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26: ELEPHANTS CAN DANCE

“Too Expensive, Too Slow

I believe that in today’s highly competitive, rapidly changing world, few if any large enterprises can pursue a strategy of total decentralization. It is simply too expensive and too

slow when significant changes have to be made in the enterprise.

GerstnerWho Says Elephants Can’t Dance?
p.245

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This is part of my management philosophy. Executives should know they don’t accumulate wealth unless the long-term shareholders do the same.

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I have worked in services companies (McKinsey and American Express) and product companies (RJR Nabisco and IBM). I will state unequivocally that services businesses are much more difficult to manage.

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Many IT companies that have built their businesses on some proprietary product have tried to leap across that chasm. Few have made it across successfully.

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This kind of wrenching cultural change doesn’t happen by executive fiat. As I found, I couldn’t flip a switch and alter behaviors. It was, by any measure, the hardest part of IBM’s transformation, and at times I thought it couldn’t be done.

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Thus, it is very hard to develop a unique strategy, and even harder, should you develop one, to keep it proprietary.

GerstnerWho Says Elephants Can’t Dance?
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