STRATEGY 411 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Michael Eisner, Market Capitalization, W. M. Keck Observatory
Document Summary
Most executives define strategy as- involves discovering and targeting attractive markets and crafting positions that deliver sustained competitive advantage in them. Achieve this by configuring and arranging resources and activities to provide unique value to customers/common value at uniquely low cost. Valuable positions, protected from imitation and appropriation, provide sustained profit streams. Early focus on building regionally dense network of stores in small towns (positional advantage) Complementary choices on ad, pricing, it all supported low cost and flexible merchandised stores. Despite strong position and successful strategic rollout, wm equity price has grown very little for past 12-13 yrs. Due to ongoing rollout was anticipated long ago and investors seek evidence of newly discovered value. Maintaining outstanding financial returns doesn"t increase share price. Efforts to grow blur uniqueness, create compromises, reduce fit, undermine comp adv. Most vexing strategic challenge is not how to obtain or sustain competitive advantage, but on how to keep finding new, unexpected ways to create value.
