief operating officer and chief risk officer.

In March 2016, Staley presented his first strategic review to shareholders and analysts. He committed him- self to simplifying the international businesses, including the sale of the major African retail business and periph- eral international investment banking operations. In order to strengthen the bank’s financial position, he cut the dividend payments for the next two years by 50 per cent. The Barclays share price fell by eight per cent on the news. Barclays’ market valuation was little more than half what it had been in 2014.

Sources: Barclays Bank, Salz Review: an Independent Review of Barclays’ Business Practices, April 2013; Financial Times, 6 July 2012, 12 February 2012, 12 July 2013, 10 July 2015, 1 March 2016; Guardian, 28 June 2012; Panorama: Inside Barclays: Banking on Bonuses, 11 February 2013; Tele- graph, 17 January 2013.

Questions 1 With an eye to elements of the cultural web

(Section 6.3.5), analyse the culture of Barclays’ investment banking business.

2 Reformist Antony Jenkins could have used Barclays’ Quaker history as a resource for change (Section 6.2.2). What might have been the advantages and disadvantages of drawing on this history?

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paRT I THE STRATEGY LENSES

The strategy lenses aim to help you explore strategy ‘critically’. Critical here is meant con- structively: it is about asking better questions, generating new options, building stronger evidence and being more aware of different points of view. Ultimately, thinking critically should help you be more persuasive with regard to your own chosen positions, helping you convince your teachers, your fellow students or your work colleagues. 1 Using the strategy lenses to explore strategic issues critically will help you both to generate additional insights and respond to possible counter-arguments against your own position.

The last few chapters have already introduced many points of view, each offering different insights into what matters in strategy. Some of these reflect a strong economics orientation, for instance macro-economic cycles and the Five Forces in Chapters  2 and 3 . Others are more soci- ological, such as the highlighting of legitimacy in Chapters  2 and 5 . Some concepts and frame- works emphasise opportunities for innovation, as in the strategy canvas of Chapter  3 . Others stress conservatism in organisations, for example strategic drift and organisational culture in Chapter  6 . Generally, the chapters assume objectivity in analysis, but issues such as the principal– agent problem in Chapter  5 warn of the scope for divergent political interests in organisations, while organisational culture too can be a source of bias. What should be clear from these chap- ters, therefore, is that there are many different ways of seeing strategy. Each of them suggests different questions, generates different kinds of insights and demands different types of evidence.

The strategy lenses organise many of these different perspectives into four basic approaches to exploring strategic issues. Each of these lenses will help you generate distinct kinds of questions, options and evidence. They each have distinct implications for practice too.

The four strategy lenses are as follows: ● The design lens views strategy development as a logical process of analysis and evalu-

ation. This is the most commonly held view about how strategy is developed and what managing strategy is about. Options and evidence here are generated by objective analysis using formal concepts and frameworks.

● The experience lens views strategy development as the outcome of people’s taken-for- granted assumptions and ways of doing things. Strategy through the experience lens puts people, culture and history centre stage in strategy development. Options need to respect the past, and evidence is likely to draw heavily on previous experience.

● The variety lens * views strategy as the bubbling up of new ideas from the variety of people in and around organisations. According to this lens, strategy emerges not just from the top, but also from the periphery and bottom of the organisation. It is important to ques- tion top management views, and recognise the potential value of options coming from all round the organisation, and even from outside.

● The discourse lens views language as important both for understanding and changing strategy and for managerial power and identity. Through this lens, unpicking managers’ language can uncover hidden meanings and political interests. Choosing the right lan- guage is also important to legitimating options and evidence.

* In earlier editions the variety lens was called the ‘ideas lens’. The authors believe that the word ‘variety’ more accurately encapsulates the concepts explained in this section.

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The critical exploration of strategy through these four lenses is useful because they all raise different questions and suggest different approaches. Think of everyday discussions you have. It is not unusual for people to say: ‘But what if you looked at it this way instead?’ Taking just one view can lead to a partial and perhaps biased understanding. Looking at an issue another way can give a much fuller picture, generating new and different insights. For example, is a proposed strategy the result of objective analysis or is it rather the reflection of the proposer’s personal experience or political self-interest? The lenses can also prompt different options or solutions to strategic problems. For example again, should organisations rely just on top managers to create new strategies, or rather look towards the bottom of the organisation to uncover existing experiments and initiatives that have greater potential? Thus, taking a critical perspective on strategy can help managers and students consider a wider range of issues and responses.

The rest of this Commentary explains the lenses in more detail, showing how they each relate to the following three key dimensions of managing strategy:

● Rationality: the extent to which the development of strategy is rationally managed. The design lens assumes high rationality, but the other lenses question this.

● Innovation: the extent to which strategy is likely to develop innovative, change-oriented organisations, or alternatively consolidate past experience and existing power structures.

● Legitimacy: the extent to which strategy analysis and discourse is involved in sustaining managers’ power and identities in organisations.

This Commentary concludes with a short case on Nokia, illustrating how the four lenses can be used to explore a real company’s strategy. There will be shorter Commentaries later in the book helping readers to reflect on the concepts and frameworks highlighted in Parts II and III. Meanwhile, this Commentary relates mostly to the material in the first six chapters of this book.

The design lens

The design lens evokes an image of the strategist as detached designer, drawing up precise blueprints distant from the messy realities of action. In terms of the three key dimensions, the design lens therefore puts a strong premium on rational analysis and decision- making (see Figure  C.i ). 2 Because of its overt commitment to optimising the performance of

Figure C.i Design lens

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organisations, the design lens tends also to be highly legitimate. Rational analysis is what counts, not passion or intuition. However, this commitment to dry analysis can sometimes work against innovation.

The design lens is associated broadly with strategy theorists such as the former Lockheed Corporation strategic planner Igor Ansoff or the economics-trained Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter. 3 It has its origins in traditional economists’ expectations about perfect information and ‘rational economic man’, and is further informed by management science techniques for resource optimisation. The design lens is also how strategy is often explained in textbooks, by teachers and indeed by managers. The design lens makes the following three assumptions about how strategic decisions are made:

● Systematic analysis is key. Although there are many influences on an organisation’s perfor- mance, careful analysis can identify those that are most significant. In this view, calculat- ing the attractiveness of an industry using Porter’s Five Forces ( Chapter  3 ), and identifying strategic capabilities using Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and Organisational support criteria ( Chapter  4 ), would be standard processes for estimating future performance.

● Analysis precedes action. In the design lens, strategy is generally seen as a linear process. Decisions about strategy are separate from and precede implementation. From this point of view, therefore, environmental analysis – for example projecting scenarios or forecast- ing industry life cycles ( Chapters  2 and 3 ) – is the crucial first step in strategy-making.

● Objectives should be clear. Rational analysis and decision-making need unambiguous criteria by which to evaluate options. Missions and visions ( Chapter  1 ) should be set in advance as precisely as possible, with little scope for adjustment as new opportunities or constraints are discovered in action.

These design lens assumptions about how decisions should be made are in turn associated with two key views about the nature of organisations:

● Organisations are hierarchies. It is the responsibility of top management to plan the des- tiny of the organisation. The responsibility of the rest of organisation is simply to imple- ment the strategy decided at the top.

● Organisations work mechanically. This hierarchical approach implies a view of organ- isations as engineered systems or even machines. Pulling the right organisational levers should produce predictable results. Principal–agent problems can be controlled by the appropriate gearing of incentives ( Chapter  5 ). Even organisational cultures ( Chapter  6 ) can be designed from above.

Implications

The design lens has practical implications for both managers and students. From the design point of view, it is worth investing extensive time in formal analysis, especially economic forms of analysis. Formal strategic planning and financial calculations are crucial parts of the design lens approach. But even if strategic plans do not always produce the expected results, there are two further reasons for taking a design lens approach:

● Dealing with complexity and uncertainty. The design lens provides a means of talking about complex and uncertain issues in a rational, logical and structured way. Even if rational analysis can sometimes over-simplify or convey undue precision, it is usually better than just concluding that everything is all much too complicated for any kind of plan or calculation. Strategy is more than guesswork.

● Meeting stakeholder expectations. As well as the sheer analytical value of a design approach, adopting rational procedures is something that important stakeholders (see Chapter  5 ) such

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as banks, financial analysts, investors and employees typically expect. For these audiences, analysis is highly legitimate. Taking a design lens approach is therefore an important means of gaining the support and confidence of significant internal and external actors.

Technical and elitist forms of strategy analysis can also have implications for managerial power and personal identity. These side-effects will be discussed further with the discourse lens later.

In summary, the design lens is useful in highlighting the potential value of systematic analysis, step-by-step sequences and the careful engineering of organisational objectives and systems. However, the design lens does have its limits. In particular, a narrow design lens tends to underestimate the positive role of intuition and experience, the scope for unplanned and bottom-up initiatives, and the power effects of strategy analysis. Different lenses can provide useful insights into these other elements of strategy.

Strategy as experience

The experience lens sees strategy as coming less from objective analysis on a clean sheet of paper and more from the prior experience of the organisation’s managers. History and culture matter. Strategy is shaped by people’s individual and collective taken-for-granted assumptions and ways of doing things . As indicated in Figure  C.ii , the experience lens there- fore places less emphasis than the design lens on rationality. It also sets low expectations in terms of innovation and change. Legitimacy is important, but this is defined in terms of tradition, routines and culture rather than simple appeal to analysis and ‘the facts’.

The experience lens is based on a good deal of research about how strategies actually develop in the real world. As early as the 1950s, Nobel prize winner Herbert Simon was devel- oping the so-called Behavioral Theory of the Firm, based on how managers really behave. 4 Contemporary researchers into ‘Behavioral Strategy’ underline two kinds of problem for rational analysis in practice:

● External constraints: Behavioral Theory points to real-world barriers to rationality: for example, it is difficult to obtain all the information required for comprehensive analysis; it is hard to forecast accurately in an uncertain future; and there are cost and time limits to undertaking complete analyses. In these conditions, managers often ‘satisfice’ when analysing strategic options: in other words, they settle for adequate solutions rather than the rational optimum.

Figure C.ii Experience lens

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● Internal psychological limitations: Behavioral Theory underlines how managers suffer from ‘bounded rationality’, human limitations on the intellectual ability to process infor- mation and carry out analysis. They are also liable to ‘cognitive bias’: in other words, managers tend to be selective in the attention they give to issues and often automatically favour some types of solutions rather than others.

Cognitive bias is often based on managers’ experience, both individual and collective:

● Individual experience can particularly shape managers’ taken-for-granted assumptions about what is important and what kinds of actions work best. Influential sources of expe- rience can be education and training. For example, accountants tend to see things differ- ently to engineers; MBAs are often accused of favouring excessively analytical approaches to solving problems. Other kinds of influential individual experience are personal careers. Thus a manager who had spent his or her career in the traditional automobile industry (for instance, Ford or BMW) might find it difficult to take seriously new entrants such as Google or Tesla. Differences in individual experience within an organisation can lead to debate and negotiation between managers with divergent views about what is important and what should be done. Sometimes such negotiation can slow decision-making down and lead to excessive compromise. Stakeholder mapping ( Chapter  5 ) of different manag- ers’ power and attention can be useful in resolving divergent views.

● Collective experience tends to form habitual patterns of thinking and acting, which can translate into standard responses to strategic issues. One kind of collective experience is encapsulated in organisational culture, as discussed in Chapter  6 . Another kind of col- lective experience is reflected by national culture: so for instance Chinese and American managers may see the world differently (see also Chapter  10 ). A third kind of collective experience is embodied in industry ‘recipes’ ( Chapter  6 ), based on years of regular inter- action between existing competitors: for example, managers in the clothing industry come to believe over time that style is important to success, even though new ideas from outside the industry imply that new technologies may be the source of competitive advantage in the future. By contrast with individual experience, collective experience tends to suppress debate in management teams, and it becomes hard to challenge the consensus. A conse- quence can be ‘strategic drift’ ( Chapter  6 ), with everybody agreeing to continue as before, even in the face of environmental change.

Implications

The experience lens has significant implications for strategy. First there are three important warnings:

● Analysis is typically biased to some extent. All managers – and even students – bring their own particular experience to any set of strategic issues. It is very hard to analyse a situa- tion as if from a clean sheet of paper. You should distrust claims to complete objectivity. Ask yourself where people are coming from.

● Watch out for undue conservatism. Experience is likely to lead to routinised responses, even to new problems. Tried-and-tested solutions become too legitimate; managers become powerful because of successes experienced in the past. ‘Path dependency’ and ‘lock-in’ are enduring risks ( Chapter  6 ). Organisations can end up like old-fashioned generals, always fighting the last war.

● Change is hard. Because of conservatism, strategic change is liable to require long and difficult processes of persuasion (see Chapter  15 ). Continuity is often the default option. Relying on the ‘objective analysis’ in the business case for change will rarely win over hearts as well as minds.

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On the other hand, the experience lens has some positive practical advice:

● Analysis can cost more than it’s worth. Because good information is hard and expensive to get, and because analysis can consume too much time, sometimes it is sensible simply to cut short information search and analysis. Depending on the availability of information and the ability to analyse it, beyond a certain point it might be sensible just to drop the analysis.

● Experience may provide the best guide. If analysis is not going to produce good answers, then relying on the rules-of-thumb (‘heuristics’) and instincts of experienced managers may be at least as effective. Sometimes a quick response that is half right is better than an analytical response that is only slightly better but much slower.

● Challenge the consensus. While established rules-of-thumb can be effective, sometimes it is necessary to challenge the consensus in an organisation. As in Chapter  16 , ‘groupthink’ is a risk. The need to challenge existing approaches is often the motivation for bringing in new leaders from outside the organisation in order to manage strategic change ( Chapter  15 ).

Strategy as variety

The extent to which the design and experience lenses help explain innovation is rather lim- ited. The variety lens, on the other hand, emphasises innovation and change. However, as indicated in Figure  C.iii , the variety lens puts low value on rational analysis and tends to give little weight to what is simply legitimate in an organisation. Viewed through the variety lens, strategies are seen as emerging from the different ideas that bubble up from the variety in and around organisations.

The variety lens builds on two theoretical perspectives from the natural sciences, both emphasising spontaneity. First there is evolutionary theory, in which natural phenomena evolve through a Darwinian process of Variety, Selection and Retention. 5 Various genetic mutations emerge as more or less random experiments; some variations are selected for success by their environments; and these successful variations may be retained over the long term because of continuing good environmental fit. Second, there is complexity theory, where phenomena are characterised by complex, dynamic sets of interactions, so that small events can have surprisingly large effects. 6 An example is the famous butterfly effect, where the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil triggers a series of escalating knock-on effects that eventually cause a tornado in far-way Texas. In both evolutionary and complexity theories, variety in the form of many small experiments or interactions can lead to large and enduring outcomes. These outcomes are generated spontaneously, with very little top-down direction.

Figure C.iii Variety lens

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Moving from nature to strategy, the variety lens de-emphasises the deliberate decision-making of the design lens. Likewise, the emphasis on spontaneity contrasts with the conservatism of the experience lens. For human organisations, the three elements of evolutionary theory work as follows:

● Variety. Organisations and their environments offer a rich ‘ecology’ for the generation of different ideas and initiatives. There are many kinds of people and many kinds of circumstance. Sales people working closely with customers may be able to sense new opportunities at least as well as top managers at headquarters. Since people interact with their environment throughout the organisation, new ideas often come from low down in the hierarchy, not just from the top. 7 Complexity theorist Bill McKelvey refers to this as the ‘distributed intelligence’ of an organisation. 8 Variety can even come from apparent mis- takes, just as genetic mutations come from imperfect genes. A famous example is Post-it notes, which originated from an ‘imperfect’ glue being applied to paper, but resulted in a semi-adhesive for which the researcher saw market potential.

● Selection. In nature, selection is ‘blind’, determined by environmental fit rather than delib- erate intervention. In organisations, selection can be nearly as blind, with strategies selected more according to how they well they match prevailing cultures or standard decision rules, rather than by objective analysis and evaluation. In this view, there is an ‘internal ecology’ within organisations, with ideas and initiatives winning out against competing ideas and initiatives according to their internal fit. 9 A good idea may fail simply because it does not meet existing selection rules, regardless of its overall merits: for example, a company may apply standard return on capital criteria that are outdated on the basis of the current real cost of capital (see Chapter  12 on strategy evaluation). On the other hand, as in complexity theory, ideas can gain rapid momentum as they attract ‘positive feedback’: the support of one important set of actors can attract the support of another, and the support of that set of actors attracts the support of still others, and so on in an escalating process. Thus selection mechanisms can be self-reinforcing, speeding the passage of both good and bad ideas.

● Retention. As well as processes of selection, there are processes of retention. Retention refers to the preservation and reproduction over time of selected variations. 10 Retention may happen as particular policies or preferences become embedded in the organisation. Retention may be achieved by instituting formal procedures: for example, job descriptions, accounting and control systems, management information systems, training and organ- isation structure. Often it is done through more informal processes of routinisation, in which simple repetition of certain routine behaviours leads to the eventual imprinting of such routines in the culture and capabilities of the organisation.

Implications

A key insight from the variety lens is that managers need to be wary of assuming that they can wholly control the generation and adoption of new ideas. However, there are a number of things managers can do to foster initiatives and prevent the undue suppression of good ideas. At the same time, the variety lens points both managers and students to distinctive sources of innovation in organisations. We highlight three key implications:

● Allow for emergence. Rather than being deliberately designed, strategies often emerge from the bottom and the periphery of organisations, accumulating coherence over time. As in Chapter  1 , Henry Mintzberg’s definition of strategy as an emergent ‘pattern’ rather than an explicit statement is widely relevant. Managers and students should not necessar- ily trust in the stated strategic vision and mission ( Chapter  1 ), but rather look to what is actually happening, especially on the ground. The future of an organisation may well be emerging from somewhere far beyond headquarters’ formal initiatives. Indeed, in many

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industries, large firms frequently watch the interesting experiments and initiatives of small independent firms, and then buy them up. 11

● Encourage interaction, experiment and change. From a variety lens point of view, organ- isations can be too stable and ordered. To generate variety, managers should promote potentially disruptive interactions across internal and external organisational boun- daries: cross-departmental initiatives are important internally and communication with customers, suppliers, partners and innovators should be extensive externally. Alphabet (formerly Google) encourages experiments by giving staff 20 per cent of their time to pursue their own projects. Complexity theorists prescribe regular change in order to stay at the dynamic ‘edge of chaos’, the delicate balancing point where organisations neither settle down into excessive stability nor topple over into destructive chaos. 12

● Attend to key rules. If strategies tend to get adopted according to their fit with established organisational cultures or investment criteria, then managers need to attend at least as much to setting the context for strategy as to individual strategic decisions. As above, managers should create a context conducive to interaction, experiment and change. But they should particularly attend to the key selection and retention rules by which strate- gies are allowed to emerge. Drawing on complexity theory, Kathy Eisenhardt encourages the design of ‘simple rules’, a few clear guidelines for strategy selection and retention. 13 For example, the movie studio Miramax only selects movies that revolve round a central human condition (e.g. love), feature an appealing but flawed central character, and have a clear storyline. The Danish hearing aid company Oticon does not retain projects where any key team member chooses to switch from that project to another.

Strategy as discourse

In many ways, management is about discourse. Managers spend 75 per cent of their time communicating: for example, gathering information, persuading others or following up decisions. 14 In particular, strategy has a high discursive component, involving both talk and text. Strategy is debated in meetings, written as formal plans, explained in annual reports and media releases, presented on PowerPoints, and communicated to employees. 15 The dis- course lens recognises this discursive component as central to strategy. Here, as indicated in Figure  C.iv , the legitimacy of discourse is particularly important. The importance of legit- imacy, however, can work against both objective rationality and organisational innovation.

Figure C.iv Discourse lens

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An important influence on the discourse lens is the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault stresses the subtle effects that language can have on understanding, power and personal identities. For example, he shows how changing scientific discourses in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries redefined insanity as treatable illness rather than nat- ural foolishness. 16 The insane now had a new identity, medically ill, and became subject to a new power, the medical doctors with the task of curing them. In a similar way, the ‘finan- cialisation’ discourse emerging in the 1990s and early 2000s sought to redefine the purpose of the firm as solely about shareholder value, enhancing the power of investors to insist on short-term financial results rather than long-term strategic investments. 17 Those taking a discourse lens are therefore sensitive to how strategy discourse can shape understanding, change personal identities and disseminate power.

These three effects of strategy discourse are explored as follows: ● Shaping understanding. The language of strategy has characteristics that make it convincing

to others. 18 Its concepts and jargon have high legitimacy in many organisations. Here the discourse lens reveals the design lens in another light. The legitimacy of strategy discourse gives the analytic apparatus of the design lens a persuasiveness that often goes beyond the technical effectiveness of the analysis itself. Drawing on established techniques such as the Porter Five Forces ( Chapter  3 ) or fashionable concepts such as Blue Ocean strategy ( Chap- ter  3 ) can add to the authority of strategic recommendations. The ability to write inspiring vision and mission statements ( Chapter  1 ) can help motivate a whole organisation. The justification of strategic change by the radical rhetoric of hypercompetition ( Chapter  3 ) or disruptive innovation ( Chapter  10 ) may give legitimacy to radical actions that might otherwise be rejected as excessive. In other words, managers draw on the rhetoric of strategy and the apparent ‘rightness’ of strategy concepts to convince others they should comply.

● Defining identities. How managers talk about strategy also positions them in relation to others, either by their own deliberate choice or as a result of how they are perceived. 19 Discourse therefore influences the identity and legitimacy of managers as ‘strategists’. The ability to use the rational analytical language of the design lens helps define managers as legitimate participants in the strategy process. Of course, sometimes other kinds of dis- cursive identity may be appropriate. For example, in some contexts the language of the heroic leader ( Chapter  15 ) or the innovative entrepreneur ( Chapter  10 ) might offer more support for the decision-maker’s identity than simple rational analysis. Whatever the pre- cise identity, the assumptions built into strategy discourse are liable to affect behaviour. For example, lower-level managers and professionals who internalise the strategy discourse of competitiveness and performance as part of their identities come to prioritise those values in their everyday work, subordinating to some degree the administrative or professional values (such as equity or care) that might otherwise be important in their roles.

● Instrument of power. Here strategy discourse is linked to power and control. 20 By under- standing the concepts of strategy, or being seen to do so, top managers or strategy spe- cialists are positioned as having the knowledge about how to deal with the really difficult problems the organisation faces. The possession of such knowledge gives them power over others who do not have it. Design lens discourse, with its commitment to demanding forms of technical analysis, can be particularly elitist and exclusive. Thus mastering the discursive language of the design lens offers a political advantage as well as an analytical one. At the same time, the internalisation of strategy discourse by employees renders them more compliant to the strategy: they see pursuing the strategy as a natural part of their role. In this sense, discourse is associated with power when it attracts followers and is self-reproducing and self-reinforcing. Insofar as strategy discourse serves the interests of the powerful, it may suppress innovation and change and distort objective rational analysis from the point of view of the organisation as a whole.

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Implications

The discourse lens suggests the importance of the appearance, as well as the reality, of rational argument. Through the discourse lens, strategies need to be legitimate, not simply correct. Strategy discourse, moreover, helps define legitimate participants in strategic decision-making and gives power to the decisions that are ultimately made. The fundamental lesson for managers and students is that the language of strategy matters.

The implications of the discourse lens have both instrumental and critical aspects:

● Use strategy discourse skilfully. The right discourse can add legitimacy to particular strat- egies or individuals in an organisation. 21 This discourse needs to match particular contexts and circumstances. Justifying a strategy to a potential investor may call for a logical, highly quantitative financial case; explaining the same strategy to employees may involve emphasising implications for job security and career growth. For some organisations, the analytic discourse of the design lens will be a legitimate mode of justification; in other organisations, appeal to technical or professional values may be more effective. The instru- mental value of the discourse lens lies in this: using the right language matters both for justifying and imposing strategies and for participating in strategy discussions in the first place.

● Treat strategy discourse sceptically. Just as strategy discourse can be used instrumentally, so should managers and students be ready to take a critical perspective towards such discourse. Are concepts and frameworks being used as a smokescreen for some particu- lar individuals or groups to advance their sectional power and interests, as for example ‘financialisation’ discourse did for investors? Are strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities ( Chapter  4 ) being mystified or exaggerated? Are the grandiose ambitions of vision and mission statements just empty rhetoric ( Chapter  1 )? Seeing strategy as dis- course can prompt the healthy questioning of concepts, ideas and rhetorics that might otherwise be taken for granted. The discourse lens encourages managers and students to see through the surface language of strategy to uncover the deeper interests and motives behind it. Adopters of the discourse lens are naturally sceptical.

Conclusion

The core assumptions and the key implications of the four lenses of design, experience, vari- ety and discourse are summarised in Table  C.i . They are not offered here as an exhaustive list, but to crystalise the distinctive perspectives of each lens. Indeed, this Commentary as a whole is merely an introduction and you may usefully explore each of the lenses further yourself. After all, each of the lenses presented here actually includes several perspectives themselves. For example, the variety lens builds on both evolutionary theory and complexity theory, each of which offers distinctive points of their own. So, within these lenses there are finer-grained insights to discover. The references at the end of this Commentary should help with deeper exploration of the lenses. In addition, there are whole books written that provide multiple perspectives on strategy, from the four different ones that Richard Whittington offers, to the ten of Henry Mintzberg and his co-authors, or even the 13 ‘images’ provided in the collection by Stephen Cummings and David Wilson. 22

However, the overarching message that comes from all four lenses is this: in considering a topic like strategy, it is useful to take a critical approach. Being critical involves recognising that one lens is probably not enough, and that every lens has its own value and its own limita- tions. You should not necessarily be satisfied with just the rational analysis of the design lens. Use the experience lens to consider sources of unconscious bias; take a variety lens approach to be sensitive to spontaneous initiatives from the bottom or periphery; stay sceptical by

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interpreting strategy talk through the discourse lens. It is because different perspectives are important that we shall return to the four lenses in the Commentaries at the ends of Parts II and III of this book. Throughout your course, we encourage you to approach the topics of strategy with eyes open to different points of view. To get into the habit, you might now want to consider the short Nokia case through the four strategy lenses.

REFERENCES 1. For a good discussion of the meaning of critical thinking, see S. Michailova and A. Wright, ‘Criticality

in management learning and education: what it is and what it is not’, Academy of Management annual conference, Vancouver, Canada, 2015.

2. A useful review of the principles of rational decision making can be found in J.G. March, A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, Simon & Schuster, 1994, Chapter  1 , pp. 1–35.

3. An introduction to Ansoff’s thought is R. Moussetis, ‘Ansoff revisited’, Journal of Management History, vol. 17, no. 1 (2011), pp. 102–25. Porter discusses his thinking in N. Argyres and A. McGa- han ‘An interview with Michael Porter’, Academy of Management Executive, vol. 16, no. 2 (2002), pp. 43–52.

4. An updated view of the Behavioral Theory of the Firm is in G. Gavetti, D. Levinthal and W. Ocasio, ‘The behavioral theory of the firm: assessment and prospects’, Academy of Management Annals , vol. 6, no. 1 (2012), pp. 1–40. A contrast with traditional economics is provided in M. Augier, ‘The early evolution of the foundations for behavioral organization theory and strategy’, European Management Journal, vol. 28 (2012), pp. 84–102.

5. W. P. Barnett and R. Burgelman, ‘Evolutionary perspectives on strategy’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 17.S1 (2007), pp. 5–19.

6. S. Girod and R. Whittington, ‘Change escalation process and complex adaptive systems: from incre- mental reconfigurations to discontinuous restructuring’, Organizational Science, vol. 26, no. 5 (2015), pp. 1520–535.

Table C.i A summary of the strategy lenses

Strategy as:

Design experience Variety Discourse

Strategy develops through . . . 

A logical process of analysis and evaluation

People’s experience, assumptions and taken-for-granted ways of doing things

Ideas bubbling up from the variety of people in and around organisations

Managers seeking influence, power and legitimacy through the language they use

assumptions about organisations

Mechanistic, hierarchical, rational systems

Cultures based on experience, legitimacy and past success

Complex, diverse and spontaneous systems

Arenas of power and influence shaped by discourse

Role of top management

Strategic decision-makers

Enactors of their experience

Creators of context

Manipulators of language

Key implications

Undertake careful and thorough analysis of strategic issues

Recognise that people’s experience is central but also needs challenging

Be sensitive to ideas from the bottom, the periphery and even outside the organisation

See through strategy language to uncover hidden assumptions and interests

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7. See G. Johnson and A.S. Huff, ‘Everyday innovation/everyday strategy’, in G. Hamel, G.K. Prahalad, H. Thomas and D. O’Neal (eds), Strategic Flexibility – Managing in a Turbulent Environment, Wiley, 1998, pp. 13–27. Patrick Regner also shows how new strategic directions can grow from the periphery of organisations in the face of opposition from the centre; see ‘Strategy creation in the periphery: inductive versus deductive strategy making’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 40, no. 1 (2003), pp. 57–82.

8. Bill McKelvey, a complexity theorist, argues that the variety within this distributed intelligence is increased because individual managers seek to become better informed about their environment: see B. McKelvey, ‘Simple rules for improving corporate IQ: basic lessons from complexity science’, in P. Andri- ani and G. Passiante (eds), Complexity, Theory and the Management of Networks, Imperial College Press, 2004.

9. R. Burgelman and. A. Grove, ‘Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos – repeatedly: managing strategic dynam- ics for corporate longevity’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28, no. 10 (2007), pp. 965–79.

10. B. McKelvey and H. Aldrich, ‘Populations, natural selection, and applied organizational science’, Admin- istrative Science Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1 (1983), pp. 101–128.

11. P. Puranam, H. Singh and M. Zollo, ‘Organizing for innovation: managing the coordination-autonomy dilemma in technology acquisitions’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 49, no. 2 (2006), pp. 263–80.

12. K.M. Eisenhardt and S. Brown, ‘Competing on the edge: strategy as structured chaos’, Long Range Planning, vol. 31, no. 5 (1998), pp. 786–89.

13. C.B. Bingham and K.M. Eisenhardt, ‘Rational heuristics: the “simple rules” that strategists learn from process experience’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 32, no. 13 (2011), pp. 1437–64.

14. H. Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work, Harper & Row, 1973. 15. See A. Spee and P. Jarzabkowski, ‘Strategic planning as communicative process’, Organization Studies,

vol. 32, no. 9 (2011), pp. 1217–45. Also W. Küpers, S. Mantere and M. Statler, ‘Strategy as storytelling: a phenomenological collaboration’, Journal of Management Inquiry, vol. 22, no. 1 (2013), pp. 83–100.

16. M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Vintage, 1995. 17. P. Thompson and B. Harley, ‘Beneath the radar? A critical realist analysis of “the knowledge econo-

my”and “shareholder value”as competing discourses’, Organization Studies, vol. 33, no. 10 (2012), pp. 1363–81.

18. D. Barry and M. Elmes, ‘Strategy retold: toward a narrative view of strategic discourse’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 22, no. 2 (1997), pp. 429–52.

19. S. Mantere and E. Vaara, ‘On the problem of participation in strategy: a critical discursive perspective’, Organization Science, vol. 19, no. 2 (2008), pp. 341–58.

20. C. Hardy and R. Thomas, ‘Strategy, discourse and practice: the intensification of power’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 51, no. 2 (2014), pp. 320–48.

21. R. Whittington, B. Yakis-Douglas and K. Ahn, ‘Cheap talk: strategy presentations as a form of Chief Executive Officer impression management’, Strategic Management Journal (forthcoming).

22. R. Whittington, What is Strategy – and Does it Matter?, Thompson, 2000; H. Mintzberg, B. Ahlstrand and J. Lampel, Strategy Safari, Prentice Hall, 1998; S. Cummings and D. Wilson, Images of Strategy, Sage, 2003.

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Chinese manufacturers began to attack Nokia’s posi- tion in low-cost phones, especially in developing mar- kets. In 2010, Nokia responded to the growing pressure by appointing its first non-Finnish CEO, the Canadian Stephen Elop.

Elop’s previous company had been Microsoft, another company struggling in the phone market, though he himself had been responsible for Micro- soft’s Office products business. The new CEO launched a wide-ranging strategic review: ‘The very first day I began, I sent out an email to all of the employees and I asked them: what do you think I need to change? What do you think I need not or should not change? What are you afraid I’m going to miss?’ A key issue that he and his management team struggled with during the first year was whether Nokia should continue with its own operating system. Operating systems are highly expen- sive to develop and sustain and need to be attractive to external software developers in order to secure a com- petitive range of apps. Within a few months, Elop and his team had decided to abandon Nokia’s own operating system. There were two alternative operating systems available: Google’s or Microsoft’s. Elop inclined towards Microsoft. His reasoning was that Microsoft was the weaker of the two, and therefore needed Nokia more than Google did. Nokia also feared being just another Android phone manufacturer competing on the same basis as HTC or Samsung.

Nokia started out in 1865 as a Finnish paper pulp mill. The company only began to take its modern form in 1966 when it had merged with the Finnish Rubber Works and the Finnish Cable Company to form a conglomerate with businesses ranging from rubber boots to aluminium parts. The Finnish Cable Works had established a small electron- ics department in 1960 in one corner of its main factory. This electronics department in turn spawned several busi- nesses, including a mobile phone unit launched in 1979 through a joint venture with another Finnish company, Salora.

During the 1980s, Nokia became committed to an active diversification strategy, especially internationally. Businesses were acquired in the television and computer industries, and Salora itself was taken over in 1984. By 1987, an internal strategic planning document identified over 30 strategic business units in a Boston Consult- ing Group portfolio matrix (see Chapter  8 ), with mobile phones labelled one of several ‘star’ businesses ripe for investment.

But Nokia then hit a very rough patch. Its chairman and CEO committed suicide in 1988, and many of its industrial markets were hit hard by the collapse of the then Soviet Union. There was a period of losses and top management turmoil, from which finally emerged a new CEO, Jorma Ollila. Ollila had only arrived at Nokia in 1985, after an early career in the American invest- ment bank Citibank. Since 1990, he had been head of the mobile phones business, then accounting for only ten per cent of Nokia’s total sales.

On appointment as CEO, Ollila had promised conti- nuity. In fact, the company rapidly focused on mobile phones. By 1996, mobile phones accounted for 60 per cent of Nokia sales and two years later Nokia became the world’s largest mobile phone company. Other businesses were divested, so that soon the only other substantial business was Nokia telecommunications networks and infrastructure business, merged into a joint venture with Siemens in 2007.

Nokia’s phone business flourished for more than a decade, until two cataclysmic events: first, Apple’s launch of the iPhone in 2007 and then the 2009 launch of Google’s Android operating system supported by com- panies such as HTC and Samsung. At the same time,

Nokia’s evolving strategy through the lenses Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications firm, has pursued a trajectory that, over time, has exemplified all four of the Strategy Lenses.

CaSe eXaMpLe

Stephen Elop and Steve Ballmer Source: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

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NOKIA’S EVOLVING STRATEGY THROUGH THE LENSES

Questions 1 How could you use the design lens, the

experience lens and the variety lens to account for the development of the mobile phone business within Nokia?

2 How could you use the design lens and the experience lens to explain Stephen Elop’s adoption of the Microsoft operating system?

3 Comment on Stephen Elop’s changing language from a discourse lens perspective.

In February 2011, Elop released what would become his famous ‘burning platform’ memo to all employees. Nokia was compared to a man on a burning oil plat- form, who could only survive by leaping into the sea. Nokia had been too slow, and must now make a dra- matic move. Elop told his employees: ‘We poured gas- oline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering inno- vation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally. Nokia, our platform is burning.’ Several days later, he announced to the world that he was abandoning Nokia’s own operating systems in favour of Microsoft’s, sealed by a public handshake with his old boss, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. A senior Google executive commented on the Nokia–Microsoft alliance: ‘two turkeys do not make an eagle’.

Nokia’s first phones with the new operating system were not an immediate success and Nokia’s losses deep- ened. By spring 2012, Stephen Elop was describing Nokia in terms of a famous Finnish long-distance run- ner, Lasse Virén, who had tripped during a race in 1972 but still won in the end: ‘like Virén we are off the grass, on the track and running again.’ But Nokia soon ran out

of breath. In the autumn of 2013, it was announced that Nokia would be selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft, and that Stephen Elop would be returning to his old company.

Key sources: J. Aspara, J.A. Lamberg, A. Laukia and H. Tikkanen, ‘Stra- tegic management of business model transformation: lessons from Nokia’, Management Decision, vol. 49, no. 4 (2011), pp. 622–647; Financial Times, 11 April 2011, 3 May 2012 and 3 September 2013; Engadget, 2 August 2011. T. Laamanen, J.-A. Lamberg and E. Vaara, ‘Explanations of suc- cess and failure in management learning: what can be learnt from Nokia’s rise and fall?’, Academy of Management Learning and Education, vol. 15, no. 1 (2016), pp. 2–25.

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Strategic position

Strategy in action

Strategic choices

Business strategy

InternationalCorporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

This part explains strategic choices in terms of:

● How organisations relate to competitors in terms of their competitive business strategies.

● How broad and diverse organisations should be in terms of their corporate portfolios.

● How far organisations should extend themselves internationally.

● How organisations are created and innovate.

● How organisations pursue strategies through organic development, acquisitions or strategic alliances.

paRT II STRATEGIC CHOICES

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INTRODUCTION TO paRT II

This part is concerned with the strategic choices, or options, potentially available to an organisation for responding to the positioning issues discussed in Part I of the book. There are three overarching choices to be made as shown in Figure  II.1 . These are:

● Choices as to how an organisation at a business level positions itself in relation to com- petitors. This is a matter of deciding how to compete in a market. For example, should the business compete on the basis of cost or differentiation? Or is competitive advantage possible through being more flexible and fleet-of-foot than competitors? Or is a more cooperative approach to competitors appropriate? These business strategy questions together with business model considerations are addressed in Chapter  7 .

● Choices of strategic direction: in other words, which products, industries and markets to pursue. Should the organisation be very focused on just a few products and markets? Or should it be much broader in scope, perhaps very diversified in terms of both prod- ucts (or services) and markets? Should it create new products or should it enter new territories? These questions relate to corporate strategy, addressed in Chapter  8 , inter- national strategy in Chapter  9 and innovation and entrepreneurial strategy, as discussed in Chapter  10 .

● Choices about methods by which to pursue strategies. For any of these choices, should they be pursued independently by organic development, by acquisitions or by strategic alliances with other organisations? This is the theme of Chapter  11 .

The discussion in these chapters provides frameworks and rationales for a wide range of strategic choices. But some words of warning are important here:

● Strategic choices relate back to analysis of strategic position. Part I of the book has pro- vided ways in which strategists can understand the macro-environment ( Chapter  2 ), iden- tify forces at work in the industry and sector ( Chapter  3 ), identify and build on resources and capabilities ( Chapter  4 ), meet stakeholder expectations ( Chapter  5 ) and build on the benefits, as well as be aware of the constraints, of their organisation’s historical and cultural context ( Chapter  6 ). Exploring these issues will provide the foundation for

Figure II.1 Strategic choices

Strategic choices

Strategic directions Strategy methodsBusiness strategy

Choices about business positioning relative to

competitors

Choices of products, industries and markets

to pursue

How to pursue strategies: organic, acquisition or

alliance

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considering strategic options. However, the Exploring Strategy Framework ( Figure  1.3 ) implies that issues of position, choice and action overlap. Thus working through the choices of Part II is also likely to feed back into the initial analysis of strategic position. Similarly, the potential of some strategic choices will only be revealed in action, the theme of Part III.

● Key strategic issues. Choices have to be made in the context of an organisation’s stra- tegic position, of course. But here it is important that the analysis of strategic position distinguishes the key strategic issues from all the many positioning issues that are likely to arise. Analysis needs to avoid producing a very long list of observations without any clarity of what such key issues are. There is no single ‘strategy tool’ for this. Identifying key strategic issues is a matter of informed judgement and, because managers usually work in groups, of debate. The analytic tools provided can help, but are not a substitute for judgement.

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Strategic choices

Business strategy

InternationalCorporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Assess business strategy in terms of the generic strategies of cost leadership, dif- ferentiation, focus and hybrid strategy.

● Identify business strategies suited to hypercompetitive conditions. ● Assess the benefits of cooperation in business strategy. ● Apply principles of game theory to business strategy. ● Identify and apply business model components: value creation, configuration and

capture.

7 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND MODELS

business model p.229

competitive advantage p.210

competitive strategy p.210

cost-leadership strategy p.211

differentiation strategy p.215

focus strategy p.216

hybrid strategies p.219

game theory p.226

strategic business unit p.209

Key terms

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7.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is about two fundamental strategic choices: what business strategy and what business model should a company, business unit or other organisation adopt in its market? Business strategy questions are fundamental both to stand-alone small businesses and to all the many business units that typically make up large diversified organisations. Business strategies are about how to compete in a marketplace so that a restaurant for instance has to decide a range of issues such as menus, décor and prices in the light of local competition from other restaurants. Similarly, large diversified corporations typically include many decentral- ised ‘strategic business units’ in different product or market areas each with its own business strategy depending on the specific needs of their served market. A strategic business unit (SBU) supplies goods or services for a distinct domain of activity (sometimes these SBUs are called ‘divisions’ or ‘profit centres’). For example, Nestlé’s ice-cream SBU has to decide how to compete against smaller and local artisanal companies with new imaginative flavours and different customer focus, distribution channels and pricing. These kinds of business strategy issues are distinct from the question as to whether Nestlé should own an ice-cream business in the first place: this is a matter of corporate strategy, the subject of Chapter 8.

Another important choice is to identify the relationship between the value created for customers and other participants, the organisational activities that create this value and how the organisation and other stakeholders can capture value from this – a business model. For instance, Amazon was a pioneer with its e-commerce business model that contrasted with bricks-and-mortar retailers. It involved a different customer offering, arrangement of its activities and structure of revenues and costs compared to the traditional retailing model. Over time, however, business models get established and many other retailers also entered into e-commerce. This shows that organisations need to consider what business model to build on; established or new ones or both.

Business strategy and business models are not just relevant to the private business sector. Charities and public-sector organisations also compete and have business models. Thus charities compete between each other for support from donors. Public-sector organisations also need to be ‘competitive’ against comparable organisations in order to satisfy their stake- holders, secure their funding and protect themselves from alternative suppliers from the private sector. Schools compete in terms of examination results, while hospitals compete in terms of waiting times, treatment survival rates and so on. Likewise, these sectors need to consider what value is created for whom and how organisational activities contribute to this in a business model. Although some of the detailed implications may vary between sec- tors, wherever comparison is possible with other similar organisations, basic principles of business strategy and models are likely to be relevant. Very few organisations can afford to be demonstrably inferior to peers. Most have to make choices on key competitive variables such as costs, prices and quality.

Figure 7.1 shows the main three themes around business strategy that provide the structure for the rest of the chapter:

● Generic competitive strategies, including cost leadership, differentiation, focus and hybrid strategies.

● Interactive strategies, building on the notion of generic strategies to consider interaction with competitors, especially in hypercompetitive environments, and including both coop- erative strategies and game theory.

● Business models, including the three basic components of value creation, value configu- ration and value capture.

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7.2 GeNeRIC COMpeTITIVe STRaTeGIeS

This section introduces the competitive element of business strategy, with cooperation addressed particularly in Section 7.4. Competitive strategy is concerned with how a company, business unit or organisation achieves competitive advantage in its domain of activity. Competitive strategy therefore involves issues such as costs, product and service features and branding. In turn, competitive advantage is about how a company, business unit or organisation creates value for its users which is both greater than the costs of supplying them and superior to that of rivals. Competitive advantages should underpin competitive strategies. There are two important features of competitive advantage. To be competitive at all, an organisation must ensure that customers see sufficient value that they are prepared to pay more than the costs of supply. To have an advantage, the organisation must be able to create greater value than competitors. In the absence of a competitive advantage, an organisation’s competitive strategy is always vulnerable to competitors with better products or offering lower prices.

Michael Porter1 argues that there are two fundamental means of achieving competitive advantage. An organisation can have structurally lower costs than its competitors. Or it can have products or services that are differentiated from competitors’ products or services in ways that are so valued by customers that it can charge higher prices that cover the addi- tional costs of the differentiation. In defining competitive strategies, Porter adds a further dimension based on the scope of customers that the business chooses to serve. Businesses can choose to focus on narrow customer segments, for example a particular demographic group such as the youth market. Alternatively, they can adopt a broad scope, targeting customers across a range of characteristics such as age, wealth or geography.

Porter’s distinctions between cost, differentiation and scope define a set of ‘generic’ strat- egies: in other words, basic types of strategy that hold across many kinds of business situa- tions. These three generic strategies are illustrated in Figure 7.2. In the top left-hand corner is a strategy of cost leadership, as exemplified in the British food and grocery market by retailers such as Lidl. Waitrose, in contrast, pursues a strategy of differentiation, offering

Figure 7.1 Business strategy

Business strategy

Generic strategies • cost leadership • differentiation • focus • hybrid

Interactive strategies • hypercompetitive strategy • cooperation • game theory

Business models • value creation • value configuration • value capture

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a range of quality, fresh and environmentally-friendly products focused on the upper mar- ket with relatively higher prices. Porter distinguishes between cost focus and differentiation focus, but for him narrow scope is such a distinctive fundamental principle that these two are merely variations on the same basic theme of narrowness. For example, delicatessens target a relatively narrow group of higher-end customers with their high food quality and provenance. They thus often achieve a higher price for their distinctive products through their differentiation focus strategy. On the other hand, the product lines of the major supermar- kets, like Tesco, target shoppers who are simply looking for good-value standard products for their families, a cost focus strategy. The rest of this section discusses these three generic strategies in more detail.

7.2.1 Cost-leadership strategy

Cost-leadership strategy involves becoming the lowest-cost organisation in a domain of activ- ity. For example, Ryanair pursues a relentless low-cost strategy in the European airline indus- try. The airline saves costs in virtually every aspect of its operation from purchasing a single type of aircraft (without reclining seats) to selling tickets primarily online (over 90 per cent of sales) to low employee costs (second lowest in Europe). There are four key cost drivers that can help deliver cost leadership, as follows:

● Input costs are often very important, for example labour or raw materials. Many com- panies seek competitive advantage through locating their labour-intensive operations in countries with low labour costs. Examples might be service call centres in India or man- ufacturing in South East Asia and China. Location close to raw material sources can also be advantageous, as for example the Brazilian steel producer CSN which benefits from its own local iron-ore facilities.

● Economies of scale refer to how increasing scale usually reduces the average costs of oper- ation over a particular time period, perhaps a month or a year. Economies of scale are important wherever there are high fixed costs. Fixed costs are those costs necessary for a

Figure 7.2 Three generic strategies Source: Adapted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E. Porter. Copyright © 1985, 1998 by Michael E. Porter. All rights reserved.

Competitive advantage

1 Cost leadership

3a Cost focus

2 Differentiation

3b Differentiation

focus

Broad target

Lower cost Differentiation

Narrow target

Competitive scope

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level of output: for example, a pharmaceutical manufacturer typically needs to do extensive R&D before it produces a single pill. Economies of scale come from spreading these fixed costs over high levels of output: the average cost due to an expensive R&D project halves when output increases from one million to two million units. Economies of scale in pur- chasing can also reduce input costs. The large airlines, for example, are able to negotiate steep discounts from aircraft manufacturers. For the cost-leader, it is important to reach the output level equivalent to the minimum efficient scale. Note, though, that diseconomies of scale are possible. Large volumes of output that require special overtime payments to workers or involve the neglect of equipment maintenance can soon become very expensive. As to the left in Figure 7.3, therefore, the economies of scale curve is typically somewhat U-shaped, with the average cost per unit actually increasing beyond a certain point.

● Experience2 can be a key source of cost efficiency. The experience curve implies that the cumulative experience gained by an organisation with each unit of output leads to reductions in unit costs (see Figure 7.3 to the right). For example, for many electronic components per unit costs can drop as much as 95 per cent every time the accumulated volume doubles. There is no time limit: simply the more experience an organisation has in an activity, the more efficient it gets at doing it. The efficiencies are basically of two sorts. First, there are gains in labour productivity as staff simply learn to do things more cheaply over time (this is the specific learning curve effect). Second, costs are saved through more efficient designs or equipment as experience shows what works best. The experience curve has three important implications for business strategy. First, entry timing into a market is important: early entrants into a market will have experience that late entrants do not yet have and so will gain a cost advantage. Second, it is important to gain and hold market share, as companies with higher market share have more ‘cumulative experience’ simply because of their greater volumes. Finally, although the gains from experience are typi- cally greatest at the start, as indicated by the steep initial curve to the right in Figure 7.3, improvements normally continue over time. Opportunities for cost reduction are theoret- ically endless. Figure 7.3 compares the experience curve (to the right) and economies of scale (to the left) in order to underline the contrast here. Unlike scale, where diseconomies appear beyond a certain point, the experience curve implies at worst a flattening of the rate of cost reduction. However, completely new production technologies can potentially introduce even steeper experience effects and further improved cost savings.

● Product/process design also influences cost. Efficiency can be ‘designed in’ at the outset. For example, engineers can choose to build a product from cheap standard components

Figure 7.3 Economies of scale and the experience curve

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rather than expensive specialised components. Organisations can choose to interact with customers exclusively through cheap web-based methods, rather than via telephone or stores. Organisations can also tailor their offerings in order to meet the most important customer needs, saving money by ignoring others. In designing a product or service, it is important to recognise whole-life costs: in other words, the costs to the customer not just of purchase but of subsequent use and maintenance. In the photocopier market, for example, Canon eroded Xerox’s advantage (which was built on service and a support network) by designing a copier that needed far less servicing.

Porter underlines two tough requirements for cost-based strategies. First of all, the principle of competitive advantage indicates that a business’s cost structure needs to be lowest cost (i.e. lower than all competitors’). Having the second-lowest cost structure implies a compet- itive disadvantage against somebody. Competitors with higher costs than the cost-leader are always at risk of being undercut on price, especially in market downturns. For businesses competing on a cost basis, cost leadership is always more secure than being second or third in terms of costs. The US financial investments company Vanguard is a good example of this as discussed in Illustration 7.1 (see also Illustration 6.3).

The second requirement is that low cost should not be pursued in total disregard for qual- ity. To sell its products or services, the cost-leader has to be able to meet market standards. For example, low-cost Chinese car producers exporting to Western markets need to offer not only cars that are cheap, but cars that meet acceptable norms in terms of style, safety, service network, reliability, resale value and other important characteristics. Cost-leaders have two options here:

● Parity (in other words, equivalence) with competitors in product or service features valued by customers. Parity allows the cost-leader to charge the same prices as the average com- petitor in the marketplace, while translating its cost advantage wholly into extra profit (as in the second column of Figure 7.4). The Brazilian steel producer CSN, with its cheap iron-ore sources, is able to charge the average price for its steel, and take the cost difference in greater profit.

Figure 7.4 Costs, prices and profits for generic strategies

Price € £ $

Profit Profit Profit

Profit

Costs

CostsCosts Costs

Average competitor

Cost- leader with parity

Cost- leader with

proximity

Differentiator

Average price

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ILLUSTRaTION 7.1

The US company Vanguard pioneered a distinct low-cost strategy in the mutual fund industry and is now exporting it worldwide.

Mutual funds are managed by investment companies that raise money from multiple customers and invest the money in a group of assets (stocks, bonds, money market instruments, etc.). Each customer, often as part of a retirement plan, then owns shares that represent a portion of the holdings of the fund. They are charged an annual fee or ‘expense ratio’ that covers investment advisory fees, administrative costs, distribution fees and other operating expenses. The traditional way of competing in the industry was by actively managed and differentiated investments that tried to generate as high returns as possible and thus being able to charge higher fees. The emphasis was on the business perfor- mance end of the business by offering differentiated funds with higher returns. Vanguard instead focused on the cost end of the business and offered custom- ers considerably lower annual fees and costs. Most comparisons showed that Vanguard’s fees or expense ratios were 65–80 per cent less than the industry average depending on investment asset. The company also launched the industry’s first index mutual fund that passively followed a stock market index without ambitions to generate a better performance than the market, but which outperformed many actively man- aged funds.

Vanguard has started to export its low-cost focus to Europe, and their non-US assets have more than dou- bled in the last six years, reaching over $90bn (€68bn, £54bn) in Europe. ‘Lowering the cost of investing is in our DNA,’ blogged Tom Rampulla, former head of Van- guard Europe. Their low-cost strategy involved several components. First, unlike competitors it did not need to make a profit. Tim Buckley, chief investment officer explained:

‘We are not a listed company. We’re a mutual com- pany. We’re owned by our clients. So when we make a profit, we have two choices. We can roll that profit back into the business or we can pay it out to our owners, our clients, in the form of lower expenses. Over the years we have lowered expenses and that has attracted more clients.’ 1

Second, Vanguard distributed their funds directly to customers and did not need to pay commissions of around eight per cent to brokers. Third, the company had internalised investment advisory functions of the funds at cost instead of using external investment advi- sors that would charge a premium. Fourth, Vanguard relied on a no-nonsense thrifty organisational culture where managers were incentivised to control cost and no one, not even senior executives, flew first class. Fifth, the company had only a few retail centres and spent less on advertising than anyone else in the indus- try. Last, but not least, as one of the largest asset man- agers globally they gained large economies of scale.

By 2015, the next step for Vanguard was to do to the financial advisory services industry what they had done to the mutual fund industry. Based on webcam chats and other cost reductions, the aim was to offer advisory services at a fraction of the cost of compet- itors. They would charge annually 0.3 per cent on assets compared to the industry average of one per cent, according to Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb: 2

‘Can we provide really super-high quality advice at a very low cost and do that in a very large way, and change the market? I think we can. We continue to think of our primary mission to reduce the complex- ity and cost of investing across the board.’

Sources: (1) D. Oakley, Financial Times, 4 March 2015. (2) S. Foley, Financial Times, 8 December 2014.

Vanguard’s low-cost strategy comes to Europe

Questions 1 What type of competitive strategy, low-cost,

differentiation, focus or hybrid, would you suggest as a way of competing with Vanguard?

2 Using webcam chats is one approach to lower costs in financial advisory services as indicated above. What other ways could there be to lower costs to support a low-cost strategy?

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● Proximity (closeness) to competitors in terms of features. Where a competitor is suf- ficiently close to competitors in terms of product or service features, customers may only require small cuts in prices to compensate for the slightly lower quality. As in the third column in Figure 7.4, the proximate cost-leader still earns better profits than the average competitor because its lower price eats up only a part of its cost advantage. This proximate cost-leadership strategy might be the option chosen initially by Chinese car manufacturers in export markets, for example.

7.2.2 Differentiation strategy

The principal alternative to cost leadership is differentiation.3 Differentiation strategy involves uniqueness along some dimension that is sufficiently valued by customers to allow a price premium. For example, German manufacturer Miele pursues a differentiation strategy in the domestic appliance industry. Their European manufactured, high-quality and durable dishwashers, washing machines and stoves are targeted towards higher income households at a price premium. Relevant points of differentiation vary between markets. Within each market too, businesses may differentiate along different dimensions. Thus in clothing retail, competitors may differentiate by store size, locations or fashion. In cars, competitors may differentiate by safety, style or fuel efficiency. Where there are many alternative dimensions that are valued by customers, it is possible to have many different types of differentiation strategy in a market. Thus, even at the same top end of the car market, BMW and Mercedes differentiate in different ways, the first typically with a sportier image, the second with more conservative values. In brief, there are various aspects to consider in pursuing a differentiation strategy and below are three primary differentiation drivers to consider:

● Product and service attributes. Certain product attributes can provide better or unique features than comparable products or services for the customer. For example, the Dyson vacuum cleaner with its unique technology provides customers with a better suction performance compared to competitors. The possibilities of product differentiation are, however, virtually endless and only limited by the creativity of an organisation. They may include differences in colour, design, speed, style, taste, etc. For vacuum cleaners, other companies may, for example, differentiate themselves on the basis of user convenience or design rather than suction performance. Product innovation and introduction can also be a basis of differentiation. Apple has been able to charge considerable premiums by continuously launching novel products with superior technologies, design and consumer interfaces, including the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

In building a basis for differentiation it is vital to identify clearly the customer on whose needs the differentiation is based. This is not always straightforward, as discussed in Sec- tion 3.4.2. For example, for a newspaper business, the customers could be readers (who pay a purchase price), advertisers (who pay for advertising), or both. Finding a distinctive means of prioritising customers can be a valuable source of differentiation. Considering competitors’ offerings is also important when identifying a basis for differentiation and the strategy canvas provides one means of mapping various kinds of differentiation (see Section 3.4.3).

● Customer relationships. Besides more tangible differences in product and service charac- teristics, differentiation can rely on the relationship between the organisation providing the product and the customer. This often relates to how the product is perceived by the customer. The perceived value can increase through customer services and responsiveness. This can include distribution services, payment services or after-sales services among

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other things. For example, Zalando, Europe’s leading online retailer for fashion and shoes, offers not only free shipping to the customer but free returns and a ‘bill-me-later’ service. Products can also be differentiated for the individual customer through customisa- tion. This is the case for a variety of consumer goods from athletic shoes to cars, but also for business-to-business goods like enterprise software. For example, the German software company SAP not only sells its standardised software packages, but customises these to meet specific customer needs. Finally, marketing and reputation, including emotional and psychological aspects, that an organisation projects can be another basis for differentia- tion. Starbucks, for example, can charge a premium price for its coffee not only because of its product differences but also because of the ambiance and image that the company displays at its outlets. Building on brand image is common for products that otherwise are difficult to differentiate. This is a foundation for Coca Cola’s differentiation strategy for example.

● Complements. Differentiation can also build on linkages to other products or services. The perceived value of some products can be significantly enhanced when consumed together with other product or service complements compared to consuming the product alone. This complementarity was discussed in Chapter 3 as these complements can be vital for the profit potential of an industry (see Section 3.2.6). Apple has created the comple- ment services iTunes and App Store free of charge for the consumer, which differentiate its products (iPhone, iPad, etc.) with the possibility to charge a premium. Considering how customers benefit from consuming two products or services in tandem is thus another possible way to differentiate. More generally, this can be thought of as a way of bundling products and services together to increase the value for the customer.

There is an important condition for a successful differentiation strategy. Differentiation allows higher prices, but usually this comes at a cost. To create valuable differentiation typ- ically involves additional investments, for example in R&D, branding or staff quality. The differentiator can expect that its costs will be higher than those of the average competitor. But, as in the fourth column of Figure 7.4, the differentiator needs to ensure that the addi- tional costs of differentiation do not exceed the gains in price. It is easy to add on additional costs in ways that are not valued sufficiently by customers. The historic failures under British ownership of the luxury car companies Rolls-Royce and Bentley against top-end Mercedes cars are partly attributable to the expensive crafting of wood and leather interiors, the full cost of which even wealthy customers were not prepared to pay for. Just as cost-leaders should not neglect quality, so should differentiators attend closely to costs, especially in areas irrelevant to their sources of differentiation. Volvo’s differentiation strategy in the Indian bus market in Illustration 7.2 also involved keeping an eye on costs besides differentiation.

7.2.3 Focus strategy

Porter distinguishes focus as the third generic strategy, based on competitive scope. A focus strategy targets a narrow segment or domain of activity and tailors its products or ser- vices to the needs of that specific segment to the exclusion of others. Focus strategies come in two variants, according to the underlying sources of competitive advantage, cost or differen- tiation. In air travel, Ryanair follows a cost focus strategy, targeting price-conscious travellers with no need for connecting flights. In the domestic detergent market, the Belgian company Ecover follows a differentiation focus strategy, gaining a price premium over rivals on account of its ecological cleaning products targeted at environmental conscious customers.

The focuser achieves competitive advantage by dedicating itself to serving its target seg- ments better than others that are trying to cover a wider range of segments. Serving a broad

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ILLUSTRaTION 7.2

Volvo has a strategy to sell buses at nearly four times the prevailing market price.

The Indian bus market has long been dominated by two subsidiaries of major Indian conglomerates: Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland. They made simple coaches on a design that had hardly changed for decades. On top of a basic truck chassis, the two companies bolted a rudimentary coach body. Engines were a meagre 110–120 horsepower, and roared heartily as they hauled their loads up the steep roads. Mounted at the front, the heat from the over-strained engines would pervade the whole bus. Air conditioning was a matter of open windows, through which the dust and noise of the Indian roads would pour. Suspension was old-fashioned, guaranteeing a shaky ride on pot-holed roads. Bags were typically slung on the top of the bus, where they were easily soiled and at high risk of theft. But at least the buses were cheap, selling to local bus companies at around Rs 1.2m (€15,000, £12,000, $19,500).

In 1997, Swedish bus company Volvo entered, with buses priced at Rs 4m, nearly four times as much as local products. Akash Passey, Volvo’s first Indian employee, commissioned a consultancy company to evaluate prospects. The consultancy company recom- mended that Volvo should not even try. Passey told the Financial Times: ‘My response was simple – I took the report and went to the nearest dustbin and threw it in.’ Passey entered the market in 2001 with the high- priced luxury buses.

Passey used the time to develop a distinctive strat- egy. His product had superior features. Volvo’s standard engines were 240–250 hp and mounted at the back, ensuring a faster and quieter ride. Air conditioning was standard of course. The positioning of the engine and the specific bus design of the chassis meant a roomier interior, plus storage for bags internally. But Passey realised this would not be enough. He commented to the Financial Times : ‘You had to do a lot of things to break the way business is done normally.’

Volvo offered post-sale maintenance services, increasing life expectancy of buses from three to ten

years, and allowing bus operating companies to dis- pense with their own expensive maintenance work- shops. Free training was given to drivers, so they drove more safely and took more care of their buses. The company advertised the benefits of the buses direct to customers in cinemas, rather than simply promoting them to the bus operators. Faster, smoother and more reliable travel allowed the bus operators to increase their ticket prices for the Volvo buses by 35 per cent.

Business people and the middle classes were delighted with the new Volvo services. Speedier, more comfortable journeys allowed them to arrive fresh for meetings and potentially to save the costs of overnight stays. Tata and Ashok Leyland both now produce their own luxury buses, with Mercedes and Isuzu following Volvo into the market. Nonetheless, the phrase ‘tak- ing a Volvo’ has become synonymous with choosing a luxury bus service in India, rather as ‘hoover’ came to refer to any kind of vacuum cleaner.

A new state-of-the-art bus factory was opened in Bangalore 2008 and after further investments in 2012 it doubled the annual capacity to 1,500 buses per year. As Volvo’s most efficient bus factory worldwide it started to export buses to Europe three years later. In 2016, Volvo continued its distinctive strategy and became the first bus company in India to manufacture and sell hybrid buses running on an electric motor and battery as well as diesel.

Sources : Adapted from J. Leahy, ‘Volvo takes a lead in India’, Financial Times, 31 August 2009; M. Lalatendu, ‘Hybrid Volvo bus for Navi Mum- bai’, The Hindu, 15 February 2016.

Volvo’s different Indian buses

Questions 1 Rank the elements of Passey’s strategy for

Volvo in order of importance. Could any have been dispensed with?

2 How sustainable is Volvo’s luxury bus strategy?

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range of segments can bring disadvantages in terms of coordination, compromise or inflex- ibility. Focus strategies are, therefore, able to seek out the weak spots of broad cost-leaders and differentiators:

● Cost focusers identify areas where broader cost-based strategies fail because of the added costs of trying to satisfy a wide range of needs. For instance, in the UK food retail mar- ket, Iceland Foods has a cost-focused strategy concentrated on frozen and chilled foods, reducing costs against discount food retailers with a wider product range and more diverse suppliers which have all the complexity of fresh foods and groceries as well as their own frozen and chilled food ranges.

