Maverick strategies

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You cant be remarkable by following someone else
whos remarkable The thing that all great
companies have in common is that they have
nothing in common. 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
Maverick strategies
maverick strategies
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Organizations that did not fall into copycat
traps Anita Roddicks 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 Apples iPod is revolutionizing the way
music industry thinks and operates.
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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)
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Beyond best practice next practice (an
idea advocated in Recreating Strategy and
inspired by Sonys 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).
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Deliberateness vs. Emergentness Markets vs.
Resources Responsiveness vs. Synergy Competition
vs. Cooperation Compliance vs. Choice
Control vs. Chaos Globalization vs.
Localization Revolution vs. Evolution Profitabi
lity vs. Responsibility Logic vs. Creativity
The strategy paradoxes that every firm must
contemplate and choose a path between (Source, De
Wit Meyer, 2004)
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1. Draw an organigraph or a value chimera of
Synear? 2. What were the strengths and
weaknesses of Synears initial strategy to copy
and replicate Sanquan? 3. Work through Kim and
Mauborgnes 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 Synears particular
maverick-ness, or legitimate strangeness, in
eight words or less?... 6. What do you think
Synears next moves should be?
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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 firms 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?
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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?
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1. Where do you think Levis standard models
sit on the S-curve? Why are Levis taking the
risk of developing the new customized approach
described above? 2. Try drawing Levis using a
generic value chain. Do you think Levis
customization approaches will make its standard
models obsolete? 3. where do you think Levis,
Build-A-Bear and Land Rovers 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
Drus approach what verbs would you attach to the
Levis, Build-A-Bear and Land Rover?
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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 Apples other competitors
should have followed in Apples footsteps in this
regard? 5. Do you think there is one best
approach to workplace design?
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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
Koestlers 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?
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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?
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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.
Mavk strategies ?