"Welcome to Commodity Hell." So begins the first chapter of Oren Harari’s
most recent book, Break From the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Economy,
which lays out the realities of today’s cutthroat business world. In this
precarious environment, even the most innovative products and services are
susceptible to being imitated by competitors, eroding their uniqueness and
turning them into low-margin commodities. The book is the eighth from Harari and
outlines how companies can break out of the pack and shield themselves from
copycat rivals.
As a writer, professor and consultant for the last 25 years, Harari has tried to
get his audience to think differently about business strategy. He has not been
afraid to go against conventional wisdom, such as the notion that companies can
secure market superiority simply by positioning themselves as the biggest player
in their industry. In one of his recent blog postings, Harari uses Starbucks as
a cautionary tale for why growth may not always be strategic.
The company is on shaky ground—a far cry from its previous years of success,
which catapulted it into a $10 billion enterprise with more than 15,000 stores
worldwide. Today, Starbucks is experiencing drops in traffic and in profits. Its
stock value dipped 40 percent in 2007.
Harari has a theory for why this happened:
"The stuffed chairs and sofa have been removed. A few small tables and wooden
chairs remain, pushed to the edges of the room. The baristas no longer seem to
know the customers, or care. The whole vibe of the place reeks ‘fast food’: Get
people in, pump them for multiple sales, take their order, get ’em out."
In short, Starbucks overextended itself for the sake of growing and, in the
process, diluted the characteristics that had made it a magnet for coffee
lovers.
Harari is not against growth, as long as it is plotted carefully. "Track
progress and hold people accountable for results," he says in his blog. The
important questions that companies need to ask themselves before embarking on an
expansion plan include: How will we grow? What is our special path, direction
and underlying philosophy?
Harari’s unconventional thinking is a byproduct of his diverse professional and
personal experiences. He was a senior consultant at the Tom Peters Group from
1984 to 1996. He still looks back at that 12-year run as a transformative period
in his career. As a consultant, Harari gained firsthand insight into why
individuals lead or fail. For his work, the Financial Times named him one of the
40 "best minds" in management in the world.
When not writing books, blogging or speaking to
Fortune 500 companies, Harari
teaches at the University of San Francisco, where he is a professor in the
Graduate School of Business. He says the cool thing about teaching is that he
continually learns from his students, who conduct cutting-edge research on some
of the most successful organizations and leaders in today’s global economy.
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