Samsung Throws Apple for a Loop

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Will Samsung Pay win a standards war over Apple and Google? Apple Pay and Google Pay may have gotten lots of buzz but adoption of contactless payment has been slow. The near field communications (NFC) technologies that they rely on require that merchants invest in new technology at the point of sale. Samsung has acquired LoopPay and its technology to allow phones to communicate with any magnetic strip reader. The new service is expected to launch in the 2nd half of 2015. Even if NFC is ultimately a superior technology, the ease of adoption may allow Samsung to dominate as users seek a solution that they can use with most merchants. Meanwhile, Google plans to include it’s Pay app on all Android devices which could increase its penetration. Though it is important to note that this might create a conflict with its key Android partner Samsung. This should engender a nice discussion of strategy in “winner take all” standards wars. In class, one might assign groups to debate why Google, Apple, Samsung, or other will win this market.

Contributed by Russ Coff

Network Effects Silence Phones!

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In teaching industry analysis, I always make a point of discussing network effects as a potential barrier to entry (see Peter Klein’s comment to this post on the term “network externalities”). Usually, I use an example like the iPhone FaceTime application which increases in value depending on the number of family and friends who have iPhones. This, in turn makes it hard for rivals to enter because of the need for a large installed base. Google+ is another example in it’s failure to make much of a dent in Facebook’s market. Now, a new app gives discount points to students for locking their phones based on the number of other locked phones in the same vicinity. As such, when the whole class locks down using the PocketPoints app, they all get discount points. This pushes everyone to adopt the same app to get the most points and makes it hard for a competitor to enter. This might also be a nice way to turn the class into a lab to study game theory, or incentives. It does all this and keeps people off their phones in class! The following video describes the app.

Heard Through Virginia Postrel

Auctioning eBay?

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As evidenced by the business combination scavenger hunt exercise, corporate strategy is always a slippery slope. eBay is in the process of splitting into 3 parts: auctions, Paypal, and the enterprise unit that helps brick and mortar retailers gain an online presence. Their conclusion: these businesses don’t fit together well and are worth more apart than together. Here is a back of the napkin sum of the parts valuation to back that up. This may be a tired story but it won’t go away. In this case, there is no compelling reason that Paypal must be integrated with eBay to be used as a payment mode in auctions. In fact, other marketplaces (like Amazon) may consider Paypal to be a rival instead of a potential partner because it is tied to eBay — more business opportunities if they are separate businesses. Of course, eBay shouldn’t be surprised that an auction would allow one to capture the most value. This might be a nice starting point for corporate strategy. Why do firms have so much trouble determining what combinations will create value?

Contributed by Russ Coff

OPEC Hits a Slick

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OPEC might seem like a tired example of collusion since the alliance has been stable for many years. However, it is certainly produced a gush of news lately as oil prices have slipped by 60% in just a few months. This article offers a nice summary of why each member of the OPEC cartel has failed to bolster the prices (e.g., cut production). This underscores the different strategic objectives that each has an how difficult it may be to maintain cooperation. Some of the reasons reflect divergent goals among partners (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia). Others reflect internal turmoil (Venezuela). Then there are strategic objectives such as the Saudi’s seeking to thrash the economics of newer, more costly, sources like fracking (which has made the US the top oil producing nation). While this sudden drop in in prices has hurt many oil producing nations (see chart) it has also lubricated many troubled economies in other parts of the world.

Contributed by Russ Coff

Rejection Therapy: For PhDs, entrepreneurs & other failures

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What is the most significant thing that differentiates entrepreneurs from others? Somehow, in the face of overwhelming odds that they will fail, they still manage to push forward. Rejection, almost inevitable, doesn’t deter them. The rest of us kill inventive ideas before we even test them because we fear rejection. This NPR story explores a new form of therapy where rejection is turned into a game: how many times can you get rejected in a day? Could desensitizing people to failure create more entrepreneurs? This also has important implications for academics who typically face many rejections from journals for each manuscript that gets accepted. Without “rejection therapy,” they may avoid sending papers to journals because they are concerned that the work will be rejected. Like would be entrepreneurs, they kill ideas before they have had a chance to test the waters.

