(Your perception of) Michael Porter stands corrected.

From the link: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/strategy_essentials_you_ignore.html 

Strategy Guru - Michael Porter

Some new views (these are debatable. But are thought provoking too). The author, Joan, has written these after personal interaction with the Strategy genius Michael Porter himself!

Insights collected by the author, Joan: 

1. Competitive advantage is not about beating rivals; it's about creating unique value for customers. If you have a competitive advantage, it will show up on your P&L.
2. No strategy is meaningful unless it makes clear what the organization will not do. Making trade-offs is the linchpin that makes competitive advantage possible and sustainable.
3. There is no honor in size or growth if those are profit-less. Competition is about profits, not market share.
4. Don't overestimate or underestimate the importance of good execution. It's unlikely to be a source of a sustainable advantage, but without it even the most brilliant strategy will fail to produce superior performance.
5. Good strategies depend on many choices, not one, and on the connections among them. A core competence alone will rarely produce a sustainable competitive advantage.
6. Flexibility in the face of uncertainty may sound like a good idea, but it means that your organization will never stand for anything or become good at anything. Too much change can be just as disastrous for strategy as too little.
7. Committing to a strategy does not require heroic predictions about the future. Making that commitment actually improves your ability to innovate and to adapt to turbulence.
8. Vying to be the best is an intuitive but self-destructive approach to competition.
9. A distinctive value proposition is essential for strategy. But strategy is more than marketing. If your value proposition doesn't require a specifically tailored value chain to deliver it, it will have no strategic relevance.
10. Don't feel you have to "delight" every possible customer out there. The sign of a good strategy is that it deliberately makes some customers unhappy.

Design Your Own Profession! (Do not use fixed / outdated job titles --> Create your OWN)

From the link: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/design_your_own_profession.html

Technologies that connect people to knowledge, services, and one another across the globe have acted as a centrifugal force, spinning functions and authority away from the center toward millions of previously silent and dis-empowered individuals. The result is that many old titles and jobs no longer make sense, and many new functions are just waiting to be claimed....

Customize your Job title !

...What does all this mean for job-seekers in this uncertain economy? Forget the titles on the org charts and the advertised positions. Design your own profession and convince employers that you are exactly what they need. In my view, the New York Times and other information hubs ought to be advertising for curators and verifiers, but you shouldn't wait for them to do so. Define the functions you think they need and you can supply, and then apply for a corresponding position, whether or not they've created it yet.

......Information and communications technology is blowing the old categories into bits. But countless new jobs will be created connecting those bits in unexpected but useful ways. And who better to name them than you?

MBAs can help you be happy, LOL :) Here is how (See Exhibit below). Summary: Got problems? --> Don't worry. No problems? -->Don't worry.

5 Charts that changed Business - Harvard Business Review + A few more :)))

From the link: http://hbr.org/web/slideshows/five-charts-that-changed-business/1-slide

Notes for the charts:

Introduction: Once in a while, a chart so deftly captures an important strategic insight that it becomes an iconic part of management thinking and a tool that shows up in MBA classrooms and corporate boardrooms for years to come. As HBR prepares for its 90th anniversary, in 2012, our editors have combed the magazine archives and other sources to select five charts that changed the shape of strategy. What did we miss? Nominate more charts in the comments. 

#1: The Experience Curve

Created by the Boston Consulting Group in 1966, this diagram may look simple, but it captured the notion that companies develop competitive advantage through economies of scale: Over time, they learn to lower costs, gain efficiencies, and improve products by redesigning and utilizing better technology. Source: Walter Kiechel, The Lords of Strategy (Harvard Business Press, 2010)

#2: The Growth Share Matrix
This grid, devised at Boston Consulting Group in 1968, crystallized the relationship between market growth and market share to help determine the overall prospects for various business units. It is used to teach managers to milk cash cows, divest dogs, invest in stars, and weigh the risks and rewards of question marks. Source: Walter Kiechel, The Lords of Strategy (Harvard Business Press, 2010)

#3: The Five Forces
Prior to Michael Porter's breakthrough 1979 HBR article, "competition" referred to rivalry between companies. Few people considered whether or why some industries were inherently more or less profitable than others or how persistent their profits were over time. Porter's diagram changed that—and students, strategists, consultants, and entrepreneurs now assess a company's competitive position according to the strength of the five forces. Source: "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy," HBR March–April 1979

#4: Disruptive Innovation
When Clayton M. Christensen and Joseph L. Bower introduced this idea, in a 1995 HBR article, their simple chart illustrated a key insight: Established players can be threatened by lower-quality offerings that fulfill the needs of "overserved" customers—and those offerings tend to improve over time. Source: "Disruptive Technologies: Catching The Wave," HBR January–February 1995

#5: The Market Pyramid
Today managers take for granted that the biggest growth opportunities lie in emerging markets—and that viable businesses can be built to serve people near "the bottom of the pyramid." That can be traced to this chart, introduced by C.K. Prahalad and Kenneth Lieberthal in HBR in 1998. People living on $5,000 to $10,000 a year may not sound like lucrative consumers, but they constitute a demographic of immense purchasing power for companies selling food, housing, or energy. Source: "The End Of Corporate Imperialism," HBR July–August 1998 

***************

Personally, I feel that this list is not complete. Our books are Sooo full of diagrams that help to add clarity to Business Models. However, these are indeed very useful. I have added more Charts / Diagrams below:

1

2

3

4

5

SWOT Analysis Diagram

Six Sigma DMAIC Chart

Deming's PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) for Continuous Improvement

Blue Ocean Strategy Summary

The Diffusion of Innovation Curve

Classroom learning is not enough! Learning never stops...

What I realize after having spent a while in the Business School is this:

There are many ways to sources to learn about Business Management. It is not right to expect all learning to originate from the class room alone. In my opinion, the following sources matter:

• Class room teaching by Professors (but of course)
• Notes provided by Professors
• In class learning by discussion with classmates
• Outside class room learning by discussion with classmates
• Outside class room learning by interacting with classmates
• Life experiences
• Text books
• Books in the library
• Online sources
• Journals
• Notes - if any available
• Newspapers & Magazines.
• Television etc

So in short, learning does not end when you leave the classroom. Learning goes on 24x7x365. Only when you go into depth into your subjects and fields can you reach great heights in professional life :)

- Gerry.

How business is shifting from the Brick Store to the Internet and the Cell Phone

From the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bluecarreon/2011/11/18/to-succeed-in-retail-you-have-to-become-like-jennifer-lopez-or-justin-timberlake/

Excerpts:

How do you make people part with their hard-earned money? How do you make them buy your products? How will you make money on Black Friday? According to the new findings of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), you have to become the Jennifer Lopez of business models. You have to be—like the singer, actress and dancer—a triple threat. A couple of years ago, it was all about complementing your brick and mortar store with online presence by way of your own e-commerce site or by making your goods available on major e-tailers. But that’s an old business model now according to the Multi-Channel 3.0: The Mobile Revolution report of BCG. Now, you need to keep up with technology as well because today’s “consumers are gaining increasing control in the buyer-seller relationship through the rapid emergence of 

• Feature-rich mobile devices
• Social networking & 
• Cloud computing.

 “Three recent trends in digital technology are driving the mobile revolution. 

• First, mobile connectivity is making Internet access ubiquitous. In 2010, 43 percent of the mobile phones sold were smartphones; that number is expected to grow to 71 percent by 2015. 
•  Second, online social networks are transforming retailing by creating new marketplaces. Every week, 800 million Facebook users share 7 billion pieces of content, and nearly half of these access Facebook through their mobile devices. 
•  Third, cloud computing, the newest technology, is liberating storage from the limits posed by hard drives. By 2013, 60 percent of server workloads will be virtualized.”

In simplest terms, this means that more and more people will be making purchases using their mobile phones. They could view and pay for merchandise using their smartphones. This is already a big trend in Japan and other parts of Asia. Social networking sites would also grow ever more important. “Facebook has been a tremendous source of innovations, both on and off its site. Facebook members can buy goods on Facebook, find deals tailored for a particular time or place, and use virtual currency to pay for games and apps. Facebook also helps users find brick-and-mortar stores that send location-based offers and coupons to consumers as they shop onsite. Starbucks, for example, has more than 25 million fans on Facebook, where customers can monitor their accounts and purchase gift points for friends.” Burberry is one of the first brands to embrace Facebook. Today they have close to 10 million fans who get updates on everything about Burberry on a daily basis.

Another interesting finding from the article is the rise of price comparison applications. “Online retailers are expanding their reach and gaining access to offline [brick-and-mortar] stores through price-comparison applications such as RedLaser, recently acquired by eBay.

RedLaser allows customers interested in a product at one store to instantly learn what the competition is charging and to find product information and store locations. Potentially more threatening is the new Amazon Remembers tool, which could turn brick-and-mortar stores into show rooms for Amazon.com. Using this feature, shoppers in a store can snap a picture of a product with their mobile phones, and the photo is automatically uploaded to Amazon.com, which then searches for a similar product. Customers can purchase the Amazon product immediately or ‘remember it’ in their Amazon account.”

What does this mean for the consumer? It will make shopping more efficient and give us access to better customer service via feed backs on social networking sites. “Without entering a store, consumers are accessing information on products and services, downloading personalized deals and offers, and making purchases through their smartphones. And once they are inside a store, they are using their phones to compare prices with online offers, check product reviews, order out-of-stock items directly, and pay for their purchases.”

Greek Gods Financial crisis

Who really "likes" your company's facebook page!

Marketing / Business Feedback loop

MOCOM 2020 - The Future of Mobile Media and Communication

Social Media 2011 - updated version

Addicted to learning !!!

Plato

Socrates

Going back to School was the best thing that happened to me! I am so excited about and addicted to learning. Huge hunger and passion for learning, these days. Quote:

"I know one thing - that I know nothing" - Plato (about Socrates) in Greece. 

Capgemini - People matter, results count.

STP applied to the Job Market

I did a STP & SWOT exercise for myself, with regards to the Job-Market:

Segmentation - Done!

Targeting - Done!

Positioning - Still working on it.

Just like people prefer brand name designer labels, I have recently developed a preference for reputed companies as my potential employers now. It is natural to be attracted to the very best. Can't wait for Summer 2012 to know what destiny has in store for me! In the past, I sent tons of resumes, but then, I realized that the jobs that I had applied for are within easy reach - low hanging fruits (jobs in the $45K to $65K per year range). So I have decided to reach out for the fruits higher up, to suit my MBA title - not just in terms of compensation, but in terms of challenging work environment and learning opportunities on the job. Recently, I am taking a specific target approach to job applications. Fingers crossed.