Amazon’s grand ambition was on display last week with the news that it will acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion dollars. The move raised the question faced first by booksellers, then the rest of retail, and now seemingly everyone: How can you compete with the retail giant?
How Can Companies Compete with Amazon? Netflix Has the Answer
Strategy is still about choosing what not to do.
June 19, 2017
Summary.
Amazon’s grand ambition was on display last week with the news that it would acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion dollars. It raised the question first faced by booksellers, then the rest of retail, and now seemingly everyone: How can you compete with the retail giant? And is the only strategy in our winner-take-all era to get as big as possible, to aspire to eventually serve everyone, and to meet their every need?
Netflix’s Reed Hastings doesn’t think so. Hastings explicitly rejected the Bezos approach of strategy-as-world-domination. Michael Porter would approve.“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” he writes in his 1996 classic ‘What Is Strategy?’ That choice is more important than ever.
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Strategy Planning and Execution Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Strategy Planning and Execution. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
How to develop a winning strategy—and put it to work.