Contributed by Don Hatfield

Dr. K Prescribes Strategy Videos

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David Kryscynski (Dr. K) has provided an excellent series of online videos to supplement your course or to help move portions of it online. These are very well produced and may allow you to spend class time on more experiential activities found elsewhere on this site. Below is the video on Porter’s generic strategies but I have provided links to all of the available videos below and listed others that you can gain access to through Wiley. Dr. K’s newest collection can be found on his free web page at LearnStrategy.org.

More Videos (below) Accompany Text

The videos below are also available but are designed to accompany the textbook: Strategic Management 1e by Jeff Dyer, Paul Godfrey, Robert Jensen and David Bryce (BYU Marriott School of Business). Contact your local Wiley sales representative or Executive Editor, Lise Johnson, at lise.johnson@wiley.com to receive additional information about class-testing or possibly using the videos without the text. For information on how to utilize these animations for non-academic use please send an email to ols_dept@byu.edu.

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Strategic Magic: Success stunts learning

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i-failAn emerging literature focuses on learning from failures — both in terms of entrepreneurship and strategy more broadly. For some recent examples, see studies by Ariño and de la Torre (1998), Eggers (2012), and Kim & Miner (2007). It might appear that learning from success should be taken for granted — the actor has done something well and will naturally repeat the behavior. However, in the complex world of strategic decision-making, causality and can be especially hard to determine. It turns out that failure tends to trigger more rigorous analysis of the causes (even if these analyses suffer from attribution biases). On balance, success may tend to trigger much less rigorous analysis (if any) that is even more biased in the attributions made. This WSJ article on a magician’s ability to dupe audiences illustrates the principle nicely. In class, this discussion might be used to discuss the role of luck and how it may skew attributions, reducing the likelihood of serial success in strategic decision-making. The magic trick described in the article (or something similar) might be a nice, and dramatic, way to introduce the topic in class — all you need is two dimes…

Contributed by Donald E. Hatfield

North Korea: Craziness & Competitive Advantage?

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Madness has been recognized in the game theoretic literature as a potential source of advantage. That is, a crazy person willing to pre-commit to a course of action might preempt rivals who consider that course to be irrational. In this context, North Korea’s attack on Sony might be considered as credible commitment to being crazy. As such, it confirms that North Korea may be unpredictable and might engage in activities that appear quite irrational. Thus, without incurring the cost of a full scale war, they can convince the west that they would be willing to sacrifice everything to hurt their rivals. In the scheme of things, attacking Sony is a relatively cheap way to do this. Here is an academic paper applying madman theory to the North Korean context. This might lead to a nice discussion of related game theoretic strategies in a business context.

Contributed by Nicolai Foss

Boeing’s Self-Destructing Android

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In a torrent of irony, Boeing is partnering with Blackberry to deliver a more secure line of smartphones. Do their capabilities transfer? Does their brand transfer? Did they pick the right partner to imbue confidence? This is almost an entry for the business combination scavenger hunt. Whether the business model makes sense or not, one might think Sony’s experience will help to create demand for this type of enhanced security. If asked to do a testimonial, will Sony byte?

 

Contributed by Russ Coff

Cultural Sensitivity Gone Wild

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Almost anything good can be taken too far. Cultural sensitivity may be no exception. Individuals who try to be overly culturally sensitive may risk appearing disingenuine or alienate those in their own culture. Perhaps this has application in a discussion of global strategy (as well as etiquette in restaurants).

 

Contributed by Russ Coff

All About that Bitch

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Much has been made of glass ceilings in organizations and this is a very appropriate conversation for strategy courses. Recent research indicates that appointments of female executives have positive implications for innovation but investor reactions are sometimes negative when such appointments are announced. This video might start the discussion and the research takes it in a more serious direction (as the title suggests, the content may be a bit edgy for some…).

