Editors note
Article Type: Editor’s note From: Journal of Business Strategy, Volume 33, Issue 4
The field of business strategy seldom allows humor to intrude upon its lofty perch as strategy experts look with disapproving stares upon the working world. But JBS is fortunate to have Patrick Marren to remind us of how funny strategy really can be. He is that most appreciated breath of fresh air, perhaps better described as a gust of irreverence who never misses the mark. His column in this issue of JBS, “The devil’s dictionary of business strategy” defines the glossary of strategy with enough irony, wit and sharp humor to cause outright laughing. For example, “‘Box, The’ n.1. The mythical geo-cognitive realm within which thought is normally constrained, and outside of which everyone is urged to think. 2. The boundaries outside of which one should never, ever think unless one wishes to pursue other interests. 3. Normal human logic.” I, for one, will not again use the phrase “thinking outside the box.”
Or consider the sad definition of “‘cubicle’ n. A storage device for an individual human resource.” One conjures up the image of seeming miles of little compartments that stretch out when one enters the typical corporate environment. I remember going for a job interview at a big four accounting firm after several years of being out of the corporate world. As the elevator deposited me on the third floor, I saw before me a sea of cubicles surrounded by offices looking onto the highway. I knew that even if I were awarded an office whose door I could close, I could not survive the atmosphere of cubicle city.
On a less humorous note, the paper on corporate parenting suggests that these parents need to prove, with quantitative evidence, that they are the “best possible owner of each individual business in the corporate portfolio,” not an easy goal. According to the authors, three consultants with The Boston Consulting Group in Germany, just being a good parent is insufficient. One must be the best, or sell the subsidiary. Thousands of subsidiaries might be on the seller’s block if corporate parents took this advice to heart.
While firms increasingly rely on internal knowledge-sharing to compete and prosper, human nature can get in the way, according to the authors of the paper on market knowledge assets. People often believe that hoarding information enhances their power and standing, and sometimes it does, but not for long and not in a world where media of all descriptions extract and display vast quantities of information. For firms, the key is to build appropriate knowledge,disseminate it in the face of frequent resistance from the hoarders, and then use it to become better than the competition.
The paper on value-based pricing is part of an extensive literature on how to price products for maximum return. Although most pricing experts agree on the advantages of value-based pricing over other methods, relatively few companies take that approach. They tend to be more intuitive about pricing, but the authors argue for more science and less gut feeling in pricing.
The paper on sustainability and leadership emphasizes the pivotal role of employees in the sustainability process and suggests that only if employees trust their leaders will the initiative succeed.
Finally, for CEOs and others who must convince boards of the value of specific strategies, two consultants from Deloitte present a methodology of valuing strategic initiatives and linking them to shareholder value.
