The New Strategic Thinking: Pure & Simple - Hardcover

ROBERT

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071462244 ISBN 13: 9780071462242

Verlag: McGraw Hill, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Bestselling author Michel Robert gives you his trademark pure and simple rules for developing solid business strategies In this anticipated follow-up to his previous bestsellers, management expert Michel Robert unveils his practical and proven methodology for you to plan and implement effective corporate strategies. Featuring a detailed explanation of how Robert used his approach to turn around Caterpillar as well as case studies of leading companies that utilize Robert's method, The New Strategic Thinking shows you how to assemble a strategy team, identify your company's driving force, determine the focus of the strategy (product, customer, or market), and launch initiatives company wide.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michel Robert is founder and president of Decision Processes International, Inc., an internationally known consulting firm with 40 partners in 15 countries. His clients include such major companies as Caterpillar, 3M, and GATX. A noted speaker, he has written articles in numerous business magazines and journals, including Forbes, Barron's, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Time and Business Week. He is the author of Strategy Pure & Simple, Product Innovation Strategy Pure & Simple, and Strategy Pure & Simple II. Robert lives in Westport, CT.

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THE NEW STRATEGIC THINKING

Purple & Simple

By Michel Robert

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Michel Robert
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-146224-2

Contents

PREFACE
PART 1
CHAPTER 1 The Caterpillar Story
CHAPTER 2 Longevity: The Litmus Test of a Successful Strategy
CHAPTER 3 10 Deadly Sins That Lead to Strategic Malaise
CHAPTER 4 Strategize for the Future, Not the Present
CHAPTER 5 Vision and Strategy: Two Inseparable Concepts
CHAPTER 6 Driving Force: The DNA of Strategy
CHAPTER 7 Meaningless Mission Statement to Effective Strategic Filter
CHAPTER 8 Who's on First?
CHAPTER 9 Don't Change the Rules, Change the Game Itself!
CHAPTER 10 The Strategic Thinking Process
CHAPTER 11 Are You Using Strategic Information Strategically?
CHAPTER 12 How Strategic Product Innovation Breeds Supremacy
PART 2
CHAPTER 13 Charles Foster, Chairman; Ted Chandler, CEO—LandAmerica 
Financial Group, Richmond, Virginia
CHAPTER 14 Robert Burgess, CEO; Mark O'Brien, President and COO—Pulte 
Corporation, Dearborn, Michigan
CHAPTER 15 David Hoover, Chairman, President, and CEO—Ball Corporation, 
Denver, Colorado
CHAPTER 16 Laurie Dippenaar, CEO—FirstRand Limited, Johannesburg, South 
Africa
CHAPTER 17 Kurt Wiedenhaupt, CEO—American Precision Industries, Buffalo, 
New York
CHAPTER 18 Neil McDonough, CEO—FLEXcon, Spencer, Massachusetts
CHAPTER 19 Pete Samoff, President and COO; T. D. Williamson, Inc.—Tulsa, 
Oklahoma
CHAPTER 20 Richard Stephenson, Chairman; Steve Bonner, President and 
CEO—Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Shaumberg, Illinois
CHAPTER 21 Walt Havenstein, President—Information and Electronic Warfare 
Systems, BAE Systems, Nashua, New Hampshire
CHAPTER 22 Harald Stolzenberg, President—Juvena/LaPrairie Group, Geneva, 
Switzerland
CHAPTER 23 Andre Heroux, President and CEO—MAAX, Inc., Montreal, Canada
CHAPTER 24 Thomas Chua, Group Deputy Chairman and Managing 
Director—Teckwah Industrial Corporation Ltd., Singapore
CHAPTER 25 Ed Grondel, CEO—FNB HomeLoans, Johannesburg, South Africa
CHAPTER 26 Benjamin Salzmann, CEO—ACUITY, Sheboygan, Wisconsin
CHAPTER 27 Rak Kumar, CEO—Raster Graphics, Palo Alto, California
INDEX

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Caterpillar Story: How Three Successive CEOs Used Strategic Thinking toRegain Supremacy

"For 60 years Cat was a rocket. This company could do no wrong. Then in theearly eighties, our business underwent profound change. We had 60 years, allvery successful, in which we built what we said the customers wanted and needed.Then the whole ballgame had changed," said George Schaefer, CEO of Caterpillar(Cat) from 1986 to 1990. Recognizing that his company was in grave danger, heset in motion one of the most remarkable turnarounds in history.

Boosted by a worldwide infrastructure building boom for most of the twentiethcentury, Caterpillar had been a seemingly invincible juggernaut. Anchored by avast network of Caterpillar dealers in all of the growth areas of the world, Cathad the products, distribution, and service to dominate the global market forearth-moving equipment and spare parts. Cat also had been able to support thatnetwork with the right components—knowledgeable and dedicated people,extensive global manufacturing, a huge field population of machines and engines,and service facilities within easy reach of customers literally everywhere.

But like the Big Three automakers in Detroit, Caterpillar was caught by surprisein the early 1980s when new offshore competitors began to arrive on the scenewith high-quality products and disruptive marketing and sales approaches. Thebiggest threat among Caterpillar's new rivals was a Japanese company calledKomatsu. "Eat the Cat" had been Komatsu's war cry since its inception in theyears after World War II. Komatsu's plan, which it methodically implemented, wasto circumvent Caterpillar's service advantage by making machines that "don'tbreak down," thus rendering the leader's key strategic capability irrelevant.

By 1986, the little-known Komatsu was succeeding in their plan. Workingtirelessly to undermine the strategic strength of Cat's dealers, they madesignificant inroads in convincing heavy equipment owners that Komatsu's newequipment did not break down as often and needed far less service thanCaterpillar's—and was therefore less dependent on a local dealer to keepoperations running. Their strategy had effectively changed the rules of play ina market Cat had ruled as long as anyone could remember. Further crippled by awidespread building recession that had taken place in the early eighties, Catwas in trouble.

But as impressive as Komatsu's feat may seem, the fact is that they had notreally done anything particularly brilliant. The Komatsu attack was actuallymade possible by previous Caterpillar executives in the 1970s as they lost sightof the strategy that had made Caterpillar successful for so many decades.Throughout its first 60 years, Caterpillar had been practicing what we at DPIcall a "Product-driven strategy." The bottom line for a company whose strategyis focused around a single product (heavy earth-moving machinery, in Cat's case)is very simple: the best product wins. As such, resources need to be continuallyreinvested so a company can ensure that its products are always the best.

In Caterpillar's case, the leaders had forgotten what had put them out in frontall those years. And as Cat was generating more cash than the company needed inthe 1970s, management became distracted by this development and began lookingfor a "big acquisition." They found one in a company called Towmotor.Caterpillar management rationalized that "moving material"—Towmotor'sbusiness—was very similar to their own business of "moving dirt."

That assumption proved to be very wrong and very costly over the next decade.The strategies of Caterpillar and Towmotor were incompatible, a mismatch thatundermined both businesses, leading to huge losses and depleting Cat's strategicadvantage.

THE CAT AWAKENS

Fast-forward 10 years, and the impact of the Towmotor acquisition combined withthe attack by Komatsu had taken its toll. "This was in the late eighties," saidDon Fites, Cat's CEO from 1990 to 1999, who was president at the time. "We'dexperienced a decade without really any shareholder value being created ... wewere very concerned about our Japanese competitors. When I joined this company,all of our competitors had been American companies—and most of them wereput out of business by the Japanese and Europeans, who are fierce competitors.Survival was a word that we were talking about around here."

As U.S. competitors such as International...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McGraw Hill
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0071462244
• ISBN 13: 9780071462242
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 261
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland