Apologia da flexibilidade

Para os que acreditam na quota de mercado como o indicador todo-poderoso, para os que têm medo dos gigantes, para os que hesitem em defrontar os gigantes (sem aprender com a Al-Qaeda ou o Hezzbolah):
.
"Early in his tenure as CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch promulgated a hard-nosed policy for his company’s divisional managers: Either get to be number 1 or number 2 in your markets, he warned them, or expect to be dumped by the Mother Ship. And Welch delivered on his threat: He unloaded 117 businesses—or 1 in every 5 GE businesses— valued at $9 billion. When the heads of those number 3 and number 4 industry players protested, pointing out that (in many cases) they were highly profitable,
…
Now, I’d be the first to admit that Welch had some housecleaning to do when he first took the helm at GE. Nevertheless, there is one thing wrong with this … approach. It assumes that someone in the organization can define “market share” in a meaningful (i.e., “profitable”) way. As the BMW/DaimlerChrysler example amply illustrates, fuzzy thinking about market share can infiltrate the corner offices of some of the world’s smartest corporations.
Insisting on being number 1 or number 2 in your market—without first having a very clear understanding of what definition of market share really drives profitability—can take some very interesting opportunities off the table. Howard Stevenson, an expert in entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, jokingly used to thank Jack Welch for creating so many good opportunities for “the rest of us.”
.
As mighty GE packed its bags, unfurled its sails, and sailed out of the harbor, smaller competitors were quite happy to move in on the abandoned territory.”
.
Trecho retirado de "Where Value Hides" de Stuart Jackson