● Differentiation focusers look for specific needs that broader differentiators do not serve so well. Focus on one particular need helps to build specialist knowledge and technology, increases commitment to service and can improve brand recognition and customer loyalty. For example, ARM Holdings dominates the world market for mobile phone chips, despite being only a fraction of the size of the leading microprocessor manufacturers, AMD and Intel, which also make chips for a wide range of computers.

Successful focus strategies depend on at least one of three key factors:

● Distinct segment needs. Focus strategies depend on the distinctiveness of segment needs. If segment distinctiveness erodes, it becomes harder to defend the segment against broader competitors. For example, Tesla Motors currently targets a narrow segment with its expensive premium electric vehicles. However, if the boundaries become blurred between Tesla’s focus on electric cars used by affluent environmentally conscious consumers and electric cars used by general consumers it could become easier for competitors to also attack this distinctive niche.

● Distinct segment value chains. Focus strategies are strengthened if they have distinctive value chains that will be difficult or costly for rivals to construct. If the production pro- cesses and distribution channels are very similar, it is easy for a broad-based differenti- ator to push a specialised product through its own standardised value chain at a lower cost than a rival focuser. In detergents, Procter & Gamble cannot easily respond to the Belgian ecologically friendly cleaning products company Ecover because achieving the same environmental soundness would involve transforming its purchasing and production processes.

● Viable segment economics. Segments can easily become too small to serve economically as demand or supply conditions change. For example, changing economies of scale and greater competition have eliminated the traditional town-centre department stores from many smaller cities, with their wider ranges of different kinds of goods from hardware to clothing.

7.2.4 hybrid strategy

Porter warned that managers face a crucial choice between the generic strategies of cost lead- ership, differentiation and focus. According to him, it would be unwise to blur this choice. As earlier, the lowest-cost competitor can always undercut the second lowest-cost competitor. For a company seeking advantage through low costs, therefore, it makes no sense to add extra costs by half-hearted efforts at differentiation. For a differentiator, it is self-defeating to make economies that jeopardise the basis for differentiation. For a focuser, it is dangerous to move outside the original specialised segment, because products or services tailored to one set of customers are likely to have inappropriate costs or features for the new target customers. Porter’s argument was that managers are generally best to choose which generic strategy

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they are pursuing and then sticking to it. Otherwise there would be a danger of being stuck in the middle, doing no strategy well.

However, Porter’s early argument for pure generic strategies was controversial and it has later been acknowledged that a hybrid type of strategy is possible under certain circum- stances. A hybrid strategy combines different generic strategies. For example, American South- west Airlines pursues a low-cost strategy with their budget and no-frills offering. However, its brand also signals differentiation based on convenience including frequent departures and friendly service. Another example in the airline industry is Singapore Airlines with a differ- entiation strategy based on passenger comfort, attentive personal service and amenities. This is, however, combined with a lowest-cost position among its key competitors based on low maintenance costs, standardisation and outsourcing of various activities. Some companies start out with one strategy that is later combined with another. McDonald’s first followed a product differentiation strategy, but later its fast-food leader position allowed the company to emphasise scale and low costs as well.

As Porter himself acknowledges there may also be particular circumstances in which the strategies can be combined:4

● Organisational separation. It is possible for a company to create separate strategic busi- ness units (SBUs), each pursuing different generic strategies and with different cost struc- tures. The challenge, however, is to prevent negative spill-overs from one SBU to another. For example, a company mostly pursuing differentiated strategies is liable to have high head office costs that the low-cost SBUs will also have to bear. On the other hand, a cheap cost-leader might damage the brand value of a sister SBU seeking differentiation. Because of these kinds of trade-offs, it can be very difficult to pursue different generic strate- gies within a single set of related businesses. Despite the success of Singapore Airlines, Europe’s leading airline Lufthansa has struggled to combine its low-cost subsidiaries, Eurowings, with its traditional higher-service core business.

● Technological or managerial innovation. Sometimes technological innovations allow radical improvements in both cost and quality. Internet retailing reduces the costs of bookselling, at the same time as increasing differentiation by greater product range and, through online book reviews, better advice. Managerial innovations are capa- ble of such simultaneous improvements too. The Japanese car manufacturers’ intro- duction of Total Quality Management led to reductions in production line mistakes that both cut manufacturing costs and improved car reliability, a point of successful differentiation.

● Competitive failures. Where competitors are also stuck in the middle, there is less compet- itive pressure to remove competitive disadvantage. Equally, where a company dominates a particular market, competitive pressures for consistency with a single competitive strategy are reduced.

Hybrid strategies are, however, complex and should be pursued with caution. They require careful considerations as the fundamental trade-off between low cost and differentiation has to be resolved. Porter’s warning about the danger of being stuck in the middle provides a useful discipline for managers. It is very easy for them to make incremental decisions that compromise the basic generic strategy. As profits accumulate, the successful cost-leader will be tempted to stop scrimping and saving. In hard times, a differentiator might eas- ily cut back the R&D or advertising investments essential to its long-term differentiation advantage. Consistency with generic strategy provides a valuable check for managerial decision-making. The next section provides a helpful tool in calibrating generic and hybrid strategies.

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7.2.5 The Strategy Clock

The Strategy Clock provides another way of approaching generic strategies (see Figure 7.5), one which gives more scope for hybrid strategies.5 The Strategy Clock has two distinctive features. First, it is focused on prices to customers rather than costs to the organisation: because prices are more visible than costs, the Strategy Clock can be easier to use in com- paring competitors. Second, the circular design of the clock allows for more continuous choices than Michael Porter’s sharp contrast between cost leadership and differentiation: there is a full range of incremental adjustments that can be made between the 7 o’clock position at the bottom of the low-price strategy and the 2 o’clock position at the bottom of the differentiation strategy. Organisations may travel around the clock, as they adjust their pricing and benefits over time.

The Strategy Clock identifies three zones of feasible strategies, and one zone likely to lead to ultimate failure:

● Differentiation (zone 1). This zone contains a range of feasible strategies for building on high perceptions of product or service benefits among customers. Close to the 12 o’clock position is a strategy of differentiation without price premium. Differentiation without a price premium combines high-perceived benefits and moderate prices, typically used to gain market share. If high benefits also entail relatively high costs, this moderate pricing strategy would only be sustainable in the short term. Once increased market share has been achieved, it might be logical to move to differentiation with price premium closer to a 1 or 2 o’clock position. Movement all the way towards the 2 o’clock position is likely to involve a focus strategy. Such a focused differentiation strategy targets a niche where the higher prices and reduced benefits are sustainable, for instance because of a lack of competition in a particular geographical area.

Figure 7.5 The Strategy Clock Source: Adapted from D. Faulkner and C. Bowman, The Essence of Competitive Strategy, Prentice Hall, 1995.

High

Differentiation strategies

(1)Hybrid strategies

(3)

Low-price strategies

(2)

Non-competitive strategies

(4)

High Price

Perceived product/service

benefits

Low

Low

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● Low-price (zone 2). This zone allows for different combinations of low prices and low perceived value. Close to the 9 o’clock position, a standard low-price strategy would gain market share by combining low prices with reasonable value (at parity with competitors). To be sustainable, this strategy needs to be underpinned by some cost advantage, such as economies of scale gained through increased market share. Without such a cost advantage, cuts in benefits or increases in prices become necessary eventually. A variation on the stand- ard low-price strategy is the no-frills strategy, close to the 7 o’clock position. No-frills strat- egies involve both low benefits and low prices, similar to low-cost airlines such as Ryanair.

● Hybrid strategy (zone 3). A distinctive feature of the Strategy Clock is the space it allows between low-price and differentiation strategies.6 Hybrid strategies involve both lower prices than differentiation strategies and higher benefits than low-price strategies. Hybrid strategies are often used to make aggressive bids for increased market share. They can also be an effective way of entering a new market, for instance overseas. Even in the case of innovations with high benefits, it can make sense to price low initially in order to gain experience curve efficiencies or lock-in through network effects (see Section 3.2.6). Some companies sustain hybrid strategies over long periods of time: for example, furniture store IKEA, which uses scale advantages to combine relatively low prices with differentiated Swedish design (see end of chapter case).

● Non-competitive strategies (zone 4). The final set of strategies occupies a zone of unfea- sible economics, with low benefits and high prices. Unless businesses have exceptional strategic lock-in, customers will quickly reject these combinations. Typically these strat- egies lead to failure.

The Strategy Clock’s focus on price, and its scope for incremental adjustments in strategy, provides a more dynamic view on strategy than Porter’s generic strategies. Instead of organ- isations being fairly fixed in terms of either a cost or a differentiation strategy, they can move around the clock. For example, an organisation might start with a low-price strategy to gain market share, later shift to a higher-priced differentiation with premium strategy in order to reap profits, and then move back to a hybrid strategy in order to defend itself from new entrants. However, Porter’s generic strategies do remind managers that costs are critical. Unless an organisation has some secure cost advantage (such as economies of scale), a hybrid strategy of high-perceived benefits and low prices is unlikely to be sustainable for long.

7.3 INTeRaCTIVe STRaTeGIeS

Generic strategies need to be chosen, and adjusted, in the light of competitors’ strategies. If everybody else is chasing after cost leadership, then a differentiation strategy might be sen- sible. Thus business strategy choices interact with those of competitors. This section starts by considering business strategy in the light of competitor moves, especially in hypercompe- tition. It then addresses the option of cooperation and closes with game theory, which helps managers choose between competition and more cooperative strategies.

7.3.1 Interactive price and quality strategies

Richard D’Aveni depicts competitor interactions in terms of movements against the variables of price (the vertical axis) and perceived quality (the horizontal axis), similar to the Strategy Clock: see Figure 7.6.7 Although D’Aveni applies his analysis to the very fast-moving envi- ronments he terms ‘hypercompetitive’ (see Section 3.3.1), similar reasoning applies wherever competitors’ moves are interdependent.

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Figure 7.6 shows different organisations competing by emphasising either low prices or high quality or some mixture of the two. Graph (i) starts with a ‘first value line’, describing vari- ous trade-offs in terms of price and perceived quality that are acceptable to customers. The cost-leading firm (here L) offers relatively poor perceived quality, but customers accept this because of the lower price. While the relative positions on the graph should not be taken liter- ally, in the car market this cost-leading position might describe some of Hyundai’s products. The differentiator (D) has a higher price, but much better quality. This might be Mercedes. In between, there are a range of perfectly acceptable combinations, with the mid-point firm (M) offering a combination of reasonable prices and reasonable quality. This might be Ford. M’s strategy is on the first value line and therefore entirely viable at this stage. On the other hand, firm U is uncompetitive, falling behind the value line. Its price is higher than M’s, and its quality is worse. U’s predicament is typical of the business that is ‘stuck in the middle’, in Porter’s terms. U no longer offers acceptable value and must quickly move back onto the value line or fail.

In any market, competitors and their moves or counter-moves can be plotted against these two axes of price and perceived value. For example, in graph (i) of Figure 7.6, the differentiator (D) makes an aggressive move by substantially improving its perceived quality while holding its prices. This improvement in quality shifts customer expectations of quality right across the market. These changed expectations are reflected by the new, second value line (in green). With the second value line, even the cost-leader (L) may have to make some improvement to quality, or accept a small price cut. But the greatest threat is for the mid-point competitor, M. To catch up with the second value line, M must respond either by making a substantial improvement in quality while holding prices, or by slashing prices, or by some combination of the two.

However, mid-point competitor M also has the option of an aggressive counter-attack. Given the necessary capabilities, M might choose to push the value line still further outwards, wrong-footing differentiator D by creating a third value line that is even more demanding in terms of the price-perceived quality trade-off. The starting point in graph (ii) of Figure 7.6 is all three competitors L, M and D successfully reaching the second value line (uncompetitive U has disappeared). However, M’s next move is to go beyond the second value line by mak- ing radical cuts in price while sustaining its new level of perceived quality. Again, customer

Figure 7.6 Interactive price and quality strategies Note: axes are not necessarily to linear scales.

Source: Adapted with the permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering by Richard D’Aveni with Robert Gunther. Copyright © 1994 by Richard D’Aveni. All rights reserved.

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expectations are changed and a third value line (in red) is established. Now it is differentiator D that is at most risk of being left behind, and it faces hard choices about how to respond in terms of price and quality.

Plotting moves and counter-moves in these terms underlines the dynamic and interactive nature of business strategy. Economically viable positions along the value line are always in danger of being superseded as competitors move either downwards in terms of price or outwards in terms of perceived quality. The generic strategies of cost leadership and differ- entiation should not be seen as static positions, but as dynamic trajectories along the axes of price and quality.

A more detailed example of the sequence of decisions and possible options involved in competitive interaction is given in Figure 7.7.8 This illustrates the situation of a business facing a low-price competitor, for example a high-cost Western manufacturer facing possible attack by cheap imports from Asia. There are three key decisions:

● Threat assessment. The first decision point is whether the threat is substantial or not. If there is a threat, the high-cost organisation should not automatically respond to a low- price competitor by trying to match prices: it is likely to lose a price war with its existing cost structure. The high-cost organisation needs a more sophisticated response.

Figure 7.7 Responding to low-cost rivals Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review. Exhibit from ‘A framework for responding to low-cost rivals’ by N. Kumar, December 2006. Copyright © 2006 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

When a low-cost player enters your industry:

NO Watch, but don’t take on the new

rival

Don’t launch a price war. Increase the differentiation of your products by using

a combination of tactics

Learn to live with a smaller company.

If possible, merge with or take over rivals

Switch to selling solutions or

transform your company into a low-cost player

Attack your low-cost rival by setting up a low-cost business

Intensify differentiation by offering more benefits. Over time, restructure your company to reduce the price of the benefits you offer

Ask Will this company take away any of

my present or future

customers?

Ask Are sufficient numbers of

consumers willing to pay more for

the benefits I offer?

Ask If I set up a

low-cost business, will it generate synergies with

my existing business?

NO

YES

YES

NO

YES

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● Differentiation response. If there are enough consumers prepared to pay for them, the high-cost organisation can seek out new points of differentiation. For example, a Western manufacturer may exploit its closeness to local markets by improving service levels. At the same time, unnecessary costs should be stripped out. If increased differentiation is not possible, then more radical cost solutions should be sought.

● Cost response. Merger with other high-cost organisations may help reduce costs and match prices through economies of scale. If a low-cost business is synergistic with (in other words, has benefits for) the existing business, this can be an effective platform for an aggressive cost-based counter-attack. If there is neither scope for further differentiation or synergy between the existing business and a possible new low-cost business, then the exist- ing business must sooner or later be abandoned. For a Western manufacturer, one option might be to outsource all production to low-cost operators, simply applying its design and branding expertise. Another option would be to abandon manufacturing in favour of becoming a ‘solutions provider’, aggregating manufactured components from different suppliers and adding value through whole-systems design, consultancy or service.

Equivalent decisions would have to be made, of course, by a low-price competitor facing a differentiator. When Apple entered the phone market with its expensive iPhone, established handset manufacturers had first to decide whether Apple was a serious long-term threat, and then choose how far they should either match the iPhone’s features or increase the price differential between their products and Apple’s expensive ones.

According to Richard D’Aveni, these kinds of moves and counter-moves are a constant feature of hypercompetitive environments. As in Section 3.3.1, hypercompetition describes markets with continuous disequilibrium and change, for example popular music or consumer electronics. In these conditions, it may no longer be possible to plan for sustainable positions of competitive advantage. Indeed, planning for long-term sustainability may actually destroy competitive advantage by slowing down response. Managers have to be able to act faster than their competitors.

Successful competitive interaction in hypercompetition thus demands speed and initia- tive rather than defensiveness. Richard D’Aveni highlights four key principles: first, that an organisation has to be willing to cannibalise the basis of its own old advantage and success; second, that smaller moves can create a series of temporary advantages; third, that surprise, unpredictability, even apparent irrationality can be important; and, finally, that an organi- sation might signal particular moves, but then do something else (see Section 7.3.3 on game theory below).

7.3.2 Cooperative strategy

So far the emphasis has been on competition and competitive advantage. However, the com- petitive moves and counter-moves in the previous section make it clear that sometimes compe- tition can escalate in a way that is dangerous to all competitors. It can be in the self-interest of organisations to restrain competition. Moreover, advantage may not always be achieved just by competing. Collaboration between some organisations in a market may give them advantage over other competitors in the same market, or potential new entrants. Collaboration can be explicit in terms of formal agreements to cooperate, or tacit in terms of informal mutual under- standings between organisations. In short, while organisations need to avoid illegal collusion, business strategy includes cooperative options as well as competitive ones.9 Tacit collusion, where companies agree on a certain strategy without any explicit communication between them, is not uncommon; for example agreeing to avoid price competition. It is facilitated by industries or sectors with few competitors, homogenous products and high entry barriers.

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Figure 7.8 illustrates various kinds of benefits from cooperation between firms in terms of Michael Porter’s five forces of buyers, suppliers, rivals, entrants and substitutes (see Sec- tion 3.2). Key benefits of cooperation are as follows:

● Suppliers. In Figure 7.8, cooperation between rivals A and B in an industry will increase their purchasing power against suppliers. Sometimes this increased cooperation is used simply to squeeze supplier prices. However, cooperation between rivals A and B may enable them to standardise requirements, allowing suppliers to make cost reductions to all parties’ benefit. For example, if two car manufacturers agreed on common component specifications, their suppliers could gain economies through production of the standard- ised part on a greater scale (this kind of complementarity is discussed in Section 3.2.6).

● Buyers. Conversely, cooperation between rivals A and B will increase their power as sup- pliers vis-à-vis buyers. It will be harder for buyers to shop around. Such collusion between rivals can help maintain or raise prices, though it may well attract penalties from compe- tition regulators. On the other hand, buyers may benefit if their inputs are standardised, again enabling reductions in costs that all can share. For example, if food manufacturers supplying a retailer agree on common pallet sizes for deliveries, the retailer can manage its warehouses much more efficiently.

● Rivals. If cooperative rivals A and B are getting benefits with regard to both buyers and suppliers, other competitors without such agreements – in Figure 7.8, rival C – will be at a competitive disadvantage. Rival C will be in danger of being squeezed out of the industry.

● Entrants. Similarly, potential entrants will likely lack the advantages of the combined rivals A and B. Moreover, A and B can coordinate their retaliation strategies against any new

Figure 7.8 Cooperating with rivals Source: Adapted from Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors, The Free Press by Michael E. Porter. Copyright © 1980, 1998 by The Free Press. All rights reserved.

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entrant, for example by cutting prices by the same proportions in order to protect their own relative positions while undermining the competitiveness of the new entrant.

● Substitutes. Finally, the improved costs or efficiencies that come from cooperation between rivals A and B reduce the incentives for buyers to look to substitutes. Steel companies have cooperated on research to reduce the weight of steel used in cars, in order to discourage car manufacturers from switching to lighter substitutes such as aluminium or plastics.

Further kinds of cooperation will be considered under alliance strategy in Section 11.4.

7.3.3 Game theory

Game theory provides important insights into competitor interaction.10 The ‘game’ refers to the kinds of interactive moves two players make in a game of chess. Game theory encourages an organisation to consider competitors’ likely moves and the implications of these moves for its own strategy. Game theorists are alert to two kinds of interaction in particular. First, game theorists consider how a competitor response to a strategic move might change the original assumptions behind that move: for example, challenging a competitor in one area might lead to a counter-attack in another. Second, game theorists are sensitive to the strategic signals, or messages, their moves might convey to competitors, for example with regard to how fiercely they seem willing to defend their position in a particular market. In the light of possible attacks and counter-attacks, game theorists often advise a more cooperative approach than head-to-head competition.

Game theory is particularly relevant where competitors are interdependent. Interdepend- ence exists where the outcome of choices made by one competitor is dependent on the choices made by other competitors. For example, the success of price cuts by a retailer depends on the responses of its rivals: if rivals do not match the price cuts, then the price-cutter gains market share; but if rivals follow the price cuts, nobody gains market share and all players suffer from the lower prices. Anticipating competitor counter-moves is clearly vital to decid- ing whether to go forward with the price-cutting strategy.

There are two important guiding principles that arise from interdependence:

● Get in the mind of the competitors. Strategists need to put themselves in the position of competitors, take a view about what competitors are likely to do and choose their own strategy in this light. They need to understand their competitors’ game-plan to plan their own.

● Think forwards and reason backwards. Strategists should choose their competitive moves on the basis of understanding the likely responses of competitors. Think forwards to what competitors might do in the future, and then reason backwards to what would be sensible to do in the light of this now.

Game theory insights can be gained through two methods. On the one hand, war gaming is helpful where it is important to get stakeholders to deeply appreciate each other’s positions through actually playing out their respective roles, and where there is uncertainty about the range of outcomes. Illustration 7.3 provides a public policy example of war gaming and using game theory principles when changing and improving public-sector services. On the other hand, mathematical game theory is useful where there is a clear but limited range of outcomes and the values associated with each outcome can be reasonably quantified.

One of the most famous illustrations of mathematical game theory is the prisoner’s dilemma. Game theorists identify many situations where organisations’ strategic decisions are similar to the dilemma of two prisoners accused of serial crimes together and being inter- rogated in separate prison cells without the possibility of communicating with each other.

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ILLUSTRaTION 7.3

Game theory and war gaming can provide insights when changing and improving public sector services.

Game theory has not become a common strategic tool. It has often been considered too theoretical and focused on single solutions to be able to cope with real-world messy managerial problems. However, it has been proposed that instead of using game theory to predict a single optimal solution it can be used to gen- erally understand advantages and disadvantages with different strategic options.

When public-sector organisations try to change and improve public services they frequently need to partner with and interact with a variety of organisations. They need to collaborate with other public-sector organisa- tions, with private companies and not-for-profit organ- isations. Success therefore depends not only on the public-sector organisation itself, but on several other partners. This requires an insight into partners’ inten- tions and how they may behave. This is central to game theory – understanding what strategic options different players have, what their objectives are and how they will act under different circumstances.

The basic principles of game theory can thus be used to evaluate changes and improvements of public-sector services. The English National Health Service (NHS) has, for example, used war games to better prepare them for government reforms. War gam- ing began as a military preparation that places players in the positions of different actors (e.g. enemies or allies), and asks them to play out a sequence of moves and counter-moves as if they were the actors them- selves. A basic principle underlying the game is that to know your enemy you must become your enemy in the play. Another consideration is that you need to test your own plan and strategy in confrontation with the (played) enemy.

In a war game for healthcare systems, teams are assigned to play the role of different stakeholders including payers, hospitals, physician groups, regula- tors and suppliers. In a first round the teams are then asked to respond to a given challenge. The actions each team can consider are stipulated by the game’s rules, which are based on realistic rules of the health- care system. In subsequent rounds each team reacts to the moves the other teams have made. Through several rounds every team acts on its own strategies and reacts

to the moves of other teams. The aim is not primarily to determine a winner, but to develop new insights. War games make participants think carefully about how they would act, react to and interact with others under specific conditions. In this way, participants gain a better understanding of other players’ perspectives and possible actions. This helps them to anticipate how various actors will behave under different conditions. The participants also gain a better understanding of their own organisation’s strengths and weaknesses in interactions with others.

The principles of game theory can thus be of more general assistance and Timothy Meaklim in the Guard- ian has suggested that public organisations and their leaders should:

1 Be knowledgeable about partners, their strategies, needs and decision-making

2 Be flexible adjusting their own strategies or objec- tives to meet the overall aim

3 Develop clear lines of partnership communication and decision-making

4 Share the power equally between parties 5 Get agreement on partnership operation and

benefits 6 Consider own roles and motives for engaging with

the partnership 7 Create partner trust.

Sources: Partly adapted from T. Meaklim, ‘Game theory: what prison- ers and stags can teach public leaders’,The Guardian, 27 November 2013 and International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, 9(1/2), 2013, pp. 22–31; E. Bury, J. Horn and D. Meredith, ‘How to use war games as a strategic tool in health care’, Health International, 11, 2011, pp. 28–37.

Game theory in practice in the public sector

Questions 1 Besides the public sector, can you think of

other business situations where war games could be useful?

2 War games could possibly play a role when preparing for strategic change at a university. What stakeholders or players would be relevant and what would their interests be?

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The prisoners have to decide on the relative merits of: (i) loyally supporting each other by refusing to divulge any information to their interrogators; and (ii) seeking an advantage by betraying the other. If both stay silent, they might get away with most of their crimes and only suffer some lesser punishment, perhaps for just one or two offences. The interrogators, though, will tempt each of them to divulge full information by offering them their freedom if only they betray their fellow criminal. However, if both betray, then the judge is unlikely to be grateful for the confessions, and will punish them for all their crimes. The dilemma for each of the prisoners is how much to trust in their mutual loyalty: if they both refuse to divulge, they can both get away with the lesser punishment; on the other hand, if one is sure that the other will not betray, it makes even more sense to betray the loyal one as that allows the betrayer to go totally free. The two prisoners are clearly interdependent. But because they cannot communicate, they each have to get in the mind of the other, think forwards to what they might do, and then reason backwards in order to decide what their own strategy should be – stay silent or betray.

The prisoner’s dilemma has its equivalence in business where there are two major players competing head-to-head against each other in a situation of tight interdependence. This is the position of Airbus and Boeing in the aircraft business, Sony and Microsoft in the games market, or British Airways and Virgin in transatlantic travel. It would be relevant to the strategic decisions of two such interdependent companies in a range of situations: for example, if one company was thinking about making a major investment in an innovative new product that the other company could match. For two such competitors to communi- cate directly about their strategies in these situations would likely be judged illegal by the competition authorities. They therefore have to get into each other’s minds, think forwards and reason backwards. How will the other company act or react and, in the light of that, what strategy is best?

The kind of situation two interdependent competitors could get into is represented in the prisoner’s dilemma matrix of Figure 7.9. Suppose the two main aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing were both under pricing pressure, perhaps because of falling demand. They each have to decide whether to announce radical price cuts or to hold their prices up. If both choose to hold their prices, neither gets an advantage over the other and they both get the returns represented in the top left-hand quadrant of Figure 7.9: for the sake of illus- tration, each might earn profits of €500m. However, if one competitor pursues the radical price cuts on its own while the other does not, the pattern of returns might be quite different: the radical price-cutter attracts a significantly larger share of airline customers and earns €700m profits through spreading fixed costs over greater sales, while the market-share-losing competitor earns only €100m (as represented in the top-right and bottom-left quadrants).

Figure 7.9 Prisoner’s dilemma game in aircraft manufacture

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This situation might tempt one of the competitors to choose radical price cuts for two rea- sons: first, there is the prospect of higher profits; but, second, there is the risk of the other competitor cutting prices while leaving it behind. The problem is that if each reason in the same way, the two competitors will both cut prices at once. They will thus set off a price war in which neither gains share and they both end up with the unsatisfactory return of just €300m (the bottom-right quadrant).

The dilemma in Figure 7.9 is awkward because cooperation is simultaneously attractive and difficult to achieve. The most attractive strategy for Airbus and Boeing jointly is for them both to hold their prices, yet in practice they are likely to cut prices because they must expect the other to do so anyway. A distinctive feature of game theory is that it frequently highlights the value of a more cooperative approach to competitor interaction, rather than aggressive competition. The cooperation need not be in the form of an explicit agreement: cooperation can be tacit, supported by the recognition of mutual self-interest in not attacking each other head-to-head. Game theory therefore encourages managers to consider how a ‘game’ can be transformed from lose–lose competition to win–win cooperation. There are various principles to consider here. If players know that their interaction will be repeated this can encourage cooperation. Signalling by responding quickly and aggressively and deterring unwanted strategic moves by competitors can also encourage cooperation and so can a strong commitment to a particular strategy.

7.4 BUSINeSS MODeLS

Business models have become increasingly popular as internet-based companies like Airbnb, Spotify and Uber have conquered the world with their new models. They are particularly use- ful when explaining more complex business interrelationships that generate value and profits for more parties than just a buyer and seller. Consequently, the business model concept is commonly discussed in relation to strategy today. Building on David Teece’s work, this chapter carefully distinguishes business models from business strategy.11 A business model describes a value proposition for customers and other participants, an arrangement of activities that produces this value, and associated revenue and cost structures.12 When entrepreneurs in new start-ups have entered old industries with new business models in recent years they have fre- quently changed industry dynamics and competition in radical ways. The new models often involve more complex interrelationships than traditional models and create value for partic- ipants besides the customer and generate profits for more parties than the seller. This shows that both entrepreneurs and managers, whose organisations may be threatened by new start- ups, need to understand business models. Illustration 7.4 discusses how Uber’s business model has revolutionised the taxi industry globally. The remainder of this section first discusses three fundamental elements of business models and then some typical business model patterns.

7.4.1 Value creation, configuration and capture

Business models describe business transactions and interrelationships between various par- ties and are best explained in terms of three interrelated components (see Figure 7.10).13 The first emphasises value creation; a proposition that addresses a specific customer segment’s needs and problems and those of other participants. The second component is the value configuration of the resources and activities that produce this value. The final value capture part explains revenue streams and cost structures that allow the organisation and other stakeholders to gain a share of the total value generated.14

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ILLUSTRaTION 7.4

The on-demand transportation service that has revolutionised the taxi industry.

With a market value of $50bn (£30bn, €37.5bn) Uber has been predicted to become the world’s dom- inant transportation company without owning a single vehicle. Since its start in San Francisco 2009, it has quickly expanded to over 60 countries and 340 cit- ies worldwide. It now employs 4000, adds 50,000 new partner drivers a month and makes one million trips each day. The company is growing at exponential rates and has received $10bn of equity funding so far. Co-founder and CEO Travis Kalancik claims that they are doubling its size every six months.

Uber’s smartphone app is at the centre of their busi- ness model. Customers download the app, create an account and put in their credit card information. By tapping the app they request a car and a notification is sent to the nearest driver who can accept or reject the ride and, if rejected, it is sent to another driver in the area. Customers can track the estimated time of arrival and the meter via the app. Payment is made to Uber via the app with a later payment to the driver. The customer gets an option to rate the driver and the driver also has the option to rate the customer.

Through the Uber app customers can search, book, pay and rate the taxi service. They are offered a con- venient, reliable and fast taxi service either through luxury rides, priced less than conventional limousine services (Uber Black), or through regular rides priced less than normal taxi fares (UberPop or UberX). The value for drivers is an extra source of income and flex- ible working hours. The review and rating system is a key difference compared to regular taxis. Customers can avoid drivers with low ratings and drivers can avoid passengers with low ratings.

The basic resources of Uber include their tech- nological platform and app, but they do not own any cars or employ any drivers. Drivers own the cars and are self-employed and apply to Uber to become a driver. Uber’s activities are configured to match cus- tomers with a nearby driver and car. In addition to

matchmaking, the platform and app includes pricing and payment, car tracking and review systems. Uber thus structures the value for both customers and driv- ers through the development of sophisticated software and algorithms that optimise matchmaking, pricing and reviews for different cities and local markets.

Uber captures their profit and value by typically taking a 20 per cent cut on all rides except for special promotions to customers and/or drivers and in areas where they face competition from similar services. Besides generating a margin, these revenues should cover their expenses to cover R&D, technology devel- opment, marketing, local infrastructure and own local employees in each city.

Even though the business model has been a suc- cess, there are several significant challenges. The UberPOP service has faced regulatory pushbacks in several European countries and even been forced to shut down in some markets. Uber is also facing an increasing number of competitors with similar business models; Lyft is a significant competitor in the USA and Didi Kuaidi is ahead of Uber in China. As CEO Travis Kalancik explains:

‘We’re profitable in the USA, but we’re losing over $1 billion a year in China.’

Sources : M. Ahmed, ‘Uber: Backseat driver’, Financial Times, 16 Sep- tember 2015; A. Damodaran, ‘A disruptive cab ride to riches: The Uber payoff’, Forbes, 6 October 2014; J. Narvey, ‘Travis Kalanick speaks out: Uber’s CEO on risk, regulation, and women in tech’, Betakit, 16 February 2016.

Uber’s ubiquitous business model

Questions 1 In terms of Figure  7.10 , what are Uber’s

value creation, value configuration and value capturing?

2 If you were the head of a traditional taxi company, how could you change your business model to compete with Uber?

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The business model of the San Francisco-based accommodation broker Airbnb, for exam- ple, creates value for both the customers that rent the apartment, house or private room and for the hosts that offer their homes for rent. The Airbnb website conveniently provides a platform for exchange activities between the hosts and guests. These activities are config- ured via the web platform so that hosts list, describe and present pictures of their homes and customers are thus offered a wide selection of accommodation to choose from and rent. A review system of both accommodations and guests is available to build references and prevent deception. Finally, both hosts and Airbnb capture value from this business model. Hosts receive guest payments and Airbnb gets a 6–12 per cent commission fee on guest reservations, a three per cent to process the payment to the host and also guest credit card processing fees. This points managers and entrepreneurs to three basic and interdependent attributes of business models:

● Value creation. A key part of a business model describes what is offered and how value is thus created for the various parties involved: customers, partners and other participants. The main concern here is thus the targeted customer segment and how their needs are fulfilled and their problems solved, but also how to create value for any other parties involved.

● Value configuration. A second component explains how various interdependent resources and activities in the value chain underlie the value proposition, for example technology, equipment, facilities, brands, managerial processes, etc. (for a discussion of the value chain see Section 4.4.2). These factors are part of an activity system that not only explains what activities create value, but how they are linked and what participants perform them (for activity systems see Section 4.4.3). While this system is centred on the organisation it can also involve activities conducted by customers, partners, and other participants.15

● Value capture. A business model also describes the cost structure of resources and activi- ties and the revenue stream from customers and any other parties. In addition, this com- ponent shows how the value created will be apportioned between the organisation and any other stakeholders involved. For a company, then, this last component also describes how profit is made while for non-for-profits and the public sector there are of course no expectations of financial gain.16

Figure 7.10 Business model components

Value creation

What is offered to what customer segment?

• Customer needs and problems: value and benefit • Target customer and market segment • Value for other participants

Value capture

Why does the model generate a margin?

• Revenue stream and payments • Cost structure and drivers • Apportion of value between stakeholders

Value configuration

How is the value proposition structured?

• Composition and selection of resources and activities • Linkages between and system of activities • Identifies what participants perform what activities

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Two points need to be emphasised here:

● First, once established in an industry, business models are often taken for granted. All businesses rely on business models, but as they mature and become standardised they are rarely questioned. Until Airbnb and others started their services few thought about or challenged the ‘hotel business model’ and how value creation, configuration and capture were interrelated in this model. There may have been efforts to change individual model components, increasing customer value by differentiation, for example, but few changed the whole model and all of the relationships between the components as Airbnb did. Business models thus often become institutionalised and part of an industry’s ‘recipe’ (see Section 6.3.2).

● Second, while competitors may share business models their business strategy can still differ. Walmart, for example, shares the same discount retailer model with several com- petitors, but has a distinct low cost strategy. Likewise, Airbnb in the example above have the same business model as Wimdu and other competitors. However, Airbnb’s extensive selection of accommodations from close to one million listings in 34,000 cities in 200 countries surpasses any competitor and thus differentiates them. Because of this size both customers and hosts are likely to prefer Airbnb over competitors as guests are offered more accommodations and hosts more guests. In addition, the more customers that use their service the better it is for every customer in their network of guests and hosts and Airbnb can thus build on network effects (see Section 3.2.6 for network effects).

7.4.2 Business model patterns

Even though business model patterns often become established within industries over time, companies use them competitively. New entrants often use new business models to be able to compete successfully with established players. Dell, for example, entered the PC and laptop industry many years ago based on a different business model compared to the established one. Instead of going via the middlemen of retailers and wholesalers as HP, IBM and others did, they sold directly to customers. It is thus important for managers to understand what type of business model pattern their businesses built on and how it may differ from other competitors. It should be noted, however, that business model patterns are described at var- ious levels of detail and sometimes only emphasise one or two business model components, such as value capturing.17 There are many business models around, but three typical patterns include the following:

● Razor and blade. This is perhaps the most well-known business model pattern, but its primary focus is on the value capture component, which makes it more of a revenue model. It builds on Gillette’s classic model of selling the razors at a very low price and the com- patible replacement blades at a quite high price.18 This model of selling two technically interlinked products separately is quite common. For example, mobile operators offering consumers a cheap or even a free mobile phone and then catching them through a two- year fee-based subscription plan. In other industries it is the services, maintenance and parts that are priced expensively while the basic product is sold at relatively low margins. This is, for example, the case for ink-jet printers; they are sold at relatively low prices, but manufacturers make their margins on selling expensive ink. It is also common in industrial goods with an emphasis on expensive services; for example, Rolls Royce and GE and others in the jet engine industry and Otis and Schindler and other players in the elevator industry.

● Freemium. This business model pattern name comes from combining ‘free’ and ‘premium’ and it primarily relates to online businesses. It refers to how a basic version of a service or product is offered for free so as to build a high volume of customers and eventually

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convince a portion of the customers to buy a variety of premium services. Revenue is generated by the premium buying customers. Often only a small portion of the total volume of users, their revenues can be enough for the provider and they can also be used to attract even more users. The photo sharing service Flickr by Yahoo uses this business model pattern. Flickr offers the basic service of uploading and sharing photos for free while generating revenues through extra services for a subscription fee including unlimited uploading and storing of photos. Flickr also uses contextual advertising and cooperation with retail chains and other photo service companies besides subscription fees to generate revenue. Other online businesses that use this business model are the business-oriented social networking service LinkedIn, the video chat and voice call service Skype and the streaming music service Spotify. The aim of freemium, however, is not only to convince premium customers, but to attract a larger volume of customers as the value of the service increases with more users, which means that the enterprise can gain network effects based on a large installed base of adopters (see Section  3.2.6 for network effects).

● Multi-sided platforms. This business model pattern brings together two or more distinct, but interdependent groups of customers on one platform. They are interdependent as the platform is of value to each group of customers only if the other group of customers is also present. There are many different enterprises and markets that rely on this pattern (see for example Illustration 7.4), and video games consoles are a typical example. The players are on one side of the platform and favour consoles with a wide variety of games. This makes them dependent on the other side of the platform, the game developers, which in turn favour platforms with a large enough customer group to regain their development

ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

Some question to what extent sustainable competitive advantage is possible at all in today’s fast-changing world.

Section  7.4.1 indicated that in hypercompetitive envi- ronments it may not be possible to form business strate- gies that provide for sustainable competitive advantage. Some argue that the era of sustainability in competitive advantage is over altogether as most industries today are too turbulent. It is claimed that competitors and customers have become too unpredictable to form any single long-term strategy. Companies with strong and long-lasting positions like IKEA, GE and Unilever are argued to be exceptions. In this view then, it is a waste of effort to invest in sustainable advantages; better to invest in a series of transient advantages. 19

In this new era managers thus need to constantly start new strategic initiatives and have a portfolio of several transient competitive advantages. They need to think of advantages as fleeting and going through a life cycle. Each competitive advantage has a launch stage that identifies an opportunity and raises resources to capitalise on it. Next is a ramp up period in which the

business is brought to scale, which leads into a phase of exploitation where market shares and profits are gained. Finally, there is a phase of inevitable erosion as competitors enter and weaken the advantage, which may force the company to exit. A company thus needs to catch new advantages continuously as old ones expire; freeing up resources from the old to invest in the new. Even if each advantage is temporary a portfo- lio of several different advantages would always provide an advantage somewhere. Hence, if managers continu- ously start strategic initiatives and build many transient advantages they could still get ahead of competitors.

Transient rather than sustainable advantage

Question If IKEA chose not to build on sustainable competitive advantage, how could they build on many transient advantages?

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costs for the games. This shows that the value of the platform increases for both customer types as more customers use it. It suggests a network effect as each customer has a posi- tive effect on the value of the product or platform for other customers (see Section 3.2.6). Web search companies like Google also rely on a similar pattern. For them the two sides of the platform involve consumer searchers on the one hand and advertisers that sponsor links on the search website on the other. The more searchers that use Google the better for advertisers and the better data for Google to refine search results and the better quality of the searches the better for consumers.

SUMMaRY ● Business strategy is concerned with seeking competitive advantage in markets at the business rather than

corporate level.

● Porter’s framework and the Strategy Clock define various generic strategies, including cost leadership, differ- entiation, focus and hybrid strategies.

● In hypercompetitive conditions sustainable competitive advantage is difficult to achieve and competitors need to carefully consider moves and counter-moves.

● Cooperative strategies may offer alternatives to competitive strategies or may run in parallel.

● Game theory encourages managers to get in the mind of competitors and think forwards and reason backwards.

● A business model describes the business logic of an enterprise including the domains of value creation, value configuration and value capture.

WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

7.1 What are the advantages and what are the disadvantages of applying principles of business strategy to public-sector or charity organisations? Illustrate your argument by reference to a public-sector organisation of your choice.

7.2 Using either Porter’s generic strategies or the Strategy Clock, identify examples of organisations following strategies of differentiation, low cost or low price, and stuck-in-the-middle or hybrid. How successful are these strategies?

7.3✱ You have been appointed personal assistant to the chief executive of a major manufacturing firm, who has asked you to explain what is meant by ‘differentiation’ and why it is important. Write a brief report addressing these questions.

7.4✱ Choose a company that you are familiar with (e.g. Spotify, Netflix, Apple). How do the business model components (value creation, configuration and capture) apply to the company?

7.5✱ Drawing on Section 7.3.2 (on cooperative strategies) write a report for the chief executive of a business in a competitive market (e.g. pharmaceuticals* or Formula One*) explaining when and in what ways cooperation rather than direct competition might make sense.

Integrative assignment

7.6✱ Applying game theory ideas from Section 7.3.3 to issues of international strategy (Chapter 9), how might a domestic player discourage an overseas player from entering into its home market?

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ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● The foundations of the discussions of generic competitive strategies are to be found in the writings of Michael Por- ter, which include Competitive Strategy (1980) and Com- petitive Advantage (1985), both published by Free Press.

● Hypercompetition, and the strategies associated with it, are explained in Richard D’Aveni, Hypercompetitive Rivalries: Competing in Highly Dynamic Environments, Free Press, 1995.

● There is much written on game theory, but a good deal of it can be rather inaccessible to the lay reader. Exceptions are R. McCain, Game Theory: a Non-technical Introduc- tion to the Analysis of Strategy, South Western, 2003; and P. Ghemawat, Games Businesses Play, MIT Press, 1998.

● There is considerably less written on business models, but one introduction including a long list of various business model types is O. Gassman, K. Frankenberger and M. Csik, The Business Model Navigator, Pearson, 2014.

ReFeReNCeS

1. This section draws heavily on M. Porter, Competitive Advan- tage, Free Press, 1985. For a more recent discussion of the generic strategies concept, see J. Parnell, ‘Generic strate- gies after two decades: a reconceptualisation of competi- tive strategy’, Management Decision, vol. 48, no. 8 (2006), pp. 1139–54.

2. P. Conley, Experience Curves as a Planning Tool, avail- able as a pamphlet from the Boston Consulting Group. See also A.C. Hax and N.S. Majluf, in R.G. Dyson (ed.), Strategic Planning: Models and Analytical Techniques, Wiley, 1990.

3. B. Sharp and J. Dawes, ‘What is differentiation and how does it work?’, Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 17, nos 7/8 (2001), pp. 739–59, reviews the relationship between dif- ferentiation and profitability.

4. C. Markides and C. Charitou, ‘Competing with dual busi- ness models: a contingency approach’, Academy of Manage- ment Executive, vol. 18, no. 3 (2004), pp. 22–36.

5. See D. Faulkner and C. Bowman, The Essence of Competi- tive Strategy, Prentice Hall, 1995.

6. For empirical support for the benefits of a hybrid strategy, see E. Pertusa-Ortega, J. Molina-Azorín and E. Claver-Cortés, ‘Competitive strategies and firm performance: a comparative analysis of pure, hybrid and “stuck-in-the-middle” strategies in Spanish firms’, British Journal of Management, vol. 20, no. 4 (2008), pp. 508–23.

7. R. D’Aveni, Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering, Free Press, 1994.

8. This analysis is based on N. Kumar, ‘Strategies to fight low cost rivals’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no. 12 (2006), pp. 104–13.

9. Useful books on collaborative strategies are Y. Doz and G. Hamel, Alliance Advantage: The Art of Creating Value through Partnering, Harvard Business School Press, 1998; C. Hutham (ed.), Creating Collaborative Advantage, Sage, 1996; and D. Faulkner, Strategic Alliances: Cooperating to Compete, McGraw-Hill, 1995.

10. For readings on game theory, see B. Nalebuff and A. Brandenburger, Co-opetition, Profile Books, 1997; R.

McCain, Game Theory: A Non-technical Introduction to the Analysis of Strategy, South Western, 2003; and, for a summary, S. Regan, ‘Game theory perspective’, in M. Jenkins and V. Ambrosini (eds), Advanced Strategic Management: a Multi-Perspective Approach, 2nd edn, Palgrave Macmil- lan, 2007, pp. 83–101. A more recent practical example is in H. Lindstädt and J. Müller, ‘Making game theory work for managers’, McKinsey Quarterly, December 2009.

11. For discussion about business models and how they differ from business strategy, see D.J. Teece, ‘Business models, business strategy and innovation’, Long Range Planning, vol. 43, no. 2 (2010), pp. 172–94; J. Magretta, ‘Why busi- ness models matter’, Harvard Business Review, May 2002, pp. 86–92; C. Zott and A. Raphael, ‘The fit between product market strategy and business model: implications for firm performance’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 29, no. 1 (2008), pp.1–26; and H. Chesbrough and R.S. Rosenbloom, ’The role of the business model in capturing value from inno- vation: evidence from Xerox Corporation’s technology spin- off companies’ Industrial and Corporate Change, vol. 11, no. 3 (2002), pp. 529–55.

12. In earlier editions we did not emphasise the first value prop- osition part, but emphasised the arrangement of activities and the revenues and cost structure (business models were discussed in Chapter 9 in the last two editions).

13. Please note that the business model literature is quite young and fragmented. For a couple of reviews of the litera- ture, see C. Zott, A. Raphael and L. Massa, ‘The business model: recent developments and future research’, Journal of Management, vol. 37, no. 4 (2011), pp. 1019–42; and A. Osterwalder, Y. Pinneur and C. Tucci, ‘Clarifying bus- ienss models: origins, present, and future of the concept’, Communications of AIS, vol. 16, article 1 (2005). For a debate of the value of business models, see R.J. Arend, ‘The business model: present and future – beyond a skeumorph’, Strategic Organization, vol. 11, no. 4 (2013), pp. 390–402; C. Baden-Fuller and V. Mangematin, ‘Business models: a challenging agenda’, Strategic Organization, vol. 11, no. 4 (2013), pp. 418–27; and C. Zott and A. Raphael, ‘The

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business model: a theoretically anchored robust construct for strategic analysis’, Strategic Organization, vol. 11, no. 4 (2013), pp. 403–11.

14. For another division of business model components and a description of a wide range of business models, see O. Gassmann, K. Frankenberger and M. Csik, The Business Model Navigator, Pearson, 2014.

15. For a discussion about activity systems in business models, see C. Zott and A. Raphael, ‘Business model design: an activ- ity system perspective’, Long Range Planning, vol. 43, no. 2 (2010), pp. 216–26; and R. Casadesus-Masanell and J.E. Ricart, ‘From strategy to business models and onto tactics’, Long Range Planning, vol. 43, no 2 (2010), pp. 195–215.

16. For a discussion of business models for sustainability that also includes non-for profits, see B. Cohen and J. Kietzmann, ‘Ride on! Mobility business models for the sharing econ- omy’, Organization & Environment, vol. 27, no. 3 (2014) pp. 279–96.

17. There are thus multiple labels around and diverse patterns are often combined into a single business model for a par- ticular enterprise. Airbnb’s model is an example of this. On the one hand, it is often referred to as a ‘multi-sided platform model’ as they connect hosts and guests (see this models’ specifications below in the text). On the other hand, it is sometimes also called a ‘peer to peer model’ as it is based on cooperation among individuals who are connected via an app, website or some other online or communication service.

18. The model is sometimes also referred to as a ‘cross-subsidi- sation’ model as one basic product is inexpensive and sold at a discount, while the second dependent product or service needed to get the basic product functional is sold at a con- siderably higher price. Others refer to it as a ‘bait and hook’ pattern as it lures in consumers in.

19. R. Gunther McGrath, ‘Transient advantage’, Harvard Busi- ness Review, vol. 91, no. 6 (2013), pp. 62–70.

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CaSe eXaMpLe

‘Our business model is to offer a wide range of well-de- signed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.’

This was the headline in IKEA’s yearly summary report for year ending 31 August 2015. 1 It reported a revenue increase of 11.2 per cent to €32.7bn (£26.2bn, $42.5bn), 2 profits of €3.5bn and share gains in most markets. IKEA continued to be the world’s largest home furnishings com- pany with some 9500 products in 375 stores in 28 coun- tries. 3 The company had 172,000 co-workers (of which 40,000 were in production and distribution).

The home furnishings market 4

By the late 2000s home furnishings was a huge mar- ket worldwide with retail sales in excess of $US600bn in items such as furniture, household textiles and floor coverings. More than 50 per cent of these sales were in furniture stores. Table  1 compares the geographical spread of the market and IKEA sales by region.

IKea’s competitors

The home furnishings market was highly fragmented with competition occurring locally rather than globally and included competitors of several types:

• Multinational furniture retailers (like IKEA) all of whom were considerably smaller than IKEA. These included, for example, the Danish company Jysk (turnover €2.9bn).

• Companies specialising in just part of the furniture product range and operating in several countries – such as Alno from Germany in kitchens.

• Multi-branch retail furniture outlets whose sales were mainly in one country, such as DFS in the UK. The US

market was dominated by such players (e.g. Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. with revenues of some $US12bn).

• Non-specialist companies that carried furniture as part of a wider product range. In the UK, the largest opera- tor was the Home Retail Group whose subsidiary Argos offered some 53,000 general merchandise products through its network of 840 stores and online sales. It was number one in UK furniture retailing. General DIY companies such as Kingfisher (through B&Q in the UK and Castorama in France) were attempting to capture more of the bottom end of the furniture market.

• Small and/or specialised retailers and/or manufactur- ers. These accounted for the biggest share of the mar- ket in Europe.

In 2014, it was estimated that the UK market was about £10.2bn 7 of which IKEA had £1.7bn share (16.7 per cent).

IKea’s approach

IKEA had been founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 in the small Swedish town of Älmhult and opened its first furniture store 1958. The company’s success had been achieved through the now legendary IKEA busi- ness approach – revolutionary in the furnishing industry of its early years (see Table  2 ). The guiding business philosophy of Kamprad was that of improving the every- day life of people by making products more affordable. This was achieved by massive (more than 20 per cent) reductions in sales prices vs competitors which, in turn, required aggressive reductions in IKEA’s costs.

Reasons for success

In his book The IKEA Edge 8 published in 2011, Anders Dahlvig reflected on the reasons for IKEA’s success

The IKea approach Kevan Scholes*

europe (incl. Russia) americas asia/pacific

% of global market 5 52 29 19 % of IKEA sales 6 72 18 10

Table 1 The geographical spread of the market and of IKEA sales by region

*This case was prepared by Kevan Scholes, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management at Sheffield Business School. It is intended as a basis for class discussion and not as an illustration of good or bad management practice. Copyright Kevan Scholes 2016. Not to be reproduced or quoted without permission.

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before, during and after his period as CEO (1999–2009). He felt IKEA had five success criteria:

‘1. Design, function, and quality at low prices; 2. Unique (Scandinavian) design; 3. Inspiration, ideas, and com- plete solutions; 4. everything in one place; 5. “a day out”, the shopping experience. . . . You may well say that they are similar to those of most companies. The difference, in my opinion, is that IKea is much better at delivering on these customer needs than are other retailers. . . . Most competitors focus on one or at most two of these customer needs. high-street shops focus on design and inspiration. Out-of-town low-cost retailers focus on price. Department stores focus on choice. The real strength of IKea lies in the combination of all five.’9

IKea’s competitive strategy

Dahlvig explained IKEA’s approach to competition:

‘You can choose to adapt your company’s product range to the markets you are operating in, or you can choose to shift the market’s preference toward your own range and style. IKea has chosen the latter. By doing this, the company can maintain a unique and distinct profile. This is, however, a more difficult path to follow.10 . . . a signif- icant understanding of the customer’s situation at home is the basis for IKea’s product development.11 . . . For most competitors, having the lowest price seems to mean being five to ten per cent cheaper than the com- petition on comparable products. at IKea, this means being a minimum 20 per cent cheaper and often up to 50 per cent cheaper than the competition.’12

Managing the value chain

Dahlvig explained that IKEA’s strategy crucially requires the ‘design’ and control of their wider value chain in detail:

‘The secret is the control and coordination of the whole value chain from raw material, production, and range development, to distribution into stores. Most other companies working in the retail sector have control either of the retail end (stores and distribution) or the product design and production end. IKea’s vertical inte- gration makes it a complex company compared to most, since it owns both production, range development, dis- tribution, and stores.13 . . . This included backward inte- gration by extending the activities of Swedwood (IKea’s manufacturing arm) beyond furniture factories, into con- trol over the raw materials, saw mills, board suppliers, and component factories.’14

Global expansion

Despite IKEA’s strong global position when Dahlvig took over as CEO, he felt there was need for improvement. Earlier growth had come from going ‘wide but thin’ with limited market shares, but now they would go ‘deep’ and concentrate on their existing markets.15

He explained his reasoning:

‘Why make the change? . . . the competition had been very fragmented and local in nature. however, many of the very big retail companies were shifting strat- egy. From being local, they were looking to a global expansion, not least in the emerging markets like China, Russia, and eastern europe . . . [and] broadening their product range . . . with much more muscle than IKea’s traditional competitors. . . . One way to dissuade them from entering into the home furnishing arena was to aggressively reduce prices and increase the company’s presence with more stores in all local markets in the countries where IKea was operating. . . . another reason for the shift in strategy was cost efficiency. Growing

element of the approach Traditional furniture retailer IKea

Design Traditional Modern (Swedish) Target households Older, established Families with children Style of shop Small specialist shops All furnishing items in big stores Location City centre Out-of-town Product focus Individual items ‘Room sets’ Marketing Advertising Free catalogue (213 million in 32

languages in 2015) Price High Low Product assembly Ready assembled Flat pack – self-assembly Sourcing Local Global Brand Manufacturers’ IKEA Financial focus Gross margin Sales revenue Overheads Often high Frugal – no perks

Table 2 IKEA’s ‘upside-down’ approach

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THE IKEA APPROACH

sales in existing stores is the most cost-efficient way to grow the company.’16

China and India

Around 70 per cent of IKEA stores are still in Europe and expansion into Asia was crucial, but the company had come to realise that emerging markets could be particularly challenging. As head of research Mikael Ydholm remarked: ‘The more far away we go from our culture, the more we need to understand, learn, and adapt.’17

IKEA first opened in China in 1998 and today it is the company’s fastest growing market. They now have eight of its ten biggest stores there. The Chinese mar- ket was extremely challenging for a company that had built global success through standardisation.18 The main problems were that in emerging markets IKEA products were expensive relative to local competitors and the consumer shopping expectations were centred on small, local shops and personal service. IKEA thus had to be flexible and presented an image as exclusive Western Europian interior design specialists – popular with younger, affluent, city dwellers. Their shops were smaller than usual for IKEA and typically nearer city centres. Because DIY was not well developed in China they offered home delivery and assembly services. Cata- logues were only available in store. Crucially, stores were allowed to source almost 50 per cent locally (against company average of about 25 per cent) in order to keep prices competitive.

The Chinese experience would be useful when IKEA entered India. It was announced in 2012 that IKEA was to invest €1.5bn opening 25 stores over 15 to 20 years19 with the first store opened in Hyderabad 2017. However, India also proved challenging as a third of a retailer chains’ merchandise had to be produced locally. IKEA had huge problems to find producers that could live up to their strict corporate social responsibility requirements.

New leadership

Michael Ohlsson succeeded Dahlvig as CEO in 2009 – having already worked for IKEA for 30 years. In turn, he was succeeded in 2013 by another internal appointee – Peter Agnefjäll (18 years at IKEA).

Despite extremely challenging economic conditions after the global financial crash of 2008, the compa- ny’s success continued with revenue reaching €21.8bn, €27.6bn and €32.7bn in 2009, 2012 and 2015, respec- tively, with the goal to reach €50bn by 2020. However, the market was changing as IKEA expanded into more countries (43 by 2015).

Growing IKea and reaching more customers

Although the IKEA approach remained central to the com- pany’s strategy, the yearly report for financial year 201520 explained how new challenges were being addressed.

‘We want to be even more accessible to the many people. This means working hard to ensure we make it easier for customers to shop with us, wherever and whenever they want to visit our stores and shopping centres, or our website and apps.

Shopping centres

We now operate 40 shopping centres and 25 retail parks [in 14 countries] and we have 20 projects in the pipeline across several markets. These family-friendly shopping centres have an IKea store as one of the main attractions.

Online

Online sales through our website and apps exceeded €1 billion in FY15. [There were 1.9bn visits to IKea.com and 54 million hits on the IKEA catalogue app – in each case an increase of about 20 per cent from 2014.] Currently we offer online shopping in 13 of our 28 retail countries. We are continually exploring how we can expand and improve the ways our customers can find out about our products and be inspired by our range through digital channels, such as website, apps and catalogue.

pick-up and order points

Our three new pick-up and order points in Spain, Norway and Finland enable customers to see and buy selected products from our range, as well as collect pre-ordered purchases.’

Based on their unique approach and the more recent ingredients mentioned above, IKEA continued to take over the world with the same vision as always. CEO Peter Agnefjäll confirmed:

‘We’re guided by a vision to create a better everyday life for the many people. That is what steers us, motivates us – that is our role . . . We feel almost obliged to grow.’21

Questions 1 Identify where (in their value system) and how

IKEA have achieved cost leadership.

2 Identify how IKEA have achieved differentiation from their competitors.

3 Explain how IKEA tries to ensure that their ‘hybrid’ strategy remains sustainable and does not become ‘stuck-in-the-middle’.

4 How would you explain IKEA’s business model in terms of value creation, configuration and capture?

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Notes and References

1. ‘IKEA Group Yearly Summary FY15’ from IKEA website (www.ikea.com). 2. The revenue figure consists of €31.9bn sales and €0.8bn rental income

on retail property. 3. IKEA had a presence in 43 countries if retail, distribution and produc-

tion are all included. 4. Data in this section comes from the IKEA website 2015 and from the

Data Monitor report on Global Home Furnishings Retail Industry Profile (Reference Code: 0199-2243 Publication date: April 2008).

5. 2008. 6. 2015. 7. British Furniture Manufacturers (www.bfm.org.uk). 8. Anders Dahlvig, The Ikea Edge, McGraw Hill, 2011. 9. Ibid., page 62. 10. Ibid., page 63.

Suggested Video Clip http://fortune.com/video/2015/03/10/ ikeas-secret-to-global-success/

11. Ibid., page 63. 12. Ibid., page 74. 13. Ibid., page 75. 14. Ibid., page 83. 15. Ibid., page 120. 16. Ibid., page 123. 17. B. Kowitt, ‘How Ikea took over the world’, Fortune, 15 March, 2015. 18. U. Johansson and A. Thelander, ‘A standardised approach to the world?

IKEA in China’, International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, vol. 1, no. 2 (2000), pp. 199–219.

19. N. Bose and M. Williams, ‘Ikea to enter India, invest 1.5 bln euros in stores’, Reuters, 23 June 2012.

20. See endnote 1. 21. See endnote 17.

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Strategic choices

Business strategy

InternationalCorporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Identify alternative strategy options, including market penetration , product devel- opment , market development and diversification.

● Distinguish between different diversification strategies ( related and conglomerate diversification) and evaluate diversification drivers.

● Assess the relative benefits of vertical integration and outsourcing. ● Analyse the ways in which a corporate parent can add or destroy value for its port-

folio of business units.

● Analyse portfolios of business units and judge which to invest in and which to divest.

8 CORPORATE STRATEGY AND DIVERSIFICATION

ansoff’s growth matrix p.244

BCG matrix p.262

diversification (related and unrelated/ conglomerate) pp.244/245

dominant logic p.250

economies of scope p.250

outsourcing p.254

parental developer p.261

parenting advantage p.244

portfolio manager p.258

synergy p.251

synergy manager p.259

vertical (forward and backward) integration p.253

Key terms

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8.1 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 7 was concerned with competitive strategy – the ways in which a single business unit or organisational unit can compete in a given market space, for instance through cost leader- ship or differentiation. However, organisations may choose to enter many new product and market areas (see Figure II.1 in Part II introduction). For example Tata Group, one of India’s largest companies, began as a trading organisation and soon moved into hotels and textiles. Since that time, Tata has diversified further into steel, motors, consultancy, technologies, tea, chemicals, power, communications. As organisations add new units and capabilities, their strategies may no longer be solely concerned with competitive strategy in one market space at the business level, but with choices concerning different businesses or markets. Corporate strategy is about what business areas to be active in, and this will determine which business unit(s) to buy, the direction(s) an organisation might pursue and how resources may be allo- cated efficiently across multiple business activities. For Tata, the corporate strategy questions are whether it should add any more businesses, whether it should exit some, and how far it should integrate the businesses it retains. For large public-sector organisations and charities these choices also have to be made. These choices, indicated in Figure 8.1, inform decisions about how broad an organisation should be. This ‘scope’ of an organisation is central to corporate strategy and the focus of this chapter.

Scope is concerned with how far an organisation should be diversified in terms of two different dimensions: products and markets. As the opening example shows, an organisa- tion may increase its scope by engaging in market spaces or products different to its current ones. Section 8.2 introduces a classic product market framework that uses these catego- ries for identifying different growth directions for an organisation. This indicates different diversification strategies open to an organisation, according to the novelty of products or markets. Underpinning diversification choices are a range of drivers, which are discussed in Section 8.3, including increasing market power, reducing risk and exploiting superior internal processes. The performance implications of diversification are, then, reviewed in Section 8.4.

Another way of increasing the scope of an organisation is vertical integration, discussed in Section 8.5. It allows an organisation to act as an internal supplier or a customer to itself (as

Figure 8.1 Strategic directions and corporate-level strategy

Scope How broad to make the portfolio?

Corporate parenting How should the ‘parent’ add value?

Portfolio matrices Which SBUs to invest in?

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for example an oil company supplies its petrol to its own petrol stations). The organisation may decide to outsource certain activities – to ‘dis-integrate’ by subcontracting an internal activity to an external supplier – as this may improve organisational efficiency. The scope of the organisation may therefore be adjusted through growth or contraction.

Diversified corporations that operate in different areas of activity will have multiple strategic business units (SBUs) with their own strategies for their specific markets for which they can be held accountable in terms of success or failure. SBUs thus allow large corporations to vary their business strategies according to the different needs of the various external markets they serve. Nevertheless, corporate head office, the ‘corporate level’, needs to manage the selection of SBUs and establish their boundaries, perhaps by market, geography or capability, so they add value to the group.1 The value-adding effect of head office to individual SBUs, that make up the organisation’s portfolio, is termed parenting advantage (see Section 8.6). Their ability to do this effectively may make them competitive amongst other corporate parents in acquiring and manage different businesses. But just how do corporate-level activities, decisions and resources add value to businesses? As will be seen at the end of the chapter in the ‘Thinking Differently’ section, some are sceptical about headquarters’ ability to add value.

In order to decide which industries and businesses organisations should invest in or dis- pose of, the corporate centre needs to assess whether the portfolio of businesses is worth more under its management than the individual businesses would be worth standing alone. Section 8.7 reviews portfolio matrices, which are useful techniques to help structure corporate-level choices about businesses in which to invest and those to divest.

