Um julgamento impiedoso

"The narrative has generally been that Johnson was a brilliant strategist brought in to entirely overhaul the strategy of JCP and make it shine like the Apple Stores. But that focus on broad strategy did not work and Ullman was brought in to refocus on the basics — on execution. (Moi ici: Como se fosse possível ter sucesso com uma execução sem estratégia. Duh!)
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The narrative is unsurprising given that the overwhelming view of strategy is that anything that involves big shifts accompanied by a lot of hot air must, by definition, be "strategic." Johnson certainly provided big shifts and hot air aplenty. However, as I have argued elsewhere, strategy is, in fact, a coherent set of choices about where-to-play (WTP) and how-to-win (HTW) and, if that WTP&HTW is significantly different than the current one, a credible path for getting from the present to the targeted state. (Moi ici: Clientes-alvo & proposta de valor; mosaico de actividades estratégicas e iniciativas estratégicas)

Um julgamento impiedoso:

"Under Johnson, JCP had nothing even vaguely resembling a worthwhile strategy and its path to get to where it wished was comically disastrous. JCP had a plan for betterment and not winning — one of the most common mistakes in "strategy."
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But did JCP identify a set of shoppers with whom it could win (Moi ici: Como não nos cansamos de escrever aqui e de dizer nas empresas - Quem são os clientes-alvo? Por que é que são os alvos? O que procuram e valorizam?) — for whom JCP was their best alternative, to which they would look loyally for their shopping needs for some set of goods? Hardly.
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And the path to this futile betterment was one of the most comical that I have seen in a long time.
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JCP doesn't need someone who can "execute" successfully, get back to basics, or any such thing. Just as it needed two, five or ten years ago, JCP needs a strategy. It needs to decide where it is going to play — with what set of shoppers, in what range of merchandise, through what physical and digital spaces. And it needs to decide how is it going to provide a superior value proposition to competitive alternatives in that chosen space. This is a tough task. The department store business is a brutal one. This is not a business in which half-witted strategies can be profitable.
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(Moi ici: Este último parágrafo aplica-se a tantas empresas, infelizmente) But if JCP doesn't figure out an answer to these questions, it will revert entirely to the retailing drug — the "low-price strategy." This is actually a non-strategy. There is a real strategy called "low-cost," which can facilitate more attractive prices than competitors. But low prices unaccompanied by low costs is an approach to liquidation — which is where JCP will be if it doesn't start to think intelligently about strategy."

Trechos retirados de "Memo to JC Penney: Execution Is Not Strategy"