3.5 Human performance

Establishing Strategic Business Units

Companies often define themselves in terms of

products

: They are in the

auto business

or the

clothing business.

target market definition

tends to focus on selling a product or service to a

current market. Pepsi could define its target market as everyone who drinks carbonated soft drinks,

and competitors would therefore be other carbonated soft drink companies.

strategic market definition

, however, also focuses on the potential market. Market defini-

tions of a business, however, describe the business as a customer-satisfying process. Products

are transient; basic needs and customer groups endure forever. Transportation is a need: the

horse and carriage, automobile, railroad, airline, ship, and truck are products that meet that

need.

Remember 3.6

Viewing businesses in terms of

customer needs

are the

only way to survive

in saturated markets nowadays.

Speaking of Apple and looking at the remarkable development 1997 (return of Steve Jobs) to

2012 it is clear that Apple had a very strong leader.

Max Weber wrote some notes that were translated after his death(1920) by his widow (in

1921-1922) into „The Theory Of Social And Economic Organization“. In this work he describes

the following typology of organizations:

Legal/bureaucratic

(think IBM or the U.S. government)

Traditional

(e.g., the Catholic Church)

Charismatic

(run by special, magical individuals)

Also in his book he postulates:

„ Charisma can only be

awakened

and

tested

; it cannot be

learned

taught.

Sometimes Apple is compared to Sony because there too was a charismatic leader

Akio Morita

or look at Disney

Walt Disney)

. But under the Akio Morita’s leadership, Sony took advantage of

Japan’s lead in high-quality device manufacturing and became the masters of what we used to call

the Japanese Food Fight:

„Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks"

When the world moved to platforms and then to ecosystems, Sony’s device-oriented culture —

and the fiefdoms it fostered — brought it to its current sorry state are distinctive differences:13

Today, would you care to guess what Sony’s most profitable business is? Answer: Financial

Services: