Editors note
Article Type: Editor’s note From: Journal of Business Strategy, Volume 31, Issue 6
As the first decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, we are happy to report that Journal of Business Strategy once again performed in stellar fashion and we thank all our readers for that achievement. We think this final issue of the decade continues our focus on lively, practical articles that incorporate rigorous scholarship in an accessible context.
IBM’s Anees Gopalani discusses companies that sell products, which of course are tangible goods, and find themselves in uncharted territory when they decide to add services to their customer offerings. The transition is more difficult than one might imagine. The incentive comes with the bottom line,however, since well-managed service business additions can add up to 25 percent to earnings.
Kevin Desouza and Nicholas D. Sweers II contribute a lively case study to this issue, followed by responses from two business executives. The study examines how a young partner at a consulting firm fumbles when asked to manage a change effort that affects all members of the firm. In attempting to involve all the firm’s employees in the transition, he is blindsided by underground resistance. Following the case study, two business executives comment on how the manager could have headed off the resistance at an early stage.
Three Accenture consultants and researchers – from Bangalore (India),Boston and London – team up to present a new operating model for balancing global and local management concerns. They focus on a case study of Tata Communications, part of the rapidly growing business group based in India with revenues of over $70.8 billion USD. The Group employs around 350,000 people worldwide. As Tata becomes more international, it faces global-local tradeoffs. The Accenture paper describes how Tata and other multinationals are breaking up the global-local conundrum into a set of more manageable strategic problems they call “pressure points.” The authors designed a different operating model solution for each pressure point to enhance agility and keep the balance between global efficiency and local responsiveness.
Linda M. Cohen’s paper on considering physical assets as a strategic element in M&A discusses a topic seldom addressed. Her credentials as an architect and university professor of management give her a broad view of how executives can use physical assets as leverage in a takeover, for example, or to deter a hostile takeover or defend against it.
Richard Pech and Greg Stamboulidis, who both lecture at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and are managing directors of a consulting firm,contribute a paper that may be controversial since it discusses strategies of deception. They define these strategies as legal but unexpected methods of pre-empting or countering potentially harmful competitor actions. In the first of two case studies, the owner-entrepreneur deploys a strategy designed to hide his success, giving the impression that his very large firm is only a small family entity. The second entrepreneur takes this strategy further by completely hiding himself and his web of business interests from sight to avoid aggressive competitive retaliatory behaviors. The strategies these entrepreneurs deploy are not unethical or illegal (in Australia) but offer a means that firms with limited resources can use against large, aggressive competitors.
We wish all our readers a joyful holiday season and a happy 2011.
