Rol raises the question of "growing markets" more or less infinitely
and mentions Bean as the example. How does this work, Rol?
> >However, that is not Goldratt's conjecture. In this mature and highly
> >competitive industry, Bean can only grow at the expense of other
> >companies. Goldratt seems to hypothesize that all companies can grow at
> >once. I do not understand how that can be.
The first assumption that you state may be merely an interpretation
which has no particular validity. That is, "In this mature
industry". What is a mature industry. Isn't it one where the
thinking is static, everybody is doing pretty much the same things in
the same ways ("highly competitive") and where the full possibility
has been exploited and now all there is to do is work harder,
smarter, or trickier?
The approach in (not very well) hidden in the formulation of the
conditions of reality. Given the way you've formulated it, I'd have
to agree. But I don't need to agree with the formulation.
What is called for is a rethinking of the nature of the business.
Not one single response a la Leavitt, Drucker, et al such as "think
you're in the transportation business instead of the train business".
What is needed is more difficult than that. It is a rethinking of
the organisation, the nature of the world, the nature of markets and
what your product and business *might* be.
It will be the interplay of a few of these together that will have your
business become "young" instead of "mature". Mature, in the sense
used here, means to me "stopped thinking".
This is the way to create what will later be seen at least as an
innovation and at most as a whole new industry or business.
Visa did it by declaring that they weren't in the credit business,
they were in the business of facilitating exchange; they weren't in
the business of transferring money, they were in the business of
moving information; the way to organise wasn't based on a machine
model, it was based on a biological model. The three together
created probably the most successful company of the last 25 years.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.ukLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>