7-S Analysis

I worked for a certain baseball bat company that had several misalignments within the company. I chose to leave the name of the company anonymous. This baseball bat manufacture creates some of most advance baseball and softball bats, but despite this there are certain elements of the organization that did not jive other parts. These misalignments included staff, shared values, style.

Staff

Even though the company desired to create the most advanced softball and baseball bats the staff was misaligned with that desire. The staff was hired through a staffing company for a probationary period. Once the probationary period was achieved the staff was hired on with the company.

Shared Values

There were no shared values in the company. There was a feeling that everyone was watching out for their own best interests rather than rallying around the interests of the company. Management would try to unite the workers to work hard and be productive, but it was merely sloganeering by the management. No real attempt to create lasting values.

Style

The culture in this company was very divided. There were divisions based on race, political affiliation, and even whether you are a member of a gang or not. The culture was also not very friendly to those who did not try to assimilate themselves into one of the “clicks” within the culture. There was one employee who was still on his probationary period that was fired ultimately because he was very different than everyone else. His work was just as good as everyone else’s, but he had a family and made some of the managers look bad.

Recommendations

I believe that the style of the organization would change dramatically if this company would better screen the staff rather than simply taking the employees that come to them from the staffing agency.

Also, I believe that the company should reassess the values of the company and best align them with the goals of the company.

In the end, I believe that he style and culture of the organization would align themselves as the proper staff and shared values are implemented.

Xerox, A Service Company?

Xerox has become much more than the copy and paper company that we know and love. In an article entitled, “What Does Xerox Mean To You?”, by the blog Seeking Alpha discusses among many other things the brand equity of Xerox. Their brand is so powerful that we often replace “copying” with “Xeroxing”.

Interestingly, making copiers is only a small fraction of what the company is involved with. The company over the years has completely changed its core competency to be more of a service company than actually providing a physical product. In fact, they are involved with outsourcing business processes such as payroll accounting, etc. They also have dedicated servers for clients for cloud computing applications. In this day in age when the world is becoming increasingly paperless, Xerox has morphed and adapted to the world around them.

This idea reminded me of the Hedgehog Principal from Good to Great. Xerox successfully made it so that their core competency was aligned with what they could be best at even though it was what the company has been doing for years and years before. Also, by making the shift they are not deviating from being the ultimate document company, they are just changing the way they are being the best. Consequently, the passion that their company has for documents always had still remains even in shift. Lastly, Xerox realized that the thing that will drive their economic engine in the future would be virtual documents rather than physical documents. Therefore, the shift to dominating the virtual document world was a clear choice to drive their profits in the future.

By far one of the more interesting points of the article was a quote by economist Joseph Schumpeter:

“Every piece of business strategy acquires its true significance only against the background of that process and within the situation created by it. It must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction; it cannot be understood irrespective of it or, in fact, on the hypothesis that there is a perennial lull.”

In other words, the way companies do business now will not be the same way that they will be conducted in the future. There will always be the “perennial gale of creative destruction” that destroys the old way of doing things with the new more innovative way.

Facebook’s Strategy in Asia

Facebook has been eager to enter the Chinese market for a long time and it is obvious why they would want to do it. China is the most populous country with over 500 million internet users, but Facebook has not been able to enter their market because of the strict censorship laws in China. Just recently, in Facebook’s IPO filing they once again relayed the message that they are eager to enter China, but, “We do not know if we will be able to find an approach to managing content and information that will be acceptable to us and to the Chinese government.” Facebook goes on and explain that they will also face strong competition from existing social media companies such as Renren, Sina, and Tencent.

Facebook still continues to assess China as a possibility. In fact, Zuckerberg is learning Mandrin Chinese . In the end, Facebook wants to ensure that they execute their plan in a way that will provided them with significant flexibility. Facebook management said regarding this topic, “this market has substantial legal and regulatory complexities that have prevented our entry into China to date. If we fail to deploy or manage our operations in international markets successfully, our business may suffer.”

Instead, Facebook is instead focusing their efforts on India, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. They believe they will be successful in these countries because of increases in broadband networks and mobile devices. Despite the positive talk, Facebook may be facing an uphill battle in these countries because their current penetration is rather shallow. India’s is the highest, at between 20-30%, and Russia, South Korea, and Japan’s penetration rate is less that 15% each. Facebook will also be confronting rivalry pressures from existing social media companies that are more established in those countries.

Apple's Strategy In Entering The Textbook Market

Recently Apple announced its plans to enter the textbook market. See the Wall Street Journal Article “Apple Jumps Into Textbooks”. This move for Apple is a very interesting from a strategy perspective. Lets together analyze the decision.

Threat of new entrants

Probably the largest threat that Apple is facing by entering the textbook market is the ease at which new competitors can enter the marketplace. The new competitor would only need two things, (1) to build a relationship with an existing publisher, and (2) a means of distributing the e-textbooks.

Threat of substitutes

This could be a significant problem if the idea of carrying around your texts on a mobile device does not catch on because there will always be the existing paper texts.

Bargaining power of suppliers

Publishers currently have huge amounts of power in the textbook arena. Apple’s move, however, essentially reduces the cost of the publisher and also extends the reach of their products to buyers. In the long run, however, I believe that the bargaining power of publishers will fall dramatically. Publishers know that the future of print media looks grim at best, and unless they completely change with the demands of the consumers, printing companies will have a very hard time.

Bargaining power of buyers

Buyers in the near term future will be faced with a variety of options. Currently, there are very few channels to obtain e-textbooks, but as the options grow, bargaining power of the buyers will rise and the cost to the consumer will fall.

Competitive rivalry within the industry

Recently, there have been very substantial rivalries in the e-book market. The key players include Apple with their iPad, Amazon with their Kindle, Barns & Noble with their Nook, and Google with a variety of Android devices. Though this competition will eat away at potential profits, the companies that will be most successful will be the ones that can differentiate their product or distribution in a meaningful way. It will be interesting to see which strategy wins in the end.