This chapter is not just about large commercial businesses. Small businesses may also have different business units. For example, a local building company may be undertaking contract work for local government, industrial buyers and local homeowners. Not only are these dif- ferent market segments, but the mode of operation and capabilities required for competitive success in each are also likely to be different. Moreover, the owner of that business has to take decisions about the extent of investment and activity in each segment. Public-sector organisations such as local government or health services also provide different services, which correspond to business units in commercial organisations. Corporate-level strategy is also highly relevant to the appropriate drawing of organisational boundaries in the public sector. Privatisation and outsourcing decisions can be considered as responses to the failure of public-sector organisations to add sufficient value by their parenting.

8.2 STRaTeGY DIReCTIONS

A central corporate strategy choice is about in which areas a company should grow. ansoff’s product/market growth matrix2 is a classic corporate strategy framework for generating four basic directions for organisational growth – see Figure 8.2. Typically an organisation starts in zone A. It may choose between penetrating still further within zone A (sometimes termed ‘consolidation’), or increasing its diversity along the two axes of increasing novelty of mar- kets or increasing novelty of products. This process of increasing the diversity of products and/or markets is known as ‘diversification’. Diversification involves increasing the range of products or markets served by an organisation. Related diversification involves expanding into products or services with relationships to the existing business. Thus on Ansoff’s axes the organisation has two related diversification strategies available: moving to zone B, devel- oping new products for its existing markets, or moving to zone C by bringing its existing products into new markets. In each case, the further along the two axes, the more diversified the strategy. Alternatively, the organisation can move in both directions at once, following

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a conglomerate diversification strategy with altogether new markets and new products (zone D). Thus conglomerate (unrelated) diversification involves diversifying into products or services with no relationships to existing businesses.

Ansoff’s axes can be used for brainstorming strategic options, checking that all four zones have been properly considered. Illustration 8.1 traces the evolution of a social enterprise, raising questions about how businesses might think about Ansoff’s matrix in choosing their strategic direction. The next section will consider each of Ansoff’s four main directions in some detail. Section 8.5 will examine the additional option of vertical integration.

8.2.1 Market penetration

For a simple, undiversified business, the most obvious strategic option is often increased penetration of its existing market, with its existing products. Market penetration implies increasing share of current markets with the current product range. This strategy builds on established strategic capabilities and does not require the organisation to venture into uncharted territory. The organisation’s scope is exactly the same. Moreover, greater market share implies increased power vis-à-vis buyers and suppliers (in terms of Porter’s five forces), greater economies of scale and experience curve benefits.

However, organisations seeking greater market penetration may face two constraints:

● Retaliation from competitors. In terms of the five forces (Section 3.2), increasing market penetration is likely to exacerbate industry rivalry as other competitors in the market defend their share. Increased rivalry might involve price wars or expensive marketing battles, which may cost more than any market-share gains are actually worth. The dangers of provoking fierce retaliation are greater in low-growth markets, as gains in volume will be more at the expense of other players. Where retaliation is a danger, organisations seeking market pene- tration need strategic capabilities that give a clear competitive advantage. In low-growth or declining markets, it can be more effective simply to acquire competitors. Some companies have grown quickly in this way. For example, in the steel industry the Indian company LNM (Mittal) moved rapidly in the 2000s to become the largest global steel producer by acquiring

Figure 8.2 Corporate strategy directions Source: Adapted from H.I. Ansoff, Corporate Strategy, Penguin, 1988, Chapter 6 . Ansoff originally had a matrix with four separate boxes, but in practice strategic directions involve more continuous axes. The Ansoff matrix itself was later developed – see Reference 2.

Products/services

A

Market penetration

C

Market development

D

Conglomerate diversification

B

New products and services

Markets

Existing

Existing

New

New

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ILLUSTRaTION 8.1

how Greyston’s diversification transforms a depressed community.

Probably best known for producing the brownies in the famous Ben and Jerry’s ice creams, the Greyston Bakery is part of the Greyston Foundation – a $15m (£9m; €11.25m) integrated network of for-profit and not-for-profit entities. The Foundation provides a wide array of services to benefit its local depressed community.

A Zen Buddhist meditation group started the bak- ery in 1982. They located in the poor neighbour- hood of Yonkers, New York, where they perceived a need to create jobs for people in the community who were ‘hard to employ’ – the homeless, those with poor employment histories, prison records and past substance-abuse problems. Radically they used an ‘open hiring’ practice that continues today, in which anybody who applies for a job has an opportunity to work, on a first-come, first-hired basis. Employees have to show up for work on time, perform the job and have an appropriate attitude for three months and are then automatically made permanent employees. As SVP David Rome says, ‘we judge people based on their performance in the operation, not on their background’. There is high initial turnover but the average tenure is about three years. Greyston con- siders it a success when an employee moves onto a new job using his or her new skills. According to CEO Julius Walls, ‘The company provides opportunities and resources to its employees so they can be suc- cessful not only in the workplace but in their personal lives. We don’t hire people to bake brownies; we bake brownies to hire people.’

As the bakery expanded it realised that providing jobs to the community was not enough. In 1991, working with governmental agencies, Greyston Fam- ily Inn was opened to provide permanent housing for homeless people. Currently there are three buildings, providing 50 housing units. A child day- care centre was also started as after-school care was one of the most pressing needs in the community for working parents. In 1992, Greyston Health Ser- vices was formed and in 1997, Issan House opened with 35 permanent housing units for those with

HIV/AIDS, mental illness or chemical dependency. Other ventures included Greyston Garden Project, five community-run gardens on neglected properties, and a technology education centre. In 2011, a local retail bakery/café was opened and in 2012, with the help of the Foundation’s real-estate division, a new bakery was constructed, for $10m in a public–private partnership project with the city, on a long-dormant brownfield (contaminated) site.

The Foundation is an umbrella for all Greyston organisations, providing centralised management, fund-raising, real-estate development and planning services. It now comprises four interrelated organi- sations: bakery, healthcare services, child and family programmes and real-estate development. The Foun- dation’s social mission of supporting low-income peo- ple to forge a path to self-sufficiency and community transformation is blended with business collaboration to enable continual growth.

In 2012, Greyston Bakery celebrated its 30th anni- versary, and New York State made it a Benefit Cor- poration, allowing Greyston to demonstrate higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability and transparency. As CEO Steven Brown said, ‘Really, we were a benefit corporation long before the term was coined. You’re in business for a much larger commu- nity that has a stake in what you are doing. Creating value and opportunity is the path out of distress for communities.’ Since then Greyston has continued to grow, opening new multi-family housing developments for local working families.

Sources : www.greyston.com ; ht tp: //1596994.sites.myreg- isteredsite.com/levpoints/ lp52.html#face ; Huffington Post, 9 December 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLzV7JfVSc .

Baking change into the community

Questions 1 What were the motivation(s) for Greyston

Bakery’s diversifications?

2 Referring to the Ansoff matrix, how would you classify these diversifications?

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struggling steel companies around the world. Acquisitions may reduce rivalry, by taking out independent players and controlling them under one umbrella.

● Legal constraints. Greater market penetration can raise concerns from official competi- tion regulators concerning excessive market power. Most countries have regulators with the powers to restrain powerful companies or prevent mergers and acquisitions that would create such excessive power. In the UK, the Competition Commission can inves- tigate any merger or acquisition that would account for more than 25 per cent of the national market, and either halt the deal or propose measures that would reduce market power. The European Commission has an overview of the whole European market and can similarly intervene. For example, when it gave approval for the acquisition of the vaccines business of Novartis by GSK, and the creation of a new entity, the decision was conditional upon the divestiture of certain related assets. The Commission had concerns the transaction would have eliminated an important competitor to GSK for the supply of several vaccines and consumer health products, which might lead to price increases for European consumers.3

Market penetration may also not be an option where economic constraints are severe, for instance during a market downturn or public-sector funding crisis. Here organisations will need to consider the strategic option of retrenchment: withdrawal from marginal activities in order to concentrate on the most valuable segments and products within their existing business. However, where growth is still sought, the Ansoff’s axes suggest further directions, as follows.

8.2.2 product development

Product development is where organisations deliver modified or new products (or services) to existing markets. This can involve varying degrees of diversification along the horizontal axis of Figure 8.2. For Apple, developing its products from the original iPod, through iPhone to iPad involved little diversification: although the technologies differed, Apple was targeting the same customers and using very similar production processes and distribution channels. Despite the potential for benefits from relatedness, product development can be an expensive and high-risk activity for at least two reasons:

● New resources and capabilities. Product development strategies typically involve mastering new processes or technologies that are unfamiliar to the organisation. For example, the digital revolution is forcing universities to reconsider the way learning materials are acquired and provided to students and the nature of the student/academic interface. High-quality content available free online and virtual engagement with students now raise the question of how universities should consider redeploying their resources in the future. Success is likely to depend on a willingness to acquire new technological capabilities, to engage in organisational restructuring and new marketing capabilities to manage customer perceptions. Thus product development typically involves heavy investments and can have high risk of project failures.

● Project management risk. Even within fairly familiar domains, product development pro- jects are typically subject to the risk of delays and increased costs due to project complex- ity and changing project specifications over time. For example, Boeing’s Dreamliner 787 aircraft made innovative use of carbon-fibre composites but had a history of delays even before launch in 2010, and required $2.5bn (£1.5bn, €1.9bn) write-offs due to cancelled orders. Since then, batteries catching fire has resulted in fleets being grounded.

Strategies for product development are considered further in Chapter 10.

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8.2.3 Market development

Product development can be risky and expensive. Market development can be more attrac- tive by being potentially cheaper and quicker to execute. Market development involves offering existing products to new markets. Again, the degree of diversification varies along Figure 8.2’s downward axis. Typically, of course, market development entails some product development as well, if only in terms of packaging or service. Nonetheless, market develop- ment remains a form of related diversification given its origins in similar products. Market development takes two basic forms:

● New users. Here an example would be aluminium, whose original users, packaging and cutlery manufacturers, are now supplemented by users in aerospace and automobiles.

● New geographies. The prime example of this is internationalisation, but it would also include the spread of a small retailer into new towns.

In all cases, it is essential that market development strategies be based on products or ser- vices that meet the critical success factors of the new market (see Section 3.4.3). Strategies based on simply off-loading traditional products or services in new markets are likely to fail. Moreover, market development faces similar problems to product development. In terms of strategic capabilities, market developers often lack the right marketing skills and brands to make progress in a market with unfamiliar customers. On the management side, the chal- lenge is coordinating between different users and geographies, which might all have different needs. International market development strategy is considered in Chapter 9.

8.2.4 Conglomerate diversification

Conglomerate (or unrelated) diversification takes the organisation beyond both its exist- ing markets and its existing products (i.e. zone D in Figure 8.2). In this sense, it radically increases the organisation’s scope. Conglomerate diversification strategies can create value as businesses may benefit from being part of a larger group. This may allow consumers to have greater confidence in the business units products and services than before and larger size may also reduce the costs of finance. However, conglomerate strategies are often not trusted by many observers because there are no obvious ways in which the businesses can work together to generate additional value, over and above the businesses remaining on their own. In addition, there is often an additional bureaucratic cost of the managers at head- quarters who control them. For this reason, conglomerate companies’ share prices can suffer from what is called the ‘conglomerate discount’– in other words, a lower valuation than the combined individual constituent businesses would have on their own. For instance, shares in Old Mutual, an international financial services group, traded at a 25 per cent discount to its peers since the recession. This underperformance occurred since it moved its business to the UK from South Africa and diversified away from its core focus on Africa and emerging markets. Speculation that the CEO will announce a break-up saw Old Mutual shares rise 7 per cent in trading.

However, it is important to recognise that the distinction between related and conglom- erate (unrelated) diversification is often a matter of degree. Relationships that might have seemed valuable in related diversification may not turn out to be as valuable as expected. Thus the large accounting firms have often struggled in translating their skills and client contacts developed in auditing into effective consulting practices. Similarly, relationships may change in importance over time, as the nature of technologies or markets change: see, for example, the decision by TomTom to move into different product offerings (Illustration 8.2).

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ILLUSTRaTION 8.2

Sat nav manufacturer TomTom diversifies to survive.

Dutch manufacturer TomTom’s fortunes dived in 2008 with sales down 36 per cent to €959m (£767m, $1.2bn) (2014) and profits down 71 per cent to €25.4m (2014). From its peak of $15bn, multinational TomTom’s market value was just €2.3bn by 2015. How did this decline come about and what could manage- ment do about it?

Originally a software developer for business-to-busi- ness mobile applications and personal digital assis- tants (PDAs), TomTom became market leader in PDA software in just two years with navigation applications RoutePlanner and Citymaps. In 2002, the TomTom Navigator was launched, providing European custom- ers for the first time with an easy-to-use, affordable, portable navigation device (PND). Demand was strong for the PND which was not just a new product, but an entirely new consumer electronics category. TomTom GO, launched in 2004, revolutionised the way millions of drivers got from A to B. Affordable and accessible to everyone, it became the fastest selling consumer tech- nology device ever. Since then, over 75 million devices have been sold in 35 countries, guiding drivers over 280 billion kilometres.

During 2008, TomTom’s sales fell dramatically due to an increasingly saturated sat nav market, plus smart- phone alternatives from Google and Nokia. TomTom was forced to reconsider its business and diversified into fleet management and vehicle telematics, where it is now a recognised leader. TomTom evolved from just a hardware business, selling sat navs to stick on windscreens, to a software and services provider that offered free mapping on smartphones and integrated traffic management systems used by governments to quell traffic and manage roads.

After partnering with Nike on the Nike+ Sport- Watch, TomTom launched its own TomTom Runner and TomTom Multi-Sport watches in 2013, to help runners, cyclists and swimmers keep moving towards their fitness goals, by providing essential performance information at a glance. Both have GPS sensors, allowing them to tap into TomTom’s navigation plat- form. TomTom is now straying further from its roots by launching Bandit, an action camera, to challenge

American market leader GoPro. It will contain GPS sensors allowing users to find and tag exciting moments in their video footage, based on speed, alti- tude, G-force and acceleration. Bandit’s real selling point is its video-editing and -sharing capabilities.

Although sat nav devices, sports watches and action cameras may seem unlikely bedfellows, co-founder Vigreux explains that ‘TomTom is a bit like a collec- tion of startups under one umbrella. Employees are actively encouraged to be entrepreneurial in product development. . . . We’re a tech brand at the end of the day – the only consumer electronics brand to come out of Europe in the last 15 years with a global footprint’ and if there is one thing that unites Tomtom products its ‘we make things easy for consumers’.

TomTom still feels there is a market for a stand- alone sat nav for people to avoid roaming charges on mobile phones and the need to buy a new car if they want an in-built system. They are also working with car manufacturers to build embedded navigation systems into their vehicles as the era of the ‘connected car’ – where manufacturers do everything from updating car entertainment to suspension adjustment – has forced automakers into partnerships with technology compa- nies. Competitive concerns mean manufacturers are unwilling to share data with rivals and so rely on third parties for services such as traffic management as it is not always cost-effective for them to make the invest- ment themselves. TomTom is currently collaborating with Volkswagen on real-time map updates for driv- erless cars although they will face tough competition from Google and Apple.

Sources: http://corporate.tomtom.com ; Telegraph, 20 August 2015; Financial Times, 12 February 2015.

From sat nav to driverless cars

Questions 1 Explain the ways in which relatedness

informed TomTom’s post-2008 strategy.

2 Were there alternative strategies open to TomTom post 2008?

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8.3 DIVeRSIFICaTION DRIVeRS

Diversification might be chosen for a variety of reasons, some more value-creating than others.4 Growth in organisational size is rarely a good enough reason for diversification on its own: growth must be profitable. Indeed, growth can often be merely a form of ‘empire building’, especially in the public sector. Diversification decisions need to be approached sceptically.

Four potentially value-creating drivers for diversification are as follows:

● Exploiting economies of scope. economies of scope refer to efficiency gains made through applying the organisation’s existing resources or competences to new markets or services.5 If an organisation has under-utilised resources or competences that it cannot effectively close or sell to other potential users, it is efficient to use these resources or competences by diversification into a new activity. In other words, there are economies to be gained by extending the scope of the organisation’s activities. For example, many universities have large resources in terms of halls of residence, which they must have for their students but which are under-utilised out of term time. These halls of residence are more efficiently used if the universities expand the scope of their activities into con- ferencing and tourism during holiday periods. Economies of scope may apply to both tangible resources, such as halls of residence, and intangible resources and competences, such as brands or staff skills.

● Stretching corporate management competences (‘dominant logics’). This is a special case of economies of scope, and refers to the potential for applying the skills of talented corporate-level managers (referred to as ‘corporate parenting skills’ in Section 8.6) to new businesses. The dominant logic is the set of corporate-level managerial competences applied across the portfolio of businesses.6 Corporate-level managers may have compe- tences that can be applied even to businesses not sharing resources at the operating-unit level.7 Thus the French luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH includes a wide range of businesses – from champagne, through fashion, jewellery and perfumes, to financial media – that share very few operational resources or business-level competences. How- ever, LVMH creates value for these specialised companies by applying corporate-level competences in developing classic brands and nurturing highly creative people that are relevant to all its individual businesses. See also the discussion of dominant logic at Berkshire Hathaway in Illustration 8.4 later.

● Exploiting superior internal processes. Internal processes within a diversified corporation can often be more efficient than external processes in the open market. This is especially the case where external capital and labour markets do not yet work well, as in many developing economies. In these circumstances, well-managed conglomerates can make sense, even if their constituent businesses do not have operating relationships with each other. For example, China has many conglomerates because it is able to mobilise internal investment, develop managers and exploit networks in a way that stand-alone Chinese companies, relying on imperfect markets, cannot. For example, China’s largest privately owned conglomerate, the Fosun Group, owns steel mills, pharmaceutical companies and China’s largest retailer, Yuyuan Tourist Mart.8

● Increasing market power.9 Being diversified in many businesses can increase power vis- à-vis competitors in at least two ways. First, having the same wide portfolio of products as a competitor increases the potential for mutual forbearance. The ability to retaliate across the whole range of the portfolio acts to discourage the competitor from making any aggressive moves at all. Two similarly diversified competitors are thus likely to

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forbear from competing aggressively with each other. Second, having a diversified range of businesses increases the power to cross-subsidise one business from the profits of the others. The ability to cross-subsidise can support aggressive bids to drive competitors out of a particular market and, being aware of this, competitors without equivalent power will be reluctant to attack that business.

Where diversification creates value, it is described as ‘synergistic’.10 Synergies are benefits gained where activities or assets complement each other so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of the parts (the famous 2 + 2 = 5 equation). Thus a film company and a music publisher would be synergistic if they were worth more together than separately – if the music publisher had the sole rights to music used in the film company productions for instance. However, synergies are often harder to identify and more costly to extract in practice than managers like to admit.11

Indeed, some drivers for diversification involve negative synergies, in other words value destruction. Three potentially value-destroying diversification drivers are:

● Responding to market decline is one common but doubtful driver for diversifica- tion. Rather than let the managers of a declining business invest spare funds in a new business, conventional finance theory suggests it is usually best to let shareholders find new growth investment opportunities for themselves. For example, Kodak (see Illustration 6.4), the US photo film corporation, spent billions of dollars on diversifi- cation acquisitions such as chemicals, desktop radiotherapy, photocopiers, telecom- munications and inkjet printers in order to compensate for market decline in its main product. Many of these initiatives failed and the decline of the core business contin- ued until Kodak went bankrupt. Shareholders might have preferred Kodak simply to hand back the large surpluses generated for decades beforehand rather than spending on costly acquisitions. If shareholders had wanted to invest in the chemicals, telecommunications or printers, they could have invested in the original dominant companies themselves.

● Spreading risk across a range of markets is another common justification for diver- sification. Again, conventional finance theory is very sceptical about risk-spreading by diversification. Shareholders can easily spread their risk by taking small stakes in dozens of very different companies themselves. Diversification strategies, on the other hand, are likely to involve a limited range of fairly related markets. While managers might like the security of having more than one market, shareholders typically do not need each of the companies they invest in to be diversified as well – they would prefer managers to concentrate on managing their core business as well as they can. However, conventional finance theory does not apply to private businesses, where owners have a large proportion of their assets tied up in their company: here it can make sense to diversify risk across a number of distinct activities, so that if one part is in trouble, the whole business is not pulled down.

● Managerial ambition can sometimes drive inappropriate diversification. For example Vijay Mallya, CEO of UB Group, an Indian conglomerate involved in alcoholic bev- erages, aviation infrastructure, real estate and fertiliser, diversified further into air- lines with Kingfisher Airlines (see Chapter 5 end case). This seemed in keeping with his extravagant lifestyle and pursuit of glamour; fitting his reputation as ‘the King of Good Times’. However, there were no obvious synergies, and the airline industry was not competitive – leading to the collapse of Kingfisher and the loss of other key group assets. Managers such as Mallya might gain short-terms benefits in terms of prestige and financial rewards from diversification, but going beyond his areas of true expertise soon brought financial disaster.

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8.4 DIVeRSIFICaTION aND peRFORMaNCe

Because most large corporations today are diversified, but also because diversification can sometimes be in management’s self-interest, many scholars and policy-makers have been concerned to establish whether diversified companies really perform better than undiversified companies. After all, it would be deeply troubling if large corporations were diversifying simply to spread risk for managers, to save managerial jobs in declining businesses or to generate short-term benefits for managers, as in the case of UB group.

Research studies of diversification have particularly focused on the relative benefits of related diversification and conglomerate or unrelated diversification. Researchers gener- ally find that related or limited diversifiers outperform both firms that remain special- ised and those that have unrelated or extensively diversified strategies.12 In other words, the diversification–performance relationship tends to follow an inverted (or upside-down) U-shape, as in Figure 8.3. The implication is that some diversification is good – but not too much.

However, these performance studies produce statistical averages. Some related diversi- fication strategies fail – as in the case of some accounting firms’ ventures in consulting – while some conglomerates succeed – as in the case of LVMH. The case against unrelated diversification is not solid, and effective dominant logics or particular national contexts can play in its favour. For instance, easyGroup, with interests including planes, pizza, cars and gyms, has a strong dominant logic around business model innovation in mature industries. In terms of national contexts, conglomerate diversification may be particularly effective in developing economies as a form of protection against institutional weaknesses such as poor law enforcement, lack of quality labour, capricious political contexts. The conclusion from the performance studies is that, although on average related diversification pays better than unrelated, any diversification strategy needs rigorous questioning on its particular merits.

Figure 8.3 Diversity and performance

Performance

Low Undiversified Related

limited diversification

Unrelated extensively diversified

High

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8.5 VeRTICaL INTeGRaTION

As well as diversification, another direction for corporate strategy can be vertical integration. Vertical integration describes entering activities where the organisation is its own supplier or customer. Thus it involves operating at another stage of the value network (see Section 4.4.2). This section considers both vertical integration and vertical dis-integration, particularly in the form of outsourcing.

8.5.1 Forward and backward integration

Vertical integration can go in either of two directions:

● Backward integration is movement into input activities concerned with the company’s current business (i.e. further back in the value network). For example, acquiring a com- ponent supplier would be backward integration for a car manufacturer.

● Forward integration is movement into output activities concerned with the company’s current business (i.e. further forward in the value network). For a car manufacturer, for- ward integration would be into car retail, repairs and servicing.

Thus vertical integration is like diversification in increasing corporate scope. The difference is that it brings together activities up and down the same value network, while diversification typically involves more or less different value networks. However, because realising synergies involves bringing together different value networks, diversification (especially related diver- sification) is sometimes also described as horizontal integration. For example, a company diversified in cars, trucks and buses could find benefits in integrating aspects of the various design or component-sourcing processes. The relationship between horizontal integration and vertical integration is depicted in Figure 8.4.

Figure 8.4 Diversification and integration options: car manufacturer example

Forward integration

Truck manufacture

Car manufacture

Components manufacture

Bus manufacture

Car retail

Horizontal integration (diversification)

Backward integration

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Vertical integration often appears attractive as it seems to ‘capture’ some of the profits gained by retailers or suppliers in a value network – the retailers’ or suppliers’ profits. However there are two dangers. First, vertical integration involves investment. Expensive investments in activities that are less profitable than the original core business will be unattractive to share- holders because they are reducing their average or overall rate of return on investment. Second, even if there is a degree of relatedness through the value network, vertical integration is likely to involve quite different strategic capabilities. Thus car manufacturers forwardly integrating into car servicing found managing networks of small service outlets very different to managing large manufacturing plants. Growing appreciation of both the risks of diluting overall returns on investment and the distinct capabilities involved at different stages of the value network has led many companies in recent years to vertically dis-integrate.

8.5.2 To integrate or to outsource?

Where a part of vertically integrated operations is not adding value to the overall business, it may be replaced through outsourcing or subcontracting. Outsourcing is the process by which activities previously carried out internally are subcontracted to external suppliers. Outsourcing can refer to the subcontracting of components in manufacturing, but is now particularly common for services such as information technology, customer call centres and human resource management (see Illustration 8.3). The argument for outsourcing to spe- cialist suppliers is often based on strategic capabilities. Specialists in a particular activity are likely to have superior capabilities than an organisation for which that particular activity is not a central part of its business. A specialist IT contractor is usually better at IT than the IT department of a steel company.

However, Nobel prize-winning economist Oliver Williamson has argued that the decision to integrate or outsource involves more than just relative capabilities. His transaction cost framework helps analyse the relative costs and benefits of managing (‘transacting’) activities internally or externally.13 Assessing whether to integrate or outsource an activity, Williamson warns against underestimating the long-term costs of opportunism by external subcontractors (or indeed any other organisation in a market relationship). Subcontractors are liable over time to take advantage of their position, either to reduce their standards or to extract higher prices. Market relationships tend to fail in controlling subcontractor opportunism where:

● there are few alternatives to the subcontractor and it is hard to shop around;

● the product or service is complex and changing, and therefore impossible to specify fully in a legally binding contract;

● investments have been made in specific assets, which the subcontractors know will have little value if they withhold their product or service.

Both capabilities and transaction cost reasoning have influenced the outsourcing decisions of the Royal Bank of Scotland, see Illustration 8.3.

This transaction cost framework suggests that the costs of opportunism can outweigh the benefits of subcontracting to organisations with superior strategic capabilities. For example, mining companies in isolated parts of the Australian outback typically own and operate housing for their workers. The isolation creates specific assets (the housing is worth nothing if the mine closes down) and a lack of alternatives (the nearest town might be 100 miles away). Consequently, there would be large risks to both partners if the mine subcontracted housing to an independent company specialising in worker accommodation, however strong its capabilities. Transaction cost economics therefore offers the following advice: if there are few alternative suppliers, if activities are complex and likely to change, and if there are

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ILLUSTRaTION 8.3

In 2012, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) experienced a major crisis when its customers could not withdraw cash. Was this the consequence of outsourcing?

In June 2012, RBS encountered severe problems when ten million retail and business customers sud- denly found they could not access their cash. This was highly damaging to the bank’s reputation and could result in significant customer loss. The problem was faulty updating of CA-7 – critical software that con- trols the batch processing systems dealing with retail banking transactions. Generally regarded as ‘a very common and reliable product, it processes accounts overnight via thousands of pieces of work’ such as ATM transactions, bank-to-bank salary payments and so on, and finishes by updating the account mas- ter copy with the definitive balance. Described as a huge game of Jenga (the tower game played with interlaced wood blocks), all transactions are related, so everything needs to be processed in order. Thus Tuesday’s batch must run before Wednesday’s to avoid, for example, penalising someone who has a large sum of money leave their account on Wednes- day that might put them in debt but which would be covered by money arriving on Tuesday. In updating CA-7, files were deleted or corrupted so the master copy was wrong for three nights – meaning millions of transactions were not processed. RBS branches had to extend their opening hours to reassure customers about their accounts.

Unions argued that the disaster was due to ‘offshor- ing’ UK IT jobs to India. ‘RBS has 40 years’ experience running this system and banks as a rule don’t drop the ball like this,’ remarked one bank employee. However, the general banking crisis had pressured UK banks to reduce their costs. RBS, which had suffered badly from the banking crisis, let thousands of UK staff go and transferred their roles to Chennai, India. As one former employee complained, ‘We were having to pass 10–20+ years worth of mainframe knowledge onto people who’d never heard of a mainframe outside of a museum . . . ’.

Offshore outsourcing was once heralded as the saviour of UK IT departments, cutting costs without

compromising quality. Thousands of IT jobs were axed in the name of ‘efficiency’, many outsourced to India with much lower wages than the UK. Indeed in Feb- ruary 2012, RBS advertised it was urgently seeking computer graduates with several years’ experience of using CA-7.

However, India’s staff attrition rates in 2012 were at an all-time high with people changing jobs very quickly for just a few extra rupees, leaving insufficient time for adequate cultural awareness training. Quality at call centres suffered. At the same time, the UK was in recession with a devaluing pound greatly reducing wage disparity between India and the UK.

RBS’s overseas problems were not uncommon with other banks experiencing loss of private data and in some instances criminal activity. Spanish-owned Santander UK – a bank created from Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley – also found that outsourced IT systems for these banks could not be trusted and so became the first of the major UK financial institutions to bring back its call centres and software from India to the UK, so that it could take care of its customer base. Ana Botin, Santander UK’s Chief Executive, said the move was ‘the most important factor in terms of satisfaction with the bank.’ This ‘inshoring’ of strategic assets raises the question of whether strategic assets can afford to be ‘out of sight and out of mind’.

Sources: Guardian, 25 June 2012; http://www.hrzone.co.uk/topic/ business-lifestyle/shoring-new-shoring-call-centres-come-back-uk/112654 .

‘Out of sight – out of mind’? Outsourcing at Royal Bank of Scotland

Questions 1 In terms of transaction and capability costs,

why might outsourcing be attractive to companies?

2 What might be the risks of ‘insourcing’?

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significant investments in specific assets, then it is likely to be better to vertically integrate rather than outsource.

In sum, the decision to integrate or subcontract rests on the balance between:

● Relative strategic capabilities. Does the subcontractor have the potential to do the work significantly better?

● Risk of opportunism. Is the subcontractor likely to take advantage of the relationship over time?

8.6 VaLUe CReaTION aND The CORpORaTe paReNT

Sometimes corporate parents do not add value to their constituent businesses. Where there is no added value, it is usually best to divest the relevant businesses from the corporate portfolio. Thus in 2016, Toyota Boshoku agreed to sell the automotive interior business of Polytec Holding that the Japanese parts maker had acquired in 2011, at a substantial loss. In the public sector too, units such as schools or hospitals are increasingly being given freedom from parenting authorities, because independence is seen as more effective. Some theorists even challenge the notion of corporate-level strategy altogether. The following section exam- ines how corporate parents can both add and destroy value, and considers three different parenting approaches that can be effective.

8.6.1 Value-adding and value-destroying activities of corporate parents14

Corporate parents need to demonstrate that they create more value than they cost. This applies to both commercial and public-sector organisations. For public-sector organisations, privatisation or outsourcing is likely to be the consequence of failure to demonstrate value. Companies whose shares are traded freely on the stock markets face a further challenge. They must demonstrate they create more value than any other rival corporate parent could create. Failure to do so is likely to lead to a hostile takeover or break-up. Rival companies that think they can create more value out of the business units can bid for the company’s shares, on the expectation of either running the businesses better or selling them off to other potential parents. If the rival’s bid is more attractive and credible than what the current parent can promise, shareholders will back it at the expense of incumbent management.

In this sense, competition takes place between different corporate parents for the right to own and control businesses. In this ‘market for corporate control’, corporate parents must show that they have parenting advantage, on the same principle that business units must demonstrate competitive advantage. They must demonstrate that they are the best possible parents for the businesses they control. Parents therefore must be clear on how they create value. In practice, however, parenting activities can be value-destroying as well as value-creating.

Value-adding activities15

There are five main types of activity by which a corporate parent can add value:

● Envisioning. The corporate parent can provide a clear overall vision or strategic intent for its business units.16 This should guide and motivate business unit managers to maximise corporation-wide performance through commitment to a common purpose. Envisioning

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should also provide stakeholders with a clear external image about what the organisation as a whole is about: to reassure shareholders about the rationale for having a diversified strategy in the first place.17 Finally, a clear vision provides a discipline on the corporate parent to stop its wandering into inappropriate activities or taking on unnecessary costs.

● Facilitating synergies. The corporate parent can facilitate cooperation and sharing across business units, so improving synergies from being within the same corporate organisation. This can be achieved through incentives, rewards and remuneration schemes.

● Coaching. The corporate parent can help business unit managers develop strategic capa- bilities, by coaching them to improve their skills and confidence. Corporate-wide manage- ment courses are one effective means of achieving these objectives, as bringing managers across the business to learn strategy skills also allows them to build relationships between each other and perceive opportunities for cooperation.

● Providing central services and resources. The centre can provide capital for investment as well as central services such as treasury, tax and human resource advice. If these are cen- tralised they may have sufficient scale to be efficient and can build up relevant expertise. Centralised services often have greater leverage: for example, combining many business unit purchases increases bargaining power for shared inputs such as energy. This leverage can be helpful in brokering with external bodies, such as government regulators, or other companies in negotiating alliances. Finally, the centre can have an important role in manag- ing expertise within the corporate whole, for instance by transferring managers across the business units or by creating shared knowledge management systems via corporate intranets.

● Intervening. Finally, the corporate parent can also intervene within its business units to ensure appropriate performance. The corporate parent should be able to closely monitor business unit performance and improve performance either by replacing weak managers or by assisting them in turning around their businesses. The parent can also challenge and develop the strategic ambitions of business units, so good businesses are encouraged to perform even better.

Value-destroying activities

However, there are three ways in which the corporate parent can inadvertently destroy value:

● Adding management costs. Most simply, corporate staff and facilities are expensive. Corporate staff are typically the best-paid managers with the most luxurious offices. It is the actual businesses that have to generate the revenues that pay for them and if corporate centre costs are greater than the value they create, then corporate staff are net value-destroying.

● Adding bureaucratic complexity. As well as these direct financial costs, there is the ‘bureaucratic fog’ created by an additional layer of management and the need to coordi- nate with sister businesses. These typically slow down managers’ responses to issues and lead to compromises between the interests of individual businesses.

● Obscuring financial performance. One danger in a large diversified company is that the under-performance of weak businesses can be obscured. Weak businesses might be cross-subsidised by stronger ones. Internally, the possibility of hiding weak performance diminishes the incentives for business unit managers to strive as hard as they can for their businesses: they have a parental safety net. Externally, shareholders and financial ana- lysts cannot easily judge the performance of individual units within the corporate whole. Diversified companies’ share prices are often marked down, because shareholders prefer the ‘pure plays’ of stand-alone units, where weak performance cannot be hidden.18

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These dangers suggest clear paths for corporate parents that wish to avoid value destruction. They should keep a close eye on centre costs, both financial and bureaucratic, ensuring that they are no more than required by their corporate strategy. They should also do all they can to promote financial transparency, so that business units remain under pressure to perform and shareholders are confident that there are no hidden disasters.

Overall, there are many ways in which corporate parents can add value. It is, of course, difficult to pursue them all and some are hard to mix with others. For example, a corporate parent that does a great deal of top-down intervening is less likely to be seen by its managers as a helpful coach and facilitator. Business unit managers will concentrate on maximising their own individual performance rather than looking out for ways to cooperate with other business unit managers for the greater good of the whole. For this reason, corporate parent- ing roles tend to fall into three main types, each coherent within itself but distinct from the others.19 These three types of corporate parenting role are summarised in Figure 8.5.

8.6.2 The portfolio manager

The portfolio manager operates as an active investor in a way that shareholders in the stock market are either too dispersed or too inexpert to be able to do. In effect, the portfolio manager is acting as an agent on behalf of financial markets and shareholders with a view to extracting more value from the various businesses than they could achieve themselves. Its role is to identify and acquire under-valued assets or businesses and improve them. The portfolio manager might do this, for example, by acquiring another corporation, divesting low-performing businesses within it and intervening to improve the performance of those with potential. Such corporations may not be much concerned about the relatedness (see Section 8.2) of the business units in their portfolio, typically adopting a conglomerate

Figure 8.5 Portfolio managers, synergy managers and parental developers Source: Adapted from M. Goold, A. Campbell and M. Alexander, Corporate Level Strategy, Wiley, 1994.

Parent Portfolio manager • Corporate office: small • Main emphasis: downward, investing and intervening

Synergy manager • Corporate office: large • Main emphasis: across, facilitating cooperation

Parental developer • Corporate office: large • Main emphasis: downward, providing parental capabilities

Parent

Parent

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strategy. Their role is not to get closely involved in the routine management of the busi- nesses, only to act over short periods of time to improve performance. In terms of the value-creating activities identified earlier, the portfolio manager concentrates on interven- ing and the provision (or withdrawal) of investment.

Portfolio managers seek to keep the cost of the centre low, for example by having a small corporate staff with few central services, leaving the business units alone so that their chief executives have a high degree of autonomy. They set clear financial targets for those chief executives, offering high rewards if they achieve them and likely loss of position if they do not. Such corporate parents can, of course, manage quite a large number of such busi- nesses because they are not directly managing the everyday strategies of those businesses. Rather they are acting from above, setting financial targets, making central evaluations about the well-being and future prospects of such businesses, and investing, intervening or divesting accordingly.

Some argue that the days of the portfolio manager are gone. Improving financial markets mean that the scope for finding and investing cheaply in underperforming companies is much reduced. However, some portfolio managers remain and are successful. Private equity firms such as Apax Partners or Blackstone operate a portfolio management style, typically investing in, improving and then divesting companies in loosely knit portfolios. For example, in 2015, Blackstone, with $300bn in assets, owned companies in energy, real estate, water treatment, camera manufacture, banking, railway operation and seed development with more than 616,000 employees around the world. Illustration 8.4 includes a description of the portfolio parenting approach of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway.

8.6.3 The synergy manager

Obtaining synergy is often seen as the prime rationale for the corporate parent.20 The synergy manager is a corporate parent seeking to enhance value for business units by man- aging synergies across business units. Synergies are likely to be particularly rich when new activities are closely related to the core business. In terms of value-creating activities, the focus is threefold: envisioning building a common purpose; facilitating cooperation across businesses; and providing central services and resources. For example, at Apple, Steve Jobs’ vision of his personal computers being the digital hub of the new digital lifestyle guided managers across the iMac computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad businesses to ensure seamless connections between the fast-developing offerings. The result is enhanced value through bet- ter customer experience. A metals company diversified into both steel and aluminium might centralise its energy procurement, gaining synergy benefits through increased bargaining power over suppliers.

However, achieving such synergistic benefits involves at least three challenges:

● Excessive costs. The benefits in sharing and cooperation need to outweigh the costs of undertaking such integration, both direct financial costs and opportunity costs. Managing synergistic relationships tends to involve expensive investments in management time.

● Overcoming self-interest. Managers in the business units have to want to cooperate. Espe- cially where managers are rewarded largely according to the performance of their own particular business unit, they are likely to be unwilling to sacrifice their time and resources for the common good.

● Illusory synergies. It is easy to overestimate the value of skills or resources to other businesses. This is particularly common when the corporate centre needs to justify a new venture or the acquisition of a new company. Claimed synergies often prove illusory when managers actually have to put them into practice.

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ILLUSTRaTION 8.4

The challenge of managing a highly diverse set of businesses for shareholders.

From a small struggling textile business in the 1960s War- ren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway’s 85-year-old billionaire Chairman and CEO, had built a $356bn (£219bn; €274bn) conglomerate in 2015. Its businesses were highly diverse including insurance companies (GEICO, General Re, NRG), carpets, building products, clothing and footwear manufac- turers, retail companies and private jet service, NetJets. It also held significant long-term minority stakes in Coca- Cola and General Electric and continued to make major cash acquisitions, including BNSF for $34bn in 2009 (the second largest US railway company), Lubrizol (speciality chemicals, $9bn, 2011), Heinz ($23.3bn, 2013), Duracell (batteries, $4.7bn, 2014). In 2015, Precision Castparts, an aircraft components company suffering from falling revenues, profits and a 30 per cent decline in share price, was acquired for $37bn. But, as Buffet remarked, the size of Berkshire Hathaway made finding deals that make a dif- ference, difficult – a bit like ‘elephant hunting’.

Annual reports explained how Buffet and Deputy Chair- man Charlie Munger ran the business:

‘Charlie Munger and I think of our shareholders as owner-partners, and of ourselves as managing partners. (Because of the size of our shareholdings we are also, for better or worse, controlling part- ners.) We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own the assets . . . In line with Berk- shire’s owner-orientation, most of our directors have a major portion of their net worth invested in the company. We eat our own cooking.’

Berkshire has a clear ‘dominant logic’:

‘Charlie and I avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting their products may be. In the past, it required no brilliance for people to foresee the fabulous growth that awaited such indus- tries as autos (in 1910), aircraft (in 1930) and televi- sion sets (in 1950). But the future then also included competitive dynamics that would decimate almost all of the companies entering those industries. Even the survivors tended to come away bleeding. Just because Charlie and I can clearly see dramatic growth ahead for an industry does not mean we can judge what its profit margins and returns on capital will be as a host of

competitors battle for supremacy. At Berkshire we will stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Even then, we will make plenty of mistakes.’

Explaining how they managed their subsidiary businesses, Buffet said:

‘We subcontract all of the heavy lifting to the manag- ers of our subsidiaries. In fact, we delegate almost to the point of abdication: though Berkshire has about 340,000 employees, only 25 of these are at headquar- ters. Charlie and I mainly attend to capital allocation and the care of our key managers. Most are happiest when they are left alone to run their businesses, and that is just how we leave them. That puts them in charge of all operating decisions and of dispatching the excess cash they generate to headquarters. By sending it to us, they don’t get diverted by the various enticements that would come their way were they responsible for deploying the cash their businesses throw off. Furthermore, Charlie and I are exposed to a much wider range of possibilities for investing these funds than any of our managers could find.’

Berkshire Hathaway’s 50 th birthday had financial commentators reviewing its astonishing success. Buffet’s investment genius is often cited alongside ‘a weirdly intense contagious devotion of shareholders and media’ (Munger). Many would like to fully understand the success formula that has stood Berkshire Hathaway in such good stead for so long. In the meantime, Berkshire Hathaway still had a huge cash pile in 2016. Should the ageing billionaire investor reload his ‘elephant gun’ for another acquisition?

Sources: ‘Berkshire Hathaway Owner’s Manual’, http://brkshr.com/ owners.html ; http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2009ltr.pdf .

Eating its own cooking: Berkshire Hathaway’s parenting

Questions 1 In what ways does Berkshire Hathaway

fit the archetypal portfolio manager (see Section  8.6.2 )?

2 Warren Buffet still had $73bn to invest. Suggest industries and businesses he would be unlikely to invest in.

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The failure of many companies to extract expected synergies from their businesses has led to growing scepticism about the notion of synergy. Synergistic benefits are not as easy to achieve as would appear. For example, lawsuits between Hewlett Packard and former Auton- omy employees following the former’s €6.6bn (£5.3bn, $8.8bn) write down of Autonomy, a British software company, have resulted from failure to achieve anticipated integration benefits. Hewlett Packard blamed the former management team of Autonomy for fraudulent misrepresentation during the acquisition process. Nevertheless, synergy continues to be a common theme in corporate-level strategy, as Illustration 8.2 on TomTom shows.

8.6.4 The parental developer21

The parental developer seeks to employ its own central capabilities to add value to its busi- nesses. This is not so much about how the parent can develop benefits across business units or transfer capabilities between business units, as in the case of managing synergy. Rather, parental developers focus on the resources or capabilities they have as parents which they can transfer downwards to enhance the potential of business units. For example, a parent could have a valuable brand or specialist skills in financial management or product development. It would seem that McDonald’s believed it had identified a parenting opportunity in its acquisition of Chipotle as shown in Illustration 8.5. Parenting opportunities tend to be more common in the case of related rather than unrelated diversified strategies and are likely to involve exchanges of managers and other resources across the businesses. Key value-creating activities for the parent will be the provision of central services and resources. For example, a consumer products company might offer substantial guidance on branding and distribution from the centre; a technology company might run a large central R&D laboratory.

There are two crucial challenges to managing a parental developer:

● Parental focus. Corporate parents need to be rigorous and focused in identifying their unique value-adding capabilities. They should always be asking what others can do better than them, and focus their energy and time on activities where they really do add value. Other central services should typically be outsourced to specialist companies that can do it better.

● The ‘crown jewel’ problem. Some diversified companies have business units in their port- folios which are performing well but to which the parent adds little value. These can become ‘crown jewels’, to which corporate parents become excessively attached. The logic of the parental development approach is: if the centre cannot add value, it is just a cost and therefore destroying value. Parental developers should divest businesses22 they do not add value to, even profitable ones. Funds raised by selling a profitable business can be reinvested in businesses where the parent can add value.

8.7 pORTFOLIO MaTRICeS

Section 8.6 discussed rationales for corporate parents of multi-business organisations. This section introduces models by which managers can determine financial investment and divest- ment within their portfolios of business.23 Each model gives more or less attention to at least one of three criteria:

● the balance of the portfolio (e.g. in relation to its markets and the needs of the corporation);

● the attractiveness of the business units in terms of how strong they are individually and how profitable their markets or industries are likely to be; and

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ILLUSTRaTION 8.5

Struggling to fi nd parenting advantage.

Chipotle Mexican Grill had always done things rather differently to the rest of the restaurant industry. Its outlets were not in the busiest locations, it spent lots on food, rarely added to the menu, didn’t serve break- fast, do drive-throughs, franchises, or much advertis- ing. And yet by 2015 it was a $22bn (£13.2bn, €16.5 bn) burrito empire. Despite its success, why did owner McDonald’s sell it, especially when McDonald’s own sales and stock price had dropped, as it became asso- ciated with America’s obesity epidemic?

Founded 1993 in Denver, USA by Steve Ells, and relying initially on parents and wealthy friends for ini- tial funding, Chipotle’s fast casual dining business soon needed significant capital to expand beyond its 13 stores. In 1998, McDonalds made a $50m invest- ment in Chipotle as part of the group’s expansion that included Boston Market, Donatos Pizza, Pret a Manger and Aroma Cafe. It also investigated other businesses such as dry cleaning, a maid service and mowing the lawn.

McDonald’s brought distribution systems, real estate expertise, construction knowledge and organisational structure along with its capital investment. To McDon- ald’s, Chipotle brought new products – fresh cilantro, red onions and avocados. One McDonald’s executive said: ‘[Our] Portland distribution centre smelled like a produce house. McDonald’s product is fresh, but it’s sealed in bags for shelf-life purposes.’ Only one prod- uct was common to both companies – a five-gallon bag of Coca-Cola syrup.

Coming from a standardised, rules-based, efficiency- oriented culture, McDonald’s executives were startled when they first visited Chipotle’s headquarters. People brought their dogs into the office and Steve Ells walked around in blue jeans. Shown by Chipotle employees how they scrubbed the grill by hand, one McDonald’s executive complained, saying, ‘There’s got to be a bet- ter system. You can’t do this by hand all the time,’ then suggested a power tool. They showed food could be customised as customers walked down the line. ‘If you just want a little bit more salsa or a little bit less rice . . . nobody ever says no to you. . . . They might charge you for it . . . but that customization doesn’t slow the throughput.’

By 2005, McDonald’s owned 90 per cent of Chi- potle. They pressed Chipotle to do drive-throughs, breakfasts and advertising, and suggested the name Chipotle Fresh Mexican Grill. Steve Ells hated the idea and was beginning to be resented at McDonald’s for rejecting everything.

Chipotle did franchise eight restaurants for McDon- ald’s, but they didn’t succeed, costing a lot to be bought back. Steve Ells explained: ‘there are two big things that we do differently. . . . the way we approach food .  .  . the way we approach our people culture.’ McDonald’s invited Steve to visit their chicken farm in Arkansas, but he was repelled and soon realised sourcing from small farms dramatically improved the taste of his food. Chipotle food costs ran at 30–32 per cent of total costs, similar to up-market restau- rants, and McDonald’s executives found this difficult to accept: ‘That’s ridiculous: that’s like a steakhouse.’ But Steve Ells was now focusing on ingredients and food integrity.

After seven years, Chipotle’s contribution to McDon- ald’s bottom line was small, despite 500 restaurants which investors wanted co-branded. Franchisees were getting distracted and Chipotle’s was increasingly unhappy about McDonald’s supply chain. Jim Canta- lupo, McDonald’s CEO, had already begun to sell off partner brands and the stock price had begun to rise. It was time for a McSplit.

Since leaving McDonald’s, Chipotle’s worth had risen to $15bn (2015), with 1,800 locations and busi- ness was booming. Although McDonald’s pocketed $1.5bn (after $360m investment), McDonald’s share- holders angrily questioned Steve Easterbrook, McDon- ald’s CEO, on Chipotle’s disposal.

Sources : Chipotle: the Definitive Oral History, http://www.bloomberg. com/graphics/2015-chipotle-oral-history .

Chipotle: doing things differently

Questions 1 What parenting advantages did McDonald’s

perceive it might bring to Chipotle?

2 Despite its success, why was Chipotle spun-off?

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● the ‘fit’ that the business units have with each other in terms of potential synergies or the extent to which the corporate parent will be good at looking after them.

8.7.1 The BCG (or growth/share) matrix24

One of the most common and longstanding ways of conceiving of the balance of a portfolio of businesses is the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix (see Figure 8.6). The BCG matrix uses market share and market growth criteria for determining the attractiveness and balance of a business portfolio. High market share and high growth are, of course, attractive. How- ever, the BCG matrix also warns that high growth demands heavy investment, for instance to expand capacity or develop brands. There needs to be a balance within the portfolio, so that there are some low-growth businesses that are making sufficient surplus to fund the investment needs of higher-growth businesses.

The growth/share axes of the BCG matrix define four sorts of business:

● A star is a business unit within a portfolio that has a high market share in a growing market. The business unit may be spending heavily to keep up with growth, but high market share should yield sufficient profits to make it more or less self-sufficient in terms of investment needs.

● A question mark (or problem child) is a business unit within a portfolio that is in a grow- ing market, but does not yet have high market share. Developing question marks into stars, with high market share, takes heavy investment. Many question marks fail to develop, so the BCG advises corporate parents to nurture several at a time. It is important to make sure that some question marks develop into stars, as existing stars eventually become cash cows and cash cows may decline into dogs.

● A cash cow is a business unit within a portfolio that has a high market share in a mature market. However, because growth is low, investment needs are less, while high market share means that the business unit should be profitable. The cash cow should then be a cash provider, helping to fund investments in question marks.

● Dogs are business units within a portfolio that have low share in static or declining mar- kets and are thus the worst of all combinations. They may be a cash drain and use up a disproportionate amount of managerial time and company resources. The BCG usually recommends divestment or closure.

Figure 8.6 The growth share (or BCG) matrix

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The BCG matrix has several advantages. It is a good way of visualising different needs and potentials of all the diverse businesses within the corporate portfolio. It warns corporate par- ents of the financial demands of what might otherwise look like a desirable portfolio of high- growth businesses. It also reminds corporate parents that stars are likely eventually to wane. Finally, it provides a useful discipline to business unit managers, underlining the fact that the corporate parent ultimately owns the surplus resources they generate and can allocate them according to what is best for the corporate whole. Cash cows should not hoard their profits.

However, there are at least four potential problems with the BCG matrix:

● Definitional vagueness. It can be hard to decide what high and low growth or share mean in particular situations. Managers are often keen to define themselves as ‘high-share’ by defining their market in a particularly narrow way (e.g. by ignoring relevant international markets).

● Capital market assumptions. The notion that a corporate parent needs a balanced port- folio to finance investment from internal sources (cash cows) assumes that capital cannot be raised in external markets, for instance by issuing shares or raising loans. The notion of a balanced portfolio may be more relevant in countries where capital markets are under-developed or in private companies that wish to minimise dependence on external shareholders or banks.

● Unkind to animals. Both cash cows and dogs receive ungenerous treatment, the first being simply milked, the second terminated or cast out of the corporate home. This treatment can cause motivation problems, as managers in these units see little point in working hard for the sake of other businesses. There is also the danger of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Cash cows will become dogs even more quickly than the model expects if they are simply milked and denied adequate investment.

● Ignores commercial linkages. The matrix assumes there are no commercial ties to other business units in the portfolio. For instance, a business unit in the portfolio may depend upon keeping a dog alive. These commercial links are less important in conglomerate strategies, where divestments or closures are unlikely to have knock-on effects on other parts of the portfolio.

8.7.2 The directional policy (Ge–McKinsey) matrix

Another way to consider a portfolio of businesses is by means of the directional policy matrix25 which categorises business units into those with good prospects and those with less good prospects. The matrix was originally developed by McKinsey & Co. consultants in order to help the American conglomerate General Electric manage its portfolio of business units. Specifically, the directional policy matrix positions business units according to (i) how attractive the relevant market is in which they are operating, and (ii) the competitive strength of the SBU in that market. Attractiveness can be identified by PESTEL or five forces analyses; business unit strength can be defined by competitor analysis (for instance, the strategy can- vas); see Section 3.4.3. Some analysts also choose to show graphically how large the market is for a given business units activity, and even the market share of that business unit, as shown in Figure 8.7. For example, managers in a firm with the portfolio shown in Figure 8.7 will be concerned that they have relatively low shares in the largest and most attractive market, whereas their greatest strength is in a market with only medium attractiveness and smaller markets with little long-term attractiveness.

The matrix also offers strategy guidelines given the positioning of the business units. It sug- gests that the businesses with the highest growth potential and the greatest strength are those

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in which to invest for growth. Those that are the weakest and in the least attractive markets should be divested or ‘harvested’ (i.e. used to yield as much cash as possible before divesting).

The directional policy matrix is more complex than the BCG matrix. However, it can have two advantages. First, unlike the simpler four-box BCG matrix, the nine cells of the direc- tional policy matrix acknowledge the possibility of a difficult middle ground. Here managers have to be carefully selective. In this sense, the directional policy matrix is less mechanistic than the BCG matrix, encouraging open debate on less clear-cut cases. Second, the two axes of the directional policy matrix are not based on single measures (i.e. market share and mar- ket growth). Business strength can derive from many other factors than market share, and industry attractiveness does not just boil down to industry growth rates. On the other hand, the directional policy matrix shares some problems with the BCG matrix, particularly about vague definitions, capital market assumptions, motivation and self-fulfilling prophecy and ignoring commercial linkages. Overall, however, the value of the matrix is to help managers invest in the businesses that are most likely to pay off.

So far, the discussion has been about the logic of portfolios in terms of balance and attrac- tiveness. The third logic is to do with ‘fit’ with the particular capabilities of the corporate parent.

8.7.3 The parenting matrix

The parenting matrix (or Ashridge Portfolio Display) developed by consultants Michael Goold and Andrew Campbell introduces parental fit as an important criterion for including businesses in the portfolio.26

Businesses may be attractive in terms of the BCG or directional policy matrices, but if the parent cannot add value, then the parent ought to be cautious about acquiring or retaining them.

Figure 8.7 Directional policy (GE–McKinsey) matrix

SBU strength

Strong

High

Medium

Low

Average Weak

represents size of market

represents market share of SBU

Long-term market

attractiveness

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There are two key dimensions of fit in the parenting matrix (see Figure 8.8):

● ‘Feel’. This is a measure of the fit between each business units critical success factors (see Section 3.4.3) and the capabilities (in terms of competences and resources) of the corporate parent. In other words, does the corporate parent have the necessary ‘feel’, or understanding, for the businesses it will parent?

● ‘Benefit’. This measures the fit between the parenting opportunities, or needs, of business units and the capabilities of the parent. Parenting opportunities are about the upside, areas in which good parenting can benefit the business (for instance, by bringing mar- keting expertise). For the benefit to be realised, of course, the parent must have the right capabilities to match the parenting opportunities.

The power of using these two dimensions of fit is as follows. It is easy to see that a corporate parent should avoid running businesses that it has no feel for. What is less clear is that parent- ing should be avoided if there is no benefit. This challenges the corporate parenting of even businesses for which the parent has high feel. Businesses for which a corporate parent has high feel but can add little benefit should either be run with a very light touch or be divested.

Figure 8.8 shows four kinds of business along these two dimensions of feel and benefit:

● Heartland business units are ones that the parent understands well and can continue to add value to. They should be at the core of future strategy.

Figure 8.8 The parenting matrix: the Ashridge Portfolio Display Source: Adapted from M. Goold, A. Campbell and M. Alexander, Corporate Level Strategy, Wiley, 1994.

High

Fit between business unit

critical success factors and the parent’s skills, resources and characteristics

(‘feel’)

Fit between business unit parenting opportunities and the parent’s skills,

resources and characteristics (‘benefit’)

Ballast businesses

Alien businesses

Value trap businesses

Heartland businesses

High

Low

Low

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● Ballast business units are ones the parent understands well but can do little for. They would probably be at least as successful as independent companies. If not divested, they should be spared as much corporate bureaucracy as possible.

● Value trap business units are dangerous. They appear attractive because there are oppor- tunities to add value (for instance, marketing could be improved). But they are deceptively attractive, because the parent’s lack of feel will result in more harm than good (i.e. the parent lacks the right marketing skills). The parent will need to acquire new capabilities if it is to be able to move value trap businesses into the heartland. It might be easier to divest to another corporate parent that could add value, and will pay well for the chance.

● Alien business units are clear misfits. They offer little opportunity to add value and the parent does not understand them anyway. Exit is definitely the best strategy.

This approach to considering corporate portfolios places the emphasis firmly on how the parent benefits the business units. This is the question that observers are asking of the Virgin Group in the end of chapter case. It requires careful analysis of both parenting capabilities and business unit parenting needs. The parenting matrix can therefore assist hard decisions where either high-feel or high-parenting opportunities tempt the corporate parent to acquire

ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

Is there a need for corporate strategy at all?

Although this chapter has argued that corporate strategy adds value to the multi-business (see Section  8.6.1 ), a recent Harvard Business Review article by Frank Ver- meulen fundamentally challenges this position by asking ‘does the headquarters actually add any value?’ 27 Other commentators also worry that corporate functions do not generate the value from their activities they expect. 28 Although today’s multi-businesses seem to have some- what related businesses, in reality the various divisions operate completely independently from one another. 29 Also a third of the largest companies in North America and Europe have reported increased numbers of corpo- rate functions with growing influence and yet complaints about that function’s performance have increased. 30

Disparate businesses come from companies grow- ing into adjacent business areas each then requiring their own strategy, management teams and profit and loss responsibility. Corporate top management teams then aim to find synergies between the different divi- sions, by promoting cooperation, to create extra value as recommended by corporate finance. If none can be found, then headquarters is just managing a portfolio. The alternative view is that those businesses should be spun-off, as investors can diversify for themselves, and money would be saved on expensive headquarters.

Corporate top management may have advantages over external investors, including greater in-depth understanding of their businesses, and they are less likely to be fooled by numbers and charismatic SBU CEOs. They can act as the company’s governance mechanism ensuring shareholder funds are wisely spent and strategies are genuine and they can staff divisional management teams with experts they know. However, this may just be rhetoric to conceal portfolio manage- ment. Or it may be a genuine attempt to contrive an overarching corporate strategy that seeks to proclaim cross-divisional synergies and cooperation, but is really an expensive illusion, as value is often not created. If the latter, corporate managers should really get out of the way of divisional strategies, rather than trying to set them. And if they are acting as portfolio managers, external investors can do this more efficiently. There- fore corporate strategy is a fool’s errand.

Corporate strategy is a fool’s errand

Question

Evaluate the arguments for and against corporate strategy for Berkshire Hathaway or the Greystone Foundation.

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or retain businesses. Parents should concentrate on actual or potential heartland businesses, where there is both high feel and high benefit.

The concept of fit has equal relevance in the public sector. The implication is that public-sector managers should control directly only those services and activities for which they have special managerial expertise. Other services should be outsourced or set up as independent agencies (see Section 8.5).

SUMMaRY ● Many corporations comprise several, sometimes many, business units. Corporate strategy involves the deci-

sions and activities above the level of business units. It is concerned with choices concerning the scope of the organisation.

● Organisational scope is often considered in terms of related and unrelated diversification.

● Corporate parents may seek to add value by adopting different parenting roles: the portfolio manager, the synergy manager or the parental developer.

● There are several portfolio models to help corporate parents manage their businesses, of which the most common are: the BCG matrix, the directional policy matrix and the parenting matrix.

● Divestment and outsourcing should be considered as well as diversification, particularly in the light of relative strategic capabilities and the transaction costs of opportunism.

WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

8.1 Using the Ansoff axes (Figure 8.2), identify and explain corporate strategic directions for any one of these case organisations: CRH*, Air Asia and the Tune Group*, Severstal* and SABMiller or AB InBev in the Megabrew* case.

8.2 Go to the website of any large multi-business organisation (e.g. Alphabet, Google, Megabrew*, Siemens, Tata Group, Virgin Group – see end of chapter case) and assess the degree to which its corporate-level strategy is characterised by (a) related or unrelated diversification and (b) a coherent ‘dominant logic’ (see Section 8.3).

8.3 For any large multi-business corporation (as in Section 8.2), Alphabet, the Tune Group*, Siemens* or Severstal*, explain how the corporate parent should best create value for its component businesses (as portfolio manager, synergy manager or parental developer: see Section 8.6). Would all the businesses fit equally well?

8.4✱ For any large multi-business corporation (as in 8.2), Megabrew* or the Virgin Group (end of chapter case), plot the business units on a portfolio matrix (e.g. the BCG matrix: Section 8.7.1). Justify any assumptions about the relative positions of businesses on the relevant axes of the matrix. What managerial conclusions do you draw from this analysis?

Integrative assignment

8.5 Take a case of a recent merger or acquisition (see Chapter 11), and assess the extent to which it involved related or unrelated diversification (if either) and how far it was consistent with the company’s existing dominant logic. Using share price information (see www.bigcharts.com or similar), assess shareholders’ reaction to the merger or acquisition. How do you explain this reaction?

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REFERENCES

ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● An accessible discussion of corporate strategy is provided by A. Campbell and R. Park, The Growth Gamble: When Leaders Should Bet on Big New Businesses, Nicholas Brealey, 2005.

● M. Goold and K. Luchs, ‘Why diversify: four decades of management thinking’, in D. Faulkner and A. Campbell (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Strategy, vol. 2, Oxford University Press, pp. 18–42, 2003, provides an authorita- tive overview of the diversification option over time.

● L. Capron and W. Mitchell, Build, Borrow or Buy: solv- ing the growth dilemma, Harvard Business Press, 2012, provides a good review of the arguments for and against different modes of growth.

● A good review of the current state of corporate portfolio management research is provided by M. Nippa, U. Pidua and H. Rubner, ‘Corporate portfolio management: apprais- ing four decades of academic research’, Academy of Man- agement Perspectives, November 2011, pp. 50–66.

ReFeReNCeS

1. For a detailed discussion as to how organisational structures might ‘address’ an organisation’s mix of SBUs, see M. Goold and A. Campbell, Designing Effective Organizations: How to Create Structured Networks, Jossey-Bass, 2002. Also K. Eisenhardt and S. Brown, ‘Patching’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 77, no. 3 (1999), p. 72.

2. This figure is an extension of the product/market matrix: see I. Ansoff, Corporate Strategy, 1988, Chapter 6. The Ansoff matrix was later developed into the one shown below.

3. For the European Commission competition authority, http:// ec.europa.eu/comm/competition; for the UK Competition Commission, see http://www.competition-commission.org. uk/.

