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[ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] Southwest Airlines Activity System No baggage No meals transfers Limited passenger service No connections No seat with other assignments airlines Limited use of travel Frequent, Standardized Short-haul, 15-minute agents reliable fleet of 737 point-to-point gate departures aircraft routes between turnarounds midsize cities and secondary airports Automatic ticketing machines Lean, highly High Very low productive compensation ticket prices ground and of employees gate crews High Southwest, Flexible High level aircraft the low-fare union of employee utilization airline contracts stock ownership 73 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW November-December 1996 WHAT IS STRATEGY? less than one. The probabilities then quickly com- tention. Conversely, improvements in one activity pound to make matching the entire system highly will pay dividends in others. Companies with unlikely (.9 .9= .81; .9 .9 .9 .9= .66, and so on). strong fit among their activities are rarely inviting Existing companies that try to reposition or strad- targets. Their superiority in strategy and in execu- dle will be forced to reconfigure many activities. tion only compounds their advantages and raises the hurdle for imitators. When activities complement one another, rivals will get little benefit Strategic positions should have from imitation unless they success- fully match the whole system. Such a horizon of a decade or more, situations tend to promote winner- take-all competition. The company not of a single planning cycle. that builds the best activity system Toys R Us, for instance wins, while And even new entrants, though they do not con- rivals with similar strategies Child World and Li- front the trade-offs facing established rivals, still onel Leisure fall behind. Thus finding a new stra- face formidable barriers to imitation. tegic position is often preferable to being the second The more a company s positioning rests on activ- or third imitator of an occupied position. ity systems with second- and third-order fit, the The most viable positions are those whose ac- more sustainable its advantage will be. Such sys- tivity systems are incompatible because of trade- tems, by their very nature, are usually difficult to offs. Strategic positioning sets the trade-off rules untangle from outside the company and therefore that define how individual activities will be con- hard to imitate. And even if rivals can identify the figured and integrated. Seeing strategy in terms of relevant interconnections, they will have difficulty activity systems only makes it clearer why organi- replicating them. Achieving fit is difficult because zational structure, systems, and processes need to it requires the integration of decisions and actions be strategy-specific. Tailoring organization to strat- across many independent subunits. egy, in turn, makes complementarities more achiev- A competitor seeking to match an activity sys- able and contributes to sustainability. tem gains little by imitating only some activities One implication is that strategic positions and not matching the whole. Performance does not should have a horizon of a decade or more, not of a improve; it can decline. Recall Continental Lite s single planning cycle. Continuity fosters improve- disastrous attempt to imitate Southwest. ments in individual activities and the fit across ac- Finally, fit among a company s activities creates tivities, allowing an organization to build unique pressures and incentives to improve operational capabilities and skills tailored to its strategy. Conti- effectiveness, which makes imitation even harder. nuity also reinforces a company s identity. Fit means that poor performance in one activity Conversely, frequent shifts in positioning are will degrade the performance in others, so that costly. Not only must a company reconfigure indi- weaknesses are exposed and more prone to get at- vidual activities, but it must also realign entire sys- Alternative Views of Strategy The Implicit Strategy Model of the Past Decade Sustainable Competitive Advantage One ideal competitive position in the industry Unique competitive position for the company Benchmarking of all activities and achieving best Activities tailored to strategy practice Clear trade-offs and choices vis-à-vis competitors Aggressive outsourcing and partnering to gain Competitive advantage arises from fit across efficiencies activities Advantages rest on a few key success factors, Sustainability comes from the activity system, critical resources, core competencies not the parts Flexibility and rapid responses to all competitive Operational effectiveness a given and market changes 74 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW November-December 1996 tems. Some activities may never catch up to the a company s activities. The success of a strategy vacillating strategy. The inevitable result of fre- depends on doing many things well not just a few quent shifts in strategy, or of failure to choose a dis- and integrating among them. If there is no fit tinct position in the first place, is me-too or among activities, there is no distinctive strategy [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |