Transcript Document

You can’t be remarkable by following
someone else who’s remarkable… The
thing that all great companies have in
common 11:00
is that they have nothing in
Maverick
common.
strategies
maverick
strategies
Seth Godin (2003) Transform your
Business by Becoming Remarkable
The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of
similar companies, employing similar
people, with similar educational
backgrounds, coming up with similar
ideas, producing similar things, with
similar prices and similar quality.
Kjell Nordtrom & Jonas Ridderstrale
(2002) Funky Business
Organizations that did not fall into copycat traps:
· Anita Roddick’s Body Shop largely redefined how cosmetics
are developed and sold by challenging the industries previous
assumptions.
· Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian circus troupe in a dying
industry, effectively collapsed two industries into one: theatre
and circus. This saw Cirque open up an entire new venues
and a new audience (who where prepared to pay higher
prices).
· Swatch challenged the assumption that a watch was a luxury
or high-tech item that people only needed one of. They sold
watches as collectible fashion accessories.
· Some 20 years after sparking a revolution in computing
Apple’s iPod is revolutionizing the way music industry thinks
and operates.
Mauborgne and Kim suggest that value innovation
can be advanced by asking structured questions
like:
What factors could be eliminated that an industry has taken for
granted? (For companies like Egg and First Direct it was that banks
need branches)
What product/service elements could be reduced below the industry
standard? (For Ryanair and Southwest it was food and beverage
services)
What elements could be lifted above the standard? (For Dyson and
Alessi it was that things like teapots and vacuum cleaners could have
designer styling)
What should be introduced that the industry has never offered the
customer? (For Swatch it was idea that you could launch watches like
fashion collections)
Could a new offering win buyers without any marketing hype? (The
Smart car or new Mini created demand simply through people seeing
them on the streets)
Beyond best practice:
· “next practice” (an idea advocated in Recreating Strategy
and inspired by Sony’s attitude of looking at its competitors
accomplishments merely as conventions to be overturned
rather than achievements to aim for);
· “good practice” (an idea advanced by IBM who now
discourage staff from talking of “best practice” because it
implies that there is only one best way that cannot be
surpassed, which encourages complacency);
· identifying particular “promising practices” (an idea developed
by the AIM research network in the UK which is interested in
identifying how companies sponsor and bring through
emergent new approaches.
· understanding and discussing “worst practices” (an approach
sponsored by David Snowden of the think-tank Cynefin
because, he claims, “striving to avoid failure is more
compelling than imitating success”).
Deliberateness vs.
Markets
vs.
Responsiveness vs.
Competition
vs.
Compliance
vs.
Control
vs.
Globalization vs.
Revolution
vs.
Profitability
vs.
Logic
vs.
Emergentness
Resources
Synergy
Cooperation
Choice
Chaos
Localization
Evolution
Responsibility
Creativity
The ‘strategy paradoxes’ that every firm must contemplate and choose
a path between (Source, De Wit & Meyer, 2004)
1. Draw an organigraph or a value
chimera of Synear…?
2. What were the strengths and
weaknesses of Synear’s initial
strategy to copy and replicate
Sanquan…?
3. Work through Kim and
Mauborgne’s five “value innovation”
questions to determine the value
innovations that Synear… achieved.
4. Can you also identify any
examples of “blue ocean” strategies
followed by Synear?
5. Define Synear’s particular
maverick-ness, or “legitimate
strangeness, in eight words or less?...
6. What do you think Synear’s next
moves should be?

1. Would you have supported the
decision to lend a further £50m?
2. What are the main considerations
for banks involved in this form of
finance?
3. It is clear from the case that it was
touch and go for the entrepreneur
gaining the necessary finance for his
product. Why was he successful in
getting finance? Could he have
improved his approach to the bank?
4. Now that you are aware of the
client firm’s identity, does this affect
your answers to the earlier
questions? What lessons can be
learned about the way in which early
stage finance and entrepreneurial
endeavours work alongside each
other?

1. Why do you think that design has
become “absolutely strategic” …?
2. What other elements, apart from
design, are important in automobile
manufacture nowadays?
3. …Why would large automobile
companies be looking to buy up
smaller brands? Can you use the
value chimera to depict an
organization like the Ford Group?
4. Why might listening to focus
groups not be a good thing in this
industry?
5. Why would companies like
Citroen and Renault be seeking to
“inject more Frenchness” into what
they do?

1. Where do you think Levi’s “standard
models”… sit on the S-curve? Why are
Levi’s taking the risk of developing the
new customized approach described
above?
2. Try drawing Levis… using a generic
value chain. …Do you think Levi’s
customization approaches will make
its standard models obsolete?
3. …where do you think Levis’, BuildA-Bear and Land Rover’s strategies
for the future are coming from? Is
there a school of strategy, or
combination, that reflects this?...
4. …any examples of value innovation
or blue ocean strategies… in this
case?
5. Following Dru’s approach what
verbs would you attach to the Levis,
Build-A-Bear and Land Rover…?

1. What effects might the way a
workplace is designed have on the
development of strategy?
2. How might the growing awareness
of “diversity management” and the
importance of “shaking together”
different ideas and perspectives
impact on the future shape of
workplace design?
3. Which of the developments in
workplace design… are value
innovations and which are just
innovations for the sake of
innovation?
4. … Do you think IBM and Apple’s
other competitors should have
followed in Apple’s footsteps in this
regard?
5. Do you think there is one best
approach to workplace design…?

1. Why do you think that ideas in
management and strategy that are
claimed to be “new” might actually
quite similar to earlier thinking?
2. …why might traditional craft
organizations be better at thinking
differently than larger …
companies?
3. What elements are these craft
organizations now “shaking
together”, to use Koestler’s term,
that have not been combined
before? And why might this shaking
be difficult for larger, more
conventional organizations to copy?
4. If you were a manager of a large
professional company, what lessons
would you learn from the examples
of the “craft” organizations described
in this case and in the Time story?

1. …what is wrong with most people
seeing structure in the same way?
2. …Why might the arts students
have been less likely to draw the
standard triangular hierarchies?
3. …drawing and humour are two
particularly acute methods for
exposing core assumptions. The
cartoon (11-7.2) is generally found to
be humorous. The question is, why?
What assumptions is it attacking?
4. … what alternative shapes or
forms would you draw to more
accurately reflected some of the other
schools or approaches described in
table 11.1 in this chapter?
5. What are the advantages of using
alternative forms and schools to think
about strategy development?

Pathfinder Checklist
1. Macro-shocks
2. Movers & shakers
3. Industry terrain
4. The big picture
5. Comp advantage
6. Living strategy
7. Character
8. Crossing-borders
9. Managing change
10. Sustainability
11. Mav’k strategies
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