POSTGRADUATE MODULE
MA INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ANALYSIS 2002/03
STRM009: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STRATEGY

Three Revolutionary Sources of Business 
Upheaval and the New Business Strategy

Yanhui Zhang

CONTENTS

1. Introduction  1

2. Literature Review  1

3. The New Business Strategy in Practice: Case Studies  2
3.1 Ikea   2
3.2 Canon   5

4. Conclusion  6

5. Reference   7

1. INTRODUCTION

Demos, Chung and Beck stated in their paper “ The New Strategy and Why It Is New” (2001) that the traditional approach of strategy to create and protect long-term defensible competitive advantage in the marketplace no longer holds in the new millennium. Their arguments were based on three revolutionary sources of business upheaval: 1) New and disruptive technologies; 2) Deregulation and globalization; 3) Capital markets. These revolutionary changes in global and sectoral economies have converted the traditional linear value chain into a “three-dimensional value constellation”, “where both threats and opportunities can arise more easily in almost any one of a firm’s competencies or capabilities”. To solve this problem, traditional ways of developing strategies must be changed. They further pointed out the way out in the changing environment that “traditional strategies aimed only at shaping and protecting long-term positions need to be supplanted by a focus on continuous transformation, to forge capabilities required to win the next game …” This paper agrees on this point of view and will combine this new strategic thinking with practice by analysing two worldwide successful multinationals: IKEA and Canon, to demonstrate how the new strategy functions and determines companies’ success in the new millennium.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

The development of the new strategy, linked tightly to the three revolutionary changes and increasing uncertainty, is an international phenomenon and to understand it fully needs a global perspective. In the last two decades, a series of strategy concepts and theories have been developed. The first key figure in this area is Michael E. Porter. Corn of his theory is the competitive strategy, which is mainly based on empirical evidence in the post-war period. He applied the term “competitive advantage” (Porter, 1985, 1990) to explain both successes and failures of firms and nations. Mintzberg & Waters (1985) explored the complexity and variety of strategy formation processes by refining and elaborating the concepts of a sharp dichotomy: deliberate and emergent strategy in the context of companies’ organization. Similar to Porter and Mintzberg & Waters, the most famous Japanese strategist, Kenichi Ohmae (1985) concentrated mainly on the concept of innovative strategic thinking in organisations’ context. Other key figures, De Wit & Meyer (1999) covered the entire field with “strategy synthesis” by defining ten sets of strategy issues in three dimensions of strategy: strategy process, strategy content and strategy context.

Similarities of the mentioned authors above are that they all departed f rom a global perspective and pointed out that strategies were dynamic and needed to be changed constantly. Their concepts are fundament of the strategic thinking. Nonetheless, these concepts of strategies aim fully at creating and protecting long-term positions, and thus tend to be “traditional” without considering dramatic changes of accelerating pace of technology transfer, velocity of communications and speed of global capital flows nowadays (Demos & Chung & Beck, 2001), which mainly contribute to uncertainty of companies’ strategy. No strategy thus holds for ever or even for long period. “Competitive advantage is so transitory as to be meaningless”. Therefore, these concepts are constantly revised and replaced by new approaches.

Recent research emphasizes more on the speed of changes in the business context and continuously emerging opportunities that firms are facing in adapting and reacting to the dynamic and complex environments (Chakravarthy, 1997). Another recent issue suggests that new strategic thinking has to be innovative in order to constantly exploit or break into new markets in the new environment (Beinhocker, 1999). Mintzberg & Quinn (1996) were fully aware of the global strategic considerations and the implications of new information and communications technologies. Their research and case studies based more on the recent business upheavals, which coincided with Demos & Chung & Beck (2001).

3. THE NEW BUSINESS STRATEGY IN PRACTICE: CASE STUDIES

3.1 IKEA

IKEA, founded by Ingvar Kamprad in Sweden in 1953, is worldwide the most successful company in designing and selling inexpensive furniture and accessories in over 40 countries (Mark, 2001). It came into the Swedish market as an innovative furniture seller and a rule breaker.

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