StrategyProf

As we talk with faculty about teaching undergrads and MBA about dynamics (beyond simply rivalry), one of the challenges is to bring up examples that are relevant to rapid or gradual changes in the landscape, yet have not been covered in every other prior course (like Dell, Southwest, etc).   Some of our students also have read Christensen’s  Innovator’s Dilemma and Solution series, so we were looking for examples that were complementary yet not redundant.  I wanted to share one such novel example – called “Inside the Box” – in the hopes that you will share other examples in return that we all can use in our courses.   

We came across “Inside the Box” in the April 25^th, 2006 (p. 17), issue of the Financial Times (www.ft.com).  The actual article is called “Unforeseen consequence: How a box transformed the world”, authored by Marc Levinson, as a thumbnail sketch of his book (The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, Princeton University Press, 2006).  A related article is found in the March 18, 2006, issue of the Economist.  

This little gem of a book chronicles how the container transport industry emerged and evolved, and how containerization (i.e., that big cargo box that goes from truck, to rail, to ship, to truck, to store) dramatically altered the competitive landscape of industries and even national economies (through strategic choices about investment in ports or ground infrastructure).  Chapter 7 of the book walks you through how the container became the standard in the late 1950s, and the rivalry that took place among container companies.  The story is a great example of strategic choices made by leaders, industry myopia, and how strategy formulation and implementation are inextricably linked.  We have found, that since the context is so well known by our students, and practically taken for granted, that the story of the box is one that they can readily relate to the challenges and opportunities presented by dynamic strategy.