MANAGEMENT THEORY REVIEW - Articles on Management Subjects for Knowledge Revision and Updating by Management Executives ---by Dr. Narayana Rao, Professor (Retd.), NITIE - IIM Mumbai --- 4.55+ MILLION Page Views---
Global Top Blog for Management Theory---Management for Effectiveness, Efficiency and Excellence.
HBR's 10 Must Reads 2017: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review
BOOK by Clayton M. Christensen, Adam M. Grant, and Vijay Govindarajan
This collection of articles includes
"Collaborative Overload," by Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant; January 2016
"Algorithms Need Managers, Too," by Michael Luca, Jon Kleinberg, and Sendhil Mullainathan; Jan - Feb 2016
"Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy," by Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Geoffrey G. Parker, and Sangeet Paul Choudary; April 2016
"What Is Disruptive Innovation?," by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Raynor, and Rory McDonald;
"How Indra Nooyi Turned Design Thinking into Strategy," an interview with Indra Nooyi by Adi Ignatius;
"Engineering Reverse Innovations," by Amos Winter and Vijay Govindarajan;
"The Employer-Led Health Care Revolution," by Patricia A. McDonald, Robert S. Mecklenburg, and Lindsay A. Martin;
"Getting to Si, Ja, Oui, Hai, and Da," by Erin Meyer;
"The Limits of Empathy," by Adam Waytz;
"People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO," by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey; and
"Beyond Automation," by Thomas H. Davenport and Julia Kirby.
Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation
Philip Selznick
University of California Press, 1959 - 162 pages
"Philip Selznick has profoundly affected how all serious students of organizations think about their subject. Leadership in Administration is, perhaps, his masterpiece: a lucid, rigorous, yet humane analysis of the essential task of leadership that brilliantly reaffirms the organic, value-infused character of a successful enterprise, whether private or public. The central concepts of the book--'mission,' 'distinctive competence'--have become so much a part of our vocabulary that we sometimes forget they had to be invented and that Selznick invented them. His reminder that the true exercise of leadership transcends a concern with mere efficiency is even more appropriate in today's era of quasi-scientific thought about organizations than it was when, presciently, he first set it forth in 1957."--James Q. Wilson, Harvard University
Organizational Culture and Leadership
Edgar H. Schein
John Wiley & Sons, 24-Mar-2006 - Business & Economics - 464 pages
In this third edition of his classic book, Edgar Schein shows how to transform the abstract concept of culture into a practical tool that managers and students can use to understand the dynamics of organizations and change. Organizational pioneer Schein updates his influential understanding of culture--what it is, how it is created, how it evolves, and how it can be changed. Focusing on today's business realities, Schein draws on a wide range of contemporary research to redefine culture, offers new information on the topic of occupational cultures, and demonstrates the crucial role leaders play in successfully applying the principles of culture to achieve organizational goals. He also tackles the complex question of how an existing culture can be changed--one of the toughest challenges of leadership. The result is a vital resource for understanding and practicing organizational effectiveness. https://books.google.co.in/books?id=xhmezDokfnYC
1. Only the market leader should consider playing defense.
2. The best defensive strategy in marketing is to attack yourself.
3. Strong competitive moves should always be blocked.
Don't spend all your resources in defense. Spend only what is necessary to defend and keep the rest for reserve. Only add more as the intensity of the attack increases.
1. The main consideration is the strength of the leader's position (it is actually an understanding of the market strength, resources, competencies and capabilities of the leader).
A company want to launch an offensive attack on a leader has to assess the strength of the leader's position in the market.
2. Find a weakness in the leader's strength and attack that point (It means, a weakness which can be attacked successfully by the offensive company).
3. Launch the attack on as narrow front as possible.
Narrow front means attack an individual product.
Remember that odds favor the defender.
Find weakness in leader's largest selling products.
Good offensive ideas are extremely difficult to find. Be prepared to do a lot research to the weakness you can exploit.