4. For discussions of the challenge of sustained growth and diversification, see A. Campbell and R. Parks, The Growth Gamble, Nicholas Brealy, 2005; and D. Laurie, Y. Doz and C. Sheer, ‘Creating new growth platforms’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no. 5 (2006), pp. 80–90.

5. On economies of scope, see D.J. Teece, ‘Towards an eco- nomic theory of the multi-product firm’, Journal of Eco- nomic Behavior and Organization, vol. 3 (1982), pp. 39–63.

6. See R. Bettis and C.K. Prahalad, ‘The dominant logic: ret- rospective and extension’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 16, no. 1 (1995), pp. 5–15.

7. F. Neffke and M. Henning, ‘Skill relatedness and firm diver- sification’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 34, no. 3 (2013), pp. 297–316 show that internal skills may aid in the diversification process.

8. See C. Markides, ‘Corporate strategy: the role of the cen- tre’, in A. Pettigrew, H. Thomas and R. Whittington (eds), Handbook of Strategy and Management, Sage, 2002. For a discussion of Chinese diversification patterns, see A. Delios, N. Zhou and W.W. Xu, ‘Ownership structure and the diver- sification and performance of publicly-listed companies in China’, Business Horizons, vol. 51, no. 6 (2008), pp. 802–21. See M.C. Mayer, C. Stadler and J. Hautz, ‘The relationship between product and international diversification: the role of experience’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 36, no. 10 (2015), pp. 1458–68 for a discussion of the importance of experience in driving diversification.

9. These benefits are often discussed in terms of ‘multimarket’ or ‘multipoint’ competition: see J. Anand, L. Mesquita and R. Vassolo, ‘The dynamics of multimarket competition in exploration and exploitation activities’, Academy of Man- agement Journal, vol. 52, no. 4 (2009), pp. 802–21.

10. M. Goold and A. Campbell, ‘Desperately seeking synergy’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 76, no. 2 (1998), pp. 131–45. See also Y.M. Zhou, ‘Synergy, coordination costs, and diver- sification choices’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 32, no. 6 (2011), pp. 624–39.

11. A. Pehrson, ‘Business relatedness and performance: a study of managerial perceptions’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 27, no. 3 (2006), pp. 265–82. See also F. Neffke and M. Henning, ‘Skill relatedness and firm diversification’, Strate- gic Management Journal, vol. 34, no. 3 (2013), pp. 297–316.

12. L.E. Palich, L.B. Cardinal and C. Miller, ‘Curvilinearity in the diversification-performance linkage: an examination of over three decades of research’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21 (2000), pp. 155–74. The inverted-U

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relationship is the research consensus, but studies often disagree, particularly finding variations over time and across countries. For recent context-sensitive studies, see M. Mayer and R. Whittington, ‘Diversification in con- text: a cross national and cross temporal extension’, Stra- tegic Management Journal, vol. 24 (2003), pp. 773–81; and A. Chakrabarti, K. Singh and I. Mahmood, ‘Diversification and performance: evidence from East Asian firms’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28 (2007), pp. 101–20. There are also variations by type of diversification – see M. Geoffrey, G.M. Kistruck, I. Qureshi and P.W. Beamish, ‘Geographic and product diversification in charitable organizations’, Journal of Management, vol. 39, no. 2 (2011), pp. 496–530.

13. For a discussion and cases on the relative guidance of transaction cost and capabilities thinking, see R. McIvor, ‘How the transaction cost and resource-based theories of the firm inform outsourcing evaluation’, Journal of Opera- tions Management, vol. 27, no. 1 (2009), pp. 45–63. See also T. Holcomb and M. Hitt, ‘Toward a model of strategic outsourcing’, Journal of Operations Management, vol. 25, no. 2 (2007), pp. 464–81.

14. For a good discussion of corporate parenting roles, see Markides in endnote 8 above. A recent empirical study of corporate headquarters is D. Collis, D. Young and M. Goold, ‘The size, structure and performance of corpo- rate headquarters’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28, no. 4 (2007), pp. 383–406.

15. M. Goold, A. Campbell and M. Alexander, Corporate Level Strategy, Wiley, 1994, is concerned with both the value- adding and value-destroying capacity of corporate parents.

16. For a discussion of the role of clarity of mission, see A. Campbell, M. Devine and D. Young, A Sense of Mission, Hutchinson Business, 1990.

17. T. Zenger, ‘Strategy: the uniqueness challenge,’ Harvard Business Review, November 2013, pp. 52–8.

18. E. Zuckerman, ‘Focusing the corporate product: securities analysts and de-diversification’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 3 (2000), pp. 591–619.

19. The first two rationales discussed here are based on M. Porter, ‘From competitive advantage to corporate

strategy’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 65, no. 3 (1987), pp. 43–59.

20. See A. Campbell and K. Luchs, Strategic Synergy, Butter- worth–Heinemann, 1992.

21. The logic of parental development is explained extensively in Goold, Campbell and Alexander (see endnote 15 above). For more on the dynamics of organisational structure see J. Joseph and W. Ocasio, ‘Architecture, attention, and adap- tation in the multi-business firm: General Electric from 1951 to 2001’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 33, no. 6 (2013), pp. 633–60.

22. J. Xia and S. Li, ‘The divestiture of acquired subunits: a resource dependence approach’, Strategic Management Jour- nal, vol. 34, no. 2 (2013), pp. 131–48.

23. A good review of the current state of corporate portfolio management research is provided by M. Nippa, U. Pidua and H. Rubner, ‘Corporate portfolio management: appraising four decades of academic research’, Academy of Manage- ment Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 4 (2011), pp. 50–66.

24. For a more extensive discussion of the use of the growth share matrix, see A.C. Hax and N.S. Majluf, ‘The use of the industry attractiveness business strength matrix in strategic planning’, in R.G. Dyson (ed.), Strategic Planning: Models and Analytical Techniques, Wiley, 1990; and D. Faulkner, ‘Portfolio matrices’, in V. Ambrosini (ed.), Exploring Tech- niques of Analysis and Evaluation in Strategic Manage- ment, Prentice Hall, 1998; for source explanations of the BCG matrix, see B.D. Henderson, Henderson on Corporate Strategy, Abt Books, 1979.

25. Hax and Majluf (see endnote 24). 26. The discussion in this section draws on Goold, Campbell and

Alexander (see endnote 15) which provides an excellent basis for understanding issues of parenting.

27. F. Vermeulen, ‘Corporate strategy is a fool’s errand’, Harvard Business Review, March 2013.

28. S. Kunisch, G. Muller-Stewens and A. Campbell, ‘Why corporate functions stumbles’, Harvard Business Review, December 2014.

29. Vermeulen (see endnote 27). 30. Kunisch (see endnote 28).

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CaSe eXaMpLe

Introduction

The Virgin Group is a highly diversified organisation which runs a range of businesses including mobile telephony, financial services, airlines, railways, music, holidays and health and care services. It has grown to be one of the largest private UK companies, employing around 50,000 people in 50 countries and with revenues in excess of £15bn (€18bn, $22bn). According to the Centre for Brand Anal- ysis, in 2015 Virgin was the number three best-known brand in the UK after British Airways and Apple.

Virgin’s flamboyant founder, Sir Richard Branson, is one of the UK’s richest and best known entrepreneurs and at the centre of the group’s growth. Branson has a flair for publicity and over the past 40 years has generated the interest and awareness that have made Virgin such a strong brand. The Group believes the Virgin brand is so well respected that it adds value to any business that bears the name.

What is difficult to unpick is how much of Virgin’s success is down to Branson’s entrepreneurial flair and how much is down to the group’s unusual structure and business model. Virgin’s strategy and business models are not widely understood and, as a result, investors have questioned its sustainability should Branson depart. The parent company describes itself as a leading international investment group. But does Virgin Group add value to the diverse portfolio of SBUs? Does the portfolio of busi- nesses make strategic sense?

Virgin’s beginnings and style

Branson founded his first business, a student magazine, after dropping out of school at the age of 15. Virgin began in 1970 when Branson sold music (vinyl records) by mail order. Able to undercut high street retailers, the business grew rapidly. He opened Virgin Record Shop – named to reflect his naivety in business – in Oxford Street, London a year later. Further expansion took the form of backward integration as he moved into recording and publishing music: his first album, Tubular Bells by unknown musician Mike Oldfield in 1973, became a worldwide hit. He then controversially signed the Sex Pistols, a punk rock group

who became notorious for their rude anti-establishment behaviour and lyrics. Those two events epitomised the busi- ness philosophy Branson would use to build a worldwide brand – a love of risk-taking, irreverence to the ‘old school of business’, a passion for fun and a flair for publicity.

The common threads uniting this diverse group of companies are the core values of the Virgin brand – as described by Virgin Group itself: customer-driven with an emphasis on value for money, quality, fun and innovation. 1

Branson is not risk averse, but a core part of his busi- ness philosophy is ‘protect the downside’ – that is limiting possible losses before moving forward with a new busi- ness venture. It was a lesson his father taught him when he was 15. His dad agreed to let him drop out of school to start a magazine, but only if he sold £4,000 of advertising to cover printing costs. 2

It’s an approach he repeated in 1984 when launching low-cost transatlantic airline, Virgin Atlantic. To create this new venture, Branson had to battle to procure landing rights at London’s Heathrow Airport. Up to that time, the routes had been dominated by British Airways, which led to an intense rivalry between the two carriers, involving a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign by BA and a very bitter and public court case, which Virgin won, adding fuel to the image of Richard Branson as the underdog, average businessman

Virgin – is the brand more than Richard Branson? by Marianne Sweet

Richard Branson

Marianne Sweet is Director of Damselfly Communications Limited and lectures on business enterprise and entrepreneurship at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. This case example includes some material and sources from previous cases on Virgin which featured in earlier editions of Exploring Strategy, written by Urmilla Lawson and updated by Aidan McQueen and by John Treciockas.

Source: RichardBakerFarnborough/Alamy Images.

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to the eventual flotation of Virgin Money on the London Stock Exchange in 2014.

Branson is also known for his taste for adventure and in 2012 launched Virgin Galactic, intending to provide a passenger service into orbital space. He has often com- mented that being an adventurer and being an entrepre- neur is the same thing – and both involve risk. Although Virgin Galactic suffered a huge setback in 2014, when one of its test planes crashed, the following year Virgin Galac- tic won a $4.7m contract from NASA to carry more than a dozen satellites into orbit on board its LauncherOne.

Again identifying opportunities from deregulation, this time of health services in the UK, Virgin acquired a 75 per cent stake in Assura Medical, which in 2012 was rebranded as Virgin Care. Since then, Virgin Care has become one of the market leaders in providing health- care, for example, in 2012 it signed a £500m five-year contract to provide community health services for the National Health Service’s Surrey region. The Virgin Care website was able to claim that it was providing more than 230 NHS social care services and since 2006 had treated more than four million people.

Corporate rationale

In 2016, the Virgin Group described itself as a leading international investment group and one of the world’s most recognised and respected brands. While the group does not provide an organisational structure chart, it is possible to see a discernible grouping of businesses (see Figure 1) within six categories. The operational companies are all separate strategic business units (SBUs), financed on a stand-alone basis.

Branson believes that companies should succeed within the first year or exit the market. In 2013, Virgin Atlantic launched a UK domestic airline, Little Red, linking London Heathrow with Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Manchester. After 18 months, it was scrapped. Branson claimed the venture had benefited consumers but ‘the odds were stacked against us’.

Virgin looks for market opportunities where the Group believes its brand can create competitive advantage, usu- ally in markets where existing customers are not receiv- ing value for money, such as health clubs, cosmetics, weddings, drinks, airlines and clothing. The Virgin brand is perceived as the consumer’s champion for value-for- money, good quality, brilliant customer service, innova- tion, being anti-establishment and fun.

Virgin is a mix of publicly listed and privately owned companies, ranging from start-up ventures through to large corporate businesses. Each is ‘ring-fenced’ so that lenders to one company have no rights over the assets of another. Each company may have very different strategic

taking on the oppressors, self-interested ‘big business’ and the traditional establishment.

Branson had to make some tough decisions to support the fledging airline. At the time, Virgin Records was a profitable business and Virgin decided that selling that business was the safest way to raise funds. ‘If we contin- ued running both companies, then we risked them both. At that point, it seemed possible that Virgin Atlantic would have had to close, leaving 2,500 people without jobs and our brand’s reputation in tatters. By selling Vir- gin Records, we left both companies in strong positions,’ explained Branson in one of his Virgin blogs.3

Virgin Records was sold to EMI for £500m. The Group then decided to go on to the London and NASDQ stock markets, offering 35 per cent ownership. But Branson’s business style did not suit the accountability needed for a chairman of a public corporation and he returned the group to private ownership in 1988.

Growth of the Virgin brand

The Virgin Group grew rapidly through a series of new start-ups, joint ventures and acquisitions. Branson, as chair of Virgin Group, has overseen approximately 500 companies during the parent group’s lifetime.

The rationale behind many of the initiatives can be hard to understand and some appear to be pure whim. For Bran- son it all made business sense. ‘Think of the world as one country – it’s a lot more fun to do business that way,’ he commented.4 Initially the group focused on travel/holidays and music. Since the 1990s, it has expanded into a wide variety of businesses (Appendix 1, below, lists a selection of new businesses and key events). Virgin Group has repeat- edly demonstrated that it is skilled at environmental scan- ning, searching for those strategic windows of opportunity – usually created by innovation or changes in legislation – and then taking the market advantage.

For instance, the development of digital technologies enabled Virgin to grow its retail interests, moving into the online sales of music, cars, wine, financial products and internet services. Virgin Mobile was the result of deregu- lation of the telecommunications sector in the UK and the growing advances in cellular communications. Deregula- tion of the railways in the UK led to Virgin launching Virgin Rail, first running the passenger train service on the West Coast of England and then, in 2014, in a joint venture with Stagecoach, winning the franchise for the East Coast line, between London and Scotland.

In 2012, Virgin purchased Northern Rock, a medium-sized UK mortgage finance provider, which the Government had temporarily nationalised at the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007. The purchase marked the growth of Virgin as a financial services provider, leading

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Figure 1

Virgin Group headquarters

Entrepreneurs Forum for new

ideas

Media and mobile

Includes: T.V.

Mobiles Broadband

Lifestyle Includes:

Care Health clubs Wines Games

Travel Includes: Airlines Trains

Holidays ‘Galactic’

Money Includes:

Banks Financial services

Music Includes: Festivals

Radio Film stores

People and planets

Includes: Earth

Challenge Unite

Green Fund Start-up

objectives. The larger start-ups are serious strategic moves into new markets. Some may be a method of train- ing and developing managers. Some may be to keep Virgin in the public eye.

Each company has no direct lines of reporting or con- trol in the Group. There are minimal management lay- ers. Companies are linked through a complex network of parent subsidiary relations involving ‘holding companies’ with the ultimate holding company being registered in the British Virgin Islands – a tax haven. The freedom of the companies and the employees – which mirrors Branson’s disrespect for hierarchy – and their separation from the parent company, enables the group to retain a spirit of entrepreneurism.

Managers are trusted, have high levels of responsibility and have financial incentives that could turn them into mil- lionaires. This mirrors Branson’s ethos of shaping and build- ing businesses around people. He also believes that trusting others with the day-to-day running of Virgin has enabled him to be more agile as an entrepreneur and to focus on scoping for opportunities to grow the brand. He surrounds himself with people who can turn his ideas into reality.

‘The best bit of advice I think I can give to any man- ager of a company is find somebody better than yourself to do the day-to-day running,’ Branson stated in 2015 in an interview with Business Insider UK. ‘And then free yourself up to think about the bigger picture. By freeing myself up, I’ve been able to dream big and move Virgin forward into lots of different areas.’2

Virgin is known for its risk-taking when entering the market and its pragmatic approach to exiting. No busi- ness is too precious to have its role challenged within the portfolio. The underlying business logic has been summarised by Branson: ‘Business opportunities are like buses . . . There’s always another coming along’.5

Branson wrote in 2016, at the time of the sale of Vir- gin America: ‘In 2007, when the airline started service, 60 per cent of the industry was consolidated. Today, the four mega-airlines control more than 80 per cent of the US market. Consolidation is a trend that sadly cannot be stopped.’6 In 2015, the Group decided to sell another of its flagship companies, with 80 per cent of its share of the Virgin Active fitness chain going to South African bil- lionaire Christo Wiese, prompting the British health-club chain to cancel plans for a share sale.7 Of the sale, Virgin stated: ‘Our investment strategy is to build businesses of scale and this sometimes means accessing external capital to build them further through sales of stakes to partners or through the public markets.’8

The future

While Branson does not mention his departure, he has continued to state that the company has been structured to continue without him. He says that he now devotes the majority of his time and energy to Virgin Unite – a charitable foundation which focuses on environmental and charity activities. Business observers remain divided about the essence of the group’s business model: some see it as a private equity organisation (but many of the businesses are start-ups); others see it as a branded venture capital organisation (but the group incubates its own businesses); some suggest that it is a conglomerate. Some critics assert that the Virgin brand has been over-extended.

It is difficult to discover the overall financial position of Virgin because it is made up of so many individual com- panies and there are no consolidated accounts. Branson has agreed that he is interested in growth, not short-term profits, and builds companies for the long term. There is an emphasis on maximising returns to Virgin Group equity

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through high financial leverage and the use of equity part- ners. The financial picture is very mixed: in 2014, Vir- gin Money reported a £34m statutory profit before tax whereas Virgin Australia reported a AUS$356m ($276m, €245m, £193m) net loss after tax for the same year. A spokesman for Virgin Care, in 2015, said the company had not yet reached ‘a state of profitability’ and share- holders were still investing in the growth of the business.

Branson remains, as ever, defiant to his critics. Is Vir- gin a strong enough brand to survive if he steps aside? Would the Virgin Group survive? ‘The Virgin brand is not a product; it’s an attitude and a way of life to many,’ explained Branson in 2012 in an interview for Economia. ‘That attitude is about giving customers a better time and better value in a fun way that embraces life. But brands, ultimately, belong to the consumer and while a business can influence its brand by what it does and how it behaves, it is what the customer thinks at the end of the day that is the only important thing.’9

Questions 1 What directions of strategic development have

been followed by Virgin over the period of the case (use Figure 8.2 as a guide)?

2 Which type of corporate parenting role (as per Figure 8.5) best describes the Virgin Group? Justify your choice.

3 How does the Virgin Group as a corporate parent add value to its businesses? To what extent are these parenting skills relevant to the differing business units?

4 What should the future corporate strategy be? (And how essential is Richard Branson himself to that strategy?)

References 1. http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/tridion/images/companyoverviewnov_

tcm4-426059.pdf 2. http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-richard-branson-maintains-

the-virgin-group-2015-2?r=US&IR=T 3. https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/

richard-branson-how-to-find-the-right-funding-for-your-business 4. https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/

six-things-we-learnt-business-adventure-la 5. https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/opportunity-missed 6. https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/virgin-america 7. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-16/

brait-agrees-to-buy-80-of-virgin-active-for-about-1-billion 8. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/16/

virgin-active-stake-sold-to-south-africas-brait 9. http://economia.icaew.com/people/november-2012/out-of-this-world

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Appendix 1 Strategic developments of the Virgin Group 1970–2016

1970 Branson founds the Virgin business selling records 1971 First Virgin record shop opened 1977 Virgin record label is launched 1984 Virgin Atlantic, a long-haul airline is founded 1985 Virgin Holidays is founded 1986 Virgin Group PLC formed 1987 Virgin Records America is launched 1988–90 Virgin Megastores are opened in prime city locations in Europe, USA and Japan

Branson takes Virgin Group PLC private for £248 m 1991 Virgin Publishing formed through merging Virgin Books and WH Allen PLC

Virgin Games formed 1992 Virgin Records sold for £510 m 1993 Virgin Games floated as Virgin Interactive Entertainment PLC

Virgin Radio commences broadcasting 1994 Virgin Retail acquires Our Price chain of shops 1996 Virgin Net an internet service provider is launched 1997 Virgin Trains is founded to run West Coast rail franchise in the UK

Virgin Cosmetics launches with four flagship stores Virgin Radio sold for £87m

1999 Virgin Mobile is launched in joint venture with Deutsche Telekom Virgin Health starts a network of health clubs Virgin Cinemas is sold for £215 m 49 per cent of Virgin Atlantic sold to Singapore Airlines for $500 m

2000 Virgin Mobile launches US wireless phone service (JV with Sprint) Virgin Blue launched (low-cost airline – Australia) Virgin Cars launched to sell online

2001 50 per cent of Virgin Blue sold 2004 Virgin Digital launched to sell online music

Virgin Unite, a charitable foundation, launched 2006 Virgin Media is launched in partnership with NTL-Telewest

Virgin Fuel launched Virgin Cars closed

2007 Last of Virgin Megastores (125) sold Virgin America (airline) launched Virgin Earth Challenge and World Citizen initiatives are launched

2009 Virgin Green Fund launched 2010 Virgin Hotels launches

Virgin Racing launched (Formula One) Virgin Gaming launched Virgin Produced launched (film and TV production company) Virgin Money acquires Church House Trust to acquire UK banking licence Virgin Group acquires majority stake in Assura Medical

2011 Virgin Cosmetics and Virgin Money (USA) are closed Virgin Active acquires Esporta for £80 m Virgin Unite (charitable foundation) launches Branson’s Centre for Entrepreneurship

2012 Assura Medical rebrands as Virgin Care Virgin Care signs £500m contract to run Surrey Care Services, part of NHS Surrey

2013 Virgin Money acquires Northern Rock for about £1bn Virgin Media sold to Liberty Global

2014 Virgin Money floated on Stock Exchange Virgin and Stagecoach joint venture wins East Coast mainland rail franchise Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes

2015 Virgin Active sells 80% of its stake Virgin Galactic wins $4.7m NASA contract

2016 Virgin America is sold to Alaska Air for £1.8bn Branson unveils Virgin Galactic’s new space tourism rocket plane

Source: Based on www.virgin.com .

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Strategic choices

Business strategy

InternationalCorporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Assess the internationalisation drivers and potential of different markets. ● Identify sources of competitive advantage in international strategy, through both

exploitation of local factors and global sourcing. ● Understand the difference between global integration and local responsiveness and

four main types of international strategy.

● Rank markets for entry or expansion, taking into account attractiveness, cultural and other forms of distance and competitor retaliation threats.

● Assess the relative merits of different market entry strategy modes, including joint ventures, licensing and franchising and wholly owned subsidiaries.

9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY

CaGe framework p.290

global integration p.286

global–local dilemma p.286

global sourcing p.284

global strategy p.278

international strategy p.278

local responsiveness p.286

porter’s Diamond p.282

staged international expansion model p.295

Yip’s globalisation framework p.280

Key terms

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INTRODUCTION

277

9.1 INTRODUCTION

The last chapter introduced market development as a strategy, in relation to the Ansoff axes (see Section 8.2.3). This chapter focuses on a specific but important kind of market devel- opment, operating in different geographical markets. Many types of organisations expand internationally and face new customer needs and are challenged by local economic, regu- lative, political and cultural institutions that often differ substantially from home. There are of course the large traditional multinationals such as Nestlé, Toyota and McDonald’s. But recent years have seen the rise of emerging-country multinationals from Brazil, Russia, India and China. New small firms, like internet-based start-ups, are also increasingly ‘born global’, building international relationships right from the start. Likewise, not-for-profit organisations like the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders have been working interna- tionally from the beginning. Public-sector organisations also have to make choices about collaboration, outsourcing and even competition with overseas organisations. For example, European Union legislation requires public service organisations to accept tenders from non-national suppliers.

Figure 9.1 identifies the five main themes of this chapter, with international strategy as the core. The themes are as follows:

● Internationalisation drivers. Drivers of organisation’s internationalisation include market demand, the potential for cost advantages, government pressures and inducements and the need to respond to competitor moves. Given the risks and costs of international strategy, managers need to know that the drivers are strong to justify adopting an international strategy in the first place.

Figure 9.1 International strategy: five main themes

Internationalisation drivers

Market selection

Mode of entry

International strategy

Advantages – Firm-specific – Geographic

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278

● Geographical and firm-specific advantages. In international competition, advantages might come from firm-specific and geographical advantages. Firm-specific advantages are the unique resources and capabilities proprietary to an organisation as discussed in Chapter 4. Geographical advantages might come both from the geographic location of the original business and from the international configuration of their value system. Managers need to appraise these potential sources of competitive advantage carefully: if there are no firm-specific or geographical competitive advantages, international strategy is liable to fail.

● International strategy. If drivers and advantages are sufficiently strong to merit an inter- national strategy, then a range of strategic approaches are opened up, from the simplest export strategies to the most complex global strategies.

● Market selection. Having adopted the broad approach to international strategy, the next ques- tion is which country markets to prioritise and which to steer clear of. Here managers need to consider differences and distances in economic, regulative, political and cultural institutions.

● Entry strategy mode. Finally, once target countries are selected, managers have to deter- mine how they should enter each particular market. Again, export is a simple place to start, but there are licensing, franchising, joint venture and wholly owned subsidiary (acquisition or ‘greenfield’ investments) alternatives to consider as well.

The chapter takes a cautious view on international strategy. Despite the fashionable talk of increasing ‘globalisation’, there are many challenges and pressures for being local or regional as well.1 The chapter will therefore distinguish between international strategy and global strategy and consider the financial performance implications of growing internationalisa- tion.2 International strategy refers to a range of options for operating outside an organisation’s country of origin. Global strategy is only one kind of international strategy. Global strategy involves high coordination of extensive activities dispersed geographically in many countries around the world.

9.2 INTeRNaTIONaLISaTION DRIVeRS

There are many general pressures increasing internationalisation. Barriers to international trade, investment and migration are all now lower than they were a couple of decades ago. Better international legal frameworks mean that it is now less risky to deal with unfamiliar partners. Improvements in communications – from cheaper air travel to the internet – make movement and the spread of ideas much easier around the world. Not least, the success of new economic powerhouses such as the so-called ‘BRICs’ (Brazil, Russia, India and China) or the rising ‘MINTs’ (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) are generating new oppor- tunities and challenges for business internationally.3

However, not all these internationalisation trends are one-way. Nor do they hold for all industries. Trade barriers still exist for some products, especially those relating to defence technologies. Many countries protect their leading companies from takeover by overseas rivals. Markets vary widely in the extent to which consumer needs are standardising – com- pare computer operating systems to the highly variable national tastes in chocolate. Some so-called multinationals are in fact concentrated in very particular markets, for example North America and Western Europe, or have a quite limited set of international links, for example in supply or outsourcing arrangements with just one or two countries overseas. In short, managers need to beware of ‘global boloney’, by which economic integration into a single homogenised and competitive world is wildly exaggerated.4 The US discount retailer Walmart has learned the hard way that international markets are not only very different from home, but differ significantly from each other (see Illustration 9.1).

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ILLUSTRaTION 9.1

The biggest retailer in the world has found that internationalisation is considerably more challenging than expansion at home.

Walmart began its international operations 1991 and today the UK, Brazil and China are their largest mar- kets outside the USA. Walmart International is the company’s fastest growing unit with sales of $141bn (£85bn, €106bn) in 2015, accounting for about 30 per cent of Walmart’s overall sales. It included close to 800,000 employees in over 6,200 stores and 11 e-commerce websites in 28 countries. Internation- alisation results have, however, been mixed as Walmart has struggled to understand local buying patterns, culture, competitors and regulations, not the least in emerging markets.

Walmart first entered the Americas and has since expanded into ever more distant geographic markets. The early entry into Canada and Mexico was success- ful, but South America’s largest market, Brazil, has been considerably more challenging. After two dec- ades they are still losing money there. Their challenges include regulatory problems, strong competition from the French supermarket chain Carrefour and being unable to convince shoppers about Walmart’s ‘every- day low prices’ model. In 2016, they restructured the Brazil operations and closed 60 outlets, accounting for 5 per cent of its sales.

European expansion results have similarly been mixed. The acquisition of the ASDA Group in the UK was relative successful while Walmart experienced eight years of struggle in Germany that ended in a market exit. First, they did not have enough scale economies compared to local competitors, like Aldi, with strong relationships with German suppliers and already catering to price-conscious consumers. Sec- ond, cultural mistakes were made as customers did not approve of American service practices. A third chal- lenge was Germany’s then strict regulations on loca- tion and opening hours. German workers also resisted Walmart workplace customs, resulting in labour union conflicts.

Walmart’s first Asian expansion into South Korea was similar to the German story with strong local com- petition and failures to meet local customer needs. It

ended in exit after eight years. China has been more of a mixed picture. On the one hand, sales have steadily increased – over 400 stores have been established and they make a profit. On the other hand, the distance, both geographically and culturally, was considerably larger than first anticipated. An early discovery was that Chinese consumers prefer frequent shopping trips in contrast to Walmart’s home-based experience where customers drive to out-of-town stores and fill their cars with large multi-packs. While they encountered a com- pletely different international market, they also faced large regional variations in this vast and multi-ethnic country. They have also struggled with local regula- tions and food safety issues and tough competition from Carrefour.

In a 2014 interview with the Wall Street Jour- nal, Walmart International President and CEO David Cheesewright, former CEO of Walmart’s UK supermar- ket chain Asda, admits to the struggles, but explained they would still be the Walmart growth engine. He emphasised four initiatives:

‘First, create a platform for sustainable growth in China.  .  .  . Second, turn around our oper- ation in Brazil.  .  .  .  Third, we have to rejuve- nate Mexico.  .  .  .  And, fourth we have to drive e-commerce.’

Sources: Dudely, R., ‘Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices fail to stir Brazil- ians’, Bloomberg Business, 23 April 2014; S. Banjo, ‘Wal-Mart’s strategy to jump start growth in China’, Wall Street Journal, 5 August 2014; A. Felsted, ‘China set to remain at head of line for grocery sales’, Finan- cial Times, 23 August 2015; Thomson Reuters Street Events, ‘Wal Mart Stores Inc. 22nd Annual Meeting for the Investment Community’, edited transcript, 14 October 2015; L. Whipp, ‘Walmart to close 269 stores as it revamps online presence’, Financial Times, 15 January 2016.

Walmart: international successes and failures

Questions 1 What are the internationalisation drivers

Walmart International has struggled with?

2 What might be the dangers for a large Western retailer in staying out of emerging markets?

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280

Given internationalisation’s complexity, international strategy should be underpinned by a careful assessment of trends in each particular market. George Yip at Imperial College Business School provides a framework for analysing ‘drivers of globalisation’. In the terms of this chapter, these drivers can be thought of as ‘internationalisation drivers’ more gener- ally. In this book, therefore, Yip’s globalisation framework sees international strategy potential as determined by market drivers, cost drivers, government drivers and competitive drivers (see Figure 9.2).5 In more detail, the four internationalisation drivers are as follows:

● Market drivers. A critical facilitator of internationalisation is standardisation of market characteristics. There are three components underlying this driver. First, the presence of similar customer needs and tastes: for example, the fact that in most societies consumers have similar needs for easy credit has promoted the worldwide spread of a handful of credit card companies such as Visa. Second is the presence of global customers: for exam- ple, car component companies have become more international as their customers, such as Toyota or Ford, have internationalised and required standardised components for their factories around the world. Finally, transferable marketing promotes market globalisation: brands such as Coca-Cola are still successfully marketed in very similar ways across the world.

● Cost drivers. Costs can be reduced by operating internationally. Again, there are three main elements to cost drivers. First, increasing volume beyond what a national market might support can give scale economies, both on the production side and in purchasing of supplies. Companies from smaller countries such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Taiwan tend therefore to become proportionately much more international than compa- nies from the USA, which have a vast market at home. Scale economies are particularly

Figure 9.2 Drivers of internationalisation Source: Adapted from G. Yip, Total Global Strategy II, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003, Chapter 2.

Market drivers

• similar customer needs • global customers • transferable marketing

Government drivers

• trade policies • technical standards • host government policies

Cost drivers

• scale economies • country-specific differences • favourable logistics

International strategies

Competitive drivers

• interdependence between countries • competitors’ global strategies

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important in industries with high product development costs, as in the aircraft industry, where initial development costs need to be spread over the large volumes of international markets. Second, internationalisation is promoted where it is possible to take advantage of variations in country-specific differences. Thus it makes sense to locate the manufac- ture of clothing in Africa or Bangladesh where labour is still considerably cheaper, but to keep design activities in cities such as New York, Paris, Milan or London, where fashion expertise is concentrated. The third element is favourable logistics, or the costs of moving products or services across borders relative to their final value. From this point of view, microchips are easy to source internationally, while bulky materials such as assembled furniture are harder.

● Government drivers. There are three main factors here that facilitate internationalisation. First, reduction of barriers to trade and investment has accelerated internationalisation. During the last couple of decades national governments have reduced restrictions on both flow of goods and capital. The World Trade Organization has been instrumental in reducing trade barriers globally.6 Similarly, the emergence of regional economic integra- tion partnerships like the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agree- ment (NAFTA) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community has promoted this development. No government, however, allows complete economic openness and it typically varies widely from industry to industry, with agricul- ture and high-tech industries related to defence likely to be particularly sensitive. Second, the liberalisation and adoption of free markets in many countries around the globe have also encouraged international trade and investments. Economic and free market reforms in China and later in Eastern Europe and Russia have been followed by market-based reforms in numerous Asian, South American and African economies. A third important government factor is technology standardisation. Compatible technical standards make it easier for companies to access different markets as they can enter many markets with the same product or service without adapting to local idiosyncratic standards.

● Competitive drivers. These relate specifically to globalisation as an integrated worldwide strategy rather than simpler international strategies (see Section 9.4). These have two ele- ments. First, interdependence between country operations increases the pressure for global coordination. Company value chains are increasingly fragmented with suppliers, manufac- turing and sales dispersed over a range of different countries facing various competitive and customer pressures. For example, a business with a plant in Mexico that sources parts in Brazil and serves both the US and the Japanese markets has to coordinate carefully between the different locations: surging sales in one country, or a collapse in another, will have significant knock-on effects on the other countries. The second element relates directly to competitor strategy. The presence of globalised competitors increases the pressure to adopt a global strategy in response because competitors may use one country’s profits to cross-subsidise their operations in another. A company with a loosely coordinated inter- national strategy is vulnerable to globalised competitors, because it is unable to support country subsidiaries under attack from targeted, subsidised competition. The danger is of piecemeal withdrawal from countries under attack, and the gradual undermining of any overall economies of scale that the international player may have started with.7

The key insight from Yip’s drivers framework is that the internationalisation potential of industries is variable. There are many different factors that can support it as indicated above, but others can inhibit it. For example, customer needs and tastes for many food products inhibit their internationalisation and local governments often impose tariff barriers, own- ership restrictions and local content requirements on foreign entrants. An important step in determining an internationalisation strategy is a realistic assessment of the true scope for internationalisation in the particular industry.

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9.3 GeOGRaphIC SOURCeS OF aDVaNTaGe

A competitor entering a market from overseas typically starts with considerable disadvan- tages relative to existing local competitors, which will usually have superior knowledge of the local market and its institutions, established relationships with local customers, strong supply chains and the like.8 A foreign entrant must thus have significant firm-specific com- petitive advantages for it to overcome these inherent advantages of local competitors. Tesco’s failure in the USA is an example of this. After seven years and investments of about £1bn (€1.2bn, $1.5bn) in its US Fresh & Easy business Tesco was forced to withdraw. Unlike in the UK, Tesco had limited competitive advantage over the strong US domestic retailers. Interna- tionalisation thus requires building on the sources of sustainable competitive advantage that we have discussed earlier in Chapters 4 and 7 including the organisation’s unique strengths in resources and capabilities. While these firm- or organisation-specific advantages are impor- tant, competitive advantage in an international context also depends on country-specific or geographic advantages.9

As the earlier discussion of cost drivers in international strategy has shown, the geographi- cal location of activities is a crucial source of potential advantage and one of the distinguish- ing features of international strategy relative to other diversification strategies. Bruce Kogut at Columbia University has explained that an organisation can improve the configuration of its value chain and system (see Section 4.4.2) by taking advantage of country-specific differences.10 There are two principal opportunities available: the exploitation of particular locational advantages, often in the company’s home country, and sourcing advantages over- seas via an international value system.

9.3.1 Locational advantage: porter’s Diamond11

Countries and regions within them, and organisations originating in those, often benefit from competitive advantages grounded in specific local conditions. They become associated with specific types of enduring competitive advantage: for example, the Swiss in private banking, the northern Italians in leather and fur fashion goods, and the Taiwanese in laptop computers. Michael Porter has proposed a four-pointed ‘diamond’ to explain why some loca- tions tend to produce firms with sustained competitive advantages in some industries more than others (see Figure 9.3). Specifically, porter’s Diamond suggests that locational advantages may stem from local factor conditions; local demand conditions; local related and sup- porting industries; and from local firm strategy, industry structure and rivalry. These four interacting determinants of locational advantage work as follows:

● Factor conditions. These refer to the ‘factors of production’ that go into making a product or service (i.e. raw materials, land and labour). Factor condition advantages at a national level can translate into general competitive advantages for national firms in international markets. For example, the linguistic ability of the Swiss has traditionally provided a sig- nificant advantage to their banking industry. Cheap energy has traditionally provided an advantage for the North American aluminium industry.

● Home demand conditions. The nature of the domestic customers can become a source of competitive advantage. Dealing with sophisticated and demanding customers at home helps train a company to be effective overseas. For example, America’s long distances have led to competitive strength in very large truck engines. Sophisticated local customers in France and Italy have helped keep their local fashion industries at the leading edge for many decades.

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● Related and supporting industries. Local ‘clusters’ of related and mutually supporting industries can be an important source of competitive advantage. These are often region- ally based, making personal interaction easier. In northern Italy, for example, the leather footwear industry, the leatherworking machinery industry and the design services that underpin them group together in the same regional cluster to each other’s mutual benefit. Silicon Valley forms a cluster of hardware, software, research and venture capital organ- isations that together create a virtuous circle of high-technology enterprise.

● Firm strategy, industry structure and rivalry. The characteristic strategies, industry struc- tures and rivalries in different countries can also be bases of advantage. German compa- nies’ strategy of investing in technical excellence gives them a characteristic advantage in engineering industries and creates large pools of expertise. A competitive local industry structure is also helpful: if too dominant in their home territory, local organisations can become complacent and lose advantage overseas. Some domestic rivalry can actually be an advantage, therefore. For example, the long-run success of Japanese car companies is partly based on government policy sustaining several national players (unlike in the UK, where they were all merged into one) and the Swiss pharmaceuticals industry became strong in part because each company had to compete with several strong local rivals.

Porter’s Diamond model underlines the environmental conditions and structural attributes of nations and their regions that contribute to their competitive advantage. It has been used by governments aiming to increase the competitive advantage of their local industries. The argument that rivalry can be positive has led to a major policy shift in many countries towards encouraging local competition rather than protecting home-based industries. Governments can also foster local industries by raising safety or environmental standards (i.e. creating sophis- ticated demand conditions) or encouraging cooperation between suppliers and buyers on a domestic level (i.e. building clusters of related and supporting industries in particular regions).

Figure 9.3 Porter’s Diamond – the determinants of national advantages Source: Adapted with permission of The Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from The Competitive Advantage of Nations by Michael E. Porter. Copyright © 1990, 1998 by Michael E. Porter. All rights reserved.

Firm strategy, structure and

rivalry

Factor conditions

Related and supporting industries

Demand conditions

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For individual organisations, however, the value of Porter’s Diamond is to identify the extent to which they can build on home-based advantages to create competitive advantage in relation to others internationally. To compete with local actors, organisations must care- fully exploit the distinct environmental conditions and structural attributes illustrated in Figure 9.3. For example, Dutch brewing companies – such as Heineken – had an advantage in early internationalisation due to the combination of sophisticated consumers and limited room to grow at home. Volvo Trucks, the Swedish truck and construction equipment man- ufacturer, has achieved global success by building on a local network of sophisticated engi- neering partners and suppliers and a local demand orientated towards reliability and safety. Before embarking on an internationalisation strategy, managers should thus seek out sources of general locational advantage to underpin their company’s individual sources of advantage.

9.3.2 The international value system

The sources of geographic advantage need, however, not be purely domestic. In addition, as companies continue to internationalise, the country of origin becomes relatively less important for competitive advantage. For companies with most of their sales abroad, like the telecom giant Ericsson with 95 per cent of sales outside its home country Sweden, the config- uration of the international environments where they operate is at least as important as their domestic environment. This implies that for international companies, advantage also needs to be drawn from the international configuration of their value system (see Section 4.4.2). Here the different skills, resources and costs of countries around the world can be systematically exploited in order to locate each element of the value chain in that country or region where it can be conducted most effectively and efficiently. This may be achieved through both foreign direct investments and joint ventures but also through global sourcing: purchasing services and components from the most appropriate suppliers around the world, regardless of their loca- tion. For example, in the UK for many years the National Health Service has been sourcing medical personnel from overseas to offset a shortfall in domestic skills and capacity. Smaller organisations can also build on the broader system of suppliers, channels and customers as demonstrated in Illustration 9.2.

Different locational advantages can be identified:

● Cost advantages include labour costs, transportation and communications costs and tax- ation and investment incentives. Labour costs are important. American and European firms, for example, have moved much of their software programming tasks to India where a computer programmer costs an American firm about one quarter of what it would pay for a worker with comparable skills in the USA. As wages in India have risen, some IT firms have started to move work to even more low-cost locations such as Thailand and Vietnam.

● Unique local capabilities may allow an organisation to enhance its competitive advan- tage. Gradually value-creating and innovative activity becomes geographically dispersed across multiple centres of excellence within multinational organisations.12 For example, leading European pharmaceuticals company GSK has R&D laboratories in Boston and the Research Triangle in North Carolina in order to establish research collaborations with the prominent universities and hospitals in those areas. Internationalisation, therefore, is increasingly not only about exploiting an organisation’s existing capabilities in new national markets, but about developing and drawing on capabilities found elsewhere in the world.

● National market characteristics can enable organisations to develop differentiated product offerings aimed at different market segments. American guitar-maker Gibson, for example, complements its US-made products with often similar, lower-cost alternatives produced in South Korea under the Epiphone brand. However, because of the American music tradition, Gibson’s high-end guitars benefit from the reputation of still being ‘made in the USA’.

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ILLUSTRaTION 9.2

For Blue Skies international strategy is something more than profit alone.

Blue Skies specialises in producing fresh-cut fruit and juice products from a network of factories in Africa and South America. It supplies over 12 major European retailers, including Waitrose in the UK, Albert Heijn in the Netherlands and Monoprix in France. The com- pany has factories in Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Brazil. Its biggest factory is in Ghana and employs over 2500 people and sources fruit from over 100 small to medium-sized farms. Blue Skies believes in value add- ing at source whereby the raw materials are processed within the country of origin rather than shipped over- seas and processed elsewhere. By doing this, as much as 70 per cent of the value of the finished product stays within the country of origin, compared to as little as 15 per cent if it is processed outside.

Blue Skies works within a framework it has devel- oped called the ‘Joint Effort Enterprise’ (JEE). While it is their model for a sustainable business, it is not a model which has been introduced to respond to the growing hype around ‘sustainability’. Instead, it is a set of principles from the foundation of the business in 1998 to ensure that the organisation would endure. The JEE is principally made up of three strands: a diverse society, a culture of respect and a drive for profit. The latter must not, however, come at the expense of all the other strands. Blue Skies believes that this model ensures that it retains the best people and conserves the resources they rely on, so that they can produce the best quality products and therefore generate the income that keeps the organisation going. Its approach is ‘based on fairness in business, respect for each other and above all, trust’. In addition, Blue Skies raised over £1m (€1.2m, $1.5m) in partnership with two European retailers and completed over 40 projects in Ghana and South Africa including the con- struction of schools, latrines and community centres. The Blue Skies JEE approach has also been awarded a Queens Award for Enterprise in the Sustainable Devel- opment Category in 2009, 2011 and 2015.

During the last few years Blue Skies has encoun- tered several international challenges: a world reces- sion, rising energy prices, exchange rate volatility, shortage of raw materials, etc. It realises that these are challenges that an international operation across three continents must be ready and willing to respond to. Accordingly, it has undertaken a number of initiatives:

● Developing products for local and dollar-based mar- kets to reduce exposure to exchange rate losses and supply chain disruption.

● Expanding its supply base around the world to ensure year-round supply of fruit.

● Helping its suppliers achieve agricultural standards such as LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) to ensure sustainability of supply.

● Growing the Blue Skies Foundation to strengthen its relationship with staff, farmers and their communities.

● Developing plans to generate renewable energy to reduce electricity costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

● Opening a European-based contingency factory to ensure consistency of supply during supply chain disruption.

Source: Prepared by Edwina Goodwin, Leicester Business School, De Montfort University.

The international ‘Joint Effort Enterprise’

Questions 1 What internationalisation drivers ( Figure  9.2 )

do you think were most important for Blue Skies’ decision to enter its specific markets?

2 How does Blue Skies’ strategy fit into a broader international value system including suppliers, channels and customers (see also Figure  4.5 )?

3 To what extent is JEE key to Blue Skies’ international strategy and competitive advantage or rather a social entrepreneurship effort?

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9.4 INTeRNaTIONaL STRaTeGIeS

Given their organisation-specific advantages and the ability to obtain sources of inter- national competitive advantage through geographic home-based factors or international value systems, organisations still face difficult questions about what kind of international strategy to pursue. The fundamental issue in formulating an international strategy is to balance pressures for global integration versus those for local responsiveness.13 Pressures for global integration encourage organisations to coordinate their activities across diverse countries to gain efficient operations. The internationalisation drivers discussed above (Sec- tion 9.2) indicate forces that organisations can build on to achieve lower costs and higher quality in operations and activities on a global scale. However, there are conflicting pressures that also encourage organisations to become locally responsive and meet the specific needs in each individual country (see Section 9.5.1 below). Values and attitudes, economics, political institutions, cultures and laws differ across countries, which imply differences in customer preferences, product and service standards, regulations and human resources that all need to be addressed. These two opposing pressures – global integration vs local responsiveness – put contradictory demands on an organisation’s international strategy. High pressure for global integration implies an increased need to concentrate and coordinate operations globally. In contrast, high pressure for local responsiveness implies a greater need to disperse operations and adapt to local demand.

This key problem is sometimes referred to as the global–local dilemma: the extent to which products and services may be standardised across national boundaries or need to be adapted to meet the requirements of specific national markets. For some products and services – such as TVs – markets appear similar across the world, offering huge potential scale economies if design, production and delivery can be centralised. For other products and services – such as processed food – tastes still seem highly national-specific, drawing companies to decentralise operations and control as near as possible to the local market.

This dilemma between global integration and local responsiveness suggests several pos- sible international strategies, ranging from emphasising one of the dimensions to complex responses that try to combine both. Organisations need to assess to what degree there are potential advantages of cost and quality of global integration and balance those pressures against the need to adapt products and/or services to local conditions. This section intro- duces four different kinds of international strategy, based on strategic choices about this balance (see Figure 9.4). The four basic international strategies are:14

● Export strategy. This strategy leverages home country capabilities, innovations and prod- ucts in different foreign countries. It is advantageous when both pressures for global inte- gration and local responsiveness are low, as shown in Figure 9.4. Companies that have distinctive capabilities together with strong reputation and brand names often follow this strategy with success. Google, for example, centralises its R&D and the core architecture underlying its internet services at its headquarters in California in the USA and exploits it internationally with minor adaptations except for local languages and alphabets. The downside of this approach is the limits of a home country centralised view of the business with risks of skilled local competitors getting ahead. Google, for example, meets strong local rivals in Baidu in China and Naver in Korea with superior mastery of the language and understanding of local consumer behaviour.

● Multi-domestic strategy. This is a strategy that maximises local responsiveness. It is based on different product or service offerings and operations in each country depending on local market conditions and customer preferences. Each country is treated differently with considerable autonomy for each country manager to best meet the needs of local

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markets and customers in that particular country. As with the export strategy, this strategy is similarly loosely coordinated internationally. The organisation becomes a collection of relatively independent units with value chain activities adapted to specific local conditions. This multi-domestic approach is particularly appropriate when there are strong benefits to adapting to local needs and when there are limited efficiency gains from integration. It is common in food and consumer product industries where local idiosyncratic preferences are significant. Marketing-driven companies often pursue this type of strategy. For exam- ple, Frito-Lay, a US branded-snacks company, tailors its global products to local tastes and even creates entirely new snack products for local markets.15 The disadvantages of a multi-domestic strategy include manufacturing inefficiencies, a proliferation of costly product and service variations and risks towards brand and reputation if national prac- tices become too diverse.

● Global strategy. This is a strategy that maximises global integration. In this strategy the world is seen as one marketplace with standardised products and services that fully exploits integration and efficiency in operations. The focus is on capturing scale econo- mies and exploiting location economies worldwide with geographically dispersed value chain activities being coordinated and controlled centrally from headquarters. In these respects, this strategy is the exact opposite to the multi-domestic strategy. A global strat- egy is most beneficial when there are substantial cost or quality efficiency benefits from standardisation and when customer needs are relatively homogeneous across countries. It is a common strategy for commodities or commodity-like products. For example, Mex- ican Cemex, one of the largest cement companies in the world, follows a global strategy with centralised and shared services in information technology, R&D, human resources and financial services across countries and regions.16 Non-commodity companies can also follow a global strategy, like Sweden’s furniture retailer IKEA. Based on a strong home base, they standardise products and marketing with limited local adaptation to gain maximum global integration efficiency. The drawback of the global strategy is reduced flexibility due to standardisation that limits possibilities to adapt activities and products to local conditions.17 This has, for example, led IKEA to make minor modifications of some furniture offerings to suit local tastes.

Figure 9.4 Four international strategies

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● Transnational strategy. This is the most complex strategy that tries to maximise both responsiveness and integration. Its aim is to unite the key advantages of the multi-domes- tic and global strategies while minimising their disadvantages. In addition, it maximises learning and knowledge exchange between dispersed units. In this strategy products and services and operational activities are, subject to minimum efficiency standards, adapted to local conditions in each country. In contrast to the multi-domestic strategy, however, this strategy also leverages learning and innovation across units in different countries. The value chain configuration includes an intricate combination of centralised manufacturing to increase efficiency combined with distributed assembly and local adaptations. Coor- dination is neither centralised at home nor dispersed in foreign countries, but encourages knowledge flows from wherever ideas and innovations come from. The major advantage of this strategy is its capacity to support efficiency and effectiveness while at the same time being able to serve local needs and leverage learning across units. General Electric has been celebrated as having a transnational strategy that emphasises seeking and exchanging ideas irrespective where they come from. The company swaps ideas regarding efficiency, customer responsiveness and innovation across different parts of the value chain and diverse countries worldwide.18 However, while it is argued that a transnational strategy is becoming increasingly necessary, many firms find it difficult to implement given its complexity and the fundamental trade-off between integration and responsiveness. ABB, the Swiss–Swedish engineering giant, was once identified as the archetypal transnational company, but later ran into serious problems.19 They have since tried to find the middle ground in a more regional strategy – a compromise discussed below.

In practice, these four international strategies are not absolutely distinct as indicated by the overlapping ovals in Figure 9.4. They are rather illustrative examples of alternative international strategies. Global integration and local responsiveness are matters of degree rather than sharp distinctions. Moreover, choices between them will be influenced by changes in the internation- alisation drivers introduced earlier. It is rare that companies adopt a pure form of international strategy; instead they often blend approaches and are located somewhere between the four strategies. As exemplified above, IKEA has a global strategy, but also makes some minor local adaptations, which may eventually move the company towards more of a transnational strategy.

Often regions (e.g. Europe or North America) play a larger role in international strat- egy than individual countries or global expansion. Thus many multinationals compromise between local and global logics by opting for regional strategies.20 The aim of this strategy is to attain some of the economic efficiency and location advantages while simultaneously reaching local adaptation advantages. Regions are treated as relatively homogenous markets with value chain activities concentrated within them. Sales data suggest that many multi- national companies follow this type of strategy focused on one or two regions including the triad of the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement and/or Japan/ Asia.21 For example, over 85 per cent of all cars sold within each region of Europe, North America and Japan are built in that same region. This regional approach to international strategy shows that distances and differences between nations are still relatively large (see Section 9.5.1 below), which makes global integration difficult.

These differences can, however, be exploited in arbitrage for value creation. Arbitrage implies that multinationals take advantage of price differences between two or more markets by pur- chasing goods cheaply in one market and selling them at a higher price in another. For exam- ple, Walmart is known for sourcing much of what the company sells in the USA from China. Not only price differences, but differences in labour costs, in knowledge, capital and taxes can be exploited by operating in diverse countries. The potential for arbitrage in multinationals is substantial and it has been suggested as a third significant international strategy dimen- sion, besides integration and responsiveness.22 Finally, different international strategies require diverse organising requirements for success, which are discussed in Chapter 14 (Section 14.2.4).

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9.5 MaRKeT SeLeCTION aND eNTRY

Having decided on an international strategy built on significant sources of competitive advantage and supported by strong internationalisation drivers, managers need next to decide which countries to enter. There are substantial differences in customer needs and in economic, regulative–administrative, political and cultural institutions that make countries and markets more or less attractive. Thinking Differently at the end of this chapter even con- siders an entirely new strategy view based on institutions. To an extent, however, countries can initially be compared using standard environmental analysis techniques, for example along the dimensions identified in the PESTEL framework (see Section 2.2) or according to the industry five forces (Section 3.2). However, there are specific determinants of market attractiveness that need to be considered in internationalisation strategy: the intrinsic char- acteristics of the country and market. A key point is how initial estimates of country attrac- tiveness can be modified by considering institutional voids and various measures of distance. The section concludes by considering different entry strategy modes into national markets.

9.5.1 Country and market characteristics

At least four elements of the PESTEL framework are particularly important in comparing countries for entry:

● Political. Political environments vary widely between countries and can alter rapidly. Rus- sia since the fall of communism has seen frequent swings for and against private foreign enterprise. It is important to determine the level of political risk before entering a country. Toyota, for example, found itself the subject of an unexpected consumer boycott in China because of political tensions over a territorial dispute between China and Japan. There is also a risk that governments simply take over companies. In 2012, the Argentinian govern- ment nationalised the Spanish oil company Repsol’s 57 per cent stake in Argentina’s largest oil extractor and refinery. Governments can of course also create significant opportunities for organisations. For example, the British government has traditionally promoted the financial services industry in the City of London by offering tax advantages to high-earn- ing financiers from abroad and providing a ‘light-touch’ regulatory environment.

● Economic. Key comparators in deciding entry are levels of gross domestic product and disposable income that help in estimating the potential size of the market. Fast-growth economies obviously provide opportunities, and in developing economies such as China and India growth is translating into an even faster creation of a high-consumption mid- dle class. At the same time, entirely new high-growth markets are opening up in Africa including Nigeria and Ghana.

● Social. Social factors will clearly be important, for example the availability of a well- trained workforce or the size of demographic market segments – old or young – relevant to the strategy. Cultural variations also need to be considered, for instance in defining tastes in the marketplace.

● Legal. Countries vary widely in their legal regime, determining the extent to which busi- nesses can enforce contracts, protect intellectual property or avoid corruption. Similarly, policing will be important for the security of employees, a factor that in the past has deterred business in some African countries.

A common procedure is to rank country markets against each other on criteria such as these and then choose the countries for entry that offer the highest relative scores. However, Tarun

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ILLUSTRaTION 9.3

When a resource-constrained fi rm enters a high-distance market, it helps greatly if it can utilise a low-distance entry point.

The lure of the Chinese market has led several Western companies to venture into a context that is unfamiliar and bewildering, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lacking the deep pockets of large multinationals. It is useful for SMEs to have a ‘bridge’ into a high-distance market. One way to accomplish this is to use a foreign-owned industrial park (i.e. a space designated for industrial use).

Consider the case of the Nordic Industrial Park (NIP) that provides a physical space for offices and light-manufacturing facilities, and a range of value-added services to set up a business in China. These include legal services (e.g. registering the com- pany and drafting contracts), human resource manage- ment (e.g. recruitment, payroll and expat relocation), accounting (e.g. financial reporting), and information and communication technology (e.g. internet access).

NIP was co-founded by Ove Nodland, a Norwegian who first came to China in 1994 to manage differ- ent ventures. Nodland learnt that even though rules were set in Beijing (the national capital and political centre of China), they were implemented by local offi- cials – and so they mattered greatly. Over the years he invested considerable energies in building close relationships with various officials, and took care to ensure that the ventures he worked for complied with local regulations and aligned themselves with local gov- ernmental priorities. Nodland’s local guanxi (network connections) grew rapidly.

After a decade’s experience in China, Nodland real- ised he was well placed to help European SMEs enter China more broadly. He chose to focus on what he knew best: firms from the Nordic region (Denmark, Fin- land, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) setting up a base in Ningbo, a port city in Zhejiang province just south of Shanghai (the commercial centre of China) and renowned for its entrepreneurialism. Thus was born the concept of NIP in 2002, which was sold to Silver Rise Hong Kong Pte Ltd, part of China’s Yinmao Group, in 2013, with Nodland staying on as consultant. In 2015, NIP was selected by the Zhejiang provincial government as one of the first designated ‘international industrial

cooperative parks’ which further strengthened its local standing. Going forward, NIP has signalled its intent to attract projects from Nordic universities and achieve an output value in excess of RMB 2bn (€280m, £224m, $364m) by 2017.

From the perspective of a European SME entering NIP, there are multiple benefits:

● Process: Lower start-up costs. NIP leverages its knowledge of the Chinese business environment by hand-holding clients through the complexities associated with starting and running a business in China, thereby allowing firms to focus their time and energies on core business activities.

● Physical environment: A familiar ambience. NIP’s architecture and design mimics Scandinavian fea- tures that set it apart from standard Chinese build- ings. Not only does this give expat managers a sense of the familiar, it is also a symbolic reminder to Chinese employees that they are part of a Western organisation.

● People: A like-minded community. By virtue of being part of the largest concentration of Nordic compa- nies in China, expat managers have the opportunity to share experiences with and pick up ‘tricks of the trade’ from other managers with a similar cultural background through hallway conversations and lunchtime meetings.

Of course, entering a facility like NIP comes at a cost, but offers benefits in terms of ‘reducing distance’.

Source: Prepared by Shameen Prashantham, China Europe Interna- tional Business School.

Nordic Industrial Park: bridging distance across international markets

Questions 1 Consider NIP’s services in light of the CAGE

framework and analyse how they may help reduce distance.

2 What might be the drawbacks in being located in an industrial park?

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Khanna and Krishna Palepu from Harvard Business School have shown that this may not be enough, especially not for emerging markets.23 These are often equally attractive, but may differ considerably as regards institutional infrastructure. This can be particularly challeng- ing because of the lack of important institutions like regulatory systems, contract and law enforcement mechanisms and ‘soft’ infrastructure like the availability of market research and employee search firms. The absence of this suggests that these types of institutional voids need to be taken into consideration besides country rankings.24 Pankaj Ghemawat from Spain’s IESE Business School also emphasises that what matters is not just the attractiveness of different countries relative to each other. He points out that the compatibility of the coun- tries with the internationalising firm itself and its country of origin is what really matters.25 Thus Ghemawat underlines the importance of match between country and firm. For firms coming from any particular country, some countries are more ‘distant’ – or mismatched – than others. For example, a Spanish company might be ‘closer’ to a South American market than an East Asian market and might therefore prefer that market even if it ranked lower on standard criteria of attractiveness. As well as a relative ranking of countries, therefore, each company has to add its assessment of countries in terms of closeness of match.

Ghemawat’s ‘CAGE framework’ measures the match between countries and companies according to four dimensions of distance, reflected by the letters of this acronym. Thus the CaGe framework emphasises the importance of cultural, administrative, geographical and economic distance, as follows:

● Cultural distance. The distance dimension here relates to differences in language, ethnicity, religion and social norms (see Section 6.3.1 for four key dimensions upon which national cultures tend to differ). Cultural distance is not just a matter of similarity in consumer tastes, but extends to important compatibilities in terms of managerial behaviours. Here, for example, US firms might be closer to Canada than to Mexico, which Spanish firms might find relatively compatible. Figure 9.5 draws on the GLOBE survey of 17,000 manag- ers from 62 different societal cultures around the world to contrast specifically the orien- tations of American and Chinese managers on some key cultural dimensions. According to this GLOBE survey, American managers appear to be typically more risk-taking, while Chinese managers are more autonomous. One way to shrink distance is through cooper- ation with local partners, which is demonstrated in Illustration 9.3.

● Administrative and political distance. Here distance is in terms of incompatible admin- istrative, political or legal traditions. Colonial ties can diminish difference, so that the shared heritage of France and its former West African colonies creates certain under- standings that go beyond linguistic advantages. Institutional weaknesses or voids – for example, slow or corrupt administration – can open up distance between countries. So too can political differences: Chinese companies are increasingly able to operate in parts of the world that American companies are finding harder, for example parts of Africa and the Middle East.

● Geographical distance. This is not just a matter of the kilometres separating one country from another, but involves other geographical characteristics of the country such as size, sea-access and the quality of communications infrastructure. Transport infrastructure can shrink or exaggerate physical distance. France is much closer to large parts of Continental Europe than to the UK thanks to its high-speed rail network and because of the barrier presented by the English Channel and the latter’s relatively poor road and rail infrastruc- ture. Another example is the Brazilian mining company Vale, which has developed mega- ship carriers for its Chinese exports to limit the effect of geographic distances.

● Economic. The final element of the CAGE framework refers particularly to wealth dis- tances. There are of course huge disparities in wealth internationally: around the world, there are four billion people beneath the poverty income threshold of less than $2 a day.26

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Multinationals from rich countries are typically weak at serving such very poor con- sumers. However, these rich-country multinationals are losing out on large markets if they only concentrate on the wealthy elites overseas. C.K. Prahalad pointed out that the aggregated wealth of those at the ‘base of the pyramid’ in terms of income distribution is very substantial: simple mathematics means that those four billion below the poverty threshold represent a market of more than $2,000bn per year. If rich-country multination- als can develop new capabilities to serve these numerically huge markets, they can bridge the economic distance, and thereby both significantly extend their presence in booming economies such as China and India and bring to these poor consumers the benefits that are claimed for Western goods.27 See Illustration 9.4 for examples of innovative bases of pyramid strategies.

9.5.2 Competitive characteristics

Assessing the relative attractiveness of markets by PESTEL and CAGE analyses including careful examinations of institutions is a significant first step. However, there is also a sec- ond element, which relates to competition. Here, of course, Michael Porter’s five forces

Figure 9.5 International cross-cultural comparison Source: M. Javidan, P. Dorman, M. de Luque and R. House, ‘In the eye of the beholder: cross-cultural lessons in leadership from Project GLOBE’, Academy of Management Perspectives (February 2006), pp. 67–90 (Figure 4: USA vs China, p. 82). (GLOBE stands for ‘Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness’.)

Fraternal

Status-conscious

Excellence-oriented

Honest

Elitist

AutonomousRisk taker

Note: Based on a survey of managers on standard dimensions (selection presented here).

