An electronic-components company depended on a single large customer for 30 percent of its sales. Management simply asked, “What if they should integrate backward?” There was no visible reason to believe that such a move was in the offing, and the question would probably not have surfaced as a serious issue without the forcing device of required contingency planning. But development of the contingency plan led to two real benefits. First, it brought out the need for some preventive medicine, and this became a continuing part of the company’s relationship with its big customer. Second, it led to a detailed economic analysis of the risks and disadvantages to the customer of backward integration. One year later, that analysis was instrumental in convincing the customer that a tentative step he had been about to take toward integration would be unwise.
Assessing environmental forces. We can all think of companies that have failed to anticipate important changes in their external environments. The US automobile industry, with all its vast managerial and financial resources, was simply unprepared for the explosive issues of automotive safety and air pollutants. And during the late 1960s, stock brokers on Wall Street almost drowned in their own success because they had failed to anticipate the volume growth of the industry and its attendant “back-office” requirements.
An electronic-components company depended on a single large customer for 30 percent of its sales. Management simply asked, “What if they should integrate backward?” There was no visible reason to believe that such a move was in the offing, and the question would probably not have surfaced as a serious issue without the forcing device of required contingency planning. But development of the contingency plan led to two real benefits. First, it brought out the need for some preventive medicine, and this became a continuing part of the company’s relationship with its big customer. Second, it led to a detailed economic analysis of the risks and disadvantages to the customer of backward integration. One year later, that analysis was instrumental in convincing the customer that a tentative step he had been about to take toward integration would be unwise.
Assessing environmental forces. We can all think of companies that have failed to anticipate important changes in their external environments. The US automobile industry, with all its vast managerial and financial resources, was simply unprepared for the explosive issues of automotive safety and air pollutants. And during the late 1960s, stock brokers on Wall Street almost drowned in their own success because they had failed to anticipate the volume growth of the industry and its attendant “back-office” requirements.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..