文档介绍：HBNOVEMBER-DECEMBERR1996
I. Operational Effectiveness Is Not Strategy
For almost two decades, managers have been egy. The quest for productivity, quality, and speed
learning to play by a new set of rules. Companies has spawned a remarkable number of management
must be flexible to respond rapidly pet- tools and techniques: total quality management,
itive and market changes. They must benchmark benchmarking, time-petition, outsourc-
continuously to ing, partnering,
achieve best prac- reengineering,
tice. They must change manage-
outsource aggres- ment. Although
sively to gain ef- What Is Strategy? the resulting op-
ficiencies. And erational improve-
they must nur- ments have often
ture a few petencies in the by Michael E. Porter been dramatic, panies have
race to stay ahead of rivals. been frustrated by their inability to
Positioning – once the heart of strategy – is reject- translate those gains into sustainable profitability.
ed as too static for today’s dynamic markets and And bit by bit, almost imperceptibly, management
changing technologies. According to the new dog- tools have taken the place of strategy. As manag-
ma, rivals can quickly copy any market position, ers push to improve on all fronts, they move farther
petitive advantage is, at best, temporary. away from petitive positions.
But those beliefs are dangerous half-truths, and
they are leading more and panies down Operational Effectiveness:
the path of mutually petition. Necessary but Not Sufficient
True, some barriers petition are falling as
regulation eases and markets e global. True, Operational effectiveness and strategy are both
companies have properly invested energy in - essential to superior performance, which, after all,
ing leaner and more nimble. In many industries, is the primary goal of any enterprise. But they work
however, what some call petition is a in very different ways.
self-inflicted wound, not the inevitable e of
a changing paradigm petition. Michael