Peter J. Williamson

Ecosystem Advantage: How to Successfully Harness the Power of Partners

Changes in the global environment are generating opportunities for companies to build advantage by creating loosely coupled networks or ecosystems. Ecosystems are larger, more diverse, and more fluid than a traditional set of bilateral partnerships or complementors. By leveraging ecosystems, companies can deliver complex solutions while maintaining corporate focus. This article describes six keys to unlock ecosystem advantage: pinpointing where value is created, defining an architecture of differentiated partner roles, stimulating complementary partner investments, reducing the transaction costs, facilitating joint learning across the network, and engineering effective ways to capture profit.

Good strategy: the view from below

Abstract In most companies, strategies are subjected to rigorous quality tests from above; that is, by top management. Yet, the view from below—from the point of view of those working lower down in the organization—is, we believe, equally important, though neglected. In this article we identify the key difficulties associated with prevailing stereotypes of strategy, the sources of much disenchantment with strategy and the qualities that people would look for in a ‘good’ strategy. We then outline an approach to strategy that will ensure that it passes the quality test defined by the managers and employees who have to implement it. In conclusion, we spell out the role that senior management has to play in ensuring that their companys strategy looks just as good when viewed from below as from above.

Strategic staircases: planning the capabilities required for success.

Creating an adequate supply of the requisite skills and competitive capabilities is a fundamental objective of strategy. Managing this process in an effective and systematic manner is difficult. Employing the strategic staircase is a proven way of overcoming this difficulty. The framework enables managers to break the strategic agenda into bit-sized pieces, it guides the selection of priorities and provides a powerful device for communicating strategy throughout the organization, thereby bridging the gap between strategy and action.

Racing with the Chinese Dragons

Chinese companies have begun to “go global.” High profile examples include Lenovo’s US

Successful new ventures: Lessons for entrepreneurs and investors

1.75 billion takeover of IBM personal computer business in 2004; Huawei, which has implemented its telecommunications network equipment solutions in over 100 countries, maintains a network of 12 RD and appliance maker Haier, whose brand ranked 86th in the top 500 most influential global brands (World Brand Laboratory, 2006). Less widely recognized, however, is the fact that scores of other, little-known Chinese companies have begun to carve out significant (and sometimes even dominant) global market shares in numerous industries as diverse as port machinery, medical equipment, and pianos (Zeng & Williamson, 2007, p. 19). This evidence suggests Chinese companies have the potential to powerfully reshape global competition.

Successful strategies for export

Abstract Why do some ventures succeed and not others? Traditional answers usually invoke poor management, flawed product, insufficient cash or weak marketing. This paper proposes a new set of answers. From an analysis of 37,000 new U.S. businesses and a number of U.K. case studies, it is clear that other factors also play a decisive role including: a products purchase frequency, service requirements, customer/distributor fragmentation and labour intensity. Careful analysis of such product market characteristics prior to start-up significantly increases the chances of survival and success. This article demonstrates that choosing the right battlefield is absolutely critical. It provides a framework to guide both the new venturer and investor in making this key decision—where to fight?

Domestic pricing under import threat

Abstract To some, exports are little more than a way to soak up temporary excess capacity when domestic sales are slow. Others see exporting as a way of building a significant and long-term defensible share in a foreign market. Evidence from 462 product categories, spanning socks to air compressors, where British firms exported into the U.S. market suggests the former view is both prevalent and destructive. Compared with Japanese and West German exporters competing in the same U.S. markets, British firms show, on average, much higher price volatility in U.S.

The corporate social performance of developing country multinationals

terms and lower investment in local sales, marketing and distribution infrastructure. Despite some notable exceptions, the overall result is relatively low and unstable share of total U.S. imports in each product category. Examining some of the roots of these pricing and investment policies, we look at how long-term planning input into export strategy could help.

An alternative benchmark for the validity of China’s GDP growth statistics

In markets for complex manufactured goods, existing product differentiation and market position will act to slow the rate at which newly more competitive imports penetrate. Established local firms thus face a tradeoff: maintain existing margins and lever off existing differentiation for short-term profit, or cut prices, hence slow the encroachment of import share and extend the life of the profit stream at the expense of lower unit margins. Chosen pricing behaviour is shown empirically to depend on structural features of the industry under threat, including the existing level of differentiation on the basis of attributes or marketing and distribution, domestic producer concentration, degree of multinational enterprise involvement, and the existing share of imports, as well as the extent to which the burden of price cutting can be shifted onto suppliers of labour and raw materials through reduced real wages and input prices. Some implications for public policy and corporate strategy are drawn.

Related diversification, core competences and corporate performance

In this article, we explore the Corporate Social Performance (CSP) of Developing Country Multinationals (DMNCs). We argue that in competing internationally, DMNCs often face both reputation and legitimacy deficits, which they address by improving their CSP. We develop a series of hypotheses to explain the variation in CSP between DMNCs and domestic-only firms from developing countries and also examine variations in CSP between DMNCs depending on the extent of their multinationality and portfolio of host countries. Our findings support all our hypotheses, which suggest that DMNCs display enhanced levels of CSP compared to their domestic-only counterparts. CSP is also found to be positively related to the DMNCs’ degree of multinationality, but with a declining incremental impact, whereas entry into developed markets leads to a greater improvement in DMNCs’ CSP than expansion into developing markets. We highlight the implications of our findings for managers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]