USA China

Worldly

Indirect

Intra-group competitor

Self-effacing

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

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ILLUSTRaTION 9.4

Base of the pyramid strategy means more than just low prices and involves designing new products, forming partnerships, reshaping distribution channels and introducing novel fi nancing solutions.

product design

A key problem in the developing world is the poor qual- ity of piped water. Unilever Hindustan, India’s largest consumer goods company, owned by Anglo-Dutch Uni- lever, developed a water filter that makes water as safe as boiling. It is marketed and sold through the wide Unilever distribution network. The filter has attracted over three million households, mainly in India’s mega- or middle-sized cities. However, at $35 (£21, €26) it is still unattainable for millions of Indians who live on less than a dollar a day. In an effort to reach rural cus- tomers Unilever has introduced a light-version (lower capacity) of the filter. The success of the product on the Indian market has led Unilever Hindustan to intro- duce the water filter in other markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and South Africa.

partnerships

First Energy Oorja started as a partnership between the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and British Petro- leum (BP) Emerging Consumer Market (ECM) division to develop a stove using the ‘power of innovation and a strong understanding of consumer energy needs’. It was later acquired by The Alchemists Ark, a privately held business consulting firm. The First Energy Oorja stoves are low-smoke, low-cost stoves, which work on pellets – an organic biofuel made of processed agricul- tural waste. First Energy Oorja works in close partner- ship with both local non-governmental organisations and dealer networks in rural markets to distribute and market the stove. This distribution model ensures that the product reaches remote Indian locations and the stove had reached over 3000 households by 2015.

Distribution channels

Bayer CropScience, a global firm that develops and manufactures crop protection products, initiated a Green World venture in Kenya. It introduced small packs of pesticides and trained a network of small, rural agrodealers to guide and educate small farmers

on product handling and use. It also provided further support and marketing via radio. Bayer CropScience carefully selected dealers based on their reputation in the community and sales volumes. Today about 25 per cent of its horticultural retail revenues in Kenya now come from Green World stores.

Financial solutions

Cemex, a global cement corporation from Mexico, has been an innovative pioneer in designing a microfinanc- ing system, ‘Patrimonio Hoy’ (Property Now), for the poor in Mexico and later in the rest of Latin America. In the past, building houses for this group had often proved lengthy and risky because without savings or access to credit, low-income families could only buy small amounts of building material at a time. Patrimonio Hoy is a solution to this. It is a combination of savings and credit schemes in which Cemex provides collateral-free financing to customers via a membership system based on small monthly fees. Customers demonstrate their savings discipline by regular monthly payments and Cemex develops trust in them by delivering building raw materials early on credit. The programme is a success and has reached 265,000 families so far with a further commitment to provide at least 125,000 additional low-income families with affordable housing by 2016.

Sources: Business Call to Action, 2016; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, 2011; Institute for Financial and Management Research, 2012; E. Simanis and D. Duke, ‘Profits at the bottom of the pyramid’, Har- vard Business Review, October 2014; A. Karamchandani, M. Kubzansky and N. Lalwani, ‘Is the bottom of the pyramid really for you?’, Harvard Business Review, March 2011; Business Today, December 2011.

Base of the pyramid strategies

Questions 1 Can you imagine any risks or dangers that

Western companies might face in pursuing base of the pyramid strategies?

2 Is there anything that Western companies might learn from base of the pyramid strategies in emerging markets that might be valuable in their home markets?

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framework can help (see Section 3.3), but it is important to observe that an attractive industry in the home market can be unattractive in another country. For example, country markets with many existing competitors, powerful buyers (perhaps large retail chains such as in much of North America and Europe) and low barriers to further new entrants from overseas would typically be unattractive. An additional consideration is the likelihood of retaliation from other competitors.

In the five forces framework, retaliation potential relates to rivalry and entry, but man- agers can extend this by using insights directly from ‘game theory’ (see Section 7.3.3). It takes competitor interdependence including moves and counter-moves into consideration. Here, the likelihood and ferocity of potential competitor reactions are added to the simple calculation of relative country market attractiveness. As in Figure 9.6, country markets can be assessed according to three criteria:28

● Market attractiveness to the new entrant, based on PESTEL, CAGE and five forces anal- yses, for example. In Figure 9.6, countries A and B are the most attractive to the entrant.

● Defender’s reactiveness, likely to be influenced by the market’s attractiveness to the defender but also by the extent to which the defender is working with a globally inte- grated, rather than multi-domestic, strategy. A defender will be more reactive if the mar- kets are important to it and it has the managerial capabilities to coordinate its response. Here, the defender is highly reactive in countries A and D.

● Defender’s clout, that is the power that the defender is able to muster in order to fight back. Clout is typically a function of share in the particular market, but might be influ- enced by connections to other powerful local players, such as retailers or government. In Figure 9.6, clout is represented by the size of the bubbles, with the defender having most clout in countries A, C, D and F.

Figure 9.6 International competitor retaliation Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review. Exhibit adapted from ‘Global gamesmanship’ by I. MacMillan, S. van Putter and R. McGrath, May 2003. Copyright © 2003 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Each bubble represents a country and its size

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Choice of country to enter can be significantly modified by adding reactiveness and clout to calculations of attractiveness. Relying only on attractiveness, the top-ranked country to enter in Figure 9.6 is country A. Unfortunately, it is also one in which the defender is highly reactive, and the one in which it has most clout. Country B becomes a better international move than A. In turn, country C is a better prospect than country D, because, even though they are equally attractive, the defender is less reactive. One surprising result of taking defender reactiveness and clout into account is the re-evaluation of country E: although ranked fifth on simple attractiveness, it might rank second overall if competitor retaliation is allowed for.

This sort of analysis is particularly fruitful for considering the international moves of two interdependent competitors, such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble or British Airways and Singapore Airlines. In these cases, the analysis is relevant to any aggressive strategic move, for instance the expansion of existing operations in a country as well as initial entry. Especially in the case of globally integrated competitors, moreover, the overall clout of the defender must be taken into account. The defender may choose to retaliate in other markets than the targeted one, counter-attacking wherever it has the clout to do damage to the aggressor. Nat- urally, too, this kind of analysis can be applied to interactions between diversified competi- tors as well as international ones: each bubble could represent different products or services.

9.5.3 entry mode strategies

Once a particular national market has been selected for entry, an organisation needs to choose how to enter that market. Entry mode strategies differ in the degree of resource commitment to a particular market and the extent to which an organisation is operationally involved in a particular location. In order of increasing resource commitment, the four key entry mode types are: exporting; contractual arrangement through licensing or franchising to local partners; joint ventures with local companies, in other words the establishment of jointly owned businesses; and wholly owned subsidiaries, through either the acquisition of established companies or ‘greenfield’ investments, in other words the development of facilities from scratch.

This staged international expansion model emphasises the role of experience and learn- ing in determining entry mode strategy. Internationalisation typically brings organisations into unfamiliar territory, requiring managers to learn new ways of doing business.29 The staged international expansion model proposes a sequential process whereby companies gradu- ally increase their commitment to newly entered markets, as they build knowledge and capa- bilities. Thus firms might enter initially by exporting or licensing, thereby acquiring some local knowledge while minimising local investments. As they gain knowledge and confidence, firms can then increase their exposure, perhaps first by a joint venture and finally by creating a wholly owned subsidiary. For example, the leading Danish wind turbine manufacturer Ves- tas first entered the US market through exports. Subsequently, Vestas established manufac- turing and R&D facilities in Eastern Colorado to strengthen its competitive position versus domestic players and now supplies 90 per cent of components required for the assembly of a final turbine within the USA.

There are advantages and disadvantages for each entry mode strategy depending on a range of factors including resource and investment requirements, control, risks, transport costs, trade barriers, entry speed, etc. Table 9.1 lists some of these fundamental factors that can help guide managers in choosing between market entry modes:

● Export is the baseline option and has the advantages of requiring relatively less invest- ment of resources and entailing lower costs and risks whilst offering speedy entry and the potential to take full advantage of production economies in existing facilities. However, a

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potential disadvantage is of course transportation costs and the possibility that products can be manufactured cheaper locally. Limited control of marketing and sales and possible international trade barriers are other drawbacks.

● Licensing or franchising involves a contractual agreement whereby a local firm receives the right to exploit a product technology or a service concept commercially for a fee during a specific time period. Soft-drink companies like Coca-Cola use license agreements for their drinks and brands internationally and fast food chains like McDonald’s use franchise arrangements. Resource commitments can be kept low as local partners bear the primary financial and political risks while entry can be relatively quick. The main disadvantage with this entry mode is potential lack of control over technologies and product and service quality with an apparent risk of technological leakage and poor quality.

● Joint ventures are jointly owned companies where the international investor shares assets, equity and risk with a local partner. This implies that resource and financial com- mitments are limited compared to full ownership, and financial and political risks are also reduced. Another advantage is the ability to build on the local partner’s knowledge of customer needs and local institutions. In some countries, China for example, joint ventures may be the only option for foreign investors in certain sectors. An important drawback, however, is the risk of losing control over technologies to the partner even if agreements can be made to lower this risk. Another disadvantage is disagreements and conflicts between the partners when the joint venture evolves and changes over time. Companies balance the trade-offs between these advantages and disadvantages in dif- ferent ways. For example, Sweden’s heavy truck maker Volvo has set up joint ventures in China while its competitor Scania, also headquartered in Sweden, has decided not to enter into Chinese joint ventures due to the risk of losing control of its technological expertise.

● Wholly owned subsidiaries involve 100 per cent control through setting up entirely new greenfield operations or by acquiring a local firm. This entry mode has the advantage of giving the company strong control over technologies, operations, sales and financial results. It also allows for exploiting production and coordination economies among diverse units globally. On the negative side, this mode of entry involves substantial commitment of resources and costs and also significant risks, although the latter can be reduced some- what if a local company is acquired (but acquisitions involve their own challenges, see Section 11.5.2). Acquisitions are a common entry mode in the auto industry and the last decade has seen a whole range of these, from Chinese Geely’s acquisition of Volvo Cars to Indian Tata Motors’ acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover to Italian Fiat’s mega acquisi- tion of Chrysler.

export Licensing or franchising

Joint ventures Wholly owned subsidiaries

Resource commitments (financial, managerial, equity, etc.)

Low Low Medium High

Control: technology and quality High Low Low/Medium High

Control: marketing and sales Low Low Medium High

Risk (financial, political, etc.) Low Low Medium High

entry speed High High Medium Low/Medium

Table 9.1 Comparison of entry mode strategies

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SUBSIDIARY ROLES IN AN INTERNATIONAL PORTFOLIO

Case-specific factors other than those discussed above are also liable to enter the calcula- tion of appropriate entry mode. For example, if global coordination of various value chain and system activities across different countries is essential, wholly owned subsidiaries would be the principal entry mode. This entry mode also promotes scale economies as does the export mode for existing facilities.

It should now be clear that each entry mode strategy involves important trade-offs between various factors and that managers need to carefully consider the specific situa- tion and context when trying to choose the optimal entry mode. For example, if entering an entirely new and unknown market a joint venture may be preferable as a local partner could provide valuable market and institutional knowledge. However, if the international investor’s products build on unique and patented technologies and the ability to enforce contracts and protect intellectual property is weak then a wholly owned subsidiary may still be the wiser choice.

The gradualism of staged international expansion outlined above has, however, recently been challenged by two phenomena:

● ‘Born-global firms’ are new small firms that internationalise rapidly at early stages in their development.30 New technologies now help small firms link up to international sources of expertise, supply and customers worldwide. For such firms, waiting until they have enough international experience is not an option: international strategy is a condition of existence. For example, companies like Twitter and Instagram internationalised quickly from being small start-ups. Other types of companies may also internationalise fast. Blue Skies in Illustration 9.2 with operations across three continents is an example of a small company that started out as a mini-multinational.

● Emerging-country multinationals also often move quickly through entry modes. Promi- nent examples are the Chinese white-goods multinational Haier, the Indian pharmaceu- ticals company Ranbaxy Laboratories and Mexico’s Cemex cement company mentioned above.31 Such companies typically develop unique capabilities in their home market that then need to be rolled out quickly worldwide before competitors catch up. For example, Haier became skilled at very efficient production of simple white goods, providing a cost advantage that is transferable outside its Chinese manufacturing base. Haier now has factories in Italy and the USA, as well as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and elsewhere round the world. The rapid internationalisation made by emerg- ing multinationals from China has largely been based on acquisitions.32 These are often high-profile as illustrated by the Chinese conglomerate Wanda buying the second-biggest movie theatre chain in the USA, AMC and the Hollywood film studio, Legendary (see end of chapter case).

9.6 SUBSIDIaRY ROLeS IN aN INTeRNaTIONaL pORTFOLIO

International strategies imply different relationships between subsidiary operations and the corporate centre. The complexity of the strategies followed by organisations such as Gen- eral Electric or Unilever can result in highly differentiated networks of subsidiaries with a range of distinct strategic roles. Subsidiaries may play different roles according to the level of local resources and capabilities available to them and the strategic importance of their local environment (see Figure 9.7):33

● Strategic leaders are subsidiaries that not only hold valuable resources and capabilities, but are also located in countries that are crucial for competitive success because of, for

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example, the size of the local market or the accessibility of key technologies. Japanese and European subsidiaries in the USA often play this role. Increasingly, subsidiaries are seen as playing important strategic roles with entrepreneurial potential for the whole multinational organisation.34 Subsidiaries and subunits are thus either assigned strategic roles or take autonomous strategic initiatives. Hewlett Packard, for example, is known to have used both approaches.35

● Contributors are subsidiaries located in countries of lesser strategic significance, but with sufficiently valuable internal capabilities to nevertheless play key roles in a multinational organisation’s competitive success. The Australian subsidiary of the Swedish telecommu- nications firm Ericsson played such a role in developing specialised systems for the firm’s mobile phone business.

● Implementers, though not contributing substantially to the enhancement of a firm’s competitive advantage, are important in the sense that they help generate vital financial resources. In this sense, they are similar to the ‘cash cows’ of the Boston Consulting Group matrix. The danger is that they turn into the equivalent of ‘dogs’.

● Black holes are subsidiaries located in countries that are crucial for competitive suc- cess but with low-level resources or capabilities. This is a position many subsidiaries of American and European firms found themselves in over long periods in Japan. They have some of the characteristics of ‘question marks’ in the Boston Consult- ing Group matrix, requiring heavy investment (like an astrophysicist’s ‘black hole’, sucking matter in). Possibilities for overcoming this unattractive position include the development of alliances and the selective and targeted development of key resources and capabilities.

Corporate headquarters often assigns these roles, although subsidiary managers some- times also take more independent initiatives. The roles thus relate to how subsidiaries are generally controlled and managed, and this is discussed in Chapter 14.

Figure 9.7 Subsidiary roles in multinational firms Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. From Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution by C.A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal, Boston, MA, 1989, pp. 105–11. Copyright © 1989 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

High

High

Low

Low Level of local resources

and capabilities

Strategic importance of the local environment

Black hole

Implementer Contributor

Strategic leader

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9.7 INTeRNaTIONaLISaTION aND peRFORMaNCe

Just as for product and service diversity discussed in Section 8.4, the relationship between internationalisation and performance has been extensively researched.36 Some of the main findings are as follows:

● An inverted U-curve. While the potential performance benefits of internationalisation are substantial, in that it allows firms to realise economies of scale and scope and benefit from the locational advantages available in countries around the globe, the combination of diverse locations and diverse business units also gives rise to high levels of organisa- tional complexity. At some point, the costs of organisational complexity may exceed the benefits of internationalisations. Accordingly, theory, and the balance of evidence, suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship between internationalisation and performance (similar to the findings on product/service diversification shown in Section 8.4), with moderate levels of internationalisation leading to the best results. However, Yip’s research on large British companies suggests that managers may be getting better at internationalisation, with substantially internationalised firms actually seeing performance improving to the point where international sales are above 40 per cent of total sales.37 Experience and commitment to internationalisation may be able to deliver strong performance for highly internationalised firms.

● Service-sector disadvantages. A number of studies have suggested that, in contrast to firms in the manufacturing sector, internationalisation may not lead to equally improved perfor- mance for service-sector firms. There are three possible reasons for such an effect. First, the operations of foreign service firms in some sectors (such as accountants or banks) remain tightly regulated and restricted in many countries; second, due to the intangible nature of services, they are often more sensitive to cultural differences and require greater adaptation than manufactured products which may lead to higher initial learning costs; third, the services typically require a significant local presence and reduce the scope for the exploitation of economies of scale in production compared to manufacturing firms.38

● Internationalisation and product diversity. An important question to consider is the interaction between internationalisation and product/service diversification. Compared to single-business firms, it has been suggested that product-diversified firms are likely to do better from international expansion because they have already developed the necessary skills and structures for managing internal diversity.39 At the other end of the spectrum, there is general consensus that firms that are highly diversified in terms of both product and international markets are likely to face excessive costs of coordination and control leading to poor performance. As many firms have not yet reached levels of international- isation where negative effects outweigh possible gains and because of current scepticism with regard to the benefits of high levels of product diversification, many companies currently opt for reducing their product diversity while building their international scope. Unilever, for example, has been combining a strategy of growing internationalisation with de-diversification.

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ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

a new strategy view focused on institutions rather than competition and capabilities has been proposed.

The primary difference between strategies at home compared to in foreign markets is the lack of knowl- edge of local customer needs and local institu- tions. While the emphasis traditionally has been on responding to the former, there has recently been an increased focus on the latter. It was observed in Sec- tion  9.5.1 that local economic, regulative, normative, political and cultural-cognitive institutions often dif- fer substantially from those in home markets. They include local market regulations, rules, practices and behaviour that local actors take for granted, but that can be severely constraining and challenging for a foreign company.

It has been argued that current views of strategy largely ignore the importance of institutions despite research demonstrating how institutions significantly influence strategic decision-making. Therefore it has been suggested that strategy needs a new third view in addition to the industry and competitive focused view put forward by Michael Porter (see Chapter  3 ) and the resource-and-capabilities-based view (see

Chapter  4 ). 40 The argument is that managerial strategic choices must not only consider these aspects, but also local market’s institutional characteristics.

Managers thus need to consider several choices in relation to institutions. For example, if the local institu- tions work in favour of the organisation then managers can try to reinforce and stabilise them by cooperating with local competitors and regulators. However, if the institutions are constraining and difficult to change, the only choice for the organisation may be to adapt to and follow them. Managers in powerful organisations could possibly choose to actively resist institutions and even change them. For example, they can try to influ- ence local regulations or the legitimacy of various local business practices. 41

An institution-based view of strategy

Question Why would institutions be of particular importance for strategy in emerging economies?

SUMMaRY ● Internationalisation potential in any particular market is determined by Yip’s four drivers of internationali-

sation: market, cost, government and competitors’ strategies.

● Besides firm-specific advantages, there are geographic sources of advantage in international strategy that can be drawn from both national sources of advantage, as captured in Porter’s Diamond, and global sourcing through the international value system.

● There are four main types of international strategy, varying according to extent of coordination and geograph- ical configuration: export strategy, multi-domestic strategy, global strategy and transnational strategy.

● Market selection for international entry or expansion should be based on attractiveness, institutional voids, multi-dimensional measures of distance and expectations of competitor retaliation.

● Entry mode strategies into new markets include export, licensing and franchising, joint ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries.

● Subsidiaries in an international firm can be managed by portfolio methods just like businesses in a diversified firm.

● Internationalisation has an uncertain relationship to financial performance, with an inverted U-curve warning against over-internationalisation.

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WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

9.1 Using Figure 9.2 (internationalisation drivers), compare two markets you are familiar with and analyse how strong each of the drivers is for increased international strategy.

9.2✱ Visit the websites of the following companies and try to plot their international strategies in one of the four international strategy types of Figure 9.4 (each company primarily fits one strategy): Nestlé, ABB, Louis Vuitton and Lenovo.

9.3✱ Using the CAGE framework (Section 9.5.1), assess the relative ‘distance’ of the USA, China, India and France for a British company (or a company from a country of your choice).

9.4 Using the diverse modes of international market entry of Table 9.1, classify the entry mode strategies of H&M*, Teva* or SABMiller or AB InBev* or any other multinational corporation with which you are familiar.

9.5 Critically evaluate the suggestion that globalisation is mostly beneficial for companies.

9.6 Take any part of the public or not-for-profit sector (e.g. education, health) and explain how far interna- tionalisation has affected its management and consider how far it may do so in the future.

Integrative assignment

9.7 As in 9.2, use the four international strategies of Figure 9.4 to classify the international strategy of H&M*, SABMiller or AB InBev (Megabrew* case) or any other multinational corporation with which you are familiar. Drawing on Section 13.2.4, how does this corporation’s organisational structure fit (or not fit) this strategy?

ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● A useful collection of academic articles on international business is in A. Rugman and T. Brewer (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Business, Oxford University Press, 2003. For a collection of seminal contributions in research on multinational corporations see J.H. Dunning, The Theory of Transnational Corporations, vol. 1, Rout- ledge, 1993.

● An invigorating perspective on international strategy is provided by G.S. Yip and G.T. Hult, Total Global Strategy, Pearson, 2012.

● A critical evaluation of the emphasis on globalisation and global integration contrasted with a regional focus

can be found in A.M. Rugman, The Regional Multi- national: MNEs and ‘global’ strategic management, Cambridge University Press, 2005 and P. Ghemawat, Redefining Global Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2007.

● An eye-opening introduction to the detailed workings – and inefficiencies – of today’s global economy today is P. Rivoli, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: an economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade, Wiley, 2006. A more optimistic view is in T. Friedman, The World is Flat: the globalized world in the twenty-first century, Penguin, 2006.

ReFeReNCeS

1. For another cautious view, see M. Alexander and H. Korine, ‘Why you shouldn’t go global’, Harvard Business Review, December 2008, pp. 70–7.

2. For a discussion that challenges globalisation, see P. Ghe- mawat, ‘Distance still matters’, Harvard Business Review, September 2001, pp. 137–47.

3. For two different views on globalisation, see T. Friedman, The World is Flat: the globalized world in the twenty-first century, Penguin, 2006; and P. Rivoli, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: an economist examines the markets, Power and Politics of World Trade, Wiley, 2006.

4. For different viewpoints on the extent to which world markets are globalising, see T. Levitt, ‘The globalisation of markets’,

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Harvard Business Review, May–June 1983, pp. 92–102; S.P. Douglas and Y. Wind, ‘The myth of globalization’, Columbia Journal of World Business, vol. 22, no. 4 (1987), pp. 19–29; P. Ghemawat, ‘Regional strategies for global leadership’, Har- vard Business Review, December 2005, pp. 98–108; and A. Rugman and A. Verbeke, ‘A new perspective on the regional and global strategies of multinational service firms’, Manage- ment International Review, vol. 48, no. 4 (2008), pp. 397–411.

5. G.S. Yip and G.T. Hult, Total Global Strategy, Pearson, 2012. 6. Useful industry-specific data on trends in openness to trade

and investment can be found at the World Trade Organiza- tion’s site, www.wto.org.

7. G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, ‘Do you really have a global strat- egy?’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 63, no. 4 (1985), pp. 139–48.

8. International firms have traditionally been considered to have a ‘liability of foreignness’ as home and host country environments often differ substantially; not the least in eco- nomic, regulative, normative and cultural institutions. See for example W. Henisz and A. Swaminathan, ‘Introduction: institutions and international business’, Journal of Interna- tional Business Studies, vol. 39, no. 4 (2008), pp. 537–539 and L. Eden and S.R. Miller, ‘Distance matters: liability of foreignness, institutional distance and ownership strategy’, Advances in International Management, vol. 16 (2004), pp. 187–221.

9. For a discussion of firm-specific advantages (‘FSAs’) and country-specific advantages (‘CSAs’), see A.M. Rugman, The Regional Multinational: MNEs and ‘global’ strategic man- agement, Cambridge University Press, 2005; A. Rugman and A. Verbeke, ‘Location, competitiveness and the multinational enterprise’, in A.M. Rugman (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Inter- national Business, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 150–77 and A. Verbeke, International Business Strategy, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2009.

10. B. Kogut, ‘Designing global strategies: comparative and com- petitive value added changes’, Sloan Management Review, vol. 27 (1985), pp. 15–28.

11. M. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Mac- millan, 1990; M. Porter, On Competition, Harvard Business Press, 2008.

12. J.A. Cantwell, ‘The globalization of technology: what remains of the product life cycle model?’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 19, no. 1 (1995), pp. 155–74; A. Rugman and A. Verbeke (see endnote 9).

13. The integration–responsiveness framework builds on the original works by C.A. Bartlett, ‘Building and managing the transnational: the new organizational challenge’, in M.E. Porter (ed.), Competition in Global Industries, Harvard Business School Press, 1986, pp. 367–401; and C.K. Prah- alad and Y. Doz, The Multinational Mission: Balancing local demands and global vision, Free Press, 1987.

14. The typology builds on the basic framework of C.A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal, Managing Across Borders: the Transnational Solution, The Harvard Business School Press, 1989 (2nd updated edn, 1998); and S. Ghoshal and N. Nohria, ‘Horses for courses: organizational forms for multinational corpora- tions’, Sloan Management Review, vol. 34 (1993), pp. 23–35.

The typology was later confirmed in a large-scale empirical investigation by A.W. Harzing, ‘An empirical analysis and extension of the Bartlett and Ghoshal typology of multina- tional companies’, Journal of International Business, vol. 32, no. 1 (2000), pp. 101–20. For a similar typology, see M. Porter, ‘Changing patterns of international competition’, Califor- nia Management Review, vol. 28, no. 2 (1987), pp. 9–39. For a critical evaluation, see T.M. Devinney, D.F. Midgley and S. Venaik, ‘The optimal performance of the global firm: formalizing and extending the integration–responsiveness framework’, Organization Science, vol. 11, no. 6 (2000), pp. 674–95.

15. For a discussion of companies that build on the multido- mestic route, see A. Rugman and R. Hodgetts, ‘The end of global strategy’, European Management Journal, vol. 19, no. 4 (2001), pp. 333–43.

16. For a detailed account of Cemex strategy, see P. Ghemawat, Rede- fining Global Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2007.

17. For a discussion of the limits of global strategy, see A. Rug- man and R. Hodgetts in endnote 15 above.

18. For a more in-depth discussion of how General Electric (GE) tries to combine a global and multi-domestic (‘glocalisation’) strategy with innovation in emerging markets, see J.R.I. Immelt, V. Govindarajan and C. Trimble, ‘How GE is disrupt- ing itself’, Harvard Business Review, October 2009, pp. 57–65.

19. For an analysis of the transnational strategy and ABB as an example, see C.A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal, Managing Across Borders: the Transnational Solution, 2nd edn, Harvard Business School Press, 1998, pp. 259–72; and S. Ghoshal and C. Bartlett, The Individualized Corporation, Harper Business, 1997.

20. For criticism of the integration–responsiveness framework and its shortcoming in taking regions into account and a detailed discussion of regional strategy, see A.M. Rugman, The Regional Multinational: MNEs and ‘global’ strategic management, pp. 48–53 and 201–12, Cambridge University Press, 2005. Further analysis of regional strategies can be found in P. Ghemawat, ‘Regional strategies for global leader- ship’, Harvard Business Review, December 2005, pp. 98–108.

21. For an in-depth examination of the regional sales data, see A. Rugman and A. Verbeke, ‘A perspective on regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises’, Journal of International Business, vol. 35 (2004), pp. 3–18; A.M. Rug- man, The End of Globalization, Random House, 2000; A.M. Rugman and S. Girod, ‘Retail multinationals and globali- zation: the evidence is regional’, European Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 1 (2003), pp. 24–37; and A.M. Rugman, endnote 20 above.

22. P. Ghemawat, ‘Reconceptualizing international strategy and organization’, Strategic Organization, vol. 6, no. 2 (2008), pp. 195–206.

23. For a framework of how to map institutional contexts, see T. Khanna and K. Palepu, ‘Strategies that fit emerging markets’, Harvard Business Review, June 2005, pp. 63–76; and T. Khanna and K. Palepu, Winning in Emerging Markets: a road map for strategy and execution, Harvard Business Press, 2013.

24. For a case study of institutional voids in Bangladesh and how to handle them, see M. Johanna and I. Marti,

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REFERENCES

303

‘Entrepreneurship in and around institutional voids: a case study from Bangladesh’, Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 24, no. 5 (2009), pp. 419–35.

25. See P. Ghemawat, ‘Distance still matters’, Harvard Business Review, September 2001, pp. 137–47; and P. Ghemawat, Rede- fining Global Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2007.

26. C.K. Prahalad and A. Hammond, ‘Serving the world’s poor, profitably’, Harvard Business Review, September 2002, pp. 48–55; Economist Intelligence Unit, ‘From subsistence to sustainable: a bottom-up perspective on the role of business in poverty alleviation’, 24 April 2009.

27. See also E. Simanis and D. Duke, ‘Profits at the bottom of the pyramid’, Harvard Business Review, October 2014; and A. Karamchandani, M. Kubzansky and N. Lalwani, ‘Is the bottom of the pyramid really for you?’, Harvard Business Review, March 2011.

28. This framework is introduced in I. MacMillan, A. van Putten and R. McGrath, ‘Global gamesmanship’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 81, no. 5 (2003), pp. 62–71.

29. For detailed discussions about the role of learning and expe- rience in market entry, see M.K. Erramilli, ‘The experience factor in foreign market entry modes by service firms’, Jour- nal of International Business Studies, vol. 22, no. 3 (1991), pp. 479–501; and Jan Johanson and Jan-Erik Vahlne, ‘The Uppsala internationalization process model revisited: from liability of foreignness to liability of outsidership’, Journal of Interna- tional Business Studies, vol. 40, no. 9 (2009), pp. 1411–31.

30. See G. Knights and T. Cavusil, ‘Innovation, organizational capabilities, and the born-global firm’, Journal of Interna- tional Business Studies, vol. 35, no. 2 (2004), pp. 124–41; and G. Knights and T. Cavusil, ‘A taxonomy of born-global firms’, Management International Review, vol. 45, no. 3 (2005), pp. 15–35.

31. For analyses of emerging-country multinationals, see T. Khanna and K. Palepu, ‘Emerging giants: building world- class companies in developing countries’, Harvard Business Review, October 2006, pp. 60–9; P. Gammeltoft, H. Barnard and A. Madhok, ‘Emerging multinationals, emerging the- ory: macro- and micro-level perspectives’, Journal of Inter- national Management, vol. 16, no. 1 (2010), pp. 95–101; and the special issue on ‘The internationalization of Chinese and Indian firms – trends, motivations and strategy’, Industrial and Corporate Change, vol. 18, no. 2 (2009).

32. For a detailed analysis of the unique aspects of Chinese mul- tinationals, see M.W. Peng, ‘The global strategy of emerging multinationals from China’, Global Strategy Journal, vol. 2, no. 2 (2012), pp. 97–107.

33. See C.A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal, ‘Tap your subsidiaries for global reach’, Harvard Business Review, November–Decem- ber (1986), pp. 87–94; C.A. Bartlett and S. Ghoshal, Man- aging across Borders: the Transnational Solution, Harvard

Business School Press, 1989, pp. 105–11; and A.M. Rugman and A. Verbeke, ‘Extending the theory of the multinational enterprise: internalization and strategic management per- spectives’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 34 (2003), pp. 125–37.

34. For a discussion about the strategic role of subsidiaries, see J. Birkinshaw and A.J. Morrison, ‘Configurations of strategy and structure in multinational subsidiaries’, Jour- nal of International Business Studies, vol. 26, no. 4 (1996), pp. 729–94; and A. Rugman and A. Verbeke, ‘Subsidiary- specific advantages in multinational enterprises’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 22, no. 3 (2001), pp. 237–50.

35. For an analysis of subsidiary and subunit initiatives in mul- tinational corporations, see J. Birkinshaw, Entrepreneurship and the Global Firm, Sage, 2000.

36. A useful review of the international dimension is M. Hitt and R.E. Hoskisson, ‘International diversification: effects on innovation and firm performance in product-diversified firms’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 40, no. 4 (1997), pp. 767–98. For a meta-analytic review of previous studies of multinationality-performance relationships and what the effects depend on, see A.H. Kirca, K. Roth, G.T.M. Hult and S.T. Cavusgil, ‘The role of context in the multina- tionality-performance relationships: a meta-analytic review’, Global Strategy Journal, vol. 2, no. 2 (2012), pp. 108–21.

37. For detailed results on British companies, see G. Yip, A. Rug- man and A. Kudina, ‘International success of British compa- nies’, Long Range Planning, vol. 39, no. 1 (2006), pp. 241–64.

38. See N. Capar and M. Kotabe, ‘The relationship between international diversification and performance in service firms’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 34 (2003), pp. 345–55; and F.J. Contractor, S.K. Kundu and C. Hsu, ‘A three-stage theory of international expansion: the link between multinationality and performance in the ser- vice sector’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 34 (2003), pp. 5–18.

39. See S.C. Chang and C.-F. Wang, ‘The effect of product diver- sification strategies on the relationship between international diversification and firm performance’, Journal of World Business, vol. 42, no. 1 (2007), pp. 61–79; and C.H. Oh and F.J. Contractor, ‘The role of territorial coverage and product diversification in the multinationality-performance relation- ship’, Global Strategy Journal, vol. 2, no. 2 (2012), pp. 122–36.

40. M. W. Peng, S. L. Sun, B. Pinkham and H. Chen, ‘The insti- tution-based view as a third leg for a strategy tripod’, The Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 23, no. 3 (2009), pp. 63–81.

41. See P. Regnér and J. Edman, ‘MNE institutional advantage: how subunits shape, transpose and evade host country insti- tutions’, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 45, no. 3 (2014), pp. 275–302.

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Introduction

Chinese foreign direct investments in the USA have reached record levels and exceeded $10bn (£6bn, €7.5bn) in 2014. Despite this, Wanda’s $2.6bn acqui- sition of US second-largest cinema chain AMC in 2012 and the later $3.5bn acquisition of one of the world’s big- gest movie producers, Legendary Entertainment in 2016, sent shock waves through the US entertainment industry. The AMC acquisition created the world’s largest cinema company by revenues and the Legendary Entertainment acquisition was the biggest China–Hollywood deal ever.

Wanda Cinema Line Corp. is China’s largest operator by cinema screens with close to 300 cinemas and 2,550 screens. Through the AMC acquisition, Wanda now con- trols more than ten per cent of the global cinema mar- ket. AMC is the second-biggest cinema chain operator in North America, which is the world’s biggest film market with ticket sales of over $10bn. The company has more than 5250 screens and 375 theatres in this market and is the world’s largest operator of IMAX and 3D screens including 120 and 2170 screens, respectively.

The AMC and Legendary investments marked a new era as Chinese investment reached into the heart of US entertainment and culture. Although Chinese acquisi- tions in the USA have proven to be controversial before, they may prove to be even more challenging, and it was speculated that a Hollywood ending was far from certain. According to Chen Zheng, manager of Saga Cinema in Beijing, the AMC deal strengthens Wanda’s global status as movie theatre owner:

‘Wanda has been the largest theatre owner in the sec- ond largest film market in the world. Now the deal makes it also the owner of the second largest theatre chain in the largest film market.’ 1

Another analyst commented on the Legendary deal:

‘Buying Legendary entertainment puts Wanda on the road to becoming a global media company and one of the world’s biggest players in movie production.’ 2

Legendary Entertainment is a leading film production company that owns film, television, digital and comics divisions. Its big-budget, action and special-effects global blockbuster type of movie productions has performed very well in China. These include films such as The Dark

Knight batman trilogy, Jurassic World , Inception , Pacific Rim and Godzilla – the last two particularly successful in China. The Hollywood studio adds experience and exper- tise to Wanda’s movie production business. Wanda group is constructing a $8.2bn studio in eastern China which is claimed to be the biggest studio complex globally, com- peting with and even exceeding Hollywood’s best studios, but with Chinese costs.

Although the acquisitions are huge, they are rela- tively small compared with the rest of the Dalian Wanda real-estate conglomerate. Dalian Wanda Group Corp. Ltd includes assets of over $86bn and annual income of about $39bn (2014). Wanda, which means ‘a thou- sand roads lead here’, consists of five-star hotels, tourist resorts, theme parks and shopping malls. The ‘Wanda Plaza’ complexes that combine malls with housing and hotels have been a huge success in China and can be found in more than 60 Chinese cities.

Mr Wang Jianlin, the Founder, Chairman and Presi- dent of Dalian Wanda, is the richest man in China. He joined the army as a teenager and stayed in the military for 17 years. In 1988, he founded Dalian Wanda and rode the wave of China’s phenomenal growth by invest- ing in property. His military background and ties to local officials helped him as large commercial land sales are handled by local governments. As he was willing to take

CaSe eXaMpLe

China goes to hollywood – Wanda’s move into the US movie industry Patrick Regnér

Gerry Lopez, CEO of AMC Entertainment Holdings, left, shakes hands with Zhang Lin, Vice President of Wanda during a signing ceremony in Beijing, China, Monday, 21 May 2012.

Source: Ng Han Guan/Press Association Images.

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on whatever property the local government was ready to give, he became popular with officials. Soon Wanda was the first property company to work in several cities.

Landmark deals

AMC was considered a ‘trophy’ acquisition in the Amer- ican entertainment industry and it was described as a landmark deal by analysts and investors. As announced by the Chairman and President, Mr Wang:

‘This acquisition will help make Wanda a truly global cinema owner, with theatres and technology that enhance the movie-going experience for audiences in the world’s two largest movie markets.’3

Mr Wang considered the AMC deal to be a springboard to expand Wanda’s global cinema presence further with the goal to reach 20 per cent of the world movie theatre market by 2020.

At the announcement of the deal Gerry Lopez, Chief Executive Officer and President, explained:

‘as the film and exhibition business continues its global expansion, the time has never been more opportune to welcome the enthusiastic support of our new owners. Wanda and aMC are both dedicated to providing our customers with a premier entertainment experience and state-of-the-art amenities and share corporate cultures focused on strategic growth and innovation. With Wanda as its partner, aMC will continue to seek out new ways to expand and invest in the movie-going experience.’3

When expanding on its home market Wanda wants to benefit from the know-how of AMC, which operates on a market five times Chinese annual box office sales. AMC has an established worldwide network of cinema theatres and this will give Wanda a reputable brand. There is also a trend for more foreign movies in China and the transaction

may allow Wanda to secure more Hollywood movies for distribution in China.

The Legendary Entertainment acquisition was consid- ered as a next bold step towards Wanda’s goal of becom- ing a global film and entertainment company. Besides expertise and intellectual property, it offered potential synergies between film production and screening both between and within China and the USA. It would help the distribution of more films into the tightly controlled Chinese film market. The quota of 34 foreign films per year could be bypassed if Legendary could make films in China. Mr Wang, however, particularly emphasised the business integration benefits:

‘The acquisition of Legendary will make Wanda Film holdings Company the highest revenue-generating film company in the world, increasing Wanda’s presence in China and the US, the world’s two largest markets. Wanda’s businesses will encompass the full scope of film production, exhibition and distribution, enhancing Wanda’s core competitiveness and amplifying our voice in the global film market.’4

Thomas Tull, the Chairman and CEO of Legendary added:

‘Together, Wanda and Legendary will create a com- pletely new international entertainment company. There is an ever growing demand for quality entertainment content worldwide, particularly in China, and we will combine our respective strengths to bring an even bet- ter entertainment experience to the world’s audiences.’5

Wanda’s Cultural Industry Group in the USa

Wanda’s acquisitions were part of a more general effort to develop China’s own home-grown culture and entertain- ment industry. Cinema is an increasingly popular recrea- tional activity in China and the film market is booming with an amazing increase in box office sales of 50 per cent to $6.7bn during 2015. The market is expected to overtake that of the USA as the world’s largest film market by 2017.

Wanda’s investments in culture and entertainment align well with China’s overall ambition to invest in the sector. The company described the Legendary Entertain- ment investment as ‘China’s largest cross-border cul- tural acquisition to date’ and commented on the AMC acquisition:

‘The Wanda Group began to massively invest in cul- tural industries in 2005. It has entered five industries, including central cultural district, big stage show, film production and projection, entertainment chain and Chi- nese calligraphy and painting collection. . . . Wanda has invested more than $1.6 billion in cultural industries and become the nation’s largest enterprise investor in cultural industries.’5

Signing of the Wanda Cultural Industry Group and Legendary Entertainment merger

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305

Source: Imaginechina/REX/Shutterstock.

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Questions 1 Considering Yip’s globalisation framework

(Figure 9.2), what drivers of internationalisation do you think were most important when Wanda entered the US market through its AMC and Legendary acquisitions?

2 What national sources of competitive advantage might Wanda draw from its Chinese base? What disadvantages derive from its Chinese base?

3 In the light of the CAGE framework, what challenges may Wanda meet as it enters the US market?

(Legendary East) had partnered with state-owned China Film Group to co-produce The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe alongside Chinese actors such as Andy Lau, Jing Tian and Eddie Peng. The big-budget, Hollywood blockbuster action-fantasy film was the largest film intended for global distribution ever shot entirely in China, starring Chinese actors, and incorporating Chinese myths.

AMC and Legendary Entertainment were not likely to be Wanda’s last investments into the global entertainment industry. It acquired Hoyts, Australia’s second-largest multiplex chain, 2015 and was rumoured to be looking for a pan-European chain. In the spring of 2016, they announced the intent to acquire Carmike Cinemas. If approved this deal would make them the largest cinema chain in the USA. Wanda also had plans to make the movie theatre operator Wanda Cinema Line Corp public in an initial public offering with the aim to raise money for further worldwide expansion.

Sources: Wanda Group press release, 12 January 2016; The Diplomat, 13 January 2016; Forbes, 12 January 2016; Financial Times, 22–28 May; Los Angeles Times, 20 May 2012; New York Times, 5 January 2016; New York Times, 20 May 2012; Reuters, 21 May 2012; The Washington Post, 21 May 2012; Wall Street Journal, 21 May 2012.

As Wanda’s acquisitions were the largest overseas cultural investments of a Chinese private enterprise ever, they raised some concerns in the USA. AMC is a US household name, ‘once epitomised as the all-American movie-watching experience’6 and the Legendary invest- ment reached into the heart of Hollywood. This was a sig- nificant expansion of Chinese influence in the American film industry and some were anxious about the effect as many American movies are censored or even banned in China. Mr Wang was after all a Communist Party member, sitting on China’s top advisory council. Wanda’s acqui- sitions raised concerns that Chinese-style censorship of politically controversial movies would become common- place also in the USA. As reported by USA Today: ‘Bei- jing is investing heavily in projecting its “soft power”, or cultural influence. . . .’7

Chinese investments in the USA had been of concern earlier and the US government had rejected investments in the past in the telecommunications and energy indus- try due to national security concerns. However, cinema was unlikely to be considered a strategic industry for the USA.

Mr Wang insisted that Wanda had ‘no plans to promote Chinese films in the United States’ and that AMC CEO Lopez ‘will decide what movies will be shown’ in AMC theatres.8 It was also made clear that AMC would continue to be operated from its headquarters in Kansas City. Mr Wang said Wanda will retain AMC senior management and would not interfere with everyday operations and pro- gramming decisions, which should remain with the US management and claimed ‘The only thing that changed is the boss.’9 On the Legendary Entertainment deal Mr Wang dismissed concerns that it would lead to censorship or alter movie content claiming he is a businessman that buys things ‘. . . to make money, so I don’t really think about government priorities’10 and the main consideration was instead commercial.

Some claimed, however, that China was already achiev- ing its goal of ‘soft power’ as Legendary’s Chinese arm

References 1. ‘Wanda’s AMC deal a ticket to global rule’, Beijing International. 2. BBC News, 12 January 2016. 3. ‘Wanda Group to acquire AMC Holdings Inc.’, Dalian Wanda press release, 20 May 2012. 4. ‘Wanda acquires Legendary for $3.5b in biggest Chinese overseas deal’, ChinaDaily, 12 January 2016. 5. ‘Wanda attends Shenzhen cultural fair’, Wanda Group press release, 18 May 2012. 6. L. Hook, ‘AMC deal to boost Wanda’s global exposure’, Financial Times, 22 May 2016. 7. C. MacLeod, ‘Chinese firm to buy AMC movie chain’, USA Today, 21 May 2012. 8. J. McDonald, ‘Chinese company to buy US movie theatre chain’, Yahoo News, 21 May 2012. 9. ‘Wanda’s AMC deal a ticket to golden role’, ChinaDaily, 22 May 2012. 10. S. Zhang and M. Miller, ‘Wanda goes to Hollywood: China tycoon’s firm buys film studio Legendary for $3.5 billion’, Reuters, 12 January 2016.

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Strategic choices

business strategy

InternationalCorporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Anticipate key issues facing entrepreneurs in opportunity recognition , in making choices during the entrepreneurial process and in various stages of growth , from start-up to exit.

● Evaluate opportunities and choices facing social entrepreneurs as they create new ventures to address social problems.

● Identify and respond to key innovation dilemmas , such as the relative emphases to place on technologies or markets, product or process innovations and open versus closed innovation.

● Anticipate and to some extent influence the diffusion (or spread) of innovations. ● Decide when being a first-mover or an imitator and follower is most appropriate

in innovation, and how an incumbent organisation should respond to innovative challengers.

10 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION

diffusion p.324

disruptive innovation p.328

entrepreneurship p.310

entrepreneurial life cycle p.315

first-mover advantage p.327

innovation p.317

open innovation p.321

opportunity recognition p.310

S-curve p.325

social entrepreneurs p.316

strategic entrepreneurship p.309

Key terms

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10.1 INTRODUCTION

As discussed in Chapter 1, strategy concerns an organisation’s long-term direction, and one important dimension of this is to create new value and competitive advantages for the future. Organisations need not only build competitive advantages in relation to current domestic and international competitors, but they need to identify growth opportunities. Hence this chap- ter is about identifying opportunities and creating new products and services, technologies, resources and capabilities. For example, Apple needs to sustain and develop their existing competitive advantages with the iPhone in the smartphone industry, but they also need to find new opportunities in the market, as with the Apple watch.

Strategic entrepreneurship combines strategy and entrepreneurship and includes both advan- tage-seeking strategy activities and opportunity-seeking entrepreneurial activities to create value.1 While strategy supports this by forming competitive advantages, entrepreneurship contributes the identification of new opportunities in the market or environment. The latter involves entrepreneurs that innovate by identifying and exploiting new ideas and inventions that result in innovations. Strategic entrepreneurship and its outcome, innovation, are essential for the long-term survival and success of all organisations and are the focus of this chapter.2

Entrepreneurship is fundamental not only for creating value for customers and organisa- tional growth and prosperity, but generally for today’s economy. All businesses start with an act of entrepreneurship, but large established firms also practise entrepreneurship to find new innovative products and services in the form of corporate entrepreneurship or ‘intrapreneur- ship’, while many people pursue ‘social entrepreneurship’ for the public good. Innovation is also a key aspect of business-level strategy and models as introduced in Chapter 7, with implications for cost, price, differentiation and sustained competitive advantage. Moreover, it is a dynamic capability that can renew organisational resources and capabilities as dis- cussed in Chapter 4. Promoting greater innovation and entrepreneurship is thus crucial to the improvement of not only all firms, but for public services. But it also poses hard choices. For example, how can new and valuable opportunities be identified and what are the essential con- siderations involved? Should a company always look to be a pioneer in new technologies, or rather be a fast follower such as Samsung typically is? How should a company react to radical innovations that threaten to destroy their existing revenues, as the Kodak film business had to with the rise of electronic cameras (see Illustration 6.4)? The chapter thus focuses particularly on the choices involved in entrepreneurship and innovation aimed at creating new value that benefit organisations and society.

Figure 10.1 identifies four major themes of this chapter; within this framework this chap- ter will first examine entrepreneurship then innovation:

Figure 10.1 Entrepreneurship and innovation: four major themes

Entrepreneurship

Innovators and imitatorsInnovation diffusion

Innovation

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● Section 10.2 addresses entrepreneurship. The section starts with a discussion of a central step in entrepreneurship, opportunity recognition, which captures conditions under which products and services satisfy market needs or wants in the environment. Other steps in the entrepreneurial process then follow. They provide a foundation for further entrepreneur- ial growth stages from start-up to growth, maturity and possibly finally to exit. Finally, this section introduces social entrepreneurship, which explains how individuals and small groups can launch innovative and flexible new initiatives that larger public agencies are unable to pursue.

● Section 10.3 discusses three fundamental innovation dilemmas: technology push as against market pull; product innovation rather than process innovation; and, finally, open versus closed innovation. None of these are absolute ‘either-or’ dilemmas, but managers and entrepreneurs must choose where to concentrate their limited resources.

● Once created, innovations will be diffused among users over time, and diffusion pace depends on various product and demand features. Section 10.4 considers issues surround- ing the diffusion, or spread, of innovations in the marketplace. Diffusion processes often follow S-curve patterns, raising further typical issues for decision, particularly with regard to tipping points and tripping points.

● Section 10.5 completes the discussion of innovation by considering choices with regard to timing. This includes first-mover advantages and disadvantages, the advantages of being ‘fast second’ into a market, and the issue of how established incumbents can be innovative and respond to innovative challengers.

10.2 eNTRepReNeURShIp

Understanding and developing a competitive position in relation to competitors and com- petitive advantages in resources and capabilities is fundamental for the long-term strategic direction of an organisation. However, all organisations also need to explore and find new opportunities for the future. This suggests that strategy is not enough and that organisa- tions also need entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship is a process by which individuals, teams or organisations identify and exploit opportunities for new products or services that satisfy a need in a market.3 The focus is thus on entirely new opportunities for the organisation and not on current competitive positions. Recognising an opportunity is the very first step in an entrepreneurial process. It is more than a simple business idea and involves a combination of elements that an entrepreneur believes will create value and possibly profit. This section introduces some key issues for entrepreneurial innovators including opportunity recognition and the entrepreneurial process. It emphasises some of the challenges of entrepreneurship, the way ventures tend to evolve through various growth stages and concludes by considering social entrepreneurs.

10.2.1 Opportunity recognition

Opportunity recognition means recognising an opportunity, circumstances under which products and services can satisfy a need in the market or environment. It is central for any form of entrepreneurship whether by small start-up, corporate or social entrepreneurs.4 This involves an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team identifying trends in the environment and

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combining resources and capabilities into the creation of new products or services. Opportu- nity recognition thus involves three important and interdependent elements: the entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team, the environment and resources and capabilities (see Figure 10.2):

● Entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team. The entrepreneur or team drives and integrates the various parts of an entrepreneurial process including scanning and spotting trends in the environment (see Section 2.2) linking these to existing resources and capabilities (see Chapter 4) or acquiring appropriate ones and recombining them. Their characteristics differ and entrepreneurs thus come in many different forms and shapes. However, they are often alert to opportunities and able to deal with uncertainty, willing to take risks, highly motivated, optimistic and persuasive as they coordinate resources from their social networks. Entrepreneurship, however, normally includes a team and the managing of relationships with other partners and sometimes other and bigger companies. Beneath the common stereotype of entrepreneurs as heroic individuals, starting their businesses at night in a university laboratory or in a local lock-up garage there can be important external relations (see Illustration 10.1).

● Environment trends and marketplace gaps. Building on macro trends and possible mar- ketplace gaps is likely to be central in identifying an opportunity. This includes observing economic, technological, social and political trends (as with PESTEL; see Section 2.2) and linking them to specific customer needs that are currently not satisfied. Spotting macro trends, industry and strategic group analysis and Blue Ocean thinking can be very useful for identifying new market opportunities (see Sections 2.2, 3.2 and 3.4.3). The GPS fitness-tracking app Runkeeper launched in 2008, for example, built on a range of trends and industry developments and now has 45 million users worldwide. These trends included the health awareness and fitness trends, the proliferation of smartphone users and apps, globalisation of markets and the increased possibility to integrate apps across various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It addresses the market gap of runners’ needs to be able to track and engage with their progress.

● Resources and capabilities. Having access to or being able to obtain resources and capa- bilities is an important part of opportunity recognition. Various helpful ways of mapping and evaluating them were discussed in Chapter 4 (VRIO, value chain, activity systems, etc.; see Sections 4.3, 4.4.2 and 4.4.3). For small start-ups, the necessary resources and

Figure 10.2 Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition

Entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team

Environmental trends and

market gaps

Entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team

Resources and

capabilities

Product, service or

other business

opportunity

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ILLUSTRaTION 10.1

entrepreneurs are often stereotyped as heroic individuals, but entrepreneurship is rarely done alone – it often builds on a team, pre-existing organisational experience and external relationships.

hewlett packard

The entrepreneurial team William Hewlett and David Packard, founders of the famous computing and printer company HP, are oft-quoted examples of the garage stereotype. but digging beneath the stereotype soon reveals a more complex story, in which relationships with large companies can be important right from the start. Often entrepreneurs have worked for large com- panies beforehand, and continue to use relationships afterwards. While Hewlett came fairly directly out of Stanford University’s laboratories, Packard worked at General Electric and Litton Industries. They built extensively on their previous social relationships and ties when setting up HP. The company used Litton Industries’ foundries early on, and later used rela- tionships at General Electric to recruit experienced managers.

apple

Steve Jobs has often been celebrated as the heroic innovator and entrepreneur behind Apple, but he too relied heavily on external relationships. From the very beginning Apple computer did not only involve Jobs, but his founding partner Steve Wozniak. They too started in a garage, but similar to HP built heavily on their experiences with more established organisations. Wozniak worked at HP and Jobs at Atari and this helped them gain access to crucial knowledge and contacts for the development of the start-up. When their venture had become more established they left their employers and incorporated Apple Computer. Apple’s much later successes with the iPod and later the iPhone and iPad have also relied on important external relationships. The music player application SoundJam MP was exter- nally acquired early on and an external entrepreneur was vital for developing iTunes. Apple also initially

worked with the then leading mobile telephone maker Motorola to develop a smart phone.

Facebook

One of today’s most successful and well known entre- preneurs is Mark Zuckerberg who started a photo- rating site called Facemash from his dorm room by using Harvard’s online student photographs. Zuckerberg did not rely on previous organisational experiences, but built on his programming skills and involved others with complementary skills early on. based on his previous experience with Facemash, he founded the social net- working website Facebook together with other fellow Harvard students to develop and grow the site. The team (Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin) brought various skills including programming, promo- tion, graphics, financing and other business expertise. To focus entirely on Facebook and attract further talent and financing to their team, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz abandoned their education at Harvard and moved to California and Silicon Valley. There Zuckerberg contin- ued to build on external business expertise together with venture capitalist investors to further grow the company.

Sources: P. Audia and C. Rider, ‘A garage and an idea: what more does an entrepreneur need?’, California Management Review, vol. 40, no. 1, 2005, pp. 6–28; D. Kirkpatrick, The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, Simon & Schuster, 2010.

Entrepreneurs, teams and external relationships

Questions 1 based on the experiences of HP, Apple

and Facebook what elements of skills and expertise do you think a new venture requires?

2 How would you form a venture team if you set up your own start-up?

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capabilities frequently arise from and draw upon the knowledge and experiences and com- petences of the people involved (see Illustration 10.1). However, while existing resources and capabilities can be helpful, they can also be harmful for opportunity recognition, especially for larger established organisations. Incumbent companies are always bound by existing resources and capabilities, activities and vested interests, which can make entrepreneurial behaviours and activities very difficult (see Section 6.4). Given this, many would conclude that the best approach for entrepreneurship is to start up a new venture from scratch. Independent entrepreneurs such as the Samwer brothers of Rocket Internet and Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google are exemplars of this entrepreneurial approach to innovation (see Chapters 4 and 13 end cases).

10.2.2 Steps in the entrepreneurial process

The first step of opportunity recognition explained above is likely to be followed by five other steps in the development of an entrepreneurial venture. See Figure 10.3 for an overview of these steps.5 Before developing a business plan (see Section 13.2.2) an entrepreneur and start-up can usefully include an initial feasibility analysis. This would critically assess an entrepreneurial idea in terms of product or service viability, market opportunity and financing to establish if it can be turned into a business at all. Next, industry conditions and competitors are often considered. Competitive positions can be evaluated with the help of five forces and strategic groups analyses (see Sections 3.2 and 3.4), and competitors’ potential to imitate the venture’s resources and capabilities can be examined with the VRIO analysis (see Section 4.3). One of the most important considerations in the entrepreneurial process is to choose a business model and strategy (see Chapter 7).6 A start-up thus needs to consider how to create value for the customers, how to manage revenues and costs, how to generate a margin and whether to build on an established business model or create a new one. In addition to this, a distinct competitive strategy position and advantage need to be identified. Thus entrepreneurs will typically have to choose between the generic business strategies of differentiation, cost and focus or any possi- ble hybrid strategy (see Section 7.2.4). Finally, the new venture’s financial strength in terms of financing and funding need to be carefully examined (see Chapter 12).

Figure 10.3 Steps in an entrepreneurial process Source: Adapted from B.R. Barringer and R.D. Ireland, Entrepreneurship – Successfully launching new ventures, 4th edn, 2012, Pearson.

Opportunity recognition

Feasibility analysis

Industry conditions and competitor analysis

Business model and strategy

Financing and funding

Business plan

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While all these entrepreneurial process steps are important, it must be noted that it is an iterative rather than a sequential process and thus not necessarily quite as simple as indicated by Figure 10.3 (see also Thinking Differently at the end of this chapter). The steps do not necessarily neatly follow on from each other and typically include setbacks along the way. The process thus often involves continuous experimentation and the original business itself may evolve quite radically. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘pivoting’, which means making major changes in some dimension of the venture based on market and external feedback.7 For example, Starbucks started off 1971 selling espresso makers and coffee beans rather than brewed coffee. It was after a visit to Italy in 1983 that Howard Schultz (current chairman, president and CEO) started to brew and sell Starbucks coffee in the first coffeehouse. At this time, however, it was a European-style coffeehouse with classical music and waiters, com- pletely different from the type of Starbucks café it eventually evolved into. The important role of experimentation or pivoting also suggests that many entrepreneurs will fail. For every revolutionary entrepreneur that has recognised new opportunities, created new markets and beaten off well-resourced challengers, like Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, there are countless forgotten failures (see Illustration 10.2 for an example). No matter how the entrepreneurial process develops or the degree of experimentation and set-backs, ventures develop through diverse growth stages, and this is discussed next.

10.2.3 Stages of entrepreneurial growth

Entrepreneurial ventures are often seen as going through four stages of a life cycle: see Figure 10.4. The entrepreneurial life cycle progresses through start-up, growth, maturity and exit. Of course, most ventures do not make it through all the stages – the estimated failure rate of new businesses in their first year is more than one fifth, with two thirds going out of business within six years. However, each of these four stages raises key questions for entrepreneurs:

● Start-up. There are many challenges at this stage, but one key question with implications for both survival and growth concerns sources of capital. Loans from family and friends are common sources of funds, but these are typically limited and, given the new-business failure rate, likely to lead to embarrassment. Bank loans and credit cards can provide funding too, and there is often government funding, especially for new technologies or economically disadvantaged social groups or geographical areas. Venture capitalists are

Figure 10.4 Stages of entrepreneurial growth and typical challenges

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ILLUSTRaTION 10.2

adam Goldberg and Wayne Ting had the same idea as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – and first.

In 2003, Golderg and Ting were engineering students at the prestigious Columbia University, New York. Gold- berg was president of his class and hearing lots of complaints about lack of community spirit. Over the summer, he designed a social network for his fellow engineers. Unlike other existing social networks such as MySpace and Friendster, this was the first network which overlaid a virtual community on a real com- munity. Mark Zuckerberg would try the same idea at Harvard the next year.

Three quarters of Columbia’s engineering stu- dents signed up to the Columbia network over the summer. Goldberg improved the network and relaunched it as CU Community in January 2004, open to all the University’s students. Most Columbia students signed up within a month. CU Commu- nity was sophisticated for its time. When Face- book launched in February 2004, it only allowed members to ‘friend’ and ‘poke’ each other. CU Community also allowed blogging, sharing and cross-profile commenting. Goldberg did not worry about Facebook: ‘I saw it was totally different. It had an emphasis on directory functionality, less emphasis on sharing. I didn’t think there was much compe- tition. . . . We were the Columbia community, they were Harvard.’

Then in March Facebook launched in other elite American universities such as Yale, Stanford and Columbia. Goldberg, now joined by Wayne Ting, trans- formed CU Community into Campus Network and launched in elite American universities as well. but Facebook outpaced the new Campus Network. by sum- mer 2004, Facebook had already overtaken Goldberg and Ting’s network even at Columbia.

Goldberg and Ting now plunged into the competi- tion full-time. They suspended their studies and moved to Montreal, hiring three other software developers to help them. but resources were tight. Campus Network refused funds from venture capitalists and turned down some large advertisers, including MTV. The two entre- preneurs slept in the office on air mattresses, hiding

them away as the three employees turned up for work so they would not know they were homeless.

Nonetheless, Campus Network developed a sophis- ticated product, with fully-customisable pages, multi- ple designs and backgrounds. Facebook was simpler. The feel of Campus Network was a bit like Dungeon and Dragons, unlike the clean aesthetics of early Facebook. Ting commented on the logic behind the early development of Campus Network: ‘Why would you go to a site that only had poking and a photo [like Facebook then] when you can share photos, share music and share your thoughts on a blog?’ Looking back though he observed: ‘A good website should have functionalities that 70 or 80% of users want to use. We had functions that only 10% wanted – nobody blogged, nobody even blogs today.’

Campus Network reached 250,000 users by 2005, but at the same point Facebook had reached one million. Goldberg and Ting decided to wind down the network and returned to Columbia as students in the autumn of 2005. The venture had cost them personally something between $100,000 (£60,000, €75,000) and $200,000, as well as more than a year of their lives. Ting reflected in 2012, when an MbA student at Harvard business School: ‘There are still moments when you feel a deep sense of regret . . .. Could we have succeeded? I think that’s a really painful question.  .  .  .  There are fleeting moments like that. but I’m much prouder that we took a risk and we learned from it.’

Sources: Slate, 29 September 2010; BBC, 21 December 2010.

Nearly billionnaires

Questions 1 What do you learn from the experience of

Goldberg and Ting which could be useful to launching a new enterprise?

2 Are there any unmet needs in your community, at college or elsewhere, that could be turned into a business opportunity?

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specialised investors in new ventures, especially when there is some track record. Venture capitalists usually insist on a seat on the venture’s board of directors and may install their preferred managers. Venture capitalist backing has been shown to significantly increase the chances of a venture’s success, but venture capitalists typically accept only about one in 400 propositions put to them.

● Growth. A key challenge for growth ventures is management. Entrepreneurs have to be ready to move from doing to managing. Typically this transition occurs as the venture grows beyond about 20 employees. Many entrepreneurs make poor managers: if they had wanted to be managers, they would probably be working in a large corporation in the first place. The choice entrepreneurs have to make is whether to rely on their own managerial skills or to bring in professional managers. For example, Groupon’s founder Andrew Mason had to step down as chief executive in 2013 after creating the fastest growing internet business ever and leading an IPO of $10bn (see Illustration 4.2).

● Maturity. The challenge for entrepreneurs at this stage is retaining their enthusiasm and commitment and generating new growth. This is a period when entrepreneurship can change to intrapreneurship, the generation of new ventures from inside the organisation (see Section 10.5.2). An important option is usually diversification into new business areas, a topic dealt with in Chapter 8. Amazon.com in the USA has moved from book- selling to automotive parts, groceries and clothing. When generating new ventures at this stage, it is critical to recall the odds on success. Research suggests that many small high- tech firms fail to manage the transition to a second generation of technology, and that it is often better at this point simply to look for exit.

● Exit. Exit refers to departure from the venture, either by the founding entrepreneurs, or by the original investors, or both. At the point of exit, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists will seek to release capital as a reward for their input and risk-taking. Entrepreneurs may consider three prime routes to exit. A simple trade sale of the venture to another company is a common route. Thus in 2014 the founders of the internet-based mobile texting app WhatsApp sold their company to Facebook for $16bn in combined cash and stock, just four years after starting the company. Another exit route for highly successful enterprises is an initial public offering (IPO), the sale of shares to the public, for instance on the Amer- ican NASDAQ exchange. IPOs usually involve just a portion of the total shares available, and may thus allow entrepreneurs to continue in the business and provide funds for further growth. In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg raised $16bn in Facebook’s IPO, while retaining for himself 28 per cent ownership of the company. It is often said that good entrepreneurs plan for their exit right from start-up, and certainly venture capitalists will insist on this.

