Fit, Failure, and the Hall of Fame: How Companies Succeed or Fail

"This book has centered on the concept and process of discovering and maintaining fit-strategic fit between the organization and its environment and internal fit among strategy, structure, and management processes. Fit, we have argued, is not merely important; it is crucial. With fit comes fame, with misfit comes failure...We have shown that fit is a simple concept but not a simple process. To achieve strategic fit, organizations must create, understand, develop, and sustain a distinctive competence that adds high value to goods or services the market desires...The obvious lesson here is the same one we have been emphasizing throughout this book. In the competitive world of today and tomorrow, competencies must be investment-based. They must rest on the sustained investment of money and time, which build ever-increasing skills and know-how as well as the capability to use them to their fullest (pp. 186-199)."In this context R. Miles and C. Snow :* discuss concept of fit.* describe the external fit between the firm and its environment, and the internal fit of organization structure, management systems, and managerial ideology to a chosen strategy. * discuss the companies (such as Carnegie Steel, GM, Sears, Roebuck, HP, and TRW) that pioneered the major organizational forms that have appeared over the past hundred years or so.* discuss today's successful companies (such as GE, Wal-Mart, and Rubbermaid).* discuss organizational failure and its major causes, identifying two generic types of failure. * introduce and explore in detail the network organization and its three main variations : the stable, dynamic, and internal network as the 21st century's organization model.* discuss mechanisms by which required fit is achieved at all three levels of the network form : across the entire network organization, among network firms in activated organizations, and within each of the specific network firms (such as Nike, Dell, Novell, and ABB).* identify the forces pushing managers toward a new philosophy of management (human investment model).* discuss companies that are struggling to redesign themselves-cutting costs, downsizing, bringing in new management teams, and so on.* describe how total redesign may grow more costly in today's fast-paced world.* illustrate that fit is no longer an idealistic "ought" but an economic "must"-not only within the firm but throughout the network form and the total global economy.Detailed discussion of the concepts like technological change, cellular units, networks, network of alliances, interorganizational teamwork, spherical organization, shared knowledge see also William Halal's "The Infinite Resource (1998)", and "The New Management (1998)".I highly recommend this "must" reading study.