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When it comes to combining a high level of customer service with a lean and efficient supply chain, few companies can match Saturn's after-sales service business. According to the four authors (a Saturn manager, a former manager from parent company General Motors, and supply-chain experts from the Wharton School and from Stanford University), Saturn has a twofold source of strength. It has a service-supply-chain strategy that can match the urgency of its customer's varying needs. And it shares both authority and risk with channel partners -- making them more willing to help execute the strategy. The company adopted and continues to refine the concept of jointly managed inventory, a variant of vendor-managed inventory that involves sharing inventory risks with Saturn retailers (dealers). The implications extend beyond the automotive industry: Companies that match their parts-supply strategy to the criticality of the customers need for the part can dramatically improve satisfaction in after-sales interactions. A key difference is Saturn's pull system -- a response to the highly unpredictable nature of parts demand. Saturn does not position inventory in advance on the basis of forecasted consumption but rather replenishes retailer's supplies on a one-for-one basis. The demand-based approach triggers movement of parts down the supply chain. But although Saturn determines what to stock, retailers may counteract the decision. And if a part sits for more than nine months at the retailer, Saturn buys it back. Saturn shares other costs as well. If a part cannot be found through the local retailer pooling groups (a rare event), Saturn bears the cost of the search. Managers in other industries can meet customer's needs efficiently if they align their companies service-network strategies with the urgency of a customers need. The authors show how to do that by plotting a company on a matrix that ties the company's service strategy to criticality (most service strategies are somewhere between centralized and distributed). Saturn's approach has helped it build strong and cooperative retailer relationships that end up benefiting the customer.

Today's vast array of web applications for supply-chain integration, salesforce automation, work group collaboration -- and the sale of everything from equities to automobiles -- makes it perfectly clear that information technology has evolved beyond the role of mere infrastructure in support of business strategy. In more and more industries today, IT is the business strategy. Unfortunately, many CEOs are ill-equipped to manage effectively in the Information Age. The problem has less to do with IT literacy than with a range of behaviors and attitudes that cause such CEOs to shirk their IT responsibilities. By their actions, many CEOs send negative signals about the role of information technology to other leaders in their organization who then repeat the behavior. Companies with such leaders frequently fail to reap business advantage from information technology. The authors describe seven types of CEOs, their behaviors and attitudes toward IT, and explain why all but one are decidedly unfit to lead companies in the Information Age. Only the "believer CEO" is ready to play a constructive role in his or her company's use of information technology. Believers understand that IT enables strategic advantage and demonstrate such beliefs in their daily actions. Believers are involved in IT decision making and are proactive in addressing IT problems and opportunities. They seek advice from a variety of sources, study the IT strategies of competitors, and set examples for others managers in their company to follow. The authors provide many examples of believer CEOs -- John Browne of British Petroleum, Ralph Larsen of Johnson & ; Johnson, Jack Welch of General Electric, Toshifumi Suzuki of Seven-Eleven Japan, and Ian Robertson of Land Rover, among others. They describe how each infused his organization with a positive attitude toward IT and contrast their actions and beliefs with those of the six failing archetypes. They explain how these believer CEOs played a critical role in their corporate IT strategies, how they crafted IT-savvy organizational cultures, and how these actions benefited their businesses. Realizing that many CEOs will see their current attitudes reflected in those of the six failing archetypes, the authors prescribe a variety of methods for leaders to address their shortcomings and master the techniques of believers.

The move from standardization to customization may not be toward pure customization, but what the authors call "customized standardization." Lampel and Mintzberg recount the development of standardized product design, sales, and delivery, starting in 1916. Management thinkers at the time warned against the proliferation of products and against efforts to satisfy customers' needs. Now that new technologies have created more possibilities for custom-tailored products, industries may have gone too far. No one wants to choose among eighty-seven varieties of steering wheels, for instance. The result, according to the authors, is a continuum of strategies, depending on which functions lean to standardization and which to customization. A manufacturing firm, for example, may standardize production but customize delivery or financing. The authors see five categories along their continuum. In pure standardization, there is a dominant design, such as Ford's black Model T, targeted to a broad group of customers. In segmented standardization, products are standardized within a narrow range of features, e.g., cereal brands. Customized standardization implies customized assembly but standardized fabrication, such as a hamburger chain that allows customers to specify preferred condiments. In tailored customization, a product prototype is adapted to a customer's wishes, as a suit is tailored to a customer, but customization does not enter the design process. In pure customization, however, customization reaches all the way to the design, as custom jewelry is made to customer specifications. The authors go on to classify certain industries along the continuum to show how companies adopt the five strategies in practice. Mass industries, like gasoline, tend to lean toward the pure standardization end of the continuum, while agent industries, such as health care, may combine standardized financial transactions with customized medical procedures. Lampel and Mintzberg point out that a dominant trend is toward the middle - customized standardization. They suggest that as firms settle midway between standardization and customization, we will all lose choice as we settle for a package of standardized components.

New research shows how companies can advance open innovation by integrating customers’ ideas into product development.

In this book, Eric von Hippel, author of the influential Democratizing Innovation, integrates new theory and research findings into the framework of a “free innovation paradigm.”

Manufacturers can benefit by tailoring their approaches to a retailer's specific business model.

Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe are delivering strong revenue and profit growth.

“Category kings” make three common but avoidable mistakes that open the door to competitors.

Recent research has greatly improved management's ability to anticipate customer wants.

To succeed, executives must manage a myriad of relationships.