Entrepreneurs who have successfully exited a first venture often become serial entrepre- neurs. Serial entrepreneurs are people who set up a succession of enterprises, investing the capital raised on exit from earlier ventures into new growing ventures. For example, the German Samwer brothers of Rocket Internet have started and sold a whole series of com- panies and then started new ones (see Chapter 4 end case). For serial entrepreneurs, the challenge often is no longer so much funding but good ideas.

10.2.4 Social entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is not just a matter for the private sector. The public sector has seen increas- ing calls for a more entrepreneurial approach to service creation and delivery. The notion of social entrepreneurship has become common. Social entrepreneurs are individuals and groups who create independent organisations to mobilise ideas and resources to address

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social problems, typically earning revenues but on a not-for-profit basis. Independence and revenues generated in the market give social entrepreneurs the flexibility and dynamism to pursue social problems that pure public-sector organisations are often too bureaucratic, or too politically constrained, to tackle. Social entrepreneurs have pursued a wide range of initiatives, including small loans (‘micro-credit’) to peasants by the Grameen bank in Bang- ladesh, employment creation by the Mondragon cooperative in the Basque region of Spain, and fair trade by Traidcraft in the UK. This wide range of initiatives raises at least three key choices for social entrepreneurs.

● Social mission. For social entrepreneurs, the social mission is primary. The social mission can embrace two elements: end-objectives and operational processes. For example, the Grameen bank has the end-objective of reducing rural poverty, especially for women. The process is empowering poor people’s own business initiatives by providing micro-credit at a scale and to people that conventional banks would ignore.

● Organisational form. Many social enterprises take on cooperative forms, involving their employees and other stakeholders on a democratic basis and thus building commitment and channels for ideas. This form of organisation raises the issue of which stakeholders to include, and which to exclude. Cooperatives can also be slow to take hard decisions. Social enterprises therefore sometimes take more hierarchical charity or company forms of organisation. Cafédirect, the fair-trade beverages company, even became a publicly listed company, paying its first dividend to shareholders in 2006.

● Business model. Social enterprises typically rely to a large extent on revenues earned in the marketplace, not just government subsidy or charitable donations. Housing associations collect rents, micro-credit organisations charge interest and fair-trade organisations sell produce. Social entrepreneurs are no different to other entrepreneurs, therefore, in having to design an efficient and effective business model (see Section 7.4). This business model might involve innovative changes in the value chain. Thus fair-trade organisations have often become much more closely involved with their suppliers than commercial organi- sations, for example advising farmers on agriculture and providing education and infra- structure support to their communities.

Social entrepreneurs, just like other entrepreneurs, often have to forge relationships with large commercial companies. Harvard Business School’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter points out that the benefits to large companies can go beyond a feel-good factor and attractive public- ity. She shows that involvement in social enterprise can help develop new technologies and services, access new pools of potential employees, and create relationships with government and other agencies that can eventually turn into new markets. Kanter concludes that large companies should develop clear strategies with regard to social entrepreneurship, not treat it as ad hoc charity.

10.3 INNOVaTION DILeMMaS

One important outcome of entrepreneurship is innovation. It is of importance not only for start-ups, but for all firms, including large companies that continuously need to develop new and innovative products and services to successfully compete. Innovation, however, raises fundamental strategic dilemmas for strategists. Innovation is more complex than just inven- tion. Invention involves the conversion of new knowledge into a new product, process or service. Innovation involves the conversion of new knowledge into a new product, process or

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service and the putting of this new product, process or service into actual commercial use.8 The strategic dilemmas stem from this more extended innovation process. Strategists have to make choices with regard to three fundamental issues: how far to follow technological oppor- tunity as against market demand; how much to invest in product innovation rather than process innovation; and how far to open themselves up to innovative ideas from outside.9

10.3.1 Technology push or market pull

People often see innovation as driven by technology. In the pure version of this technology push view, it is the new knowledge created by technologists or scientists that pushes the innovation process. Research and development laboratories produce new products, processes or services and then hand them over to the rest of the organisation to manufacture, market and distribute. According to this push perspective, managers should listen primarily to their scientists and technologists, let them follow their hunches and support them with ample resources. Generous R&D budgets are crucial to making innovation happen. For example, estimates for making a new drug show that the costs can be as high as $200m (£120m, €150m).

An alternative approach to innovation is market pull. Market pull reflects a view of inno- vation that goes beyond invention and sees the importance of actual use. In many sectors users, not producers, are common sources of important innovations. In designing their inno- vation strategies, therefore, organisations should listen in the first place to users rather than their own scientists and technologists. There are two prominent but contrasting approaches to market pull:

● Lead users. According to MIT professor Eric Von Hippel, in many markets it is lead users who are the principal source of innovation.10 In medical surgery, top surgeons often adapt existing surgical instruments in order to carry out new types of operation. In extreme sports such as snowboarding or windsurfing, it is leading sportspeople who make the improvements necessary for greater performance. In this view, then, it is the pull of market experts that is responsible for innovation. Managers need to build close relationships with lead users such as the best surgeons or sporting champions. Marketing and sales functions identify the lead users of a field and then scientists and technologists translate their inventive ideas into commercial products, processes or services that the wider market can use. For example, the Danish toy company Lego runs a special ‘Ambassador Program’ to keep close to 150 specialised user groups around the world; specialist users in design and architecture were responsible for originating the Lego Jewellery and Lego Architecture ranges.

● Frugal innovation. At the other end of the user continuum is the pull exerted by ordi- nary consumers, particularly the poor in emerging markets.11 Rather than the expensive research-intensive model of the traditional technology push approach, frugality is the guiding principle here. Frugal innovation involves sensitivity to poor people’s real needs. Responding not only to these users’ lack of money, but also to the tough conditions in which they live, frugal innovation typically emphasises low cost, simplicity, robustness and easy maintenance. The Tata Nano car is a famous example, a simple car produced for the Indian market for only $2,000. Muruganatham’s cheap sanitary towels are another example, this time emphasising opportunities to create employment for the economically disadvantaged too (see Illustration 10.3).

The lead user and frugal innovation approaches are opposite ends of a spectrum, one elitist, the other basic. Many organisations will choose somewhere in between. But funda- mentally both approaches share a key insight: innovations do not just come from scientific research, but can be pulled by users in the external market.

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ILLUSTRaTION 10.3

arunachalam Muruganantham aims to transform the lives of Indian women with a fundamental innovation.

High school drop-out and welder Arunachalam Muru- ganantham has developed a low-cost sanitary towel the hard way. In India, only 12 per cent of women can afford to use sanitary towels for their monthly periods, the rest making do with old rags and even husks or sand. As Muruganantham’s wife explained to him, if she bought the expensive sanitary towels on the mar- ket, the family would have to do without milk. but the cost for many women is infections and even cervical cancer.

Muruganantham determined to find a cheap way of supplying Indian women with proper sanitary towels. In Indian society, however, the issue was taboo. The local hospital was unhelpful, and even Muruganan- tham’s wife and sisters refused to talk about the prob- lem. A survey of college girls failed. Muruganantham’s prototypes were scorned by his wife. At his wits’ end, Muruganantham experimented on himself, carrying a bladder inflated with goat’s blood while wearing one of his own sanitary towels and women’s undergarments. His tests while walking and cycling around the village created a local scandal. His wife moved out.

Muruganantham characterised the issue as a ‘triple A problem – Affordability, Availability and Aware- ness’. but after four years of research, he finally built a machine for producing sanitary towels at less than half the price of those offered by rivals such as Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. The machines are cheap and hand-operated, enabling small-scale local production by units employing six to ten women each. Muruganantham believes that the small businesses using his machines could create up to one million jobs: ‘The model of mass-production is outdated. Now it is about production by the mass of people.’

Muruganantham sells the machines to NGOs, local entrepreneurs, charities and self-help groups, who produce the sanitary towels without fancy market- ing. A manual machine costs around 75,000 Indian rupees (£723, €868, $1084) – a semi-automated

machine costs more. Often the women who make the towels are the best marketers, passing on the benefits by word-of-mouth. Towels are often sold singly rather than in bulk packets, and are even sold through bar- ter. Muruganantham explains the marketing: ‘It’s done silently and even the male members of their families don’t know.’

Slowly but surely his machines spread all over India with operations in 23 states. by 2015, his company, Jayaashree Industries, had expanded to 17 other coun- tries including Kenya, bangladesh, Nigeria and Myan- mar. He employs over 20,000 women in rural India and the enterprise has been valued at over a billion dollars by some analysts. Muruganantham has become a globally renowned frugal innovator and motivational speaker. His machine was entered in a competition for a national innovation award and came first out of 943 entries; he received the award by the then President of India. He was also ranked by Time magazine as one of 100 most influential people in the world in 2014 and was invited to give a lecture at Harvard. His wife has moved back in with him.

Muruganantham was confident about the sustainability of his model: ‘We compete very comfort- ably with the big giants (such as Procter & Gamble). That’s why they call me the corporate bomber.’

Sources: BBC World Service, 6 August 2012; China Daily Asia, June 5 2015; Economic Times, 18 January 2012; The Hindu, 9 February 2012, Vancouver Observer, 9 July 2015.

Frugal sanitary towels

Questions 1 Identify the various features of

Muruganantham’s approach that make his sanitary towel business a typical or not so typical ‘frugal innovation’.

2 Could a large company such as Procter & Gamble imitate this strategy?

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There are merits to both the technology push and market pull views. Relying heav- ily on existing users can make companies too conservative and vulnerable to disruptive technologies that uncover needs unforeseen by existing markets (see Section 10.5.2). On the other hand, history is littered with examples of companies that have blindly pursued technological excellence without regard to real market needs. Technology push and market pull are best seen as extreme views, therefore, helping to focus attention on a fundamental choice: relatively how much to rely on science and technology as sources of innovation, rather than what people are actually doing in the marketplace. The key is to manage the balance actively. For a stagnant organisation looking for radical innovation, it might be worth redeploying effort from whichever model currently predominates: for the technology push organisation to use more market pull or for the market pull organisation to invest more in fundamental research.

10.3.2 product or process innovation

Just as managers must manage the balance between technology and market pull, so must they determine the relative emphasis to place on product or process innovation. Product innova- tion relates to the final product (or service) to be sold, especially with regard to its features; process innovation relates to the way in which this product is produced and distributed, especially with regard to improvements in cost or reliability. Some firms specialise more in product innovation, others more in process innovation. For example, in computers, Apple has generally concentrated its efforts on designing attractive product features (for instance, the iPad tablet), while Dell has innovated in terms of efficient processes, for instance direct sales, modularity and build-to-order. Dell’s process innovation even underlies a different business model compared to their competitors; selling a differentiated customised product with after-sales services. Business model innovation is still another form of innovation, which was discussed in Chapter 7, and many successful innovations thus do not necessarily rely only upon new science or technology, but can involve reorganising various elements of a business into a new business model.12

The relative importance of product innovation and process innovation typically changes as industries evolve over time.13 Usually the first stages of an industry are dominated by product innovation based on new features. Thus the early history of the automobile was dominated by competition as to whether cars should be fuelled by steam, electricity or pet- rol, have their engines at the front or at the rear, and have three wheels or four.14 Industries eventually coalesce around a dominant design, the standard configuration of basic features: after Henry Ford’s 1908 Model T, cars generally became petrol-driven, with their engines at the front and four wheels. Once such a dominant design is established, innovation switches to process innovation, as competition shifts to producing the dominant design as efficiently as possible. Henry Ford’s great process innovation was the moving assembly line, introduced in 1913. Finally, the cycle is liable to start again, as some significant innovation challenges the dominant design: in the case of cars, recently the emergence of electric powered cars with forerunners like Toyota and Tesla.

Figure 10.5 provides a general model of the relationship between product and process innovation over time. The model has several strategic implications:

● New developing industries typically favour product innovation, as competition is still around defining the basic features of the product or service.

● Maturing industries typically favour process innovation, as competition shifts towards efficient production of a dominant design of product or service.

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● Small new entrants typically have the greatest opportunity when dominant designs are either not yet established or beginning to collapse. Thus, in the early stages of the auto- mobile industry, before Ford’s Model T, there were more than a hundred mostly small competitors, each with its own combination of product features. The recent challenge to the petrol-based dominant design has provided opportunities to entrepreneurial com- panies such as the Californian start-up Tesla Motors, which projected sales of 50,000 electric-powered vehicles worldwide in 2015 (see Illustration 1.1).

● Large incumbent firms typically have the advantage during periods of dominant design stability, when scale economies and the ability to roll out process innovations matter most. With the success of the Model T and the assembly line, by the 1930s there were just four large American automobile manufacturers, namely Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and American Motors, all producing very similar kinds of cars.

This sequence of product to process innovation is not always a neat one. In practice, product and process innovation are often pursued in tandem.15 For example, each new generation of microprocessor also requires simultaneous process innovation in order to manufacture the new microprocessor with increasing precision. However, the model does help managers confront the issue of where to focus, whether more on product features or more on process efficiency. It also points to whether competitive advantage is likely to be with small new entrants or large incumbent firms. Other things being equal, small start-ups should time their entry for periods of instability in dominant design and focus on product rather than process innovation.

10.3.3 Open or closed innovation

The traditional approach to innovation has been to rely on the organisation’s own inter- nal resources – its laboratories and marketing departments. Innovation in this approach is secretive, anxious to protect intellectual property and avoid competitors free-riding on ideas. This ‘closed’ model of innovation contrasts with the newer ‘open model’ of innovation.16 Open innovation involves the deliberate import and export of knowledge by an organisation

Figure 10.5 Product and process innovation Source: Adapted from J. Abernathy and W. Utterback, ‘A dynamic model of process and product innovation’, Omega, vol. 3, no. 6 (1975), pp. 639–56, with permission from Elsevier.

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in order to accelerate and enhance its innovation. The motivating idea of open innovation is that exchanging ideas openly is likely to produce better products more quickly than the internal, closed approach. Speedier and superior products are what are needed to keep ahead of the competition, not obsessive secrecy. 17

Open innovation is being widely adopted. For example, technology giant IBM has estab- lished a network of 10 ‘collaboratories’ with other companies and universities, in countries ranging from Switzerland to Saudi Arabia. Swedish music streaming service Spotify arranges ‘music hack days’ in various locations around the globe where developers are invited for a day of free food, drink and work on discussing and developing new applications. Crowdsourcing is an increasingly popular form of open innovation and means that a company or organisa- tion broadcasts a specific problem to a crowd of individuals or teams often in tournaments with prizes awarded to the best solution. 18 Companies such as Procter & Gamble, Eli Lilly and Dow Chemicals use the network company InnoCentive to set innovation ‘challenges’ (or problems) in open competition over the internet: by 2015, over 1,300 challenges had been solved by a community of around 250,000 ‘solvers’, winning prizes of up to $1m. Similarly, Starbucks crowdsourcing platform has generated close to 200,000 customer ideas and imple- mentation of over 300.

ILLUSTRaTION 10.4

Japanese computer giant Fujitsu plots a roadmap to navigate the transition to cloud computing.

Fujitsu is the world’s third largest information technol- ogy services company, after IbM and Hewlett-Packard. It offers a range of products and services in the areas of computing, telecommunications and microelectronics. In 2010, it launched a new cloud computing business to take advantage of the transition from the traditional model of in-house business computing. David Gentle, Director of Foresight at Fujitsu’s Cloud and Strategic Service Offerings business, describes the transition as a disruptive innovation: ‘It’s a bit like a salmon that is swimming upstream and then has to make a leap to get to the next smooth stretch of water.’

Cloud computing relies on the internet to deliver computer services from external suppliers direct to users. Dropbox and Apple’s iCloud are consumer cloud services. For business, the cloud comes in three main forms: ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS), such as Micro- soft Office via the internet; ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (IaaS), such as Amazon’s EC2 virtual computer capac- ity; and ‘Platform as a Service’ (PaaS), which provides a computing platform with operating system, web server and database, such as Google’s App Engine.

Fujitsu describes the transition from the traditional model to the Cloud Computing Era in a technology

‘roadmap’ titled ‘The Cloud Paradigm Shift’. The roadmap describes the traditional client-server model, where the computing power is supplied by in-house servers, as offering a trajectory of steadily improving technology efficiency. This culminates in the so-called Private Cloud, cloud services provided by the business itself. The shift to the ‘Public Cloud’ (with full adoption of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS) brings a leap in value. by tap- ping into the shared resources of external suppliers, a business gains access to huge economies of scale and the innovations possible by specialist suppliers. The new trajectory increases value by improving business efficiency.

The shift is disruptive though. Purchasers in IT functions will no longer need such large investments in physical servers and staff. As traditional server products and related services decline, Fujitsu is tran- sitioning its business to meet the demands of the new market. David Gentle explains the function of the roadmap in this context: ‘This roadmap is the first slide in any conversation with customers, partners and staff internally. It shows the future, as well as anchoring on the past. It helps get everyone on the same page.’

The disruptive cloud

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Open innovation typically requires careful support of collaborators. In particular, dominant firms may need to exercise platform leadership. Platform leadership refers to how large firms consciously nurture independent companies through successive waves of innovation around their basic technological ‘platform’.19 Intel, whose micro- processors are used by a host of computer, tablet and smartphone companies, regu- larly publishes ‘roadmaps’ outlining several years ahead the new products it expects to release, allowing customers to plan their own new product development processes (see Illustration 10.4 for Fujitsu’s cloud computing roadmap). Platform high-technology companies often foster ecosystems of smaller companies around their platform. Eco- systems are communities of connected suppliers, agents, distributors, franchisees, tech- nology entrepreneurs and makers of complementary products around a platform or company. Apple has created an ecosystem of apps around its iPhone and the app writers get the benefit of a large and often lucrative market. Apple has paid out over $25bn to them up until 2016, more than any other smartphone supplier. Small entrepreneurial firms wishing to participate in such ecosystems have to be skilled in managing relation- ships with powerful technological leaders.20

Questions 1 Why might some groups be apprehensive about the cloud computing era?

2 What are the advantages of a visual roadmap of this kind? What are the limitations to this visual approach?

Fujitsu’s Cloud Roadmap Source: Making the Transition to Cloud, Fujitsu Services Ltd (Gentle, David 2011). With permission from Fujitsu Limited UK.

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The balance between open and closed innovation depends on three key factors:

● Competitive rivalry. In highly rivalrous industries, partners are liable to behave opportun- istically and steal innovations. Closed innovation is better where such rivalrous behaviours can be anticipated.

● One-shot innovation. Opportunistic behaviour is more likely where innovation involves a major shift in technology, likely to put winners substantially ahead and losers permanently behind. Open innovation works best where innovation is more continuous, so encouraging more reciprocal behaviour over time.

● Tight-linked innovation. Where technologies are complex and tightly interlinked, open innovation risks introducing damagingly inconsistent elements, with knock-on effects throughout the product range. Apple, with its smoothly integrated range of products from computers to phones, has therefore tended to prefer closed innovation in order to protect the quality of the user experience.

10.4 INNOVaTION DIFFUSION

This chapter has been concerned with entrepreneurship and its outcome in the form of diverse sources and types of innovation, for example technology push or market pull. This section moves to the diffusion of innovations after they have been introduced.21 Diffusion is the process by which innovations spread among users. Since innovation is typically expensive, its commer- cial attractiveness can hinge on the pace – extent and speed – at which the market adopts new products and services. This pace of diffusion is something managers can influence from both the supply and demand sides, and which they can also model using the S-curve.

10.4.1 The pace of diffusion

The pace of diffusion can vary widely according to the nature of the products concerned. It took 28 years for the television to reach 50 per cent of ownership and use in the US and the mobile phone only half that time. The pace of diffusion is influenced by a combination of supply-side and demand-side factors, over which managers have considerable control. On the supply side, pace is determined by product features such as:

● Degree of improvement in performance above current products (from a customer’s perspective) that provides incentive to change. For example, 3G mobile phones did not provide sufficient performance improvement to prompt rapid switch in many markets. Managers need to make sure innovation benefits sufficiently exceed development costs.

● Compatibility with other factors: for example, HDTV becomes more attractive as the broadcasting networks change their programmes to that format. Managers and entrepre- neurs therefore need to ensure appropriate complementary products and services are in place (see Section 3.2.6).

● Complexity, either in the product itself or in the marketing methods being used to com- mercialise the product: unduly complex pricing structures, as with many financial service products such as pensions, discourage consumer adoption. Simple pricing structures typ- ically accelerate adoptions.

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● Experimentation – the ability to test products before commitment to a final decision – either directly or through the availability of information about the experience of other customers. Free initial trial periods are often used to encourage diffusion.

● Relationship management, in other words how easy it is to get information, place orders and receive support. Managers and entrepreneurs need to put in place an appropriate relationship management process to assist new and existing users.

On the demand side, simple affordability is of course key. Beyond this, there are three further factors that tend to drive the pace of diffusion:

● Market awareness. Many potentially successful products have failed through lack of con- sumer awareness – particularly when the promotional effort of the innovator has been confined to ‘push’ promotion to its intermediaries (e.g. distributors).

● Network effects refer to the way that demand growth for some products accelerates as more people adopt the product or service. Once a critical mass of users have adopted, it becomes of much greater benefit, or even necessary, for others to adopt it too. With 1.5 billion users, Facebook is practically the obligatory social network for most readers of this book (see Section 3.2.6).

● Customer propensity to adopt: the distribution of potential customers from early-adopter groups (keen to adopt first) through to laggards (typically indifferent to innovations). Inno- vations are often targeted initially at early-adopter groups – typically the young and the wealthy – in order to build the critical mass that will encourage more laggardly groups – the poorer and older – to join the bandwagon. Clothing fashion trends typically start with the wealthy and then are diffused to the wider population.

10.4.2 The diffusion S-curve

The pace of diffusion is typically not steady. Successful innovations often diffuse according to a broad S-curve pattern.22 The shape of the S-curve reflects a process of initial slow adoption of innovation, followed by a rapid acceleration in diffusion, leading to a plateau representing the limit to demand (Figure 10.6). The height of the S-curve shows the extent of diffusion; the shape of the S-curve shows the speed.

Diffusion rarely follows exactly this pattern, but nonetheless the S-curve can help man- agers and entrepreneurs anticipate forthcoming issues. In particular, the S-curve points to four likely decision points:

● Timing of the ‘tipping point’. Demand for a successful new product or service may ini- tially be slow but then reaches a tipping point when it explodes onto a rapid upwards path of growth.23 A tipping point is where demand for a product or service suddenly takes off, with explosive growth. Tipping points are particularly explosive where there are strong network effects: in other words, where the value of a product or service is increased the more people in a network use them (see Section 3.2.6). Being aware of a possible tipping point ahead can help managers plan investment in capacity and distribution. Companies can easily underestimate demand. In the mid-1980s, American companies predicted that by 2000 there would be 900,000 mobile phones worldwide. When that year came 900,000 phones were sold every 19 hours.

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● Timing of the plateau. The S-curve also alerts managers to a likely eventual slowdown in demand growth. Again, it is tempting to extrapolate existing growth rates forwards, especially when they are highly satisfactory. But heavy investment immediately before growth turns down is likely to leave firms with over-capacity and carrying extra costs in a period of industry shake-out.

● Extent of diffusion. The S-curve does not necessarily lead to one hundred per cent diffusion among potential users. Most innovations fail to displace previous-generation products and services altogether. For example, in music, traditional turntables and LP discs are still preferred over CD and MP3 players by some disc jockeys and music con- noisseurs. A critical issue for managers then is to estimate the final ceiling on diffusion, being careful not to assume that tipping point growth will necessarily take over the whole market.

● Timing of the ‘tripping point’. The tripping point is the opposite of the tipping point, referring to when demand suddenly collapses.24 Of course, decline is usually more gradual. However, the presence of network effects can lead to relatively few customer defections setting off a market landslide. Such landslides are very hard to reverse. This is what happened to social networking site MySpace, as American and European users defected to Facebook. Facebook, in turn, may have considered this risk themselves when they acquired Instagram as users started to move there (see Illustration 3.2). The trip- ping point concept warns managers all the time that a small dip in quarterly sales could presage a rapid collapse.

To summarise, the S-curve is a useful concept to help managers and entrepreneurs avoid simply extrapolating next year’s sales from last year’s sales. However, the tripping point also underlines the fact that innovations do not follow an inevitable process, and their diffusion patterns can be interrupted or reversed at any point. Netflix, for example, has managed to move from a tripping point in DVD rentals to a new S-curve of digital streaming.25 Most innovations, of course, do not even reach a tipping point, let alone a tripping point.26

Figure 10.6 The diffusion S-curve

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10.5 INNOVaTORS aND IMITaTORS

A key choice for managers is whether to lead or to follow in innovation. The S-curve con- cept seems to promote leadership in innovation. First-movers get the easy sales of early fast growth and can establish a dominant position. There are plenty of examples of first-movers who have built enduring positions on the basis of innovation leadership: Coca-Cola in drinks and Hoover in vacuum cleaners are powerful century-old examples. On the other hand, many first-movers fail. Even the powerful Microsoft failed with its first tablet computer launched in 2001. Nine years later, Apple swept the market with its iPad tablet computer.

10.5.1 First-mover advantages and disadvantages

A first-mover advantage exists where an organisation is better off than its competitors as a result of being first to market with a new product, process or service. Fundamentally, the first-mover is a monopolist, theoretically able to charge customers high prices without fear of immediate undercutting by competitors. In practice, however, innovators often prefer to sacrifice profit margins for sales growth and, besides, monopoly is usually temporary. There are five potentially more robust first-mover advantages:27

● Experience curve benefits accrue to first-movers, as their rapid accumulation of experience with the innovation gives them greater expertise than late entrants still relatively unfamil- iar with the new product, process or service (see Section 7.3.1).

● Scale benefits are typically enjoyed by first-movers, as they establish earlier than compet- itors the volumes necessary for mass production and bulk purchasing, for example.

● Pre-emption of scarce resources is an opportunity for first-movers, as late-movers will not have the same access to key raw materials, skilled labour or components, and will have to pay dearly for them.

● Reputation can be enhanced by being first, especially since consumers have little ‘mind- space’ to recognise new brands once a dominant brand has been established in the market.

● Buyer switching costs can be exploited by first-movers, by locking in their customers with privileged or sticky relationships that later challengers can only break with difficulty. Switching costs can be increased by establishing and exploiting a technological standard.

Experience curve benefits, economies of scale and the pre-emption of scarce resources all confer cost advantages on first-movers. It is possible for them to retaliate against challengers with a price war. Superior reputation and customer lock-in provide a marketing advantage, allowing first-movers to charge high prices, which can then be reinvested in order to consol- idate their position against late-entry competitors.

But the experience of Microsoft with its tablet computer shows that first-mover advantages are not necessarily overwhelming. Late-movers have two principal potential advantages:28

● Free-riding. Late-movers can imitate technological and other innovation at less expense than originally incurred by the pioneers. Research suggests that the costs of imitation are only 65 per cent of the cost of innovation.

● Learning. Late-movers can observe what worked well and what did not work well for innovators. They may not make so many mistakes and be able to get it right first time.

Given the potential advantages of late-movers, managers and entrepreneurs face a hard choice between striving to be first or coming in later. London Business School’s Costas

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Markides and Paul Geroski argue that the most appropriate response to innovation, espe- cially radical innovation, is often not to be a first-mover, but to be a ‘fast second’.29 A fast second strategy involves being one of the first to imitate the original innovator. Thus fast second companies may not literally be the second company into the market, but they dom- inate the second generation of competitors. For example, the French Bookeen company pioneered the e-book market in the early 2000s, but was soon followed by Amazon’s Kindle in 2007. Likewise, the first jet airliner was the British de Havilland Comet with Boeing being a successful follower.30

Three factors need to be considered in choosing between innovating and imitating. First, the capacity for profit capture, the importance of innovators to capture for themselves the profits of their innovations. David Teece of the University of California Berkeley emphasises that this may be challenging if the innovation is easy to replicate and if intellectual property rights are weak, for example where patents are hard to define or defend.31 The second issue that needs to be considered is complementary assets, possession of the assets or resources necessary to scale up the production and marketing of the innovation.32 For organisations wishing to remain independent and to exploit their innovations themselves, there is little point in investing heavily to be first-mover in the absence of the necessary complementary assets. Finally, innovation vs imitation choices depend on whether there are fast-moving arenas. Where markets or technologies are moving very fast, and especially where both are highly dynamic, first-movers are unlikely to establish a durable advantage.

10.5.2 The incumbent’s response

Definitions of entrepreneurship often emphasise pursuing opportunities and developing innovations without immediately being constrained by the resources under present control. This refers to the fact that incumbent organisations and companies mostly are constrained by their existing resources, capabilities, activities and vested interests. This suggests that for established companies in a market, innovation can be challenging and innovations from others can be a threat. Kodak’s dominance of the photographic film market was made nearly worthless by the sudden rise of digital photography (see Illustration 6.4).

As Harvard Business School’s Clay Christensen has shown, the problem for incumbents can be two-fold.33 First, managers can become too attached to existing assets and skills: understandably, as these are what their careers have been built on. Second, relationships between incumbent organisations and their customers can become too close. Existing cus- tomers typically prefer incremental improvements to current technologies, and are unable to imagine completely new technologies. Incumbents are reluctant to ‘cannibalise’ their existing business by introducing something radically different. After all, as in Figure 10.7, incumbents usually have some scope for improving their existing technology, along the steady upwards trajectory described as Technology 1. Innovations on this trajectory are termed ‘sustaining innovations’, because they at least allow the existing technology to meet existing customer expectations.

The challenge for incumbents, however, is disruptive innovation. A disruptive innovation creates substantial growth by offering a new performance trajectory that, even if initially inferior to the performance of existing technologies, has the potential to become markedly superior. This superior performance can produce spectacular growth, either by creating new sets of customers or by undercutting the cost base of rival existing business models. Such disruptive innovation involves the shift from Technology 1 in Figure 10.7 to Technology 2. Disruptive innovations are hard for incumbents to respond to because poor performance in the early days is likely to upset existing customer relationships and because they typically involve changing their whole business model (see Chapter 7). Thus, in the music industry,

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the major record companies were long content to keep on selling traditional CDs through existing retailers and responded to online music simply by prosecuting new distribution firms such as Napster. Today, online music downloads and streaming have overtaken CD sales with services such as Apple’s iTunes and Spotify as leading players.

Sometimes, however, incumbents do respond. IBM continued to make mainframe com- puters while launching a new business unit to make PCs, which was a disruptive innovation at the time. The mobile phone disrupted the fixed telephony business, but Ericsson managed to continue its leadership in telephony systems. To encourage innovation and be responsive to potentially disruptive innovations there are three different approaches:

● Develop a portfolio of real options. Companies that are most challenged by disruptive innovations tend to be those built upon a single business model and with one main prod- uct or service. Columbia’s Rita McGrath and Wharton’s Ian MacMillan recommend that companies build portfolios of real options in order to maintain organisational dynamism.34 Real options are limited investments that keep opportunities open for the future (for a more technical discussion, see Section 12.3.2). Establishing an R&D team in a speculative new technology or acquiring a small start-up in a nascent market would both be examples of real options, each giving the potential to scale up fast should the opportunity turn out to be substantial. McGrath and MacMillan’s portfolio identifies three different kinds of options (Figure 10.8). Options where the market is broadly known, but the technologies are still uncertain, are positioning options: a company might want several of these, to ensure some position in an important market, by one technology or another. On the other hand, a company might have a strong technology, but be very uncertain about appropriate markets, in which case it would want to bet on several scouting options to explore which markets are actually best. Finally, a company would want some stepping stone options, very unlikely in themselves to work, but possibly leading to something more promising in the future. Even if they do not turn a profit, stepping stones should provide valuable learning opportunities. An important principle for options is: ‘Fail fast, fail cheap, try again’.

Figure 10.7 Disruptive innovation Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. From The Innovator’s Solution by C. Christensen and M.E. Raynor. Boston, MA (2003). Copyright © 2003 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

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● Corporate venturing. New ventures, especially when undertaken from a real options perspective, may need protection from the usual systems and disciplines of a core busi- ness. It would make no sense to hold the managers of a real option strictly accountable for sales growth and profit margin: their primary objective is preparation and learning. For this reason, large incumbent organisations often establish relatively autonomous ‘new venture units’, sometimes called new venture divisions, which can nurture new ideas or invest externally and acquire novel and untried businesses with a longer-term view.35 BMW’s has, for example, set up a completely separate business unit to develop its first mass-produced electric car, BMW i. The company was concerned that its current focus on the internal combustion engine would risk the success of the development of the BMW i.

● Intrapreneurship. This approach rather emphasises the individual and the ability to perform entrepreneurial activities within a large organisation.36 Companies can thus encourage employees to be creative and develop entrepreneurial ideas as part of their regular job. Potential entrepreneurs within existing organisations can be found from the top to middle management to those developing or producing products and services. Google have intrapreneurship programmes that aim at creating a start-up culture within the larger corporation. They, for example, let their engineers spend 20 per cent of their work week on projects of their own choice that interest them. Like- wise, IBM has various initiatives to encourage intrapreneurship and innovation, like ‘Intrapreneurship@IBM’ and the ‘IBM Jam sessions’. Intrapreneurship, however, can also be autonomous from and in conflict with corporate management and thus need not always be encouraged. Instead, it can be a long hard fight to get entrepreneurial ideas and innovations accepted by corporate management. For example, Ericsson’s global leadership in mobile telephone systems initially started out with a group of intrapreneurs in confrontation with corporate strategy and management.

Whether by developing real options, internal venture units or equivalent means, it is clear that established incumbents need to be able to support a spirit of intrapreneurship.37

Figure 10.8 Portfolio of innovation options Source: Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. From The Entrepreneurial Mindset by I. MacMillan and R.G. McGrath, Boston, MA (2000), p. 176. Copyright © 2000 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

High

High

Medium Technical

uncertainty

Market uncertainty

Medium

Positioning options

Low

Low

Platform launches Scouting options

Enhancement launches

Stepping stones

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SUMMARY

ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

an alternative view suggests that opportunities are created rather than discovered.

This chapter has emphasised opportunity recognition as one stage in a sequence of entrepreneurial process steps. This builds on the dominating discovery perspec- tive of opportunities, but there is also an alternative, creation view. 38

The influential discovery perspective argues that opportunities exist independently from entrepreneurs and are generated by external shocks. They can include technological, regulatory or social changes that generate opportunities to be discovered. This perspective sug- gests there are already seeds of opportunity in industries and markets waiting to be discovered by entrepreneurs.

In contrast, the creation view emphasises that opportunities are intimately linked with entrepre- neurs and their iterative actions, understanding of and engagement with potential new products. In this view entrepreneurs do not have to wait for external shocks; instead they create opportunities through repeatedly interacting with and developing their beliefs about new products and customer needs. They do this through actively trying out product ideas and forming opportu- nities around them. Seeds are thus not discovered in

this view; instead, entrepreneurs explore through iter- ative processes what can grow where and themselves plant and create new seeds of opportunity.

The two views have different implications for how to manage entrepreneurship. The discovery perspec- tive relies on traditional forms of strategic planning and decision-making (see Section  13.2 ). Entrepreneurs collect and analyse information and carefully make predictions and decisions concerning product market potential. The creation view suggests a more com- plex process. Entrepreneurs do not so much carefully collect information to get answers; rather they try to ask the right questions, experiment and adapt around potential new products (see Section  13.3 ).

Entrepreneurship: discovery or creation?

Question Google, now Alphabet, is often celebrated as a highly entrepreneurial and innovative company. To what degree do you think they have relied on discovering or creating opportunities?

SUMMaRY ● Opportunity recognition involves three important and interdependent elements: the environment , the entre-

preneur or entrepreneurial team and resources and capabilities.

● besides opportunity recognition, the entrepreneurship process typically involves the development of a business plan , making a feasibility analysis , considering industry conditions and competitors , choosing business model and strategy and, finally, examining the venture’s financing and funding.

● Social entrepreneurship offers a flexible way of addressing social problems, but raises issues about appropriate missions, organisational forms and business models.

● Strategists face three fundamental dilemmas in innovation: the relative emphasis to put on technology push or market pull ; whether to focus on product or process innovation ; and finally how much to rely on ‘ open innovation’.

● Innovations often diffuse into the marketplace according to an S-curve model in which slow start-up is fol- lowed by accelerating growth (the tipping point) and finally a flattening of demand. Managers should watch out for ‘tripping points’.

● Managers have a choice between being first into the marketplace and entering later. Innovators can capture first-mover advantages. However, ‘fast second’ strategies are often more attractive.

● Established incumbents’ businesses should beware disruptive innovations. Incumbents can stave off inertia by devel- oping portfolios of real options , by organising autonomous new venture units or by encouraging ‘intrapreneurship ’.

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WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

10.1 Use Figure 10.2 and try to identify the three elements (entrepreneur/team, trends/gaps and resources/ capabilities) behind the opportunity recognition in Apple*, Widespace* and Flight Centre*.

10.2 With reference to the entrepreneurial life cycle, identify the position of Rovio (end of chapter case), Flight Centre* or Ningbo Smarter Logistics*. What managerial issues might this case company anticipate in the coming years?

10.3 Use the internet to identify a social entrepreneurial venture that interests you (via www.skollfoundation. org, for example), and, with regard to Section 10.2.4, identify its social mission, its organisational form and its business model.

10.4✱ For a new product or service that you have recently experienced and enjoyed, investigate the strategy of the company responsible. With reference to the dilemmas of Section 10.3, explain whether the innovation was more technology push or market pull, product or process driven, or based on open versus closed innovation.

10.5 Go to a web traffic site (such as alexa.com) and compare over time trends in terms of ‘page views’ or ‘reach’ for older sites (such as Amazon.com) and newer sites (such as spotify.com, or any that has more recently emerged). With reference to Section 10.4, how do you explain these trends and how would you project them forward?

10.6✱ With regard to a new product or service that you have recently experienced and enjoyed (as in 10.4), investigate the strategic responses of ‘incumbents’ to this innovation. To what extent is the innovation disruptive for them (see Section 10.5.2)?

Integrative assignment

10.7 Consider a for-profit or social entrepreneurial idea that you or your friends or colleagues might have. Drawing on Section 16.4.4, outline the elements of a strategic plan for this possible venture. What more information do you need to get?

ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● B.R. Barringer and R.D. Ireland, Entrepreneurship – Successfully launching new ventures, 4th edn, Pearson, 2012, provides details of all entrepreneurial process steps.

● P. Trott, Innovation Management and New Product Development, 5th edn, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2011, provides a comprehensive overview of innovation

strategy issues. P.A. Wickham, Strategic Entrepreneurship, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, 2013, is a standard European text with regard to entrepreneurial strategy.

● Social entrepreneurship is discussed usefully in R.  Ridley-Duff and M. Bull, Understanding Social Enter- prise: Theory and Practice, Sage 2011.

ReFeReNCeS

1. M.A. Hitt, R.D. Ireland, D.G. Sirmon and C.A. Trahms, ‘Strategic entrepreneurship: creating value for individuals, organizations, and society’, The Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 25, no 2 (2011), pp. 57–75.

2. There is an increased interest in strategic entrepreneurship with both journals and books dedicated to the area: David J. Ketchen, R. Duane Ireland and Charles C. Snow, ‘Strate- gic entrepreneurship, collaborative innovation, and wealth

creation, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, vol. 1, no. 3–4 (2007), pp. 371–85; R. Duane Ireland, Michael A. Hitt and David G. Sirmon, ‘A model of strategic entrepreneurship: the construct and its dimensions’, Journal of Management, vol. 29, no. 6 (2003), pp. 963–89; Donald F. Kuratko and David B. Audretsch, ‘Strategic entrepreneurship: exploring different perspectives of an emerging concept’, Entrepreneurship The- ory and Practice, vol. 33, no. 1 (2009), pp. 1–17; and Michael

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A. Hitt et al. (eds), Strategic Entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.

3. For a good overview of the academic theories that underpin contemporary entrepreneurship theory, see S.A. Shane, A general theory of entrepreneurship: the individual-opportu- nity nexus, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000.

4. Opportunity recognition and identification is central to con- temporary entrepreneurship theory. See Shane in endnote 3 and A. Ardichvili, R. Cardozo and S. Ray, ‘A theory of entrepre- neurial opportunity identification and development’, Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 18, no. 1 (2003), pp. 105–23.

5. For an excellent textbook that provides details of all the steps in the entrepreneurial process, see B.R. Barringer and R.D. Ireland, Entrepreneurship: successfully launching new ven- tures, 4th edn, Pearson, 2012.

6. Please note that business models are now discussed in Chapter 7 (previously discussed in this chapter).

7. For a discussion about lean start-ups and pivoting, see S. Blank, ‘Why the lean start-up changes everything’, Har- vard Business Review, vol. 91, no. 5 (2013), pp. 63–72.

8. This definition adapts, in order to include the public sector, the definition in P. Trott, Innovation Management and New Product Development, 5th edn, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2011.

9. For a good discussion of the academic theories that underpin these dilemmas see R. Rothwell, ‘Successful industrial inno- vation: critical factors for the 1990s’, R&D Management, vol. 22, no. 3 (1992), pp. 221–39.

10. E. von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation, MIT Press, 2005; E. von Hippel, ‘Lead users: a source of novel prod- uct concepts’, Management Science, vol. 32, no. 7 (1986), pp. 791–805. Y.M. Antorini, A. Muniz and T. Askildsen, ‘Collaborating with customer communities: lessons from the Lego Group’, MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 53, no. 3 (2012), pp. 73–9.

11. D. Nocera, ‘Can we progress from solipsistic science to fru- gal innovation?’, Daedalus, vol. 143, no. 3 (2012), pp. 45–52; M. Sarkar, ‘Moving forward by going in reverse: emerg- ing trends in global innovation and knowledge strategies’, Global Strategy Journal, vol. 1 (2011), pp. 237–42.

12. H. Chesbrough, ‘Business model innovation: it’s not just about technology anymore’, Strategy & Leadership, vol. 35, no. 6 (2007), pp. 12–17.

13. J. Abernathy and W. Utterback, ‘A dynamic model of process and product innovation’, Omega, vol. 3, no. 6 (1975), pp. l42–60.

14. P. Anderson and M.L. Tushman, ‘Technological discontinuities and dominant designs: a cyclical model of technological change’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 35 (1990), pp. 604–33.

15. J. Tang, ‘Competition and innovation behaviour’, Research Policy, vol. 35 (2006), pp. 68–82.

16. H. Chesbrough and M. Appleyard, ‘Open innovation and strategy’, California Management Review, vol. 50, no. 1 (2007), pp. 57–73; O. Gasman, E. Enkel and H. Chesbrough, ‘The future of open innovation’, R&D Management, vol. 38, no. 1 (2010), pp. 1–9.

17. For an overview of research on open innovation, see: L. Dahl- ander and D.M. Gann, ‘How open is innovation?’ Research Policy, vol. 39 (2010), pp. 699–709.

18. L.B. Jeppesen and K. Lakhani, ‘Marginality and problem solving: effectiveness in broadcast search’, Organization Science, vol. 21, no. 5 (2010), pp. 1016–33.

19. A. Gawer and M. Cusumano, Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft and Cisco drive industry innovation, Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

20. For a discussion of how large corporations can tap into entrepreneurial innovation in start-ups, see T. Weiblen and H.W. Chesbrough, ‘Engaging with startups to enhance cor- porate innovation’, California Management Review, vol. 57, no. 2 (2015), pp. 66–90 and for a discussion of the general significance of external support and innovation ecosystems, see R. Adner, The Wide Lens, Penguin, 2012.

21. Innovation diffusion is discussed in the classic E. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press, 1995; C. Kim and R. Maubourgne, ‘Knowing a winning idea when you see one’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 78, no. 5 (2000), pp. 129–38; and J. Cummings and J. Doh, ‘Identifying who matters: mapping key players in multiple environments’, California Management Review, vol. 42, no. 2 (2000), pp. 83–104 (see especially pp. 91–7).

22. J. Nichols and S. Roslow, ‘The S-curve: an aid to strategic marketing’, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 3, no. 2 (1986), pp. 53–64; and F. Suarez and G. Lanzolla, ‘The half- truth of first-mover advantage’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 83, no. 4 (2005), pp. 121–7. This S-curve refers to inno- vation diffusion. However, the S-curve effect sometimes also refers to the diminishing performance increases available from a maturing technology: A. Sood and G. Tellis, ‘Tech- nological evolution and radical innovation’, Journal of Mar- keting, vol. 69, no. 3 (2005), pp. 152–68.

23. M. Gladwell, The Tipping Point, Abacus, 2000. Tipping points are also important in public policy and can help anticipate emerging problems, for example crime waves and epidemics.

24. S. Brown, ‘The tripping point’, Marketing Research, vol. 17, no. 1 (2005), pp. 8–13.

25. For a discussion of possibilities to ‘jump’ the S-curve, see P. Nunes and T. Breene, ‘Reinvent your business before it’s too late’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 89, no. 1/2 (2011), pp. 80–87.

26. Marketing guru Geoffrey Moore has pointed out that often there is a deep ‘chasm’ to cross between specialised early-adopters of a product and the mainstream market: Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and selling high-tech products to mainstream customers, 2nd edn, Harper Perennial, 2002.

27. C. Markides and P. Geroski, Fast Second: How smart companies bypass radical innovation to enter and domi- nate new markets, Jossey-Bass, 2005; M. Lieberman, and D. Montgomery, ‘First-mover (dis)advantages: retrospective and link with the resource-based view’, Strategic Manage- ment Journal, vol. 19, no. 12 (1998), pp. 1111–25.

28. F. Suarez and G. Lanzolla, ‘The half-truth of first-mover advantage’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 83, no. 4 (2005), pp. 121–7. See also S. Min, U. Manohar and W. Robinson, ‘Market pioneer and early follower survival risks: a contingency anal- ysis of really new versus incrementally new product-markets’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 70, no. 1 (2006), pp. 15–33.

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29. C. Markides and P. Geroski, Fast Second: How smart com- panies bypass radical innovation to enter and dominate new markets, Jossey-Bass, 2005. See also the discussion of B. Buisson and P. Silberzahn, ‘Blue Ocean or fast-second inno- vation?’, International Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 14, no. 3 (2010), pp. 359–78.

30. J. Shamsie, C. Phelps and J. Kuperman, ‘Better late than never: a study of late entrants in household electrical equipment’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 25, no. 1 (2004), pp. 69–84.

31. David Teece, the academic authority in this area, refers to the capacity to capture profits as ‘the appropriabil- ity regime’: see D. Teece, Managing Intellectual Capital, Oxford University Press, 2000. The key book on intellectual property strategy is A. Poltorak and P.J. Lerner, Essentials of Intellectual Property: Law, economics and strategy, Wiley, 2009. For a discussion and framework of how intel- lectual property rights and patent systems varies between different countries, see N. Papageorgiadis, A.R. Cross and C. Alexiou, ‘International patent systems strength 1998– 2011’, Journal of World Business, vol. 49, no 4 (2014), pp. 586–97.

32. D. Teece, Managing Intellectual Capital, Oxford University Press, 2000.

33. See J. Bower and C. Christensen, ‘Disruptive technologies: catching the wave’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 73, no. 1 (1995), pp. 43–53.

34. R.G. McGrath and I. MacMillan, The Entrepreneurial Mindset, Harvard Business School Press, 2000.

35. C. Christensen and M.E. Raynor, The Innovator’s Solution, Harvard Business School Press, 2003. For various approaches to corporate venturing, see W. Buckland, A. Hatcher and J. Birkinshaw, Inventuring – Why big companies must think small, 2003.

36. The original book on intrapreneurship was G. Pinchot, Intra- preneuring, London, Macmillan, 1985.

37. There is a growing literature on intrapreneurship or what is often called corporate entrepreneurship or corporate venturing, but there is little consensus on theories and different forms of corporate entrepreneurship. For an overview, see P.H. Phan et al., ‘Corporate entrepreneur- ship: current research and future directions’, Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 24, no. 3 (2009), pp. 197–205. For various approaches to corporate entrepreneurship, see R.C. Wolcott and M.J. Lippitz, ‘For four models of corporate entrepreneurship’, MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (2007), pp. 73–9 and D.A. Garvin and L.C. Levesque, ‘Meeting the challenge of corporate entre- preneurship’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no. 10 (2006), pp. 102–12.

38. A. Sharon and J.B. Barney, ‘Discovery and creation: alterna- tive theories of entrepreneurial action’, Strategic Entrepre- neurship Journal, vol. 1, no. 1–2 (2007), pp. 11–26.

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Introduction

Rovio Entertainment Ltd is most famous for its Angry Birds smartphone game, in which colourful birds are cat- apulted at egg-stealing pigs. The company is based in Fin- land, and its key employees comprise Mikael Hed, former CEO and now chairman of Rovio Animation Studios, Niklas Hed, head of Research and Development, and Peter Vest- erbacka, the Chief Marketing Officer and self-proclaimed ‘Mighty Eagle’, the public face of the company around the world. Angry Birds became a top-selling app on Apple’s App Store in 2010, the start of a stream of business ven- tures including broadcast media, merchandising, pub- lishing, retail stores and playgrounds. Peter Vesterbacka told Wired Magazine that Rovio could follow the world’s largest entertainment company and that it would be Dis- ney 2.0? 1 However, after some years of significant growth Rovio faced several challenges.

The team

Rovio was founded in 2003 by Niklas Hed and two class- mates at Helsinki University of Technology after they won a game-development competition sponsored by Nokia and Hewlett Packard. The company initially did well in work- for-hire jobs, developing games for Electronic Arts, Nokia and Real Networks. Niklas’ cousin Mikael Hed, with an MbA from Tulane University in the USA, soon joined. His father, Kaj Hed, had been a successful software entre- preneur, selling an earlier business for $150m (£100m, €110m). Kaj Hed invested €1m and became company chairman: Kaj still owns 70 per cent of the equity. Peter Vesterbacka only joined full-time in 2010, as Angry Birds began to take off. However, Vesterbacka, a business devel- oper from Hewlett Packard active in the Finnish start-up scene for many years, had been encouraging Rovio and helping from the sidelines since 2003.

Although Rovio had been successful at creating games and selling them to established third party companies, the company’s ambition was to create a major game success of its own. Niklas Hed thought it would take about 15 tries to create a world-beater, but Angry Birds turned out to be Rovio’s 52nd attempt. Meanwhile, there were clashes over strategy. In 2005, Mikael Hed left the company after a row with his father, Kaj, whom he accused of being

over-controlling. by 2008, Rovio had cut employment from 50 to just 12. but in 2009, Mikael came back, mak- ing peace with his father and sensing an opportunity with the new Apple iPhone and its App Store. The combination of the striking Angry Bird characters with the success of the Apple iPhone finally created a winning formula.

Rovio used Chillingo, a well-connected british games publisher, to negotiate a deal with Apple and push Angry Birds into world markets. In February 2010, Chillingo per- suaded Apple to feature Angry Birds as the game of the week on the Apple App Store’s front page: Angry Birds shot to No. 1 in the UK; five months later, it was top of the US charts as well. Chillingo was bought by Electronic Arts during 2010, and Rovio declared that it would no longer use any publishing intermediaries. In October 2010, Rovio launched the free Android Angry Birds, winning two mil- lion downloads in three days. by 2011, Angry Birds and its various branded spin-offs had earned €50m, on the back of a game which originally cost only €100,000 to develop. In March 2011, Mikael Hed was cautiously excited, telling Wired Magazine : ‘I know how fragile the gaming industry is; I’m super-paranoid. but I feel at the moment that we are walking. We should be running.’ 1

The new Disney?

Like Disney with Mickey Mouse, Rovio saw the poten- tial of transferring its powerful brand to other products. Partnering with the American toy manufacturer Common- wealth Toy & Novelty, Rovio was able to place Angry Birds soft toys and T-shirts in US shops. Rovio soon had more than 400 partners, including Coca-Cola, Intel and Kraft. The number of Angry Birds products reached 20,000, including board games, fridge magnets and key chains. Rovio receives royalties on sales of its licensed products ranging from 5 to 20 per cent. Rovio said merchandise accounted for 45 per cent of the €152m revenue gener- ated in 2012. 2 Rovio’s merchandising business is strongly linked to the games; if they become less popular, so will the toys, notebooks, soft drinks and other items that license the Angry Birds brand.

Rovio launched its first Angry Birds playground in Fin- land, with a strategy to mimic Disney’s theme parks on a smaller scale. Rovio wanted to create a more ‘distributed’ means of physical interaction with families and children

Rovio entertainment – going back to the entrepreneurial roots Daryl Chapman (Metropolia Business School)

Revision by Sandra Lusmägi (Metropolia Business School)

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grossing app store charts in a relatively short time. Angry Birds games were, however, not originally designed for the freemium model; fans complained about limited game time and intrusive in-app purchase offers which changed the flow of the gameplay. Excessive monetisation and a more complicated game environment are driving away the casual gamers and younger players. The core of the origi- nal game was lost in the new freemium games because it was created for a different model. In an attempt to keep up with the mobile gaming trends, the game franchise suffered an identity crisis.

In October 2015, Rovio jumped on the bandwagon of celebrity endorsed games and launched the new game Love Rocks, featuring the pop star Shakira, but it did not bring in massive revenues. According to the mobile-app analytics firm App Annie, the game peaked at number 21 in the top grossing charts in the first month of release and fell to a ranking of 304 during the next month.

Restructuring

When the company grew, new support functions had been established, such as a personnel department and licens- ing department. With this, they lost the flat hierarchy and fast decision-making model of a start-up and as a conse- quence the original organisational culture vanished.6 As a result, many ex-Rovio employees ventured out to start their own gaming companies. The brain-drain then con- tinued when growth stalled and many of those who helped to build the original success of Rovio left. Some of the former managers opened up anonymously to a Finnish business and finance magazine (Talouselämä), to point out the lack of a shared strategic vision from the family owned business, where each member seems to have a different idea in terms of what kind of company they are building.

Co-founder Mikael Hed stepped down from the CEO position in 2014, but stayed on the board and became chairman of Rovio Animation Studios. The newly appointed CEO Pekka Rantala left the position after only 16 months, after a difficult year of mass job losses and a disappoint- ing response to Angry Birds 2. A former head of legal operations, Kati Levoranta, is the newest CEO. She says Rovio is ready to make the most out of the Angry Birds movie release in 2016.

The chairman Kaj Hed explained that after extensive layoffs, Rovio aimed to become ‘leaner and more agile’ with restructuring of its business operations and going back to their entrepreneurial roots.4 As a part of their restructuring plans, Rovio announced at the beginning of 2016 the spinoff of their education business which includes a preschool concept and digital learning tools and licensing out the Angry Birds playgrounds. The books business was spun off as well.

than the occasional visit to Disneyland: the Angry Birds playgrounds are local and can be visited every day. The first Angry Birds theme park was opened in Finland in 2012, followed with a theme park in China in 2013. Rovio planned to open theme parks around the globe in the hope of moving beyond the Angry Birds mobile game and becoming an entertainment powerhouse, combining both physical and digital media.

Rovio partnered with Samsung to include a motion- controlled Angry Birds game on its smart televisions. In November 2012, the company launched the Rovio Channel; letting users of the Samsung TV sets download games as well as the new Angry Birds Toons show and a comic-book series. The Rovio channel builds on the suc- cess of the Angry Birds YouTube channel, which attracted well over two billion views by the end of 2015. Rovio also established a successful books operation in 2011; they have released and licensed hundreds of books, which are sold in over 50 countries.

Stalled growth

The number of employees grew from 40 to over 800 between 2010 and 2012. With amusements parks, toys, books, comics and even a movie announcement, as a result, the parallel with Disney became clearer. In 2011, Rovio was offered a reported $2.25bn from Zynga, the US games company famous for Farmville, but the Finnish company decided not to make a deal with the Farmville creator.3 However, the business peaked in 2013 – after three years of significant growth, from a mere €6.5m in revenue in 2010 to €152m in 2012. Rovio then reported operating profits of €36.5m in 2013, which fell 73 per cent in the next year, to €10m.4 Rovio was forced to lay off 110 employees in 2014 and another dramatic cut in 2015 – 260 people were laid off, one third of all employees.5 The company received a lot of criticism for failing to introduce new characters and industry experts wondered if the Angry Birds characters really had the same appeal as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. To date, Rovio has released 15 main Angry Birds themed title games, including two Star Wars crossovers and a female-focused Angry Birds Stella.

Up until 2013, Angry Birds had generated revenue through download fees. Kart-racing title Angry Birds Go! was released in December 2013, and it was their first game designed from scratch for a freemium model. Nearly all top performing titles today are so-called free-to-play or freemium games, meaning the downloading is free and revenue is generated through in-game purchases. Angry Birds 2 was released in the summer of 2015 and it was downloaded nearly 50 million times in just a month, but it failed to boost revenues and disappeared from the top

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ROVIO ENTERTAINMENT – GOING bACK TO THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ROOTS

Questions 1 What are the advantages and disadvantages of

Rovio’s current business model?

2 Do you agree with the company chairman Kaj Hed when he says he is satisfied with Rovio’s current situation?

restructuring costs. Rovio, however, is confident they will see sales growth in 2016 on the back of the new movie, new licensing deals and new games:

‘We had an exceptional situation a few years ago. I am satisfied with the current situation, because now we don’t have false visions.’4

Hed says as the new Hollywood 3D movie is about to be released in May 2016.

Future plans

Rovio, however, also had plans for the future. An Angry Birds 3D movie is planned for release in 2016, after three years in the making. Rovio is financing the entire produc- tion of the movie, making it the most expensive Finnish film ever made. They have hired Sony Pictures Imageworks to produce the animation. Hollywood celebrities Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage, among many oth- ers, are acting as voiceovers for the characters. Of the total budget of €175m, €75m is production costs and €100m marketing.7 Rovio has high hopes that the movie will create the next boost for the company’s licencing business. Lego and Spin Master are already on board as toy partners for movie-inspired lines, other new licencing partners include the tech company Painting Lulu and www.SwimOutlet. com with an exclusive Angry Birds swim line. by retaining creative control and utilising the global marketing and distribution skills of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Rovio believes they are on track to deliver a hit feature.

Rovio acknowledged they lost focus and tried to do too many things. As the company moves ahead with the movie, they still have the ambition to be a leading enter- tainment company, with mobile games at its heart, said the CEO Kati Levoranta in 2015. The main focus after the restructuring will be games, media and consumer products. Majority owner Kaj Hed has announced that Rovio has its eye on a possible merger or acquisition, although a public share offering is not up for discus- sion at the moment. In 2014, Rovio made an operating profit of €10m on sales of €158m, down from profits of €36.5m on sales of 173.5m in 2013. For 2015, Hed expected results to have fallen compared to 2014 due to

Original key sources: The Guardian, Media Network, 15 November 2012; Fast Company, 26 November 2012; The Next Web, 21 December 2012.

References 1. T. Cheshire, ‘In depth: how Rovio made Angry Birds a winner (and what’s

next), Wired Magazine, 7 March 2011. 2. Lundgren, ‘Angry birds maker Rovio says 2012 sales up 101% to $195m

with merchandising, IP 45% of that; net profit $71m’, TechCrunch, 3 April 2013.

3. M. Lynley, ‘Angry birds turned down a $2.25bn takeout offer from Zynga’, Business Insider, 28 November 2011.

4. J. Rosendahl, ‘Angry Birds’ maker Rovio limbers up for M&A’, Reuters, 9 December 2015.

5. R. Dillett, ‘Rovio to cut 260 jobs as the Angry Birds franchise becomes irrelevant’, TechCrunch, 26 August 2015.

6. E. Lappalainen, ‘Rovio’s ex-managers reveal: serious problems with strategy and management’, Talouselama, 27 August 2015.

7. J.R. Jensen, ‘Angry Birds are expensive ones, too: €75m for the 3D animated movie’, Cineuropa, 13 April 2015.

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Strategic choices

Business strategy

InternationalCorporate strategy

Acquisitions & alliances

Entrepreneur- ship

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Identify the key strategic motives for mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances. ● Distinguish the key issues in the successful management of mergers and

acquisitions and strategic alliances. ● Understand how to make appropriate choices between organic development,

mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances. ● Identify the key success factors of different growth options.

11 MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS AND ALLIANCES

acquisition p.341

co-evolution p.355

collaborative advantage p.351

collective strategy p.351

corporate entrepreneurship p.340

divestiture p.350

merger p.341

organic development p.340

organisational fit p.346

strategic alliance p.351

strategic fit p.346

trust p.355

Key terms

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11.1 INTRODUCTION

Mergers, acquisitions and alliances are all common methods for achieving growth strategies and often in the news. For example, in 2014 Comcast, the world’s largest broadcasting and cable company, announced a friendly all-share merger with Time Warner, the world’s third largest television network. The deal, worth $45.2bn (€31.9bn; £27.1bn), would result in control of around one third of the US cable and satellite market and one half of the bundled video and internet market. In the same year, Apple and IBM signed an exclusive partnership alliance allowing the former a huge opportunity to tap into the latter’s large number of cor- porate customers and to get them to switch to its iOS platform. Apple planned to launch a ‘new class’ of more than 100 enterprise solutions as part of the deal. For IBM, the iOS tech- nology would allow it to leverage IBM’s leadership in analytics, cloud, software and services. As these cases show, acquisitions and alliances are big business with major implications for the strategic development of the companies.

This chapter therefore addresses mergers, acquisitions and alliances as key methods for pursuing strategic options. It will consider them alongside the principal alternative of ‘organic’ development, in other words the pursuit of a strategy relying on a company’s own resources. Figure 11.1 shows how the main strategic options considered in the previous three chapters – diversification, internationalisation and innovation – can all be achieved through mergers and acquisitions, alliances and organic development. Of course, these three meth- ods can also be used for many other strategies as well, for example consolidating markets or building scale advantages.

The chapter starts with organic development. This is the default option as it is natural for an organisation to rely on its internal resources. The chapter then introduces mergers and acquisitions (often abbreviated as M&A) and then strategic alliances as two principal exter- nal growth options. The final section compares these external options against the internal option of organic development. M&A and alliances fail frequently and so a fundamental question is when to acquire, when to ally or when to ‘do it yourself’? The final section also considers key success factors in M&A and alliances. At the end of this chapter a new insight into understanding M&A performance is presented.

Figure 11.1 Three strategy methods

Strategic options

Strategy methods

Organic development

Mergers and acquisitions

Strategic alliances

For example:

Diversification

Internationalisation

Innovation

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11.2 ORGaNIC DeVeLOpMeNT

The default method for pursuing a strategy is to ‘do it yourself’, relying on internal capabil- ities. Thus organic development is where a strategy is pursued by building on, and developing, an organisation’s own capabilities. For example, easyGroup’s creation of a new subsidiary, easyFoodstore, was organic in nature. Drawing upon and customising internal capabilities, developed from its highly successful startup easyJet, a low-cost competitor in the mature airline industry, easyFoodstore aimed to undercut established supermarkets in a slow-growth industry by offering every food item for 25p (€ 0.30, $0.37). This do-it-yourself (DIY) diver- sification method was pursued as existing supermarkets were unlikely to want an alliance that would dilute their brands and profitability and also support a new competitor in an already very competitive industry.

There are five principal advantages to relying on organic development:

● Knowledge and learning. Using the organisation’s existing capabilities to pursue a new strategy can enhance organisational knowledge and learning. Direct involvement in a new market or technology is likely to promote the acquisition and internalisation of deeper knowledge than a hands-off strategic alliance, for example.

● Spreading investment over time. Acquisitions typically require an immediate upfront pay- ment for the target company. Organic development allows the spreading of investment over the whole time span of the strategy’s development. This reduction of upfront com- mitment may make it easier to reverse or adjust a strategy if conditions change.

