Operational Effectiveness: Too Much of a Good
Thing?
Total quality management. Benchmarking.
Time-based competition. Reengineering. Change
management. The quest for productivity, quality, and speed
has spawned a remarkable number of management tools
and techniques.
The resulting operational improvements have often been
dramatic. Yet many companies have failed to translate those
gains into sustainable profitability. Simply improving
operational effectiveness does not provide a robust
competitive advantage because rarely are “best practice”
advantages sustainable. Once a company establishes a new
best practice, its rivals tend to copy it quickly.
Strategy is about doing things differently, not simply doing
them better than everyone else. And it’s the key to
competitive advantage.