Contributed by Russ Coff

Food for Thought: PhD seminar syllabi

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SeminarFoodWhile the toolbox is focused mostly on teaching strategy at the MBA and BBA levels, there is also room to provide some resources for PhD programs as well. Below are some strategy PhD seminar syllabi that may be useful. Please send me your most recent syllabi and I will add them to this post. Some specialized strategy seminars are pulled out below (innovation and research methods).

Innovation

Research Methods

Contributed by Russ Coff (and all the folks above!)

Negotiating Coordination Costs

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The MicroTech negotiation is a slightly simpler version of another exercise in the Toolbox. It focuses on the problems promoting cooperation across divisions (for example to achieve synergies). Caucasian mid-adult businessman and woman staring at each other with hostile expressions.MicroTech is a negotiation over the terms to transfer a technology between 2 divisions of a company to take advantage of a market opportunity. Sub-optimal agreements (money left on the table) represent transaction costs and inefficiencies that must be overcome in order to create corporate value. There are two roles (Gant and Coleman). One division, Household Appliances (HA), has developed a new technology that has value if sold outside of the company. However, the division does not have a charter to sell chips. In order to take advantage, the technology must be transferred to the Chips & components (CC) division. In the process, about 20-40% of the potential value is typically left on the table. The discussion focuses on how to align objectives and achieve cooperation across divisions. It turns out that such cooperation is hard to achieve in a competitive culture. How, then, can the firm create a cooperative culture? This, it turns out, may be a VRIO resource…

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Honda “B” Emerges

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In this video, Henry Mintzberg presents the story behind the classic Honda B case. That is, when Honda tried to enter the traditional US motorcycle market with large machines but ran into implementation problems that pushed it toward introducing small bikes through non-traditional distribution channels. As a result of their pivots, they were able to create a new market for smaller bikes in the US. This was a startling contrast to the “A” case which implied that the strategy was intentional from the start.

Heard Through Marko Rillo

Changing the Game

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This interview with the founders of Justin.tv and Twitch presents an example of how founders shift their strategy in the face of feedback from customers, and emerging opportunities. They started Justin.tv to broadcast their lives, but soon discovered that people really wanted to watch gaming. This interview describes how they pivoted. In a strategy class, this illustrates intended vs. emergent strategies as well as the need for entrepreneurs to pivot off of initial ideas. There is also an interesting discussion of how technology has helped to make gaming and poker into competitive sports. You may think these guys are crazy, but Amazon paid $1 Billion for Twitch. The video goes on (@ 19 min) to discuss their involvement with Y-Combinator which provided seed capital. Warning: around 13:45 there is discussion of mature content that some students may find inappropriate.
Contributed by Susana Velez-Castrillon

The Vision Thing Exercise

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A useful way to introduce the topic of leadership is to understand how leaders differ from managers. The “Vision Thing” exercise is designed to help students distinguish the activities of leaders and managers in a fun and engaging manner. The exercise involves creating a three-tiered hierarchical structure. One person is the CEO, another is the manager, and a third is the employee. The CEO prepares a vision statement in advance and works with the manager to determine how to translate the vision to a tangible “product” using the toy construction set. The manager then guides the employee on building the “product.” The process is iterative in nature—the manager can communicate with the CEO and employee as often as necessary. But there is a finite amount of time available to implement the vision. Once the exercise is complete the team comes together to examine how close the team came to implementing the CEO’s vision. The learning objectives are:

  • To understand the distinct, yet complementary roles of leaders and managers
  • To appreciate the challenges involved in articulating a vision
  • To learn the difference between a vision and a strategy

You can find a complete writeup of this exercise in an article that Atul Teckchandani and Frank Schultz published in the Journal of Leadership Studies: The Vision Thing: An experiential exercise introducing the key activities performed by leaders.