● No availability constraints. Organic development has the advantage of not being depend- ent on the availability of suitable acquisition targets or potential alliance partners. There are few acquisition opportunities for foreign companies wanting to enter the Japanese market, for example. Organic developers also do not have to wait until the perfectly matched acquisition target comes onto the market.

● Strategic independence. The independence provided by organic development means that an organisation does not need to make the same compromises as might be necessary if it made an alliance with a partner organisation. For example, partnership with a foreign collaborator is likely to involve constraints on marketing activity in external markets and may limit future strategic choices.

● Culture management. Organic development allows new activities to be created in the existing cultural environment, which reduces the risk of culture clash.

The reliance of organic development on internal capabilities can be slow, expensive and risky. It is not easy to use existing capabilities as the platform for major leaps in terms of innovation, diversification or internationalisation, for example. However organic develop- ment can be very successful and, as in the example of easyFoodstore, sufficiently radical to merit the term ‘corporate entrepreneurship’. Corporate entrepreneurship refers to radical change in the organisation’s business, driven principally by the organisation’s own capabili- ties.1 Bringing together the words ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘corporate’ underlines the potential for significant change or novelty not only by external entrepreneurship (see also corporate venturing in Section 10.5.2), but also by reliance on internal capabilities from within the corporate organisation. Thus for easyGroup, easyFoodstore was a radical entrepreneurial step, taking it into a new industry in the hope that its low-cost model might change compet- itive dynamics landscape and even grow the market in a similar way to some of its earlier start-ups.

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The concept of corporate entrepreneurship is valuable because it encourages a creative attitude inside the firm – for example, the creation of low-cost airline Ryanair from inside the aircraft leasing company Guinness Peat. Often, however, organisations have to go beyond their own internal capabilities and look externally for methods to pursue their strategies. This chapter will examine two of these methods, M&A and strategic alliances.

11.3 MeRGeRS aND aCQUISITIONS

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) frequently grab the headlines, as they involve large sums of money and can affect a wide range of stakeholders. They can also provide a speedy means of achieving major strategic objectives. However, they can also lead to spectacular failures. For instance, shareholders were shocked in November 2012 when Meg Whitman, Hewlett Packard’s CEO, announced they would take a $8.8bn (€6.6bn; £5.3bn) write down follow- ing its $11.1bn acquisition of Autonomy, alleging accounting improprieties in the acquired company. Hewlett Packard shares fell from $33 to $11.71 after the revelations and in 2015 it was forced to pay out $100m to its investors in compensation.

11.3.1 Types of M&a

M&A are about the combination of organisations. In an acquisition (or takeover) an acquirer takes control of another company through share purchase. Thus ‘acquisition’ is achieved by purchasing a majority of shares in a target company. Most acquisitions are friendly, where the target’s management recommends accepting the deal to its shareholders. Acquirers prefer this, as target management is more likely to work with them to integrate both companies. Sometimes acquisitions are hostile, where target management refuses the acquirer’s offer. In this circumstance, the acquirer appeals directly to the target’s shareholders for ownership of their shares. Hostile deals can be very acrimonious with target company management obstructing efforts to obtain key information and creating problems for post-deal integra- tion. In general, acquirers are larger than target companies although there may be ‘reverse’ takeovers, where acquirers are smaller than their targets.

A merger differs from an acquisition, as it is the combination of two previously separate organisations in order to form a new company. For example, with significant changes intro- duced by government into the UK pensions market, hard-hit annuity providers, Just Retire- ment and Partnership Assurance lost half their market share and decided to announce their intention to merge in August 2015 to form a £1.6bn (€1.9bn, $2.4bn) company. Merger part- ners are often of similar size, with expectations of broadly equal status, unlike an acquisition where the acquirer generally dominates. In practice, the terms ‘merger’ and ‘acquisition’ are often used interchangeably, hence the common shorthand M&A.

M&A can also happen in the public and non-profit sectors: for example, the Finnish government created the new Aalto University in 2010 by merging the Helsinki School of Economics, the Helsinki University of Art and Design and the Helsinki University of Tech- nology. Publicly owned institutions frequently build up highly distinctive cultures or systems of their own, as if they were in fact independent organisations. Where there are major cul- tural or systems differences between organisations, the scale and depth of the managerial issues approximate to those that would be involved in a change of ownership. ‘Merger’ is therefore often used in such cases as that better reflects the scale of the task involved than simply ‘reorganisation’.

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11.3.2 Timing of M&a

Since records began in the late nineteenth century, M&A have shown a cyclical quality, involving high peaks and deep troughs. Thus 2015 recorded the highest annual total of M&A since records began, with $5.03trn (£3.0trn, €3.7trn) of deals, up 37 per cent from the previous year, and more than double the volume of the global recession of $2.26trn in 2009.2 M&A cycles are broadly linked to changes in the global economy but are also influenced by new regulations, the availability of finance, stock market performance, technological distur- bances and the supply of available target firms. They may also be driven by over-optimism on the part of managers, shareholders and bankers during upturns, and by exaggerated loss of confidence during downturns. This cyclical pattern suggests that some times are better than others for making an acquisition. At the top of a cycle, target companies are likely to be very highly priced, which may reduce the chances of success for an acquirer. For instance, the £5bn merger between house builders Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey saw a 90 per cent crash in the value of its shares in the following year when the recession started in 2008. These cycles should warn managers that M&A may have a strong fashion element. Especially in an upturn, managers should ask very carefully whether acquisitions are really justified.

Global activity in mergers has traditionally been dominated by North America and West- ern Europe, whereas it has been much less common in other economies, for example Japan. Many national governance systems put barriers in the way of acquisitions, especially hostile acquisitions (see Section 5.3.2). However, companies from fast-developing economies such as China and India have become very active in large-scale acquisitions in order to access West- ern markets or technology, or to secure material resources needed for growth. For example, Anbang Insurance Company Group Ltd acquired the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York in 2014 from Hilton Worldwide Holdings and in 2016 was bidding for further US hotel chains.

11.3.3 Motives for M&a

Motives for M&A can be strategic, financial and managerial3 (see Illustration 11.1).

Strategic motives for M&a

Strategic motives for M&A involve improving the competitive advantage of the organisation. These motives are often related to the reasons for diversification in general (see Section 8.3). Strategic motives can be categorised in three main ways:4

● Extension. M&A can be used to extend the reach of a firm in terms of geography, prod- ucts or markets. For instance, transactions such as Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ $55bn pur- chase of Botox-maker Allergan and Facebook’s $22bn acquisition of mobile messaging platform WhatsApp illustrate capturing new products and markets (see Chapter 8).

● Consolidation. M&A can be used to consolidate the competitors in an industry. Bringing together two competitors can have at least three beneficial effects. In the first place, it increases market power by reducing competition: this might enable the newly consolidated company to raise prices for customers. Second, the combination of two competitors can increase efficiency through reducing surplus capacity or sharing resources, for instance head-office facilities or distribution channels. Finally, the greater scale of the combined operations may increase production efficiency or increase bargaining power with suppli- ers, forcing them to reduce their prices. These reasons lie behind the 2015 merger between cement giants Lafarge of France and Holcim of Switzerland.

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ILLUSTRaTION 11.1

US hotelier and Chinese insurer contest ownership of Starwood.

In March 2016, struggling US hotel group, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, owner of Weston and Sheraton Hotels, found itself in a bidding war. It had accepted an offer of $10.8bn (€8.1bn, £6.5bn) in cash and stock from US hotelier Marriott International the previous year. Whilst discussing the details of the acquisition, due to close in March 2016, Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group made an unsolicited offer of $12.9bn. Marriott responded by increasing its offer to $13.6bn and Starwood investors eagerly awaited higher bids.

If Marriott succeeded it would create the world’s largest hotel company with 5500 owned or franchised hotels with 1.1 million rooms under 30 brands. Marri- ott believed it was a compelling bidder having demon- strated multi-year industry-leading growth, powerful brands and consistent return of capital to sharehold- ers, with shares trading consistently above those of its peers. Having already conducted five months of extensive investigation and joint integration planning with Starwood, including careful analysis of the brand architecture, Marriott was confident it could make annual cost savings of $250m, generate greater long- term shareholder value from a larger global presence and offer wider choice of brands to consumers and improved economics to owners and franchisees.

Little known outside of China before 2013, Anbang Insurance Group originated as a small car insurer, before China’s move to give insurers greater freedom to invest their money. This allowed Anbang to sell invest- ment products and other services, making them major players in real estate. A slowing Chinese economy and devaluing currency encouraged many domestic compa- nies to invest overseas and Anbang then aggressively pursued overseas deals, largely fuelled by selling high- yield investment products at home. Having spent $2bn on insurers in Belgium and South Korea, Anbang also made many large US acquisitions including the Waldorf Astoria for $1.95bn, the American insurer, Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance ($1.6bn) and the biggest-ever acquisition of American property assets by a mainland

Chinese buyer, Strategic Hotels and Resorts ($6.5bn), owner of Four Seasons hotels, the Fairmont and Inter- continental hotels and the JW Marriott Essex House hotel. As a late bidder, Anbang had had little time for in-depth investigation of Starwoods but was making its bid in a consortium that included American private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Company. With close per- sonal links to the Chinese Government, commentators believed Anbang could greatly increase Starwood’s cash reserves.

On 28 March, Anbang raised its bid to $14bn and analysts wondered whether Marriott would be able to raise its offer further as increasing the cash part of its offer could threaten its investment-grade rating and adding more stock would dilute its earnings per share. Marriott’s response was to say that its offer was not just about price. It also questioned whether Anbang had sufficient funds to close the deal and whether the Committee on Foreign Investment (Cfius), which reviews all deals for American companies that involve national security, would intervene as it had with the Waldorf sale, although this had been approved. Star- wood properties could be deemed to be near govern- ment offices and military bases. This could delay the deal and possibly discourage Anbang’s bid. Commen- tators also wondered whether they had the skills to manage Starwood as the management team at its Bel- gian acquisition had left quickly amid complaints about Anbang’s management style.

Sources: Telegraph, 14 March 2016; nytimes.com , 23 March 2016; New York Times, 14 March 2016, 28 March 2016.

Strategies clash in a contested bid

Questions 1 How do the bidders’ acquisition motives

differ?

2 What are the strategic and organisational fit implications of both bids?

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● Capabilities. The third broad strategic motive for M&A is to increase a company’s capa- bilities. High-tech companies such as Cisco and Microsoft regard acquisitions of entre- preneurial technology companies as a part of their R&D effort. Instead of researching a new technology from scratch, they allow entrepreneurial start-ups to prove the idea, and then take over these companies in order to incorporate the technological capability within their own portfolio. Capabilities-driven acquisitions are often useful where industries are converging (see Section 3.3.2). For example, Alphabet, formerly Google, made substantial acquisitions in order to gain a foothold in the new high-growth mobile advertising market. Alphabet’s acquisition of AdMob and, in 2015, acquisition of Agawi, an app streaming specialist, shows commitment to build a notable presence in this market space where there is convergence between telephony and advertising industries.

Financial motives for M&a

Financial motives concern the optimal use of financial resources, rather than directly improv- ing the actual business. There are three main financial motives:

● Financial efficiency. An acquirer with a strong balance sheet (i.e. has plenty of cash) may help improve a highly indebted target company (i.e. a weak balance sheet). The target can save on interest payments by using the acquirer’s assets to pay off its debt, and it can also get investment funds that it could not have accessed otherwise. The acquirer may also be able to drive a good bargain in acquiring the weaker company. Also, an acquirer with a booming share price can purchase targets very efficiently by offering to pay target shareholders with its own shares (equity), rather than paying with cash upfront.

● Tax efficiency. Sometimes there may be tax advantages from bringing together different companies. For example, profits or tax losses may be transferable within the organisa- tion in order to benefit from different tax regimes between industries or countries. In November 2015, US giant Pfizer announced the largest ‘tax inversion’ deal ever at $160bn (€120bn, £96bn), with the takeover of Irish-based Allergan, to form the world’s largest drug company. Pfizer’s headquarters would move to Ireland where it would pay 17 per cent tax rather than the 25 per cent it was paying in the USA. Naturally, there are legal restrictions on this strategy and governments may also adjust their tax rates later on.

● Asset stripping or unbundling. Some companies are effective at spotting other companies whose underlying assets are worth more than the price of the company as a whole. This makes it possible to buy such companies and then rapidly sell off (‘unbundle’) differ- ent business units to various buyers for a total price substantially in excess of what was originally paid for the whole. Although this is often dismissed as merely opportunistic profiteering (‘asset stripping’), if the business units find better corporate parents through this unbundling process, there can be a real gain in economic effectiveness.

Managerial motives for M&a

As for diversification (see Section 8.3), M&A may sometimes serve managers’ more than shareholders’ interests. ‘Managerial’ motives are therefore self-serving rather than efficiency- driven. M&A may serve managerial self-interest for two reasons:

● Personal ambition. This can take three forms regardless of the real value being created. First, senior managers’ personal financial incentives may be tied to short-term growth targets or share-price targets that are more easily achieved by large and spectacular acqui- sitions than the more gradualist and lower-profile alternative of organic growth. Second,

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large acquisitions attract media attention, with opportunities to boost personal reputa- tions through flattering media interviews and appearances. Here, there is the so-called ‘managerial hubris’ (vanity) effect: managers who have been successful in earlier acqui- sitions become over-confident and embark on more and more acquisitions, each riskier and more expensive than the one before.5 Finally, acquisitions provide opportunities to give friends and colleagues greater responsibility, helping to cement personal loyalty by developing individuals’ careers.

● Bandwagon effects. As noted earlier, acquisitions are highly cyclical. In an upswing, there are three kinds of pressure on senior managers to join the acquisition bandwagon. First, when many other firms are making acquisitions, financial analysts and the business media may criticise more cautious managers for undue conservatism. Second, shareholders may fear that their company is being left behind, as they see opportunities for their busi- ness being snatched by rivals. Lastly, managers may worry that if their company is not acquiring, it will become the target of a hostile bid itself. For managers wanting a quiet life during a ‘merger boom’, the easiest strategy may be simply to join in. But the danger is making an acquisition the company does not really need and it can be one reason for paying too much.

In sum, there are bad as well as good reasons for M&A. The general consensus remains that the average performance of deals is unimpressive, with some evidence suggesting that over half fail.6 It is clearly worth asking skeptical questions about acquisition performance. However, alternative growth methods also exhibit similar problematic levels of performance. Nevertheless, it is worth asking sceptical questions of any M&A strategy. The converse can be true of course: there can be bad reasons for resisting a hostile takeover. Senior managers may resist being acquired because they fear losing their jobs, even if the price offered repre- sents a good deal for their shareholders.

11.3.4 M&a processes

Acquisitions take time. First there is the search to identify an acquisition target with the best possible fit. This process may take years but sometimes can be completed very rapidly indeed. Then there is the process of negotiating the deal: to agree on terms and conditions and the right price. Finally, managers will need to decide on the extent to which the new and old busi- nesses will need to be integrated – and this will have significant implications for the amount of time required to create value. In other words, acquisition should be seen as a process over time. Each step in this process imposes different tasks on managers (see Figure 11.2). This section will consider three key steps: target choice, negotiation and integration.

Figure 11.2 The acquisition process

Target choice

Negotiations Integration Results

Completion and change of ownership

Due diligence

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Target choice in M&a

There are two main criteria to apply: strategic fit and organisational fit.7

● Strategic fit. This refers to the extent to which the target firm strengthens or complements the acquiring firm’s strategy. Strategic fit relates to the original strategic motives for the acquisition: extension, consolidation and capabilities. Managers need to assess strate- gic fit very carefully. The danger is that potential synergies (see Section 8.3) in M&A are often exaggerated in order to justify high acquisition prices. Also, negative synergies (‘contagion’) between the companies involved are easily neglected8 where moving from one company’s business model to another or amalgamating aspects of each other’s business results in value destruction.

● Organisational fit. This refers to the match between the management practices, cultural practices and staff of characteristics between the target and the acquiring firms. Large mismatches between the two are likely to cause significant integration problems. Inter- national acquisitions can be particularly liable to organisational misfits, because of cultural and language differences between countries9, although the extent to which there is actual cultural clash will be determined by the extent of integration intended. The bid for Starwood by Anbang raises many questions about organisational fit (see Illus- tration 11.1). A comparison of the two companies’ cultural webs (Section 6.3.5) might be helpful to highlight potential misfit.

Together, strategic and organisational fit determine the potential for the acquirer to add value, the parenting issue raised in Section 8.6. Where there is bad organisational fit, attempts by the acquirer to integrate the target are likely to destroy value regardless of how well the target fits strategically. For instance, the merger between French and American telecoms equipment manufacturers Alcatel and Lucent resulted in significant culture clashes for several years post-deal with losses running into billions of dollars and the departure of the two top executives.

The two criteria of strategic and organisational fit are important components of ‘due diligence’ – a structured investigation of target companies that generally takes place before a deal is closed. Poor due diligence can lead to serious post-acquisition difficulties as Hewlett Packard’s $5bn write down of its Autonomy acquisition shows. Strategic and organisational fit can be used to create a screen according to which potential acquisition targets can be ruled in or ruled out. Note that, because the set of firms that meet the cri- teria and that are actually available for purchase is likely to be small, it is very tempting for managers to relax the criteria too far in order to build a large enough pool of possible acquisitions. Strict strategic and organisational fit criteria are particularly liable to be forgotten after the failure of an initial acquisition bid. Once having committed publicly to an acquisition strategy, senior managers are susceptible to making ill-considered bids for other targets ‘on the rebound’.

Negotiation in M&a

The negotiation process in M&A is critical to the outcome of friendly deals. If top manage- ments cannot agree because of personal differences, or if the price or terms and conditions are unacceptable the deal will not take place. In terms of price, offer the target too little, and the bid will be unsuccessful: senior managers will lose credibility and the company will have wasted a lot of management time. Pay too much, though, and the acquisition is unlikely ever to make a profit net of the original acquisition price.

Ways in which the price is established by the acquirer are through the use of vari- ous valuation methods, including financial analysis techniques such as payback period,

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discounted cash flow, asset valuation and shareholder value analysis (see Chapter 12).10 For acquisition of publicly quoted companies, the market value of the target company’s shares can act as a guide. Typically, acquirers do not simply pay the current market value of the target, but have to pay a so-called premium for control. This is the additional amount an acquirer has to pay to win control compared to the ordinary valuation of the target’s shares as an independent company. Depending on the state of the financial markets, this premium is often around 30 per cent greater than the current market value of target shares. Where the target resists the initial bid, or other potential acquirers join in with their own bids, this premium will rise, and it is very easy for bid prices to escalate well beyond the true economic value of the target.

It is therefore very important for the acquirer to be disciplined regarding the price that it will pay. Acquisitions are liable to the winner’s curse – in order to win acceptance of the bid, the acquirer may pay so much that the original cost can never be earned back.11 A famous case of the winner’s curse is that of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s competition against Barclay’s Bank to acquire the Dutch Bank ABN AMRO in 2007. The Royal Bank of Scotland outbid its rival with a price of €70bn (£56bn, $91bn). This was more than it could afford and soon drove the victor into financial collapse and government ownership. The negative effects of paying too much can be worsened if the acquirer tries to justify the price by cutting back essential investments in order to improve immediate profits. In what is called the vicious circle of overvaluation, over-paying firms can easily undermine the original rationale of the acquisition by cutting costs on exactly the assets (e.g. brand- marketing, product R&D or key staff) that made up the strategic value of the target company in the first place.

Integration in M&a

The ability to extract value from an acquisition will depend critically on how it is integrated with the acquirer. Integration is frequently challenging because of prob- lems of organisational fit. For example, there might be strong cultural differences (see Section  6.3) or incompatible financial or information technology systems (see Section 14.3). Poor integration can cause acquisitions to fail (see Illustration 11.2 for the way Alphabet has managed its talent acquisition). Getting the right approach to integration of merged or acquired companies is crucial.

INSEAD’s Philippe Haspeslagh and David Jemison12 argue that the most suitable approach to integration depends on two key criteria:

● The extent of strategic interdependence. This is the need for the transfer or sharing of capabilities (for example, technology) or resources (for example, manufacturing facili- ties). The presumption is that significant transfer or sharing through tight integration will enable the ‘creation’ of value from the acquisition. Of course, some acquisitions ‘capture’ value purely through the ownership of assets and so there is less need for inte- gration. These unrelated or conglomerate diversifications (see Section 8.2.4) may only be integrated in terms of their financial systems.

● The need for organisational autonomy. Where an acquired firm has a very distinct culture, or is geographically distant, or is dominated by prima donna professionals or star performers, integration may be problematic. For this reason, some acquisitions need high levels of organisational autonomy. But in some circumstances it is the distinctive- ness of the acquired organisation that is valuable to the acquirer.13 In this case, it is best to learn gradually from the distinct culture, rather than risk spoiling it by hurried or overly tight integration.

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As in Figure 11.3, therefore, these two criteria result in five integration approaches14 which have important implications for the length of integration period and choice of top manage- ment for the acquired company:

● Absorption is preferred where a high level of strategic interdependence is necessary and there is little need for organisational autonomy. Absorption requires rapid adjustment of the acquired company’s old strategies and structures to the needs of the new owner, and corre- sponding changes to the acquired company’s culture and systems. In this type of acquisition, it is usual to appoint a new top manager in order to manage the organisation differently.15

● Preservation is appropriate where the acquired company is well run but not very compat- ible with the acquirer. The high need for autonomy and low need for integration may be found in conglomerate deals. The preservation style depends on allowing old strategies, cultures and systems to continue in the acquired company much as before. Changes from the acquirer are generally confined to the essential minimum such as adjusting financial reporting procedures for control and carried out in a slow piecemeal fashion. In this sit- uation, it is advisable to retain the incumbent top manager.

● Symbiosis is indicated where there is strong need for strategic interdependence, but also a requirement for high autonomy – perhaps in a professional services organisation depend- ent on the creativity of its staff. Symbiosis implies that both acquired firm and acquiring firm learn the best qualities from the other. This learning process takes significant time and it is often the case that it is best to retain the incumbent top manager in the early stages to stabilise the acquisition before bringing in a new top manager to make far-reach- ing changes. This is the most complex of the integration approaches.

● Intensive care takes place where there is little to be gained by integration. These acqui- sitions may occur when the acquired company is in poor financial health and very rapid

Figure 11.3 Post-acquisition integration matrix Source: D.N. Angwin and M. Meadows, ‘New integration strategies for post acquisition management’, Long Range Planning, vol. 48, no. 4 (2015), pp. 235–51, with permission from Elsevier.

Acquired firm level of autonomy

Low

Low

High

High

Knowledge transfer

Intensive care Preservation

Absorption Symbiosis

Re-orientation

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ILLUSTRaTION 11.2

To evolve alphabet needs to acquire big, but does it have the right post-acquisition skills?

With $70bn (£42bn, €53bn) in cash, there was spec- ulation that Alphabet, formerly Google, might make a big acquisition, as shareholders would otherwise press for a special dividend or share repurchase.

Prior to becoming Alphabet, Google had always been a serial acquirer with over 180 deals. Few were in excess of $1bn although the top ten cost more than $24.5bn in total. Many of Google’s most well-known products, including Android, YouTube, Maps, Docs and Analytics, came from acquisitions.

Originally, Google did not set a priority on fit between its target companies and its own organisation. Acquisitions were simply ways to enter new markets, gain talent or give Google a stronger foothold where its own efforts had failed. For instance, acquiring You Tube came after Google Video stalled. Soon there were too many separate products, and CEO Larry Page reor- ganised into seven core product areas in 2011. There were fewer ‘acquisition hires’ and for a deal to com- plete it had to pass his ‘toothbrush test’ – a product you use daily to make your life better. A target must also enhance an existing product and be scalable.

Most of Google’s acquisitions had been start-ups. Retaining start-up founders can be very difficult as they think of themselves as entrepreneurs who like doing their own thing. Many acquirers have struggled to retain the expertise they have spent millions acquir- ing. However, Google has retained at least 221 start-up founders whilst closest competitor Yahoo retained only 110. Google competed with other potential purchas- ers on offering huge resources to founders to enable them to initiate their product visions faster. Founders were asked what their product would look like with a billion users? For instance, Keyhole’s founders were asked to adapt their desktop digital mapping software for urban planning to work on the web. It became Google Maps – the world’s largest source of location data. And Google would give entrepreneurs space to innovate, handle contracts, patents and intangibles. However, unless acquisitions were large, few continued to run independently. Often founders were rolled up

inside another group in the company and they couldn’t make decisions as freely as before. This affected their willingness to remain.

When Google approached Tony Fadell, CEO of Nest, the maker of the learning thermostat, the question was how he wanted to spend his time. He had lim- ited resources for expansion and was working always on managing the day-to-day. Google promised a big payday, retention of the Nest brand name, investment for expansion and time to develop new products. Nest was acquired for $3.2bn to build Google’s smart home initiative of connecting devices that anticipate human behaviour. Post-acquisition, Fadell didn’t need formal approval for anything although he met regularly with Larry Page.

Alphabet is facing multiple threats with declining share of desktop searches, Facebook taking advertising dollars and Amazon stealing product search queries in the mobile market. It needs new revenue sources to compete effectively and innovate continually – ‘it can’t all be from within’. Although skilled at acquiring small companies, Google had had less success with larger acquisitions as the biggest, Motorola Mobility, $12.5bn, failed and was later disposed of. With a new company structure of Alphabet as a holding company, and Google as a subsidiary, perhaps a new way of inte- grating larger acquisitions is possible that may be more appealing to potential targets.

Sources: http://beyondthedeal.net/blog/2012/05/30/google-acquisi- tions-and-integrations-a-tale-of-two-cities/ ; Business Insider, 2 May 2015; TIME.com , 15 April 2015; Quartz, 15 August 2015; Wired.com , 14 January 2014.

To deal or not to deal – that’s the multi-billion dollar question

Questions 1 Using the post-acquisition integration matrix,

Figure  11.3 , compare Google’s early style of acquisition management with the integration of Nest.

2 How has Google managed to be successful in retaining entrepreneurial talent?

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remedial action is required.16 The acquirer will not integrate the company into its own business to avoid contamination but will impose stringent short-term targets and strate- gies in order to solve its problems. In more aggressive turnaround cases the incumbent top manager will typically be replaced but otherwise the incumbent is retained for a smoother transition. These businesses may often be for sale.

● Reorientation acquisitions occur when the acquired company is in good health and well run, but there is a need to integrate central administrative areas and align marketing and sales functions. Distinctive resources of the acquired company though are left alone and there are few changes to internal operations. In order to drive through changes quickly, a new top manager is generally brought in to run the acquired company.

Especially for absorption, symbiosis and reorientation strategies that require significant organisational interactions, acquisition success will depend upon how well the integration process is managed. Here methods of managing strategic change explained in Chapter 15 will be relevant. However, because acquisitions often involve the loss of jobs, sudden career changes, management relocations and the cancellation of projects, it is argued that organi- sational justice is particularly important for successful integration.17

Organisational justice refers to the perceived fairness of managerial actions, in terms of distribution, procedure and information. Thus:

● Distributive justice refers to the distribution of rewards and posts: for example, it will be seen as unfair in a merger between equals if the large majority of senior management posts go to one of the partners, and not the other.

● Procedural justice refers to the procedures by which decisions are made: for example, if integration decisions are made through appropriate committees or task forces with rep- resentation from both sides, then the perception of fair procedures is likely to be high.

● Informational justice is about how information is used and communicated in the inte- gration: if decisions are explained well to all those involved, they are more likely to be accepted positively.

Kraft offended principles of both procedural and informational justice when it assured investors and employees before its 2010 takeover of Cadbury that it would keep open the Somerdale chocolate factory near Bristol, with its 400 workers. Within a month of complet- ing the takeover, Kraft announced that production would be transferred to Poland, causing political controversy and a loss of trust amongst acquired employees.

11.3.5 M&a strategy over time

M&A strategies evolve over time as deals are rarely one-off events for an organisation. Companies that make multiple acquisitions are termed serial acquirers. When acquisitions occur closely together, these can be very demanding of managerial time and skills. However, repeating the acquisition process does provide an opportunity for acquiring companies to learn how to do M&A better.18 Cisco Systems is well known as a successful serial acquirer. By mid-2015 it had made 176 acquisitions since its first deal in 1993; these acquisitions account for at least 50 per cent of revenue. The amount of work in selecting and evaluating targets is significant. In order to make just 50 software acquisitions, IBM had to assess around 500 different potential acquisition targets, choosing not to proceed in the vast majority of cases.19

● When a business no longer fits the corporate strategy it may be sold. This is termed divestiture (or divestment).20 This is a central part of ‘asset stripping’ strategy (see Sec- tion 11.3.3), but ought to be on the agenda of every diversified corporation. The key

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determinant of divestiture is whether the corporate parent has ‘parenting advantage’: in other words, the corporate parent can add more value to the business unit than other potential owners of the business (see Section 8.6). Where there is no parenting advantage the business should be divested for the best obtainable price. Corporate parents are often reluctant to divest businesses, seeing it as an admission of failure. However, a dynamic perspective on M&A would encourage managers to view divestitures positively. Funds raised by the sale of an ill-fitting business can be used either to invest in retained businesses or to buy other businesses that fit the corporate strategy better. Obtaining a good price for the divested unit can recoup any losses it may have originally made. Sometimes, however, a less positive reason for divestiture is pressure from competition authorities, which may force the sale of businesses to reduce companies’ market power. For example, in 2015 BT intended to buy mobile operator EE for £12.5bn (€15bn, $18.6bn). Rivals TalkTalk and Vodafone responded by asking the UK competition authorities to force BT to spin off its Openreach operation to prevent BT dominating the marketplace.

● Acquisitions, therefore, are an important method for pursuing strategies. However, they are not easy to carry out and they are sometimes adopted for misguided reasons. It is important to consider alternatives such as strategic alliances.

11.4 STRaTeGIC aLLIaNCeS

M&A bring together companies through complete changes in ownership. However, com- panies also often work together in strategic alliances that involve collaboration with only partial changes in ownership, or no ownership changes at all as the parent companies remain distinct. Thus a strategic alliance is where two or more organisations share resources and activities to pursue a common strategy. This is a popular method amongst companies for pursuing strategy. Accenture has estimated that the average large corporation is managing around 30 alliances at any one time,21 and this may account for as much as 26 per cent of large company revenues.22

Alliance strategy challenges the traditional organisation-centred approach to strategy in at least two ways. First, practitioners of alliance strategy need to think about strategy in terms of the collective success of their networks as well as their individual organisations’ self-interest.23 Collective strategy is about how the whole network of alliances, of which an organisation is a member, competes against rival networks of alliances. Thus for Microsoft, competitive success for its Xbox games console has relied heavily on the collective strength of its network of independent games developers such as Bungie Studios (makers of Halo), Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider), Rockstar North (Grand Auto Theft Auto V), Crytek Stu- dios (Crysis 3) and The Coalition (Gears of War). Part of Microsoft’s strategy must include developing a stronger ecosystem of games developers than its rivals such as Sony and Nin- tendo. Collective strategy also challenges the individualistic approach to strategy by high- lighting the importance of effective collaboration. Thus success involves collaborating as well as competing. Collaborative advantage is about managing alliances better than competitors.24 For Microsoft to maximise the value of the Xbox, it is not enough for it to have a stronger network than rivals such as Sony and Nintendo, but it must be better at working with its network in order to ensure that its members keep on producing the best games. The more effectively it collaborates, the more successful it will be. Illustration 11.3 describes Apple’s approach to collective strategy and collaboration for the iPad.

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ILLUSTRaTION 11.3

Gaining competitive advantage through collaboration?

With much fanfare, a new version of Apple’s iPad was launched on 16 March 2012. Apple had dominated the tablet market for two years and iPad’s lightweight touchscreen and new operating system, iOS, designed from the ground up for portable performance, had won many admirers. But the first customers were buyers who just couldn’t wait to tear the gadget apart.

Market research firm iSuppli’s ‘teardown’ analysis revealed that the €622 (£497, $808), 4G 64GB model cost $409 to make, just 49 per cent of its retail price. They identified Broadcom and Qualcomm as suppliers of Bluetooth and wifi chips, STMicroelectronics the gyroscope, Cirrus Logic the audio chip, three Taiwan- ese companies touchscreen components, Sony the camera CMOS sensor and Samsung, a direct competi- tor, the expensive display, battery and processor chip.

Apple was therefore at the heart of a network. How- ever, it had always protected its intellectual property. No hardware was licensed, ensuring control of produc- tion and maintenance of its premium pricing policy. It was impossible for any independent company to manufacture cheap iPads, in the way for instance that Taiwanese manufacturers produced cheap IBM/Micro- soft-compatible personal computers in the 1980s.

iPad’s success attracted a swarm of companies into the accessory market, such as Griffin (USA) and Logitech (Switzerland) supplying attractive add-ons including ultra-thin keyboards, cases and touchscreen stylus. Apple licensed them the necessary technology and benefited from attractive complementary products and royalties. But the relationship was arm’s-length, with no advance information about new products.

Apple originally jealously controlled access to iOS. However, for the iPad, it opened up allowing third par- ties to develop apps, and this stimulated the new App Stores industry. The attractiveness of iOS and strong consumer demand encouraged software developers to produce for Apple first.

Consumers liked the ease of use and vast ecosys- tem of Apple’s iPad, but challenges were mounting. Amazon’s low cost ‘content consumption device’, Kin- dle, offered a vast library of movies but lacked Apple’s beauty and had few apps. Google’s low priced Nexus 10 aimed to profit from business services use rather than hardware. Its improved screen resolution and Android operating system challenged iPad’s technology and it shared many characteristics of other ecosystems with streaming apps and a consistent user experience. Samsung’s own tablet, Galaxy Tab, had similar advan- tages along with compelling design and openness to non-Apple standards. Microsoft aimed to profit from its hardware, Surface, but was not particularly innovative, lacking a comparable software ecosystem, and its tie to Windows could be a hindrance.

iPad is a phenomenal success with sales in excess of 170 million units. It has evolved to be thinner and smaller and the next evolution may be a larger device targeted at business users. However, Apple remains embroiled in lawsuits against Samsung over its Gal- axy Tablet design. Samsung is also counter suing. The lawsuits show the competitive intensity of the sector as companies battle it out amongst their eco- systems – consumers buy the ecosystem rather than the gadget.

Sources: G. Linden, K. Kraemer and J. Dedrick, ‘Who captures value in a global innovation network?’, Communications of the ACM, vol. 52, no. 3 (2009), pp. 140–5; ‘Tablet Wars’, The Telegraph, 6 November 2012; F. MacMahon, ‘Tablet Wars’, 4 December 2012, BroadcastEngineering. com ; A. Hesseldahl, ‘Apple’s new iPad costs at least $316 to build, IHS iSuppli teardown shows’, 16 March 2012, http://allthingsd.com .

Apple’s iPad advantage

Questions 1 What are pros and cons of Apple’s tight

control of licensing?

2 What role has ‘ecosystem’ played in Apple’s competitive advantage?

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11.4.1 Types of strategic alliance

In terms of ownership, there are two main kinds of strategic alliance:

● Equity alliances involve the creation of a new entity that is owned separately by the partners involved. The most common form of equity alliance is the joint venture, where two organisations remain independent but set up a new organisation jointly owned by the parents. For example, Ethihad Airways, founded in 2004, has grown rapidly to be the fifth largest airline largely through the creation of many equity alliances. These include agreements with Alitalia, Air Berlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Darwin Air- lines and India’s Jet Airways. A consortium alliance involves several partners setting up a venture together. For example, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Samsung are partners in the Sematech research consortium, working together on the latest semicon- ductor technologies.

● Non-equity alliances are typically looser, without the commitment implied by ownership. Non-equity alliances are often based on contracts. One common form of contractual alliance is franchising, where one organisation (the franchisor) gives another organisa- tion (the franchisee) the right to sell the franchisor’s products or services in a particular location in return for a fee or royalty. Kall-Kwik printing, 7-Eleven convenience stores, McDonald’s restaurants and Subway are examples of franchising. Licensing is a similar kind of contractual alliance, allowing partners to use intellectual property such as patents or brands in return for a fee. Long-term subcontracting agreements are another form of loose non-equity alliance, common in automobile supply. For example, the Canadian subcontractor Magna has long-term contracts to assemble the bodies and frames for car companies such as Ford, Honda and Mercedes.

The public and voluntary sectors often get involved in both equity and non-equity strategic alliances. Governments have increasingly encouraged the public sector to contract out the building and maintenance of capital projects such as hospitals and schools under long-term contracts. Individual public organisations often band together to form purchasing consortia as well. A good example of this is university libraries, which typically negotiate collectively for the purchase of journals and books from publishers. Voluntary organisations pool their resources in alliance too. For example, relief organisations in areas suffering from natural or man-made disasters typically have to cooperate in order to deliver the full range of services in difficult circumstances. Although public- and voluntary-sector organisations might often be seen as more naturally cooperative than private-sector organisations, many of the issues that follow apply to all three kinds of organisation.

11.4.2 Motives for alliances

Strategic alliances allow an organisation to rapidly extend its strategic advantage and gen- erally require less commitment than other forms of expansion. A key motivator is sharing resources or activities, although there may be less obvious reasons as well. Four broad ration- ales for alliances can be identified, as summarised in Figure 11.4:

● Scale alliances. Here organisations combine in order to achieve necessary scale. The capabilities of each partner may be quite similar (as indicated by the similarity of the A and B organisations in Figure 11.4), but together they can achieve advantages that they could not easily manage on their own. Thus combining together can provide econ- omies of scale in the production of outputs (products or services). Combining might

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also provide economies of scale in terms of inputs, for example by reducing purchasing costs of raw materials or services. Thus health management organisations often combine together to negotiate better prices with pharmaceutical companies. Finally, combining allows the partners to share risk as well. Instead of organisations stretching themselves to find enough resources on their own, partnering can help each partner avoid committing so many resources of its own that failure would jeopardise the existence of the whole organisation.

● Access alliances. Organisations frequently ally in order to access the capabilities of another organisation that are required in order to produce or sell its products and services. For example, in countries such as China and India, a Western company (in Figure 11.4, organisation A) might need to partner with a local distributor (organisation B) in order to access effectively the national market for its products and services. Here organisation B is critical to organisation A’s ability to sell. Access alliances can work in the opposite direction. Thus organisation B might seek a licensing alliance in order to access inputs from organisation A, for example technologies or brands. Here organisation A is critical to organisation B’s ability to produce or market its products and services. Access can be about tangible resources such as distribution channels or products as well as intangible resources such as knowledge and social/political connections.

● Complementary alliances. These can be seen as a form of access alliance, but involve organisations at similar points in the value network combining their distinctive resources so that they bolster each partner’s particular gaps or weaknesses. Figure 11.4 shows an alliance where the strengths of organisation A (indicated by the darker shading) match the weaknesses of organisation B (indicated by the lighter shading); conversely, the strengths of organisation B match the weaknesses of organisation A. By partnering, the two organ- isations can bring together complementary strengths in order to overcome their individual weaknesses. An example of this is the General Motors–Toyota NUMMI alliance: here the complementarity lies in General Motors getting access to the Japanese car company’s manufacturing expertise, while Toyota obtains the American car company’s local mar- keting knowledge.

Figure 11.4 Strategic alliance motives

Scale alliance

Collusive alliance Complementary alliance

Access alliance

A

A

A

B

A

B B

B Inputs

Inputs

Outputs

Outputs Outputs

Outputs

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● Collusive alliances. Occasionally organisations secretly collude together in order to increase their market power. By combining together into cartels, they reduce competition in the marketplace, enabling them to extract higher prices from their customers or lower prices from suppliers. Such collusive cartels amongst for-profit businesses are generally illegal, so there is no public agreement between them (hence the absence of brackets join- ing the two collusive organisations in Figure 11.4) and regulators will act to discourage this activity. For instance, mobile phone operators are often accused of collusive behav- ior. In 2012, Thailand’s three largest mobile phone operators bid 41.63bn baht (€1.0bn, $1.3bn) for a 3G license, just 2.8 per cent higher than the minimum price, giving rise to criticism that they had colluded. In not-for profit sectors, collusive alliances do take place and they may also be justified politically in sensitive for-profit industries such as defence or aerospace due to national interests and where the costs of development are far greater than an individual firm can sustain.

It can be seen that strategic alliances, like M&A, have mixed motives. Cooperation is often a good thing, but it is important to be aware of collusive motivations. These are likely to work against the interests of other competitors, customers and suppliers.

11.4.3 Strategic alliance processes

Like M&A, strategic alliances need to be understood as processes unfolding over time. Many alliances are relatively short lived although there are examples of some which last for very long periods indeed. For example, General Electric (USA) and SNECMA (France) have been partners since 1974 in a continuous alliance for the development and production of small aero-engines – this arrangement has been recently extended to 2040. The needs and capabilities of the partners in a long-standing alliance such as this are bound to change over time. However, the absence of full ownership means that emerging differences cannot simply be reconciled by managerial authority; they have to be negotiated between independent partners. This lack of control by one side or the other means the managerial processes in alliances are particularly demanding. The management challenges, moreover, will change over time.

The fact that neither partner is in control, while alliances must typically be man- aged over time, highlights the importance of two themes in the various stages of the alliance process:

● Co-evolution. Rather than thinking of strategic alliances as fixed at a particular point of time, they are better seen as co-evolutionary processes.25 The concept of co-evolution under- lines the way in which partners, strategies, and capabilities need to evolve in harmony in order to reflect constantly changing environments. As they change, they need realignment so that they can evolve in harmony. A co-evolutionary perspective on alliances therefore places the emphasis on flexibility and change. At completion, an alliance is unlikely to be the same as envisaged at the start.

● Trust. Given the probable co-evolutionary nature of alliances, and the lack of control of one partner over the other, trust becomes highly important to the success of alliances over time.26 This comprises two parts: structural (which refers to the expectation that a partner will not act opportunistically) and behavioural (the degree of confidence a firm has in its partner’s reliability and integrity). All future possibilities cannot be specified in the initial alliance contract. Each partner will have made investments that are vulnerable

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to the selfish behaviour of the other. This implies the need for partners to behave in a trustworthy fashion through the whole lifetime of the alliance. Trust in a relationship is something that has to be continuously earned. Trust is often particularly fragile in alli- ances between the public and private sectors, where the profit motive is suspect on one side, and sudden shifts in political agendas are feared on the other.

The themes of trust and co-evolution surface in various ways at different stages in the lifespan of a strategic alliance. Figure 11.5 provides a simple stage model of strategic alliance evo- lution. The amount of committed resources changes at each stage, but issues of trust and co-evolution recur throughout:

● Courtship. First there is the initial process of courting potential partners, where the main resource commitment is managerial time. This courtship process should not be rushed, as the willingness of both partners is required. Similar criteria apply to alliances at this stage as to acquisitions. Each partner has to see a strategic fit, according to the rationales in Section 11.3.2. Equally, each partner has to see an organisational fit. Organisational fit can be considered as for acquisitions (Section 11.3.4). However, because alliances do not entail the same degree of control as acquisitions, mutual trust between partners will need to be particularly strong right from the outset.

● Negotiation. Partners need of course to negotiate carefully their mutual roles at the outset. In equity alliances, the partners also have to negotiate the proportion of ownership each will have in the final joint venture, the profit share and managerial responsibilities. There is likely to be a significant commitment of managerial time at this stage, as it is important to get initial contracts clear and correct and it is worth spending time working out how dis- putes during the life of the alliance will be resolved. Although the negotiation of ownership proportions in a joint venture is similar to the valuation process in acquisitions, strategic alliance contracts generally involve a great deal more. Key behaviours required of each part- ner need to be specified upfront. However, a ruthless negotiation style can also damage trust going forward. Moreover, co-evolution implies the need to anticipate change. In an acquired

Figure 11.5 Alliance evolution Source: Adapted from E. Murray and J. Mahon, ‘Strategic alliances: gateway to the New Europe’, Long Range Planning, vol. 26 (1993), p. 109, with permission from Elsevier.

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unit, it is possible to make adjustments simply by managerial authority. In alliances, initial contracts may be considered binding even when starting conditions have changed. It is wise to include an option for renegotiating initial terms right at the outset.

● Start-up. This involves considerable investment of material and human resources and trust is very important. First, the initial operation of the alliance puts the original alliance agreements to the test. Informal adjustments to working realities are likely to be required. Also, people from outside the original negotiation team are typically now obliged to work together on a day-to-day basis. They may not have the same understanding of the alliance as those who initiated it. Without the mutual trust to make adjustments and smooth misunderstandings, the alliance is liable to break up. This early period in an alliance’s evolution is the one with the highest rate of failure.

● Maintenance. This refers to the ongoing operation of the strategic alliance, with increasing resources likely to be committed. The lesson of co-evolution is that alliance maintenance is not a simple matter of stability. Alliances have to be actively managed to allow for changing external circumstances. The internal dynamics of the partnership are likely to evolve as well as the partners build experience. Here again trust is extremely important. Gary Hamel has warned that alliances often become ‘competitions for com- petence.’27 Because partners are interacting closely, they can begin to learn each other’s particular competences. This learning can develop into a competition for competence, with the partner that learns the fastest becoming the more powerful. The more powerful partner may consequently be able to renegotiate the terms in its favour or even break up the alliance and go it alone. If, on the other hand, the partners wish to maintain their strategic alliance, trustworthy behaviour that does not threaten the other partner’s competence is essential to maintaining the cooperative relationships necessary for the day-to-day working of the alliance.

● Termination. Often an alliance will have had an agreed time span or purpose right from the start, so termination is a matter of completion rather than failure. Here separation is amicable. Sometimes the alliance has been so successful that the partners will wish to extend it by agreeing a new alliance between themselves, committing still more resources. Sometimes too the alliance will have been more of a success for one party than the other, with one partner wishing to buy the other’s share in order to commit fully, while the other partner decides to sell out. The sale of one party’s interest need not be a sign of failure as their strategic agenda may have changed since alliance formation. However, sometimes it can end in bitter divorce as in the Bharti–Walmart break-up with law suits and counter law suits (see Illustration 11.4). Termination needs to be managed carefully, therefore. Co-evolution implies that mutual trust is likely to be valuable after the completion of any particular partnership. Partners may be engaged in several different joint projects at the same time. For example, Cisco and IBM are partners on multiple simultaneous projects in wireless communications, IT security, data centres and data storage. The partners may need to come together again for new projects in the future. Thus Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens have had mobile telephone technology joint projects since the mid-1990s. Main- taining mutual trust in the termination stage is vital if partners are to co-evolve through generations of multiple projects.

Like M&A, alliances exhibit high rates of failure of up to 70 per cent where they fail to meet the goals of parent companies.28 There is some evidence that prior experience with joint ventures helps overall performance especially if an alliance capability is cre- ated.29 It may take many years to gradually introduce alliance management processes. For an alliance capability to succeed there needs to be consistent sponsorship and sup- port from top management.

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ILLUSTRaTION 11.4

Co-evolution is not easy, as Indian and american companies discover.

After a seven-year partnership, Indian retailer Bharti Enterprises and US giant Walmart issued a terse state- ment at the end of 2013, that their ambitious joint ven- ture was over and their retail dreams would be pursued independently. This surprised commentators as Walmart had been campaigning for the Indian Government to allow 51 per cent foreign holding in multi-brand retail. 1

Formed in 2007, the 50:50 joint venture’s purpose was to build and operate cash and carry superstores in India under the name Best Price Modern Wholesale to sell to hotels, canteens and neighbourhood stores. Twenty superstores were built jointly in major cities such as Amritsar, Zirakpur, Jalandhar, Kota, Bhopal and Ralpur. They identified store locations collaboratively through real estate consultant Cedar Support Services. Independently Bharti ran ‘Easy Day’, a 212-store multi-brand retail chain.

However, Bharti–Walmart had been going through a rough patch. Retail business entails high costs and narrow margins in India and most big retailers lose money. Bharti–Walmart losses increased 34 per cent from 2011 to 2012 to Rs 372 crore ($59.5m, £41.4m, €52.7m). Although the Government had made regula- tory changes/clarifications, allowing foreign supermar- kets to take majority ownership of local operations in a market of 1.2 billion people worth $500bn, 90 per cent of trade was still being done at neighbourhood shops. No global supermarket chain had applied to enter the market due to regulatory uncertainty and a condition that multi-brand retailers must source 30 per cent of products locally. This deterred furniture retailer IKEA, as its in-store cafés would make it ‘multi-brand’. For Walmart sourcing local textiles and handicrafts might be easy but not electronics. Also some politi- cians were calling for reversing retail reforms – ‘we don’t want Walmarts to come’.

In addition, bribery allegations were aimed at Walmart. Its $100m loan to Cedar, Bharti’s company, was investigated by the government as breaking for- eign investment rules, that 50 per cent of investment must be in back-end infrastructure. Walmart thought it was complying, but subsequent government clari- fication stated this meant in green-field assets not a loan. Walmart was already involved in a global review

of corruption after the New York Times highlighted bribery at Mexican, Brazilian and Chinese operations, 2 and India was highlighted as a high corruption risk. In November, Bharti–Walmart suspended employees, including Raj Jain, Chief Finance Officer, during an internal investigation into bribery allegations. This forced the company to put its Indian expansion plans on hold, straining relationships between the two com- panies. Subsequently, Bharti Enterprises made Jain an advisor to its retail division.

Elsewhere, Bharti Airtel, Bharti Enterprises’ flag- ship operation and India’s biggest mobile operator, was struggling with $12bn of debt. After a 14th consecutive quarter of declining profits, Bharti Enterprises wanted to consolidate its position and focus more on Bharti Airtel. Meanwhile, Walmart was aware of a fast-recovering US economy and rapid growth in China where it owned 51 per cent of Yihaodian, an online grocery retailer.

Ending Bharti–Walmart, 3 cost Walmart dear with a net loss of $151m. Now Walmart and Bharti are try- ing to grow their individual Indian businesses; Bharti investing in ‘Easyday’ whilst Walmart, without an ally in Asia’s third largest economy, has invested an additional 13.3bn rupees ($219m) in its India operations.

Notes: 1. 100 per cent ownership of single brand retail was already allowed. 2. The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act forbids American firms from

paying bribes. 3. The joint venture termination has been hailed as a victory for Indian

small traders.

Sources: ‘The Bharti-Walmart breakup – where does FDI in Indian go next?’ Knowledge@Wharton; W. Loeb, ‘Walmart: what happened in India,’ Forbes, 13 October 2015; Bharti Wal-Mart end joint ven- ture, The Indian Times, 10 October 2013; S.Shankar, ‘Wal-Mart paid nearly to $334m to end Indian partnership with Bharti Enterprises, incurred loss of $151m: Annual Report’, International Business Times, 28 April 2014.

Bharti–Walmart break up

Question 1 Why did the Bharti–Walmart joint venture

break down?

2 What issues should Walmart now take into account pursuing its Indian strategy?

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11.5 COMpaRING aCQUISITIONS, aLLIaNCeS aND ORGaNIC DeVeLOpMeNT

It is clear that all three methods of M&A, strategic alliances and organic development have their own advantages and disadvantages. There are also some similarities. This section first considers criteria for choosing between the three methods, and then draws together some key success factors for M&A and alliances.

11.5.1 Buy, ally or DIY?

A large proportion, perhaps as much as half of M&A and strategic alliances, fail. Acqui- sitions can go wrong because of excessive initial valuations, exaggerated expectations of strategic fit, underestimated problems of organisational fit and all the other issues pointed to in this chapter. Alliances also suffer from miscalculations in terms of strategic and organisa- tional fit, but, given the lack of control on either side, have their own particular issues of trust and co-evolution as well. With these high failure rates, acquisitions and alliances need to be considered cautiously alongside the default option of organic development (do-it-yourself).

The best approach will differ according to circumstances. Figure 11.6 presents a ‘buy, ally or DIY’ matrix summarising four key factors that can help in choosing between acquisitions, alliances and organic development:30

● Urgency. Acquisitions are a rapid method for pursuing a strategy. Illustration 11.2 shows how Google expanded rapidly through making many acquisitions – something that might have taken far longer if attempted organically. Alliances too may accelerate strategy delivery by accessing additional resources or skills, though usually less quickly than a simple acquisition. Typically organic development (DIY) is slowest: everything has to be made from scratch.

● Uncertainty. It is often better to choose the alliance route where there is high uncertainty in terms of the markets or technologies involved. On the upside, if the markets or technologies

Figure 11.6 Buy, ally or DIY matrix

Buy

High urgency Fast

Failures potentially saleable

Failures likely

unsaleable

Culture and valuation problems

Avoid buying whole

company

Ally just with

relevant partner unit

Develop in new venture

unit

Culture and control problems

Cultural consistency

Share losses

and retain buy option

Fast Slow

High uncertainty

Soft capabilities important

Highly modular

capabilities

Ally DlY

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turn out to be a success, it might be possible to turn the alliance into a full acquisition, espe- cially if a buy option has been included in the initial alliance contract. If the venture turns out a failure, then at least the loss is shared with the alliance partner. Acquisitions may also be resold if they fail but often at a much lower price than the original purchase. On the other hand, a failed organic development might have to be written off entirely, with no sale value, because the business unit involved has never been on the market beforehand.

● Type of capabilities. Acquisitions work best when the desired capabilities (resources or competences) are ‘hard’, for example physical investments in manufacturing facilities. Hard resources such as factories are easier to put a value on in the bidding process than ‘soft’ resources such as people or brands. Hard resources are also typically eas- ier to control post-acquisition than people and skills. If Anbang’s bid for Starwood (see Illustration 11.1) is entirely about real estate acquisition, then cultural difficulties are likely to be minimal. However greater ‘soft’ integration might pose the risk of signif- icant cultural problems. Sometimes too the acquiring company’s own image can tarnish the brand image of the target company. Acquisition of soft resources and competences should be approached with great caution. Indeed, the DIY organic method is typically the most effective with sensitive soft capabilities such as people. Internal ventures are likely to be culturally consistent at least. Even alliances can involve culture clashes between people from the two sides, and it is harder to control an alliance partner than an acquired unit.

● Modularity of capabilities. If the sought-after capabilities are highly modular, in other words they are distributed in clearly distinct sections or divisions of the proposed partners, then an alliance tends to make sense. A joint venture linking just the relevant sections of each partner can be formed, leaving each to run the rest of its businesses independently. There is no need to buy the whole of the other organisation. An acquisition can be prob- lematic if it means buying the whole company, not just the modules that the acquirer is interested in. The DIY organic method can also be effective under conditions of modu- larity, as the new business can be developed under the umbrella of a distinct ‘new venture division’ (see Section 10.5.2), rather than embroiling the whole organisation.

Of course, the choice between the three options of buy, ally and DIY is not unconstrained. Frequently there are no suitable acquisition targets or alliance partners available. One prob- lem for voluntary organisations and charities is that the changes of ownership involved in M&A are much harder to achieve than in the private sector, so that their options are likely to be restricted to alliances or organic development in any case. The key message of Figure 11.6 remains nonetheless: it is important to weigh up the available options systematically and to avoid favouring one or the other without careful analysis.

11.5.2 Key success factors

Figure 11.6 indicates that, despite high failure rates, M&A and strategic alliances can still be the best option in certain circumstances. The question then is how to manage M&A and alliances as effectively as possible.

Strategic fit is critical in both M&A and alliances. The target or the partner should suit the desired strategy. As in Section 11.3.4, it is very easy to overestimate synergies – and neglect negative synergies – in alliances as well as M&A. However, organisational fit is vital as well, in both cases. In particular, cultural differences are hard to manage, especially where people resources are important. Because of the lack of control, organisational fit issues are liable to be even harder to manage in alliances than in acquisitions, where the ownership rights of the buyer at least provide some managerial authority. Valuation likewise is a crucial issue in both

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M&A and equity alliances. Acquisitions are liable to the ‘winner’s curse’ ( Section  11.3.4 ) of excessive valuation, particularly where there have been bid battles between competitors. But even alliance partners need to assess their relative contributions accurately in order to ensure that they do not commit too many resources with too little return and too little control.

M&A and alliances each raise some very distinct issues to manage. At the start of the pro- cess, alliances rely on courtship between willing partners, whereas that need not be the same for M&A. Mergers do require mutual willingness of course, but, if negotiations go poorly, there often remains the option of the hostile takeover bid. The process of a hostile bid is principally about persuading shareholders rather than talking with the target’s managers. In M&A, a crucial issue is the right approach to integration: absorption, preservation, symbio- sis, intensive care, re-orientation. In strategic alliances, the option to fully integrate the two partners into a single whole does not exist. Rather the task is the continued maintenance of a partnership between independent organisations that must co-evolve. Finally, divestiture of acquired units and the termination of alliances tend to differ. Divestitures are typically one-off transactions with purchasers, with limited consequences for future relationships. On the other hand, the way in which alliances are terminated may have repercussions for important future relationships, as new projects and simultaneous projects often involve the same partners. In sum, it can be seen that the necessity for courtship, co-evolution and sensitive termination fre- quently makes the strategic alliance process a much more delicate one than simple acquisition.

ThINKING DIFFeReNTLY

how to create value from acquisitions.

Conventional wisdom often emphasises the impor- tance of acquiring resources and capabilities (see Sec- tion  11.3.3 ) in order to create value for the acquirer and to improve its future competitive advantage. Observers generally agree, however, that most acqui- sitions create little or no value. 31 Even serial acquirers might be expected to perform better than other acquir- ers, as they have more deal experience, and yet the evidence is not consistent. 32 How might this situation be improved? Research into strategic alliances shows firms with an alliance capability 33 achieve greater success. M&A researchers are therefore examining whether developing an M&A capability, an M&A func- tion, can have a positive impact on M&A performance.

A M&A function’s tasks include general strategic decisions via information gathering and analysis, tech- nical execution including target investigation (due dil- igence), negotiation skills and planning for integration before transacting a deal. To achieve these tasks, the M&A function collects the firm’s M&A data, defines a formalised M&A process, developing checklists and templates, establishes M&A committees and round- tables to collect and distribute information, applies

accumulated knowledge to transactions and estab- lishes a central, company-wide steering committee to support specific transactions. The M&A function may also be involved in subsequent acquisition integration. Establishing an M&A function enables a firm’s M&A knowledge and accumulated experience to be cap- tured. M&A capabilities are developed through artic- ulation, codification, sharing and internalising M&A learning. This allows a firm to be proactive, rather than reactive, about acquisitions and act as a clearing house for potential targets. It might also provide acquisition ideas and have professional know-how for transacting deals. The value of developing acquiring as a capabil- ity is supported by recent research showing an M&A function improves M&A performance. 34

From acquiring capabilities to acquiring as capability

Question What are the arguments for and against using an M&A function in post-acquisition integration?

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SUMMaRY ● There are three broad methods for pursuing a growth strategy: M&A, strategic alliances and organic

development.

● Organic development can be either continuous or radical. Radical organic development is termed corporate entrepreneurship.

● Acquisitions can be hostile or friendly. Motives for M&A can be strategic, financial or managerial.

● The acquisition process includes target choice, valuation and integration.

● Post-acquisition integration depends upon levels of strategic and organisational fit.

● Strategic alliances can be equity or non-equity. Key motives for strategic alliances include scale, access, complementarity and collusion.

● The strategic alliance process relies on co-evolution and trust.

● The choice between acquisition, alliance and organic methods is influenced by four key factors: urgency, uncertainty, type of capabilities and modularity of capabilities.

WORK aSSIGNMeNTS ✱ Denotes more advanced work assignments. * Refers to a case study in the Text and Cases edition.

11.1 Write a short (about ten lines) statement to a chief executive who has asked you to advise whether or not the company should develop through M&A. Write a similar statement to a chief executive of a hospital who is considering possible mergers with other hospitals.

11.2✱ For a recently announced acquisition, track the share prices (using www.bigcharts.com for example) of both the acquiring firm and the target firm in the period surrounding the bid? What do you conclude from the behaviour of the share prices about how investors regard the bid. Which company’s investors are likely to benefit more?

11.3✱ For a recently announced acquisition, or for the acquisition of Argos by Sainsbury in the end of chapter case, or Nest by Google (Illustration 11.2), explain which post-acquisition integration approach might be most appropriate in these situations and why other integration approaches may be less effective.

11.4✱ With reference to either the contested bid for Starwood (Illustration 11.1), SABMiller or AB InBev (in the Megabrew* case), the acquisition of Cadbury by Kraft (Mondelez International*), or end of chapter case ‘Future proof’, explain why, when the objectives are the mutual creation of value, acquirers chose to make acquisitions rather than alliances.

11.5 Which development approach is a family-owned company likely to prefer? Explain your reasoning.

Integrative assignment

11.6✱ With so many M&A failing, explain why managers continue to transact these deals? In particular, consider alternative methods for strategic re-alignment that may be available to an organisation as well as the possible consequences of a company not using M&A. Now interpret your answer in terms of all the stakeholders who may be affected by an M&A transaction. What conclusions can you draw?

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REFERENCES

ReCOMMeNDeD KeY ReaDINGS

● A comprehensive book on M&A is S. Sudarsanam, Creat- ing value from M&A, the challenges, 2nd edn, FT Prentice Hall, 2010. For some alternative perspectives, see the col- lection by D. N. Angwin (ed.), M&A, Blackwell, 2007.

● A useful book on strategic alliances is J. Child, D. Faulkner and S. Tallman, Cooperative Strategy: Managing

Alliances, Networks and Joint Ventures, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 2005.

● A book which contrasts the benefits of different modes of expansion is L. Capron and W. Mitchell, Build, Buy, Borrow: Solving the growth dilemma, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

ReFeReNCeS

1. P. Sharma and J. Chrisman, ‘Towards a reconciliation of the definitional issues in the field of corporate entrepreneur- ship’, Entrepreneurial Theory and Practice, Spring (1998), pp. 11–27; D. Garvin and L. Levesque, ‘Meeting the challenge of corporate entrepreneurship’, Harvard Business Review, October (2006), pp. 102–12.

2. Financial Times, 29th February 2012. It is worth noting that the number of deals only fell to 41,000, which suggests that M&A is an important and constant way in which businesses adjust to changing contexts.

3. D.N. Angwin, ‘Motive archetypes in mergers and acquisitions (M&A): the implications of a configurational approach to performance’, Advances in Mergers and Acquisitions, vol. 6 (2007), pp. 77–105. A useful conceptual model of motives and mitigating variables is J. Haleblian, C.E. Devers, G. McNamara, M.A. Carpenter and R.B. Davison, ‘Taking stock of what we know about mergers and acquisitions: a review and research agenda’, Journal of Management, vol. 35 (2009), pp. 469–502.

4. This adapts J. Bower, ‘Not all M&As are alike – and that matters’, Harvard Business Review, March 2001, pp. 93–101.

5. M. Hayward and D. Hambrick, ‘Explaining the premiums paid for large acquisitions: evidence of CEO hubris’, Adminis- trative Science Quarterly, vol. 42 (1997), pp. 103–27. J-Y. Kim, J. Haleblian, and S. Finkelstein, ‘When firms are desperate to grow via acquisition: the effect of growth patterns and acqui- sition experience on acquisition premiums’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1 (2011), pp. 26–60.

6. C.M. Christensen, R. Alton, C. Rising and A.Waldeck, ‘The big idea: the M&A playbook’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 89, no. 3 (2011) reference a number of studies showing high failure rates in acquisitions. The study by S.B. Moeller, F.P. Schlingemann and R.M. Stultz, ‘Wealth destruction on a massive scale: a study of acquiring firm returns in the recent merger wave’, Journal of Finance, vol. LX, no. 2 (2005), pp. 757–82, suggests greater performance variation based on timing and size effects.

