It's May 28, 2024, 07:33:15 AM
Quote from: Don Rizzle on May 10, 2006, 03:16:12 AMiraq would just get annexed by iranThat would be a great solution. If Iran and the majority of Iraqi's are pleased with it, then why shouldn't they do it?
iraq would just get annexed by iran
you seem to imply every company is just blundering their way through everything but thing are far more complex than this.
managers and directors should be constantly reviewing them to ensure they meet their firms objectives, which primarily will be profit maximisation.
This is wrong in a few ways. 1) Managers and directors do not need to constantly review strategies. They don't even need explicit strategies. Again, if you study businesses you will find that most companies exist without doing what you are suggesting. So how can this be necessary? It's also not always feasible. In most businesses strategic discussions are not even feasible. Lots of business people have no desire to talk "strategically." They prefer to talk plainly. They talk about how can they cut costs, how can they improve service, what should they being doing to improve, etc. But they don't sit down in a conference room, and edit their master strategy document once a year.Instead, many companies improve through casual interaction. So and so say... let's try this. It seems to make sense. So they do it.
2) Profit maximization is not the ultimate goal. I hate when people suggest it is. For some firms it is, but firms that care primarily about profit maximization are at a strategic disadvantage to firms that care passionately about other things. I think a much better objective is "value maximization." Meaning, businesses should focus on making their customers happy by doing things that are valuable.But that's just my opinion. But many companies exist without a concern for "profit maximization." Google's initial passion was to be the best at search. That's why they existed and that's what drove them to be so successful. Their core objective is to "organize the world's information and make it univerally accessible." The owner of a coffee shop might aspire to make amazing coffee. Restaurants owner's have a goal of being the trendiest restaurants... having the best tasting food.. etc. Clothing companies might be obsessed with having lots of people wear their clothes. Tons of new internet companies are selling for millions of dollars, but they aren't even making money. Youtube sold for 1.7 billion, but they are losing money. They weren't concerned with profit maximization. They were concerned with being great at sharing videos, social networking, and whatever else made them tick. Those guys weren't sitting around with some retarded strategic plan. They were just doing what they thought made sense.
The worst thing about business literature is it tells everyone "You must do this." But that's never the case, and often the literature is dead wrong.They tell people "if you want to start a business, you need a plan." That's retarded. Most mega companies started without a plan. Just a few people dicking around trying to do something cool. Google started with two guys screwing around with search algorithms. They didn't even want to make money at first. The owners fought for months about adding Advertising to their site. They didn't want to because they thought it would make the site cluttered. And it would decrease the efficiency of search.Eventually they changed their minds, and Google is now worth 130 billion. Not only didn't they have a "plan" but they didn't even want to do the thing that made them so rich. They cared about other things more than they did profit maximization.