Contributed by Atul Teckchandani

 

Business Combination Scavenger Hunt

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Rich Makadok invites his students to send pictures of strange business combinations. The sequence of Delta Dental commercials offer humorous combinations of businesses that drive home the topic of corporate strategy. However, these pale when compared to many real world combinations. One of my favorites is when the CEO of Occidental Petroleum (Armand Hammer) purchased a significant interest in the company that makes Arm & Hammer Baking Soda because he liked the name. The scavenger hunt exercise involves asking students to search for real life examples of strange business combinations and bring pictures to class. Once you are looking for them, you realize the examples are everywhere. For example, Boeing plans to produce a new smartphone (really, not a joke). The restaurant above offers family planning advice and products. The exercise will help students realize how rare a sound corporate strategy really is. Click <Continue Reading> to see additional examples (in many cases, you can click the picture to go to the company’s web page):

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A Leading Personality

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Personality – in its many forms —  is critical for working together and for leading organizations. This is a critical topic for strategy courses — especially for executive audiences. While there are large gaps in our understanding of personality and leadership, research does provide several pointers that can help assess who would be a good organizational leader in different contexts. This video offers a nice, digestible, summary of the research and how it relates to leading organizations. Since it is 35 minutes, it might be assigned for out of class viewing prior to a session on strategic leadership.

Contributed by Will Mitchell

A Blanket Theory of Market Share

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Every wonder why hospital receiving blanket always look the same (pink & blue stripes)? Medline’s “Kuddle-up” line has a near complete market share of the hospital receiving blanket business. The company started in 1910 making butcher’s aprons for the Chicago meatpacking industry. They entered the receiving blanket business in 1950’s and now sell more than 1.5M blankets/year. A recent article in Quartz notes: “The Kuddle-Up blanket was entwined with the institutionalization of childbirth. Just as we began to standardize the process of birth, we began to standardize the post-partum experience, too, such that the newborn photo in the Kuddle-Up blanket is, at this point, an instant signifier. Thousands of new parents, and even grandparents, were themselves swaddled in such a blanket when they were born; that same pattern spans generations.” In a strategy course, one might ask how could a company gain and sustain such an advantage virtually unchallenged for over 60 years? Was there a substantial cost advantage? If so, what are the limits to scale advantages? Why isn’t there a stronger market for a differentiated product? That certainly is the case in related baby care product markets. Will this post make potential entrants aware and help to erode the advantage?

Contributed by Peter Klein

Love Triangle Goes Hostile

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Few things are more dramatic than a good hostile takeover attempt. Dollar General has been trying all summer to break up the planned nuptials between Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. They have offered $600 million more for Family Dollar than the preferred suitor. Two things may be preventing Family Dollar from switching partners: 1) concerns that a Dollar General deal would be thwarted by anti-trust regulators, and 2) the Family Dollar CEO would lose his job if Dollar General takes over. Of course, they say the second issue is not on their minds. This makes a great “ripped from the headlines” case (here is a small packet of news articles). There are many directions that the discussion can go which, I think, makes for a nice introductory case to frame the rest of the semester. Here are a few:

  • What is an industry? The anti-trust argument assumes that the industry is defined as small discount stores (in other words, Wal-Mart is not really a player).
  • Corporate governance: How much should it matter what the Family Dollar CEO’s preferences are?
  • Cost advantages: Do any of the players have a cost advantage? At what point do the advantages of scale diminish?
  • Industry structure: What, if anything, makes this an attractive industry?
  • Competitive dynamics: What will be the next competitive move? What has driven the past moves?
  • M&A Synergies: The news packet includes an estimate of the synergies and suggests that Dollar General could create more value. Do you buy this analysis?
  • Scenario planning: How might this unfold? To explore this, I have created a simple decision tree and added financials draws from a SeekingAlpha analysis in the news packet. Here is the spreadsheet (which uses the Precision Tree Excel add-in).

Contributed by Russ Coff