7. This builds on D. Jemison and S. Sitkin, ‘Corporate acqui- sitions: a process perspective’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (1986), pp. 145–63.

8. J.M. Shaver, ‘A paradox of synergy: contagion and capacity effects in mergers and acquisitions’, Academy of Manage- ment Review, vol. 31, no. 4 (2006), pp. 962–78.

9. See J. Child, D. Faulkner and R. Pitkethly, The Management of International Acquisitions, Oxford University Press, 2001.

10. A useful discussion of valuation methods in acquisitions is in Chapter 9 of D. Sadtler, D. Smith and A. Campbell, Smarter Acquisitions, Prentice Hall, 2008.

11. N. Varaiya and K. Ferris, ‘Overpaying in corporate take- overs: the winner’s curse’, Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 43, no. 3 (1987), pp. 64–70.

12. P. Haspeslagh and D. Jemison, Managing Acquisitions: Creating Value through Corporate Renewal, Free Press, 1991; P. Puranam, H. Singh and S. Chaudhuri, ‘Integrat- ing acquired capabilities: when structural integration is (un)necessary’, Organization Science, vol. 20, no. 2 (2009), pp. 313–28.

13. G. Stahl and A. Voigt, ‘Do cultural differences matter in mergers and acquisitions? A tentative model and examina- tion’, Organization Science, vol. 19, no. 1 (2008), pp. 160–78.

14. D.N. Angwin and M. Meadows, ‘New integration strategies for post acquisition management’, Long Range Planning, vol. 15, August (2015), pp. 235–51.

15. D.N. Angwin and M. Meadows, ‘The choice of insider or outsider top executives in acquired companies’, Long Range Planning, vol. 37 (2009), pp. 239–57.

16. D.N. Angwin and M. Meadows, ‘Acquiring poorly perform- ing companies during recession’, Journal of General Man- agement, vol. 38, no. 1 (2012), pp. 1–22.

17. K. Ellis, T. Reus and B. Lamont, ‘The effects of procedural and informational justice in the integration of related acquisitions’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 30 (2009), pp. 137–61.

18. A. Nadolska and Harry G. Barkema, ‘Good learners: how top management teams affect the success and frequency of acquisitions’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 35, no. 10 (2014), pp. 1483–507.

19. R. Uhlaner and A. West, ‘Running a winning M&A shop’, McKinsey Quarterly, March 2008, pp. 106–12.

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20. L. Dranikoff, T. Koller and A. Schneider, ‘Divesture: strat- egy’s missing link’, Harvard Business Review, May 2002, pp. 75–83 and M. Brauer, ‘What have we acquired and what should we acquire in divesture research? A review and research agenda’, Journal of Management, vol. 32, no. 6 (2006), pp. 751–85. H. Berry, ‘When do firms divest foreign operations?’ Organization Science, vol. 24, no.1, January/ February 2013, pp. 246–61. J. Xia and S. Li, ‘The divestiture of acquired subunits: A resource dependence approach’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 34, no. 2 (2013), pp. 131–48.

21. Andersen Consulting, Dispelling the Myths of Strategic Alli- ances, 1999.

22. Over 80 per cent of Fortune 1000 CEOs believe that alli- ances would account for 26 per cent of their companies’ revenue in 2007–8, P. Kale, H. Singh and J. Bell, ‘Relating well: building capabilities for sustaining alliance net- works’, in P. Kleindorfer and Y. Wind (eds), The Network Challenge, London, Pearson, 2009.

23. R. Bresser, ‘Matching collective and competitive strategies’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 375–85.

24. J. Dyer, Collaborative Advantage, Oxford University Press, 2000.

25. A. Inkpen and S. Curral, ‘The coevolution of trust, control, and learning in joint ventures’, Organization Science, vol. 15, no. 5 (2004), pp. 586–99; R. ul-Huq, Alliances and Co-evolution in the Banking Sector, Palgrave, 2005.

26. A. Arino and J. de la Torre, ‘Relational quality: manag- ing trust in corporate alliances’, California Management Review, vol. 44, no. 1 (2001), pp. 109–31.

27. G. Hamel, Alliance Advantage: the Art of Creating Value through Partnering, Harvard Business School Press, 1998.

28. R. Lunnan and S. Haugland, ‘Predicting and measuring alli- ance performance: a multidimensional analysis’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 29, no. 5 (2008), pp. 638–58.

29. P. Kale and H. Singh, ‘Managing strategic alliances: what do we know now and where do we go from here?’ Acad- emy of Management Perspectives, vol. 23, no.3 (2009), pp. 25–62.

30. This draws on J. Dyer, P. Kale and H. Singh, ‘When to ally and when to acquire?’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 82, no. 7/8 (2004), pp. 108–15, and X. Yin and M. Shanley, ‘Industry determinants of the merger versus alliance decision’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 31, no. 2 (2008), pp. 473–91.

31. See Section (11.3.3) and N. Aktas, E. de Bodt and R. Roll, ‘Learning, hubris and corporate serial acquisitions’, Journal of Corporate Finance, vol. 15, no. 5 (2009), pp. 543–61; D.R. King, D.R. Dalton, C.M. Daily and J.G. Covin, ‘Meta-analysis of post-acquisition perfor- mance: indications of unidentified moderators’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 25, no. 2 (2004), pp. 187–200.

32. S.B. Moeller, F.P. Schlingemann and R.M. Stultz, ‘Wealth destruction on a massive scale: a study of acquiring firm returns in the recent merger wave’, Journal of Finance, vol. LX, no. 2 (2005), pp. 757–82.

33. P. Kale and H. Singh, ‘Building firm capabilities through learning: the role of the alliance learning process in alliance capability and firm level success, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 28, no. 10 (2007), pp. 981–1000.

34. A. Trichterborn, D. zu Knyphausen-Aufsess and L. Schweizer, ‘How to improve acquisition performance. The role of a ded- icated M&A function, M&A learning process, and M&A capability’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 37, no. 4 (2010), pp. 463–73.

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CaSe eXaMpLe

Market analysts were stunned when UK supermarket, Sainsbury, announced it was to acquire Argos, a UK general merchandiser for £1.4bn (€1.9bn, $2.1bn). Why would the UK’s second largest supermarket want to buy a company famous for its ‘laminated book of dreams’ 1 , its plastic-coated product catalogue? Some analysts said it made no strategic sense whatsoever.

Sainsbury

Sainsbury was the second largest of the big four super- markets in the UK with 1,304 stores, 161,000 employees and £26bn (€31.2bn, $39bn) of sales for the year to December 2015. Sainsbury held 16.8 per cent of the entire UK food retail market, with the UK’s largest retailer Tesco holding 29 per cent, Morrison 11 per cent and Asda 17 per cent. In the run up to Christmas, only Sains- bury, with its relatively prosperous customers, showed sustained increase in sales in a sector which historically had shown slow growth. Although the big four dominated the industry, smaller deep discounters, Aldi and Lidl, had been winning customers at a rapid rate. With sales up 18.9 per cent and 15.1 per cent respectively, Aldi and Lidl had now captured 10 per cent of the market. Also better off customers were turning to Marks & Spencer and Waitrose (5.2 per cent). By March 2016, the supermarket sector had shown a 2 per cent fall in sales overall, year on year, as customers spent less per average shopping trip.

The decline in sales had a mixed effect on the big four. Tesco had experienced a sustained decline in sales and a massive 55 per cent fall, to £345m, in half-year profits to October 2015. However by early 2016, Tesco had begun to turn the corner, reducing a further fore- casted fall from 1.8 per cent to 0.8 per cent with renewed focus on price promotions, customer service and product availability even after cutting the number of stores by 50. Morrison had also experienced a heavy fall in profits and a reduction in sales, while Asda reported its worst sales performance in 20 years as a result of the bitter price war against the deep discounters and a resurging Tesco, although managing to increase its operating profit. Sains- bury’s increase in sales, its narrowing of the gap between its prices and those of discounters and cutting back on 1100 product lines, helped it maintain good performance rather than relying on a heavy use of discount vouchers,

common in the sector. Although its year-end operating profits were down 18 per cent to £720m, Sainsbury’s share price remained buoyant to February 2016, whilst the other big supermarket share prices had fallen dra- matically. The UK food market remained difficult as food sales declined 1.6 per cent at the beginning of 2016 and the continued pressures on supermarkets caused analysts to predict the Big Four might soon become the Big Three.

In an attempt to reduce costs and woo customers, the supermarkets had embraced online shopping with mixed results. Morrison’s online business had grown strongly, but online purchases across the whole UK market accounted for just 5 per cent of total sales. People didn’t like to pay delivery fees, delivery slots were inconvenient and the food wasn’t always fresh. Indeed for most supermarkets, online transactions were not profitable as they had all the extra costs of picking the food, packing and delivering it. Food items required different temperatures and items were often fragile or bulky making the process more difficult and costly. Also setting up grocery online technology cost tens of millions of pounds and took years to return a profit as online only supermarket Ocado found out, making prof- its only after 15 years.

Reflecting on how Sainsbury would continue to com- pete CEO Mike Coupe remarked, ’We’re opening one or two stores a week for the next three years.’ 2 He also agreed that ‘Supermarkets had become too sterile, saying one size fits all is over. Each operator has to be different. In our case we have to be brilliant at being Sainsbury’s.’ 2 Sainsbury has long had deeply embedded values and goals put in place by its previous outstanding CEO Justin King. These defined the company’s aims and standards of behaviour to all employees. In this paternalistic company, supported by excellent training and having won awards for HR management, Sainsbury had an embedded ethos of quality throughout its operations that meant they could concentrate on providing fresh food and great service, with the best people in the business. Sainsbury is also working on customers being able to use their mobile phones to scan and pay. Electronic shopping lists are there to encourage customers to buy cheaper, cater for allergies and to keep a running total of what is spent. What Sainsbury would not do, said Mike Coupe, is ’to use technology for the sake of technology. It has to make the customer experience better.’ 2

Future-proofing business? Sainsbury acquires argos Duncan Angwin

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a new threat

While the supermarkets remained locked in a price war with no end in sight, struggling with margins and competing on protecting their profitability with supply chain, logistics and store closure programmes, a new threat loomed. Amazon had just launched Pantry – a next day delivery service which charged by the box. It was available to Amazon Prime Members for £79 a year. Although it currently only offered household essentials it was anticipated to be the precursor of a full grocery ser- vice – something it already offered in some parts of the USA. A step towards this aim occurred in February 2016 when a deal was struck with Morrison allowing Amazon customers to order hundreds of fresh and frozen food products online. This could herald a big threat to the other supermarkets as Amazon had the capacity to offer a vast range of products. However, alliances in the food retail industry were fairly infrequent and often problem- atic. The alliance between Waitrose and online retailer Ocado dissolved when they ended up in direct competi- tion with each other, with Ocado claiming only a third of its sales came from Waitrose own-label products and 25 per cent from the products of other suppliers. Ocado’s later agreement with Morrison was then renegotiated fol- lowing the latter’s tie up with Amazon.

argos

Famous for its telephone directory-sized laminated cat- alogues listing over 60,000 products, Argos is the UK’s largest general, non-food, merchandise retailer. With 840 stores in the UK and Ireland and 30,000 employees in 2016, it was the leading multi-channel retailer, allowing purchases of its products from a store, by website as ‘click-and-collect’, by telephone and catalogue ordering. Argos’s just-in-time logistics operations enabled local stores to offer a wide range of products without having to keep a permanent stock of inventory. It also owned a number of discount stores in France and Poland and had recently opened 50 Pep & Co stores in the UK under the banner ‘spend a little, get a lot’. Approximately half of Argos stores leases were due for renewal over the next four years.

Argos became vulnerable to a takeover approach after it reported a fall in sales of 2.2 per cent during the crucial Xmas period in 2015. In particular, sales were challenged in the highly competitive electronics market with decline in sales of video games consoles, computer tablets and white goods, such as washing machines. As a result, Argos issued a profits warning and several market commentators felt the company was in long-term structural decline.

Home Retail Group, the owners of Argos, had been turning the subsidiary around by making it into a digi- tal retailer, where the customer offering is as compel- ling on small screens as big screens, where the transition between devices and stores is seamless and everything promised online is delivered. Order something from Argos before 6pm and it is delivered by 10pm that same day, any day of the week, for £3.95. By March 2016, only 20 per cent of its stores had been transformed into places where customers used iPads to choose their products rather than laminated catalogues. However, 95 digital concessions had been introduced into Home Retail Group subsidiary, Homebase, a home improvement retailer, and ten into Sainsbury and these had helped bolster Argos’ overall sales, with growth rates of 5 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively, faster than other Argos stores. The fast track delivery service saw an 80 per cent increase in home delivery sales, and just before Christmas 2015 online sales overtook store sales and accounted for 62 per cent of Argos’ revenues. Most high street retailers averaged 35 per cent revenues.

The deal

By the time Sainsbury had purchased Home Retail Group, having seen off a South Africa competitor bid, the final price was £1.4bn, a premium of 73 per cent. Homebase was disposed of immediately, leaving Argos, and cash on Home Retail Group’s balance sheet and buy-now-pay-later Argos loans to be folded into the loan book in Sainsbury’s Bank.

The enlarged Sainsbury would offer 100,000 products from 2000 stores, with £28bn of sales and weekly visits from 25 million shoppers. In terms of general merchan- dise and clothes, Argos’ £4bn and Sainsbury’s £2bn sales was larger than John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and even Amazon UK (£5.3bn of sales 2015). Mike Coupe said ‘We can bake a bigger cake and do a better job for our customers than we can do as separate businesses’ and ‘Our customers want us to offer more choice, that choice to be faster than ever, driven by the rise of mobile phones and digital technology.’3

Realising the savings and benefits of the acquisition would cost £140m of additional capital expenditure in the first three years. In particular, integrating IT would be important. Argos did not have appropriate IT and sup- ply chain systems for different types of foods and would Sainsbury be prepared to adopt Argos’ systems for non- food retail? If two systems remained, however, the Sains- bury customer loyalty Nectar cards for instance would not work for Argos products. Nevertheless, Sainsbury said it would be able to achieve £140m annually in cost savings by 2019.

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FUTURE-PROOFING BUSINESS? SAINSBURY ACQUIRES ARGOS

Not all smooth sailing?

For a deal of this size the Competition Commission could still object to the enlarged group being too dominant in the toy and electrical markets. If an investigation was triggered, it might delay ownership and that could damage trading, and disposals might be needed to lessen Sains- bury’s market dominance.

Some analysts were openly sceptical about the deal, seeing Argos as a down-market brand, with stores hav- ing a poor appearance and insolent, poorly trained staff depressing customers. Argos had also issued a profits warning and was suffering a like-for-like decline in sales. They worried that Sainsbury’s management team could be distracted by the integration just when the supermarket sector was under huge strain. Also analysts remembered the acquisition of Safeway by Morrison that hit major inte- gration problems in terms of brand and IT. Running two IT systems in parallel heavily impacted on performance causing Morrisons to make its first ever loss. Morrisons’ systems were then retained, even though Safeway’s sys- tems were better, and did not scale well to the enlarged group, causing years of problems for subsequent CEOs.

An analyst at Shore Capital said he was openly torn about the takeover. ‘Buying synergies and central over- head savings seem relatively moderate to our minds and so the deal rests to a considerable degree upon revenue synergies, on which we are nervous.’4 Mike Coupe has dismissed these concerns saying that: ‘There’s limited risk from an execution point of view because it’s largely about property, a core strength of Sainsbury’s.’5

Yet independent retail veteran Richard Hyman remained sceptical: ‘Sainsbury’s and its rivals would be better off focusing their attention on their core business: food. However unexciting and old fashioned it may seem it’s the products that matter. The delivery system is a support act. There’s no uniqueness there. No customer is going to buy a delivery system. It’s what is being delivered which is the key. You’ve got to make sure it’s the optimum

quality and optimum price.’1 He also says, ‘In the weird world of the stock market, maybe this [deal] could put them into play, but it shouldn’t. Before this deal came along I was impressed by what I saw [of Sainsbury].’6 Maybe buying Argos is not future proofing Sainsbury?

Sources: www.argos.co.uk/about us; A. Armstrong, ‘Sainsbury’s Argos take- over is as cheap as a Fisher Price toy set’, The Telegraph, 2 February 2016; J. Bourke and M. Bow, ‘Sainsbury’s Argos deal dashed as billionaire makes £1.4bn rival bid’, The Independent, 20 February 2016; G. Hiscott, ‘Sains- bury’s takeover of Argos likely after drop in sales at high street chain’, The Mirror, 14 January 2016; M. Lewis, ‘Opinion: How could Sainsbury’s best integrate Argos’ technology?’ Retail Week, 12 February 2016; B. Marlow, ‘How merchandise could further derail £1.3bn “Argosbury” deal’, The Tele­ graph, 20 February 2016; S. Reid, ‘Which store is top of the supermarket performance league?’ The News, 9 March 2016.

Questions 1 Why did Sainsbury bid for Argos?

2 With reference to the post-acquisition integration matrix (see Figure 11.3) consider how Sainsbury might best integrate Argos?

3 With reference to the ‘buy, ally or DIY’ matrix (see Figure 11.6) consider whether the acquisition of Argos is the best strategy for Sainsbury?

References 1. K. Hope, ‘Why does Sainsbury’s want to buy Argos?’, BBC News, 1

February 2016. 2. C. Blackhurst, ‘Sainsbury’s Mike Coupe: “I’m not especially anxious

when things don’t go well”’, Management Today, 30 June 2015. 3. C. Johnston, ‘Sainsbury’s to “future-proof” with £1.3bn Argos deal’, BBC

News, 2 February 2016. 4. A. Armstrong, ‘Argos sales fall as Homebase enjoys a Christmas surge’,

Telegraph, 14 January 2016. 5. J. Davey and K. Holton, ‘Sainsbury’s bets on Argos takeover for digital

age’, Business, 2 February, 2016. 6. M. Vandevelde, ‘Sainsbury’s chief under pressure to deliver’, FT.com,

21 February 2016.

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eXpeRIeNCe LeNS In this view, strategy develops incrementally based on the past history and culture of the organisation and its members. So the set of strategic options to choose from is unlikely to be comprehensive and cultural factors can generate behaviours different from what might be expected on a simplistically rational point of view. You should therefore:

● Challenge standard responses : for example, just because a particular diversification option ( Chapter  8 ) or international entry mode ( Chapter  9 ) has always worked before, does not mean that the same should be done again.

● Respect cultural differences : in integrating acquisitions ( Chapter  11 ), cooperating with alliance partners ( Chap- ter  11 ) or going international ( Chapter  9 ), the experience lens suggests it is very important to take account of the other organisation’s history and culture, as well as more objective factors.

● Adjust competitor analysis : if experience shapes strategy, simple analyses of competitor interaction, as some- times in game theory ( Chapter  7 ), may need to be adjusted in order to avoid exaggerating the likely speed of competitors’ moves or making excessive assumptions about the rationality of their responses.

DeSIGN LeNS The design lens places high value on extensive information search and analysis for generating strategic options. Logical, optimal choices are important. The design lens therefore recommends you to:

● Consider all options : strategy choices should be made between a large initial range, with techniques such as the Ansoff growth matrix ( Section  8.2 ) used to generate options.

● Ensure fit between choice and purpose : preferred options should be checked carefully for consistency with stakeholders’ interests and goals ( Chapter  5 ).

● Maximise returns : the optimal choice is one that maximises the returns on investment, whether that is invest- ment of capital or effort ( Chapter  12 ).

The central concern of Part II has been the strategic choices available to organisations, including organic growth business strategy, diversification, internationalisation, new ventures and innovation, acquisitions and alliances. Although the chapters provide various rationales and evidence for these strategic choices, this book recognises that the decisions between them are often not wholly objective and rational. Indeed, the four contrasting ‘strategy lenses’ (introduced in the Commentary at the end of Part I) each propose very different expectations about strategic decisions. This Commentary applies the same four lenses to the issues raised in Part II, focused on strategic choices. The four lenses raise questions about how to generate the options for strategic choice, assumptions about other organisations, and what is likely to matter in the success of various options.

COMMENTARY ON

paRT II STRATEGIC CHOICES

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COMMENTARY ON PART II: STRATEGIC CHOICES

DISCOURSe LeNS According to this lens, the strategic options that rise to the surface will typically be shaped by the legitimate discourse of the organisation and the underlying self-interest of various managers. The discourse lens recognises the power of language. So you should:

● Watch your language : attend to discursive framing of your strategic options, recognising the emotional res- onance of labels such as ‘star’ and ‘dog’ in portfolio analyses for instance ( Chapter  8 ) and the different meanings such labels might have in various national cultures ( Chapter  9 ).

● Distrust others’ language : strategic options that draw heavily on apparently legitimate or fashionable discourses such as synergy ( Chapter  8 ), innovation and entrepreneurship ( Chapter  10 ) or partnership and ecosystems ( Chapter  11 ) should be probed particularly critically for shaky reasoning or self-interested motives

● Look out for managerial interests : the discourse with which strategic options are framed may hide managerial self-interest, especially in regard to strategies such as unrelated diversification ( Chapter  8 ) or aggressive acquisitions ( Chapter  11 ) that often perform badly for shareholders.

VaRIeTY LeNS The emphasis here is on the variety and spontaneity of strategic options and their possible origins in the organ- isational periphery. The variety lens is orientated towards innovation. Thus the variety lens encourages you to:

● Look beyond top management : from a variety lens point of view, the strategies generated by top management are liable to be limited, so you should look more broadly for ideas about strategic options, for instance by using ‘open innovation’ or ‘market pull’ approaches ( Chapter  10 ).

● Learn from acquisitions and partners : if the top has no monopoly of wisdom, exploring acquired units or alli- ance partners ( Chapter  11 ) for underappreciated initiatives or capabilities might uncover new strategic options going far beyond what was planned in the original acquisition or alliance.

● Expect surprises : in an environment liable to spontaneous innovation, you should be sensitive to the potential for sudden ‘disruptive innovations’ and consider holding a strong portfolio of ‘real options’ ( Chapter  10 )

This Commentary therefore reconsiders some of the issues of Part II in the light of the four strategy lenses. Note that:

● There is no suggestion here that any one of these lenses is better than the others. It is usually beneficial to explore strategic options using more than one lens, in order to get more than one point of view.

● For a deeper understanding of this Commentary, you might want to review the Part I Commentary, following Chapter  6 , which provides a fuller introduction of the four lenses, plus an illustrative case.

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Strategic position

Strategic choices

Strategy in action

Evaluating

OrganisingProcesses

Leadership and change Practice

This part explains:

● Criteria and techniques that can be used to evaluate organisational performance and strategic options.

● How strategies develop in organisations; in particular, the processes that may give rise to intended strategies or to emergent strategies.

● The way in which organisational structures and systems of control are important in organising for strategic success.

● The leadership and management of strategic change.

● Who strategists are and what they do in practice.

paRT III STRATEGY IN ACTION

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INTRODUCTION TO paRT III

The first two parts of the book have been concerned with how a strategist can think through the strategic position of an organisation and the strategic choices available to it. In this part of the book the focus moves to strategy in action. It is concerned with how a strategy actually takes shape in an organisation and what strategists actually do.

The next chapter explains ways in which managers can assess the performance of the stra- tegic options introduced in Part II and then evaluate alternatives. It stresses both economic and non-economic performance measures and then introduces three criteria to apply in mak- ing further choices. Suitability asks whether a strategy addresses the key issues relating to the opportunities and constraints an organisation faces. Acceptability asks whether a strategy meets the expectations of stakeholders. And feasibility invites an explicit consideration of whether a strategy could work in practice. In each case, tools and techniques of evaluation are provided, explained and illustrated.

Chapter  13 examines two broadly different explanations of how strategies actually develop in organisations. Do strategies come about in organisations through a sequence of first analysis and then implementation? In other words, do strategies develop on the basis of deliberate intent? Or is strategy more emergent, for example on the basis of people’s experience or as a result of responses to competitive action? And what are the implications of these different explanations for managing strategy?

Chapter  14 considers the relationship between strategy and how an organisation func- tions in terms of people working with each other within different structures and systems. These structures and systems may be formally established by management or may be more informal relationships; but they will all affect the organisation’s ability to deliver its strategy. The chapter considers how successful organising requires these various elements to work together in order to create mutually reinforcing configurations of structures and systems that are matched to an organisation’s strategies.

The development of a new strategy may also require significant change for an organisa- tion and this is the theme of Chapter  15 . The leadership of strategic change is examined, first by acknowledging that managing change is not the same in all organisations; in other words, change context matters. The chapter then examines different approaches to managing change, including styles of managing change and the variety of levers employed to manage strategic change. The chapter concludes by revisiting the importance of context to consider how different levers might be employed in different change contexts.

This part of the book then concludes by discussing what strategists themselves actually do. It examines three issues in the practice of strategy. The first is: who gets included in strategy-making activities? Participants in strategy-making can be managers at all levels, with consultants and planners too. Second, what are the activities that strategists actually do: these range fom selling strategic issues to strategy communications. Lastly, there are the kinds of methodologies that strategists use, including strategy workshops, projects, hypoth- esis testing and business plans.

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Strategy in action

Evaluating

OrganisingProcesses

Leadership and change Practice

12 EVALUATING STRATEGIES

Learning outcomes after reading this chapter you should be able to:

● Assess the performance outcomes of different strategies in terms of direct eco- nomic outcomes and overall organisational effectiveness.

● Assess performance and the need for new strategies using gap analysis. ● Employ three success criteria for evaluating strategic options: suitability, accepta-

bility and feasibility. ● For each of these success criteria, use a range of different techniques for evaluating

strategic options, both financial and non-financial.

acceptability p.387

feasibility p.399

gap analysis p.377

returns p.390

risk p.388

suitability p.380

Key terms

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12.1 INTRODUCTION

In June 2015, Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, installed a new Chief Executive Cees ‘t Hart. He replaced Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen who had presided over continued decline in annual profits before tax, 25 per cent fall in share price and continuous underperformance compared to its peers. How- ever, before departure Rasmussen noted that for the year 2014 Carlsberg had achieved organic net revenue growth of 2 per cent to €8.67bn (£6.9bn, $11.3) driven by strong Western Europe and Asia performance and expected it to rise significantly going forwards. Hart had to evaluate why the decline was occurring, what options were available and would be acceptable to stakeholders and which would stand the best chance of being implemented. Amongst the options Hart had to evaluate was whether to cut back on costs to protect the company from tighter regulation and recession in one of its key markets, Russia, and intensifying competition from merging competi- tors, or broaden its narrow geographic presence by making acquisitions in high growth markets. For Hart, there were two key questions therefore: what level of performance did he need to achieve, and what criteria should he use to evaluate his options?

This chapter is about assessing current organisational performance, evaluating different strategic options. It follows the focus in Part II on various strategic options, such as differen- tiation, diversification, internationalisation, innovation and acquisitions. Now it is time to consider how to judge these strategies. Managers have to assess how well their existing strat- egies are performing and evaluate alternatives. This chapter focuses on the use of systematic criteria and techniques for objective analysis – a rational ‘Design’ perspective (see the Strat- egy Lenses in the Commentary to Part I). Chapter 13 considers the place of these systematic criteria and techniques within the complex processes of strategy development as a whole.

In this chapter, we consider a range of organisational performance measures, both eco- nomic measures and broader measures of organisational effectiveness. We address the question of performance comparators: in other words, what should an organisation’s perfor- mance be compared to. We also introduce gap analysis as a tool for assessing departures from desired levels of performance. Gap analysis can be used as well to identify the scale of the strategic initiatives, major, hard to reverse organisational commitments, that may be needed in order to close the gap between actual and desired levels of performance. The chapter goes on to propose three criteria for evaluating possible strategic initiatives, summarised by the acronym SAFe: Suitability, Acceptability and Feasibility, with the small ‘e’ in the acronym standing for evaluation.

Figure 12.1 organises the key elements of this chapter. Here managers first assess per- formance; next they identify the extent of any gap between desired and actual or projected performance; finally they assess the strategic options for filling any such gap. The adopted options themselves eventually feed back into performance in the future.

Figure 12.1 Evaluating strategies

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12.2 ORGaNISaTIONaL peRFORMaNCe

There are many ways by which to measure organisational performance, with none having clear superiority. This section introduces a range of criteria, both direct economic measures and broader effectiveness measures. It goes on to consider the various comparisons against which performance may be assessed. It finally discusses gap analysis.

12.2.1 performance measures

We can distinguish between two basic approaches to performance: direct economic perfor- mance and overall organisational effectiveness.1

● Economic performance refers to direct measures of success in terms of economic out- comes. These economic outcomes have three main dimensions. First, there is perfor- mance in product markets: for example, sales growth or market share. Second, there are accounting measures of profitability, such as profit margin or return on capital employed (see Section 12.4.2 below). Finally, economic performance may be reflected in financial market measures such as movements in share price. These economic meas- ures may seem objective, but they can be conflicting and need careful interpretation. Sales growth, for example, may be achieved by cutting prices, thereby reducing profit margins. To return to the introductory Carlsberg example, the company was doing badly in profits and share price, but the organic net revenue growth measure was more positive. This potential for economic performance measures to point in different direc- tions suggests that economic performance is best evaluated by more than one measure. It is also why many organisations are now looking to more comprehensive measures of effectiveness as well.

● Effectiveness refers to a broader set of performance criteria than just economic, for example measures reflecting internal operational efficiency or measures relevant to stakeholders such as employees and external communities. One important broad measure of effectiveness is the balanced score card, which considers four perspectives on performance simultaneously.2 Thus the balanced scorecard considers the customer perspective, using measures such as customer satisfaction or product quality; the internal business perspective, for instance productivity measures or project man- agement measures; the innovation and learning perspective, measuring new product introductions or employee skills for example; and finally the financial perspective, focused typically on profitability or share-price performance. Another similarly broad measure of performance is the triple bottom line, which pays explicit atten- tion to corporate social responsibility and the environment. Thus the triple bottom line has three dimensions: economic measures of performance such as sales, profits and share price; social measures, such as employee training, health and safety and contributions to the local community; and finally environmental measures such as pollution, recycling and wastage targets. For example, the Dutch brewer Heineken publishes a sustainability report3 showing the company’s standing on the Dow Jones sustainability index and lists specific social metrics for employees (reducing accident frequency, training, employee volunteering) and environmental metrics (water usage, CO2 emissions and energy consumption). Both the balanced scorecard and the triple bottom line share a view that overall effectiveness depends not only on economic performance, but on a range of factors that support the long-term prosperity of the organisation.

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12.2.2 performance comparisons

When considering performance, it is important to be clear about what you are measuring against: in other words, performance relative to what? There are three main comparisons to consider:

● Organisational targets. A key set of performance criteria are management’s own targets, whether expressed in terms of overall vision and mission or more specific objectives, for instance economic outcomes such as sales growth or profitability. Investors are particu- larly sensitive to performance against financial criteria such as earnings targets. Failure to meet expectations set by these targets often leads to the dismissal of the organisation’s Chief Executive or Chief Financial Officer.4 Returning to the Carlsberg example at the start of this chapter, it was probably the long-term decline in financial performance that precipitated the retirement of CEO Rasmussen and the performance of Aviva that brought about Moss’s departure (see Illustration 12.1). Performance against organisational targets can be approached via gap analysis, as in Section 12.2.3 below.

● Trends over time. Investors and other stakeholders are clearly concerned about whether performance is improving or declining over time. Improvement may suggest good strategy and increasing momentum into the future. Decline may suggest poor strategy and the need for change. However, it is important to take a relevant time period for comparing trends: except in very fast changing markets, it is typically useful to examine trends over several years in order to smooth out short-run cyclical effects, for example. Note too that performance trends are rarely sustained. It has been shown that only about five per cent of firms are able to sustain superior performance for as long as ten years.5 From this per- spective, one predictor of future declines in performance is an extended period of good performance in preceding years.

● Comparator organisations. The final comparison is performance relative to other com- parable organisations, as in benchmarking (Section 4.4.4). Comparators are typically competitors but, where there are no competitors, or where it is useful to encourage new approaches, comparators can be other organisations doing equivalent things (for exam- ple, a utility company might compare its efficiency in billing and customer service with an insurance company). For established companies, it is often possible to compare with competitors’ performance using accounting measures such as profitability or sales growth. Again, the trend over an extended time period is generally useful. Similarly, it is possible for quoted companies to compare their share-price performance against that of specific competitors, or against an index of competitors in the same industry, or against the overall index for the stock market in which they are quoted (this is the stock market in which they are competing for investor support). A sustained decline in relative share price typically implies falling investor confidence in future performance. Note that comparison against individual star performers can often be misleading. Because financial returns are typically related to risk, high performers may simply have undertaken risky strategies, which it might be unwise to imitate.6 The results of firms that have undertaken similar strategies but finally gone bankrupt or been taken over are unavailable for comparison.

12.2.3 Gap analysis

Gap analysis compares actual or projected performance with desired performance.7 It is useful for identifying performance shortfalls (‘gaps’) and, when involving projections, can help in anticipating future problems. The size of the gap provides a guide to the extent to which strategy needs to be changed. Figure 12.2 shows a gap analysis where the vertical axis is some

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ILLUSTRaTION 12.1

In 2012, the CeO of aviva, a large insurance company, lost his job. Looking back from 2016, how fair were the accusations of sustained poor performance at the company?

Aviva is the UK’s largest insurance company, and the sixth largest in the world. Its chief executive between 2007 and 2012 was Andrew Moss, formerly the com- pany’s Chief Financial Officer. Under his leadership, the company had expanded strongly in Continental Europe, so that the region accounted for about 37 per cent of its insurance business by 2012.

Many observers were disappointed by the results, however. On becoming CEO, Moss had declared a target of doubling earnings per share by the end of 2012, from 48.5 pence in 2007 to 97 pence. In 2011, earning per share were just 5.8 pence. Moss had begun a process of disposing of less successful businesses. Nonetheless, between 2007 and 2012, Aviva’s shares steadily underperformed the key indexes of which it was a member, trailing the FTSE 100 index by 52 per cent and the FTSE 350 Insur- ance Industry index by 47 per cent over the whole period. Comparisons were often made with the Pru- dential, the UK’s third largest insurance company, against which Aviva had launched an unsuccessful acquisition bid in 2006. In the period since that bid, the Prudential had invested heavily in its Asian business, which accounted for more than 40 per cent of its customers by 2012. Since Moss’s depar- ture Aviva shares have gone sideways although the £5.6bn (€6.7bn, $8.4bn) takeover of rival Friends Life has greatly strengthened its position in the UK and European markets. The table shows the two companies’ sales and operating profits between the years 2007 and 2014.

Moss’s departure was not only put down to objective measures of performance, but also to an alienating style of interaction with investors and analysts. One financial analyst commented: ‘He was accused of being complacent, arrogant and out of touch. But in terms of strategy, what more could he really have done?’ Aviva’s chairman, Lord Sharman, defended his own record and that of his CEO, blaming results on the financial crisis since 2008 and disproportionate exposure to Europe’s struggling economies: ‘I’m not prepared to accept responsibility for the banking crisis or for the European debt crisis. Both have had very significant impacts on the company.’ Was Moss paying the price for failings that were outside his control, and that with a bit more personal charm he could have smoothed over?

Main sources : Financial Times, 30 April and 8 May 2012; Aviva and Prudential Annual Reports 2015.

Note : Aviva’s share price performance at the appointment of Moss fell nearly 70 per cent from 2007 to 2009, in line with competitors such as Prudential. However, since then Prudential has shown strong growth, more than quadrupling in price from 2009 to 2016 whereas Aviva’s share price barely recovered at all during the rest of Moss’s tenure, only then growing sluggishly. The acquisition of Friends Life injected new vigour into its shares, but now, one year later, the shares are settling back down to previous levels.

Poor performance?

Questions 1 Comment on the measures used to evaluate

Moss’s performance. What measures would you see as fair and appropriate?

2 Should Andrew Moss and Lord Sharman be held responsible for their strategic bet on European markets rather than Asian markets?

£bn 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Aviva sales 50.2 51.4 45.1 47.1 40.6 46.6 39.3 74.0 Prudential sales 18.1 18.8 20.0 24.2 25.3 29.1 30.5 32.8 Aviva operating profit

2.2 2.3 2.0 2.6 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.2

Prudential operating profit

1.2 1.3 1.6 1.9 2.1 2.5 3.0 3.2

Table Aviva and Prudential sales and operating profi ts

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measure of performance (for example, sales growth or profitability) and the horizontal axis shows time, both up to ‘today’ and into the future. The upper line represents the organ- isation’s desired performance, perhaps a set of targets or the standard set by competitor organisations. The lower line represents both achieved performance to today, and projected performance based on a continuation of the existing strategy into the future (this is nec- essarily an estimate). In Figure 12.2, there is already a gap between achieved and desired performance: performance is clearly unsatisfactory.

However, the gap in Figure 12.2 is projected to become even bigger on the basis of the existing strategy. Assuming ongoing commitment to the desired level of performance, the organisation clearly needs to adjust its existing strategy in order to close the gap. We shall introduce a number of ways to evaluate strategic options in these and equivalent circum- stances later in the chapter.

12.2.4 Complexities of performance analysis

Before considering strategy evaluation, we should underline the complex nature of perfor- mance analysis. We have already indicated how some measures might be contradictory in the short term at least: for example, sales growth can be obtained by reducing profit margins. Multidimensional measures of effectiveness such as the balanced scorecard or the triple bottom line are particularly subject to trade-offs: it is easy to see how cutting back on costly environmental protection policies might improve short-term profits.

However, there are three further sources of possible complexity. First, organisations are liable to manipulate outcomes in order to meet key performance indicators.8 For example, organisations can defer non-urgent expenditures or book sales orders early in order to meet short-term earnings targets. These actions are attractive to companies seeking to be acquired. Second, organisations can legitimately manage performance perceptions and expectations: they are not wholly objective and fixed. For example, CEOs frequently com- municate with key investors, financial analysts and the media so as to ensure favourable interpretations of strategies and results.9 Finally, what matters in terms of performance often changes over time. For example, measures of corporate social responsibility such as the triple bottom line have become more important in recent times and, since the financial crisis, banks have had to attend more to measures of capital adequacy to prove they are secure against bad debts.

Figure 12.2 Gap analysis

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12.3 SUITaBILITY

The previous section identified gap analysis as a means for considering the extent of new initiatives required to meet desired performance targets. We now turn to how to evaluate possible new initiatives using the SAFe evaluation criteria of suitability, acceptability and feasibility: see Table 12.1. This section deals with suitability.

Suitability is concerned with assessing which proposed strategies address the key opportu- nities and threats an organisation faces through an understanding of the strategic position of an organisation: it is therefore concerned with the overall rationale of a strategy. A suitability analysis is therefore likely to draw extensively from the concepts and frameworks introduced in Parts I and II of this book. However, at the most basic level, a suitability analysis involves assessing the extent to which a proposed strategy:

● exploits the opportunities in the environment and avoids the threats;

● capitalises on the organisation’s strengths and avoids or remedies the weaknesses.

The concepts and frameworks already discussed in Chapters 2 to 6 can be especially help- ful in understanding suitability. Some examples are shown in Table 12.2: other frameworks and techniques from Part I could be used in equivalent ways. However, the various techniques will raise many issues. It is therefore important that the really key strategic issues are identi- fied from amongst all these. A major skill of a strategist is to be able to work out what really matters. Strategy is about priorities; long lists should be avoided.

The discussions about possible strategic choices in Part II were concerned not only with understanding what choices might be available to organisations but also providing reasons why each might be considered. So the examples in those sections also illustrate why strate- gies might be regarded as suitable. Table 12.3 summarises these points from earlier sections (particularly Chapters 8 and 11) and provides examples of reasons why strategies might be regarded as suitable. There are, however, also a number of screening techniques that can be used to assess the suitability of proposed strategies by reviewing their relative merits against key opportunities and constraints.

Table 12.1 The SAFe criteria and techniques of evaluation

Suitability ● Does a proposed strategy address the key opportunities and threats an organisation faces?

acceptability ● Does a proposed strategy meet the expectations of stakeholders?

● Is the level of risk acceptable?

● Is the likely return acceptable?

● Will stakeholder reactions be positive?

Feasibility ● Would a proposed strategy work in practice?

● Can the strategy be financed?

● Do people and their skills exist or can they be obtained?

● Can the required resources be obtained and integrated?

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Table 12.3 Some examples of suitability

Strategic option Why this option might be suitable in terms of:

Macro, industry and sector environments Resources and capabilities

Directions

Retrenchment Withdraw from declining markets Maintain market share

Identify and focus on established strengths

Market penetration Gain market share for advantage Exploit superior resources and capabilities

New products and services Exploit knowledge of customer needs Exploit R&D

Market development Current markets saturated New opportunities for: geographical spread, entering new segments or new uses

Exploit current products and capabilities

Diversification Current markets saturated or declining; new opportunities for expansion beyond core businesses

Exploit strategic capabilities in new arenas

Methods

Organic diversification Partners or acquisitions not available or not suitable

Building on own capabilities Learning and competence development

Merger/acquisition Speed Supply/demand

Acquire capabilities Scale and scope economies

alliance Speed Industry norm Required for market entry

Complementary capabilities Learning from partners

Concept Chapter/ Section

helps with understanding Suitable strategies address (examples)

peSTeL Section 2.2 Key environmental drivers Changes in industry structure

Industry cycles Industry convergence Major environmental changes

Scenarios Section 2.4 Extent of uncertainty/risk Extent to which strategic options are mutually exclusive

Need for contingency plans or ‘low-cost probes’

Five forces Section 3.2 Industry attractiveness Competitive forces

Reducing competitive intensity Development of barriers to new entrants

Strategic groups Section 3.4 Attractiveness of groups Mobility barriers Strategic spaces

Need to reposition to a more attractive group or to an available strategic space

Strategic resources and capabilities

Section 4.2 Industry threshold standards Bases of competitive advantage

Eliminating weaknesses Exploiting strengths

Value chain Section 4.4 Opportunities for vertical integration or outsourcing

Extent of vertical integration or possible outsourcing

Cultural web Section 6.3 The links between organisational culture and the current strategy

The strategic options most aligned with the prevailing culture

Table 12.2 Suitability of strategic options in relation to strategic position

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ILLUSTRaTION 12.2

Selecting the most suitable strategic option through ranking .

Dutch brewing giant Heineken, the world’s third largest brewer, faced many challenges in 2016. The world beer market was slowing down with the rise of alternative beverages, tighter regulations and global economic slowdown. Craft beers were also on the rise. Never- theless the developing countries still offered signifi- cant growth opportunities – areas in which Heineken was already strong. Heineken was also threatened by AB InBev’s bid for SABMiller that would create the world’s largest brewer (three times Heineken’s size with much higher margins). Heineken’s controlling family was fiercely protective of the company’s heritage and believed growth and value could continue for share- holders. Nevertheless, how could Heineken ‘refresh’ its strategy?

Heineken could grow organically, increasing mar- keting at premier sports events to complement its promotion of world-class tennis at the US Open and Wimbledon. A second option might be to expand its cider and Weiss beer production and distribute glob- ally to address new consumer tastes. Neither option though might be sufficient to compete against a new industry giant. Option three could be to merge with family-owned Carlsberg, fourth largest brewer in the world. A merger would result in 40 per cent of the European market, significantly strengthen their combined Asian presence and build on their joint venture, and achieve sourcing and operations synergies. Although Carlsberg might not be so expensive due to recent poor performance, a merger might not address the rise in beer alternatives and be acceptable to the Carlsberg family. Option four, to merge with Diageo, would give access to a wide range of liquors, spirits and whisky to complement Heineken’s beers and provide opportunities in the new mixed drinks sector. However, there could be

ownership concerns as Diageo was twice Heineken’s size. This would be less of a problem with a fifth option, merging with Moulson Coors, that would play to Heineken’s strengths in brewing and greatly strengthen its US presence with synergies in sup- ply, logistics and distribution. But this would not address the market slowdown or the rise of craft brewers. Option six therefore might be to invest in craft brewers. Heineken could supply capital and distribution as well as brewing know-how. It would keep Heineken close to consumer trends and possi- bly provide new products. However, this might take time and also being associated with Heineken might make a craft brewer immediately lose their status. It might also set back Heineken’s industry-leading efforts in corporate sustainability.

The table opposite relates each strategic option to key strategic factors from a SWOT analysis (see Sec- tion  4.4.5 ). A tick indicates addressing a strategic option (favourable), otherwise an ‘x’ means unfavour- able, or a ‘?’, uncertain. The final column sums the ticks and subtracts the ‘x’s to indicate a net level of option suitability that can be then ranked. Options can be further debated against the SWOT analysis and then attention can focus upon the most favoured ones in terms of acceptability and feasibility.

‘Refreshing’ Heineken

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Questions 1 Are there other options or factors Heineken should consider?

2 How could you improve the ranking analysis?

3 Consider the most favoured option in terms of acceptability and feasibility criteria.

Key strategic factors

Strategic options

Slowing global market growth rate

high developing country growth

Creation of aB InBev SaBMiller giant

Consumers shifting to craft beers in mature markets

Fit with technical competencies

Fits with sector know-how

Builds on reputation for corporate sustainability

Ranking

Grow Heineken Premium beer

? √ x x √ √ √ 4-2 (B)

Introduce cider and Weiss beer

√ ? ? √ √ ? ? 3-0 (A)

Merge with Carlsberg

√ √ √ x √ √ ? 5-1(A)

Merge with Diageo

√ √ √ √ x ? ? 4-1 (A)

Acquire Moulson Coors (US)

x √ √ x √ √ ? 4-2 (B)

Fund local craft beers

? ? x √ ? ? x 1-2 (C)

√ = favourable x = unfavourable ? = uncertain

A = most favourable, B = possible, C= unsuitable.

Sources : Business Insider, 17 September 2015; Bloomberg, 16 September 2015; New York Times, 8 October 2015; http://www.diageo.com ; www.theheinekencompany.com/about-us/company-strategy ; Wall Street Journal, 23 September 2015.

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12.3.1 Ranking

Here possible strategies are assessed against key factors relating to the strategic position of the organisation and a score (or ranking) established for each option. Illustration 12.2 gives an example. One of the advantages of this approach is that it forces a debate about the impli- cations and impacts of specific key factors on specific strategic proposals. Ranking therefore helps overcome the unconscious biases of each individual manager.

More sophisticated approaches to ranking can assign weightings to factors in recognition that some will be of more importance in the evaluation than others. It should, however, be remembered that assigning numbers, of itself, is not a basis of evaluation; any scoring or weighting is only a reflection of the quality of the analysis and debate that goes into the scoring.

A similar approach can be adopted in relation to examining proposed strategies in terms of the responses of competitors. Section 7.3.3 on game theory emphasised that the viability of a strategy should take into account how competitors might react to a particular strategy. Ranking can be used for this purpose. Each proposed strategy is considered in terms of how competitors might respond. In effect, the key factors are the key competitors’ potential responses. Suitability is assessed in terms of which proposed strategy would be most likely to be minimise or blunt adverse competitor responses.

12.3.2 Screening through scenarios

Here strategic options are considered against a range of future scenarios (see Section 2.4). This is especially useful where a high degree of uncertainty exists. Suitable options are ones that make sense in terms of the various scenarios. As a result of such analysis it may be that several strategic options need to be ‘kept open’, perhaps in the form of contingency plans. Or it could be that an option being considered is found to be suitable in different scenarios. Indeed, a criterion of strategy evaluation for the energy company Shell is that a chosen strat- egy needs to be suitable in terms of a range of different crude oil prices.

One of the other advantages of screening through scenarios is that, as managers screen the possible strategies in terms of the different scenarios, they come to see which would be most suitable in different environmental contexts. This can then sensitise managers to the need for changes in strategy, or changes in strategic emphasis, given changes in the environment.

12.3.3 Screening for bases of competitive advantage

One of the key issues in evaluating a strategy is whether it is likely to draw on the organisa- tion’s bases of competitive advantage. Quite possibly the factors relating to this may already have been built into the ranking exercises explained above. However, if they have not, then it may be sensible to consider this question specifically.

As Chapter 4 shows, the likely bases of competitive advantage reside in the strategic resources and capabilities of an organisation. Screening for bases of competitive advantage therefore requires an analysis of how the proposed strategy is underpinned by resources and capabilities that satisfy the VRIO criteria:

● Value. Does the strategy provide value to customers? One test of this is whether the strategy would command a premium price in the marketplace. Alternatively, the strategic capabilities should support a cost advantage.

● Rarity. Does the strategy draw on assets that are sufficiently rare to prevent rapid copying by competitors?

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● Inimitability. If the required assets are not rare, is the strategy sufficiently complex or non-transparent to be difficult for competitors to imitate (or substitute)?

● Organisational support. If the strategy is hard to imitate, does the organisation have in place the organisational means actually to implement the strategy (see also the discussion of Feasibility in Section 12.5) ?

The various strategic options can be compared systematically against these four VRIO crite- ria in a simple matrix, with the options as horizontal rows and the individual VRIO criteria as columns.

12.3.4 Decision trees

Decision trees can also be used to assess strategic options against a list of key factors. Here options are ‘eliminated’ and preferred options emerge by progressively introducing require- ments that must be met (such as growth, investment or diversity). Illustration 12.3 provides an example. The end point of the decision tree is a number of discrete development oppor- tunities. The elimination process is achieved by identifying a few key elements or criteria that possible strategies need to achieve. In Illustration 12.3 these are growth, investment and diversification. As the illustration shows, choosing growth as an important requirement of a future strategy ranks options 1–4 more highly than 5–8. At the second step, the need for low investment strategies would rank options 3 and 4 above 1 and 2; and so on. The danger here is that the choice at each branch on the tree can tend to be simplistic. For example, as the illustration points out, answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to diversification does not allow for the wide variety of options that might exist within this strategy.

12.3.5 Life cycle analysis

A life cycle analysis assesses whether a strategy is likely to be appropriate given the stage of the industry life cycle (Section 3.3.2). Table 12.4 shows a matrix with two dimensions. The industry situation is described in five stages, from development to decline. The competitive position has three categories ranging from weak to strong. The purpose of the matrix is to establish the appropriateness of particular strategies in relation to these two dimensions. The consultancy firm Arthur D. Little suggests a number of criteria for establishing where an organisation is positioned on the matrix and what types of strategy are most likely to be suitable:

● Strong competitive position. Generally strong competitors should consider aggressive strategies throughout the life cycle. Early on, that implies rapid growth, for instance reinforcing cost advantages through experience curve effects, or extending advantages by broadening scope. Later on, strong competitors may take advantage of their relative strength to drive out weaker competitors by aggressive pricing or innovation, plus acqui- sitions where appropriate. In maturity, harvesting any weaker activities in the portfolio – through closure or perhaps sale – becomes important. Investment in innovation and differentiation may be less important. In the final stage, strong competitors might aim to be the last remaining player, leaving them the chance to exploit market power through high prices.

● Middling competitive position. Early in the life cycle, middling competitors should gen- erally be considering urgent steps to either strengthen their overall position (perhaps by mergers or alliances) or to find a relatively protected niche. Later on, competitors still with

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ILLUSTRaTION 12.3

Decision trees evaluate future options by progressively eliminating others as additional criteria are introduced to the evaluation.

A law firm had most of its work related to house conveyancing (the legal aspects of buying property) where profits had been significantly squeezed. There- fore, it wanted to consider a range of new strategies for the future. Using a strategic decision tree it was able to eliminate certain options by identifying a few key criteria which future developments would incorporate, such as growth, investment (in premises, IT systems or acquisitions) and diversification (for example, into matrimonial law which, in turn, often brings house con- veyancing work as families ‘reshape’).

Analysis of the decision tree reveals that if the part- ners of the firm wish growth to be an important aspect of future strategies, options 1–4 are ranked more highly than options 5–8. At the second step, the need for low-investment strategies would rank options 3 and 4 above 1 and 2, and so on.

The partners were aware that this technique has limitations in that the choice at each branch of the tree can tend to be simplistic. Answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’

to diversification does not allow for the wide variety of alternatives which might exist between these two extremes, for example adapting the ‘style’ of the con- veyancing service (this could be an important variant of options 6 or 8). Nevertheless, as a starting point for evaluation, the decision tree provided a useful framework.

A strategic decision tree for a law firm

Questions 1 Try reversing the sequence of the three

parameters (to diversification, investment and growth) and redraw the decision tree. Do the same eight options still emerge?

2 Add a fourth parameter to the decision tree. This new parameter is development by internal methods or by acquisition. List your 16 options in the right-hand column.

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a middling position should take seriously the option of selling the business to a stronger rival, one with ‘parenting advantage’ for example (see Chapter 8).

● Weak competitive position. For those competitors with a weak competitive position, the options facing middling competitors are accelerated. If weak competitors cannot rapidly transform their position or find a protected niche, they should promptly consider closure or sale to a stronger competitor.

Whilst this matrix is of use in providing general guidance for evaluating possible strate- gies over the life cycle, it does not, of itself, provide directive answers. Each organisation must make decisions on their own merits according to its precise individual circumstances. Organisations should beware too that the life-cycle stages are not irreversible. Industries can ‘de-mature’, so that investments in innovation and differentiation, for example, can again become highly important.

12.4 aCCepTaBILITY

acceptability is concerned with whether the expected performance outcomes of a proposed strategy meet the expectations of stakeholders. These can be of three types, the ‘3 Rs’: Risk, Return and stakeholder Reactions. It is sensible to use more than one approach in assessing the acceptability of a strategy.

Competitive position

Stages of industry life cycle

Development Growth Shake-out Mature Decline

Strong Fast growth Attain cost leadership Differentiate Broaden scope

Reinforce cost and differentiation advantages Drive out weaker competitors by innovation or price wars Acquire weaker competitors

Consolidate industry through acquisitions Harvest weaker activities Cut unnecessary costs (e.g. differentiation or innovation)

Drive out remaining competitors Exploit market power Cut unnecessary costs

Middling Fast growth Differentiate Focus

Catch up Differentiate Focus Find niche

Harvest weaker activities Seek alliances or mergers

Retrench Turnaround Seek alliances or mergers Exit by sale

Seek alliances or mergers Exit by sale or closure

Weak Find niche Catch up

Turnaround Retrench Seek alliances, mergers or acquirers

Seek alliances, mergers or acquirers Exit

Seek alliances, mergers or acquirers Exit

Seek alliances, mergers or acquirers Exit

Source: Adapted from Arthur D. Little.

Table 12.4 The industry life cycle/portfolio matrix

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12.4.1 Risk

The first R is the risk an organisation faces in pursuing a strategy. Risk concerns the extent to which strategic outcomes are unpredictable, especially with regard to possible negative out- comes. Risk is therefore linked with outcome, return, so that a higher risk is generally asso- ciated with the chances of a higher return and a lower risk with lower return – the so-called ‘risk-return trade-off’. Risk can be high for organisations with major long-term programmes of innovation, or where high levels of uncertainty exist about key issues in the environment, or where there are high levels of public concern about new developments – such as genetically modified crops.10 A key issue is to establish the acceptable level of risk for the organisation. Is the organisation prepared to ‘bet the company’ on a single strategic initiative, risking total destruction, or does it prefer a more cautious approach of maintaining several less unpredictable and lower-stakes initiatives? Formal risk assessments are often incorporated into business plans as well as the investment appraisals of major projects. Chosen strategies should be within the limits of acceptable risk for the organisation. Young entrepreneurs may have a higher tolerance for risk than established family businesses, for example. Importantly, risks other than ones with immediate financial impact should be included, such as risk to corporate reputation or brand image. Developing a good understanding of an organisation’s strategic position (Part I of this book) is at the core of good risk assessment. However, the following tools can also be helpful in a risk assessment.

Sensitivity analysis11

Sometimes referred to as what-if analysis, sensitivity analysis allows each of the important assumptions underlying a particular strategy to be questioned and challenged. In particular, it tests how sensitive the predicted performance outcome (e.g. profit) is to each of these assump- tions. For example, the key assumptions underlying a strategy might be that market demand will grow by five per cent a year, or that a new product will achieve a given sales level, or that certain expensive machines will operate at 90 per cent loading. Sensitivity analysis asks what would be the effect on performance (for example, profitability) of variations on these assumptions. For example, if market demand grew at only one per cent, or by as much as ten per cent, would either of these extremes alter the decision to pursue that strategy? This can help develop a clearer picture of the risks of making particular strategic decisions and the degree of confidence man- agers might have in a given decision. Illustration 12.4 shows how sensitivity analysis can be used.

Financial risk12

Financial risk refers to the possibility that the organisation may not be able to meet the key financial obligations necessary for survival. Managers need to ensure that strategies meet acceptable levels of financial risk. Two key measures are important here.

First, there is the level of gearing, the amount of debt the company has relative to its equity. Strategies that increase the gearing (or ‘leverage’) of a company also raise the level of financial risk. This is because interest payments on debt are mandatory and inflexible: if performance dips and the interest cannot be paid, the company risks bankruptcy.

A second kind of financial risk measure relates to an organisation’s liquidity. Liquidity refers to the amount of liquid assets (typically cash) that is available to pay immediate bills. Many businesses fail not because they are inherently unprofitable, but because of a lack of liquid assets, whether their own or obtained through short-term loans. For example, a small manufac- turer with a rapid growth strategy may be tempted to take on lots of orders, but then find that they have to pay their suppliers for the raw materials before they actually receive the payments for the goods they have produced. Again, a company that cannot pay its bills risks bankruptcy.

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ILLUSTRaTION 12.4

Sensitivity analysis is a useful technique for assessing the extent to which the success of a preferred strategy is dependent on the key assumptions that underlie that strategy.

In 2016, the Dunsmore Chemical Company was a sin- gle product company trading in a mature and relatively stable market. It was intended to use this established situation as a ‘cash cow’ to generate funds for a new venture with a related product. Estimates had shown that the company would need to generate some £4m (€4.8m, $6m) cash (at 2016 values) between 2017 and 2022 for this new venture to be possible.

Although the expected performance of the company was for a cash flow of £9.5m over that period (the base case ), management were concerned to assess the likely impact of three key factors:

● Possible increases in production costs (labour, over- heads and materials), which might be as much as three per cent p.a. in real terms.

● Capacity-fill, which might be reduced by as much as 25 per cent due to ageing plant and uncertain labour relations.

● Price levels, which might be affected by the threatened entry of a new major competitor. This could squeeze prices by as much as three per cent p.a. in real terms.

It was decided to use sensitivity analysis to assess the possible impact of each of these factors on the company’s ability to generate £4m. The results are shown in graphs (a), (b) and (c).

From this analysis, management concluded that their target of £4m would be achieved with capacity uti- lisation as low as 60 per cent, which was certainly going to be achieved. Increased production costs of three per cent p.a. would still allow the company to achieve the £4m target over the period. In contrast, price squeezes of three per cent p.a. would result in a shortfall of £2m.

Management concluded from this analysis that the key factor which should affect their thinking on this matter was the likely impact of new competition and the extent to which they could protect price levels if such competition emerged. They therefore developed an aggressive marketing strategy to deter potential entrants.

Sensitivity analysis

Questions What should the company do if its marketing campaigns fail to stop real price erosion:

1 Push to achieve more sales volume/capacity fill?

2 Reduce unit costs of production?

3 Something else?

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

2017 2019 2020 2021 20222018

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

(a) Sensitivity of cash fl ow to changes in real production costs

(b) Sensitivity of cash fl ow to changes in plant utilisation

(c) Sensitivity of cash fl ow to reductions in real price

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Break-even analysis

Break-even analysis13 is a simple and widely used approach which allows variations in assumptions about key variables in a strategy to be examined. It demonstrates at what point in terms of revenue the business will recover its fixed and variable costs and therefore break even. It can therefore be used to assess the risks associated with different price and cost structures of strategies as shown in Illustration 12.5.

12.4.2 Return

The second R is returns. These are a measure of the financial effectiveness of a strategy. In the private sector, investors and shareholders expect a financial return on their investment. In the public sector, funders (typically government departments) are likely to measure returns in terms of the ‘value for money’ of services delivered. Attention often focuses on financial metrics of efficiency, but measuring return for not-for-profits is notoriously difficult as there is great diversity in the sector in terms of multiple, often conflicting stakeholder interests. Nevertheless, three types of performance metric can be used: success in mobilising resources, staff effectiveness and progress in fulfilling mission. The exact specification of these metrics will vary by not-for-profit organisation.14

Measures of return are a common way of assessing proposed new ventures or major pro- jects within businesses. An assessment of the financial effectiveness of any specific strategy should be a key criterion of acceptability.

Financial analysis15

There are three common approaches to financial return (see Figure 12.3):

● Return on capital employed (ROCE) calculates profitability in relation to capital for a specific time period after a new strategy is in place: as for example in Figure 12.3(a), a ROCE of ten per cent by year 3. The ROCE (typically profit before interest and tax – PBIT– divided by capital employed) is a measure of the earning power of the capital resources used in implementing a particular strategic option. Its weakness is that it does not focus on cash flow or the timing of cash flows (see the explanation of DCF below). For other measures of return see end note.16

● The payback period assesses the length of time it takes before the cumulative cash flows for a strategic option become positive. In the example in Figure 12.3(b) the payback period is three and a half years. This measure has the virtue of simplicity and is most often used where the difficulty of forecasting is high and therefore risk is high. In such circumstances, this measure can be used to select projects or strategies that have the quickest payback. Thus acceptable payback periods vary from industry to industry. A venture capitalist investing in a high-technology start-up may expect a fast return, whereas public infra- structure projects such as road building may be assessed over payback periods exceeding 50 years. One problem with the basic payback period method is that it assumes that fore- cast cash flows are equally valuable in the future, however risky or distant: €100 predicted in three years’ time is given the same weight as €100 next year. Organisations therefore often use ‘discount’ methods to allow for greater uncertainty in the more distant future.

● Discounted cash flow (DCF) is a widely used investment appraisal technique using common cash-flow forecasting techniques which ‘discounts’ (gives less value to) earnings the further into the future they are. The resulting measure is the net present value (or NPV) of the project, one of the most widely used criteria for assessing the financial viability of a pro- ject. In principle, given limited resources, the project with the best NPV should be selected.

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ILLUSTRaTION 12.5

Break-even analysis can be a simple way of quantifying some of the key factors which would determine the success or failure of a strategy.

A manufacturing company was considering the launch of a new consumer durable product into a market segment where most products were sold to wholesalers which supplied the retail trade. The total market was worth about €4.8m (£3.8m, $6.2m) (at manufacturers’ prices) – about 630,000 units. The market leader had about 30 per cent market share in a competitive market where retailers were increasing their buying power. The company wished to evaluate the relative merits of a high-price/high-quality prod- uct sold to wholesalers (strategy A) or an own-brand product sold directly to retailers (strategy B).

The table summarises the market and cost struc- ture for the market leader and these alternative strategies.

The table shows that the company would require about 22 per cent and 13 per cent market share respectively for strategies A and B to break even.

Using break-even analysis to examine strategic options

Questions 1 Which option would you choose? Why?

2 What would be the main risks attached to that option and how would you attempt to minimise these risks?

3 Create another option (strategy C) and explain the kind of break-even profile which would be needed to make it more attractive than either strategy A or strategy B.

Market and cost structure (€) Market leader Strategy a Strategy B

Price to retailer 10.00 12.00 8.00

Price to wholesaler 7.00 8.40 –

Total variable costs (TVC) 3.50 4.00 3.10

Contribution to profit per unit sold (= Price sold-TVC)

3.50 4.40 4.90

Fixed costs (FC) 500,000 500,000 500,000

Break-even point: no. of units to sell (= FC/Contribution to profit)

142,857 136,363 81,633

Total market size (units) 630,000 630,000 630,000

Break-even point: market share (= Break-even point units/Mkt size)