Business Strategy 499 '10

While the fantastic four were presenting in Telenor's office in DHA today, we were very sensitive of putting forward only those suggestions/recommendations/innovative solutions (from the global perspective of design thinking) which conformed to some of the strategies we discussed in your class, my bias was towards Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) especially, as the abbreviation implies!

Therefore, instead of trying to show as if we had come up with some ground-breaking idea ready to copied next-day, we offered solutions Business Game 499 allows us to. Just to share one idea from the pool of ideas we shared, we recommended brand manager Sana to launch iPhone from Telenor as BlackBerry was launched in Pakistan by Mobilink. (I hope one team in 499 is presenting on Telenor, last year there were four to five...)

Former teacher of Mr. Mannan, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, co-author of strategy course's core book Competing on the Edge (CoE), argues fast-paced, volatile businesses to play the improvisational edge. [Here's an article to know the technical meaning of improvisation.] She talks about adaptive innovation vs. consistent execution (see page # 320).

Recently, juniors and sophomores at FC are competing in Telenor's On-Campus Management Training competition. We don't want to bore you to death by discussing its contents. Rather i found an insight, which i shared with my team of 5 dynamic, resourceful, diverse business youth, derived from the lessons of Mr. Mannan's teacher at Stanford. Improvisation is the only solution for teams/businesses who cannot have "too much structure nor too less", with the challenge of coming up with fresh and original music/products "again and again . . . and again and again."

What happened with my team was we failed to decide how to do things (i.e., have some rules of game) and till the last day at the last hour of project # 1 two of our members still don't know each other, points to the lack of communication - in short we failed to do adaptive innovation and consistent execution. If our team want to play improvisational egde, i.e., to be ahead of everyone, to be innovative and consistent, we got to do two things, and that's the solution for "high veolcity, rapidly changing industries", like, computing etc:

1. You need intense communication and coordination in the team.

2. You have few very specific rules (on which to do many other things)

I don't want to explain the beautiful example by which Mr. Mannan's teacher explained this concept. For that, please wait for your copy and bring 3 notes of 100 Rs on Thursday, and see page # 31-33; meanwhile I and my team apply these guidelines while playing with the next project of OCMT for you.

APPENDIX:


1. SUMMARY OF IMPROVISATION RULES FROM CoE

I quote the "the respected Rules for Jazz Improvisation which accompanies case-studies":

• "At any given time in a performance, know who the leader (soloist) is and where you are in the piece.
• The soloist should listen to and build off of the work of other members of the band.
• Know the rules in order to know how and when to break them.
• Experiment as a group (e.g., by changing or eliminating structure) or as an individual (e.g., by overblowing or fiddling with your instrument).
• Expect occasional "train-wrecks." Recover and move on.
• Do not play the same solo over and over; practice new approaches and styles in familiar pieces. Incorporating the unexpected is the essence of great jazz."

Yes, I'm working with my father and uncle on a school back in Sargodha that targets, initially 2 unions of villages, in which we are getting along for past 100 years. So. All i want to say as an introduction to it is that it's not going to be just another school.

We hope to have at least 10 hundred teachers as visiting faculty of our school and 65 PhDs on advisory council, from FC alone. You all are given life-time honorary membership of school, and royal hospitality would be given to you on your visit to KBPSC, the school.

We have applied structural analysis in a very flexible way to the school and its in raw form for you to scrutinize it!

1. Threats of Entry: There is no threat! Why? Because we are following the 'buying and selling' model: We sell/share our competitive advantages with those schools below us (e.g., teacher training, course/curriculum sharing) ; and, we collaborate/become clients of those who ahead of us. In this way, nobody wastes time on competing, but each party is cooperating with spirits of brother/sisterhood.
   
2. Rivalry: Same as point 1. There's always rivalry between competing parties, and business students never loose sight of it. But we here want to. Nonetheless, we need to approach it from different angles of vision. Firstly, we're not doing this business just for buying and selling, for attracting greater number of pupils, to dull them ever greatly. Knowledge and wisdom are worth the effort, just like earning sustenance and surviving the administration of FCC. Secondly, we're not going to behave like wolves who are constantly seeking to snatch away the market share. Yet. I don't deny the fact that one of the basic motives of this school is profit. Dr. Murphy has counseled us on it by sharing the experience of public schooling back in America, which has shown that profit-motive is a force that drives up quality, performance - a key to 100% learning for the 100%. Take for example one pay model under consideration: equal fixed pay + performance-based pay, equal fixed pay for everyone, increase as per performance (for which we need measurement tools to measure performance,).
3. Substitutes to education: First. Although there's going to be no formal academic education for kids below 7, we need to marry play/activity-based learning with academic stuff for over-excited, disinterested pupils. For this, we can deliver following substitutes pupil choose against going to school, in our school: Traveling, sports, technical education, individual mentoring, etc.
4. Bargaining Power of Customers: Parents and children, and often local media, as well, have real bargaining power. All we need is to tailor whole of our program by knowing the needs and demands of the children's parents. Else, there's nothing terrifying involved as "bargaining power" in this "drama". Parents have edge over a new school like ours, as they can switch any time to any other school on/in the street, since the market is pretty saturated. Our idea is to make them so addicted to our quality, helped by constant research at built-in R&D Complex at KBPSC, so that no matter how much we charge, they are staying with us.
   
5. Bargaining power of Suppliers: We don't know what is that. Except that teachers are the only most dynamic and powerful form of dry suppliers. What strategies should be devised to tackle that in a most human and noble, artistic way, is a challenge for you and us.
   
6. "Element of Heart": We take this business as a Prophetic example of teaching. 'So 100% ethics involved'.

Now, maidan (arena) is open for you. We certainly have missed many points, with insufficient examples... :)