九味书屋 > 文学经管电子书 > 30+mba >

第78部分

30+mba-第78部分

小说: 30+mba 字数: 每页4000字

按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!



support Tesco’s 3;263 stores as well it can; say; the 997 that Somerfield 
has。 The former will have a lower cost base by virtue of having more 
outlets to spread its costs over; as well as having more purchasing 
power。 
THE EXPERIENCE (OR LEARNING) CURVE 
The fact that costs declined as the output volume of a product or service 
increased; though well known earlier; was first developed as a usable 
accounting process by T P Wright; an American aeronautical engineer; 
in 1936。 His process became known as the cumulative average model 
or Wright’s model。 Subsequently; models were developed by a team of 
Strategy 265 
researchers at Stanford; known as the unit time model or Crawford’s model; 
and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) popularized the process with its 
experience curve; showing that each time the cumulative volume of doing 
something – either making a product or delivering a service – doubled; the 
unit cost dropped by a constant and predictable amount。 The reasons for 
the cost drop include: 
。 Repetition makes people more familiar with tasks and consequently 
faster。 
。 More efficient materials and equipment bee available from suppliers 
themselves as their costs go down through the experience curve effect。 
。 Organization; management and control procedures improve。 
。 Engineering and production problems are solved。 
BCG itself was founded in 1963 by Bruce D Henderson; a former Bible 
salesman and engineering graduate from Vanderbilt University; who 
le。。 the Harvard Business School 90 days before graduation to work for 
Westinghouse Corporation。 From there he went on to head Arthur D Li。。le’s 
management services unit before joining the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust 
pany to start a consulting arm for the bank。 Naming this the experience 
curve; it was the strategy tool that put BCG on the path to success and has 
served it well ever since (Figure 12。1)。 
The value of the experience curve as a strategic process is that it helps 
a business predict future unit costs and gives a signal when costs fail to 
drop at the historic rate; both vital pieces of information for firms pursuing 
a cost leadership strategy。 Every industry has a different experience curve 
that itself varies over time。 You can find out more about how to calculate the 
Total lifetime units produced Cost per unit 
2 4 8 16 
10 
8
6 
Figure 12。1 The experience curve
266 The Thirty…Day MBA 
curve for your industry on the Management And Accounting Web (h。。p:// 
maaw。info/LearningCurveSummary。htm); and the National Aeronautics 
and Space Agency (h。。p://cost。jsc。nasa。gov/learn。html) provides a Learning 
Curve Calculator。 
DIFFERENTIATION 
The key to differentiation is a deep understanding of what customers really 
want and need and; more importantly; what they are prepared to pay more 
for。 Apple’s opening strategy was based around a ‘fun’ operating system 
based on icons; rather than the dull MS…DOS。 This belief was based on its 
understanding that puter users were mostly young and wanted an intuitive 
mand system; and the ‘graphical user interface’ delivered just that。 
Apple has continued its differentiation strategy; but has added design and 
fashion to ease of control in order to increase the ways in which it delivers 
extra value。 Sony and BMW are also examples of differentiators。 Both have 
distinctive and desirable differences in their products and neither they nor 
Apple offers the lowest price in their respective industries; customers are 
willing to pay extra for the idiosyncratic and prized differences embedded 
in their products。 
Differentiation doesn’t have to be confined to just the marketing arena; 
nor does it always lead to success if the subject of that differentiation goes 
out of fashion without much warning。 Northern Rock; the failed bank that 
had to be nationalized to stay in business; thought its strategy of raising 
most of the money it lent out in mortgages through the money markets was 
a sure winner。 It allowed the bank to grow faster than its petitors; who 
placed more reliance on depositors for their funds。 As long as interest rates 
were low and the money market functioned smoothly; it worked。 But once 
the differentiators that fuelled its growth were reversed; its business model 
failed。 
FOCUS 
Focused strategy involves concentrating on serving a particular market or a 
defined geographic region。 IKEA; for example; targets young; white…collar 
workers as its prime customer segment; selling through 235 stores in more 
than 30 countries。 Ingvar Kamprad; an entrepreneur from the Sm。land 
province in southern Sweden; who founded the business in the late 1940s; 
offers home furnishing products of good function and design at prices 
young people can afford。 He achieves this by using simple cost…cu。。ing 
solutions that do not affect the quality of products。 
Warren Buffe。。; the world’s richest man; who knows a thing or two about 
focus; bined with Mars to buy US chewing gum manufacturer Wrigley 
Strategy 267 
for 23bn (£11。6bn) in May 2008。 Chicago…based Wrigley; which launched 
its Spearmint and Juicy Fruit gums in the 1890s; has specialized in chewing 
gum ever since and consistently outperformed its more diversified petitors。 
Wrigley is the only major consumer products pany to grow 
fortably faster than the population in its markets and above the rate of 
inflation。 Over the past decade or so; for example; other consumer products 
panies have diversified。 Gille。。e moved into ba。。eries; used to drive 
many of its products; by acquiring Duracell。 Nestlé bought Ralston Purina; 
Dreyer’s; Ice Cream Partners and Chef America。 Both have trailed Wrigley’s 
performance。 
Businesses o。。en lose their focus over time and periodically have to rediscover 
their core strategic purpose。 Procter & Gamble is an example of a 
business that had to refocus to cure weak growth。 In 2000; the pany was 
losing share in seven of its top nine categories; and had lowered earnings 
expectations four times in two quarters。 This prompted the pany to 
restructure and refocus on its core business: big brands; big customers and 
big countries。 They sold off non…core businesses; establishing five global 
business units with a closely focused product portfolio。 
First…to…market fallacy 
Gaining ‘first mover advantage’ are words used like a mantra to justify high 
expenditure and a headlong rush into new strategic areas。 This concept is 
one of the most enduring in business theory and practice。 Entrepreneurs 
and established giants are always in a race to be first。 Research from the 
1980s that shows that market pioneers have enduring advantages in distribution; 
product…line breadth; product quality and; especially; market 
share underscores this principle。 
Beguiling though the theory of first mover advantage is; it is probably 
wrong。 Gerard Tellis; of the University of Southern California; and Peter 
Golder; of New York University’s Stern Business School; argued in their 
book Will and Vision: How Lateers Grow to Dominate Markets (2001; 
McGraw…Hill Inc。; United States) and subsequent research that previous 
studies on the subject were deeply flawed。 In the first instance; earlier 
studies were based on surveys of surviving panies and brands; 
excluding all the pioneers that failed。 This helps some panies to 
look as though they were first to market even when they were not。 
Procter & Gamble (P&G) boasts that it created America’s disposablenappy 
(diaper) business。 In fact a pany called Chux launched its 
product a quarter of a century before P&G entered the market in 1961。 
Also; the questions used to gather much of the data in earlier research were 
at best ambiguous; and perhaps dangerously so。 For example; the term; 
‘one of the pioneers in first developing such products or services;’ was 
used as a proxy for ‘first to market’。 The authors emphasize their point by 
268 The Thirty…Day MBA 
listing popular misconceptions of who were the real pioneers across the 
66 markets they analysed。 Online book sales – Amazon (wrong); Books。 
 (right) – Copiers; Xerox (wrong); IBM (right) – PCs; IBM/Apple (both 

返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 0 0

你可能喜欢的