You can afford to spend more on an offensive attack because you know the market is there for you to get a share.
1. A good flanking move must be made into an uncontested area (in the same generic product).
2. Tactical surprise ought to be an important element of the plan.
3. The pursuit is just as critical as the attack itself.
In a flanking move, after you taste success, you have to reinforce it. The best time to build a strong position is in the beginning period of a new product. Flanking is always done with a new product category which is the company is introducing. Hence, if it is successful, more resources must be spent on it to build a strong position. A flanking attack is to earn market share.
Flanking Alternatives
Product category
Low price - no frills product
High price niche product
Small size product - small screen, pocket size
Large size product - Big screen
New distribution channel
New product from - ex: liquid in place of solid, new colors symbolising different things,
Diet products in food items
The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue. Mao Tse-Tsung.
Trouble a leader, survive, injure a leader, survive, defeat a leader, win.
Guerillas need to have a survival plan. If they survive they can fight the battle once again on a different day. The cost incurred in defeating a guerilla is very high for the opponent.
Al Ries and Jack Trout give the following as principles of guerilla warfare in marketing.
1. Find a segment of the market small enough to defend.
There has to be market from which you can earn revenues. Guerilla marketers may have a diffuse market which the leaders cannot even identify.
2. No matter how successful you become, never act like the leader.
Don't declare victory early. Guerilla strategy and tactics are essentially opposite of what's right for Fortune 500 companies.
3. Be prepared to bug out at a moment's notice.
Whenever you venture into the main visible markets, get out at the first instance of trouble. Conserve your resources.
References
Al Ries and Jack Trout, Marketing Warfare, McGraw Hill, 1986
Al Ries, Jack Trout, "MARKETING WARFARE", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 3 Iss: 4, 1986, pp.77 - 82
In the global market, world class companies have to deliver performance (customer satisfaction and company profit) that is more than the performance of their strongest competitors. Company has to concentrate on the efficiency and effectiveness of operations, but also needs to manage the culture for future performance. World Class Operations Management (WCOM) is a significant concept for simultaneous improvement of effectiveness, efficiency and culture.
Traditional manufacturers have not achieved a balance between efficiency and effectiveness. F.W. Taylor pointed out that, managers and business owners of his time (1885 to 1915) have not developed any understanding of the use of machines and manpower. Therefore, the factory operations were inefficient. He developed methods for improving efficiency and published Scientific Management and Shop Management. Industrial Engineering was started in engineering institutions due to the strong advocacy of Taylor that there is big scope and opportunity for implementing scientific management in engineering organizations by industrial engineers. Larry Miles developed value engineering after world war II. He strongly mentioned that performance (effectiveness) oriented work is only taken care of value (efficiency) oriented work is neglected in the organizations
WCOM (World Class Operations Management): Why You Need More Than Lean
WCOM, adopted by several multinational companies, is one of the more innovative management practises, as it integrates the best Continuous Improvement approaches (Lean, Total Productive Management, World Class Manufacturing) as well as the most innovative approaches in human dynamics like Change Leadership, Performance Behavior, Shingo Model, to name a few.
Maximising reader insights into the successful implementation of such an approach, and explaining not only its potentialities, but also its implementation dynamics, the critical points and the ways it can be integrated into different situations, this book is also about how to create a culture of excellence that is sustainable over a long period of time and delivers consistent (or ever-improving) results.
Operational Excellence: A Concise Guide to Basic Concepts and Their Application
As industrial companies are placing a higher focus on operations, this book comes at the right time with a compilation of basic concepts of Operational Excellence and their application.
Operational excellence allows companies to recover from reductions in gross margins and low profitability, which largely occur due to a rise in agile competition and the short life span of new technologies. This book helps managers and consulting academicians as a ready reference for cross-industry implementation of operational excellence. https://books.google.co.in/books?id=odxlCwAAQBAJ
