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Sears advertised a motor buggy for $395 in 1909 that included tires, axles, a top, lamps, horn, and oil. The buggy was built in Sears' own factory under the supervision of an expert with 15 years of automobile experience. Sears found suppliers that could make frames and other parts for the buggy more cheaply than Sears could make them itself due to the suppliers' larger volumes. By carefully selecting suppliers and building the buggy itself, Sears was able to offer an affordable motor vehicle.
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- 1. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 223 8 Cost Advantage SEARS MOTOR BUGGY: $395 For car complete with rubber tires, Timken roller bearing axles, top, storm front, three oil-burning lamps, horn, and one gallon of lubricating oil. Nothing to buy but gasoline. . . . We found there was a maker of automobile frames that was making 75 percent of all the frames used in automobile construction in the United States. We found on account of the volume of business that this concern could make frames cheaper for automobile manufacturers than the manufacturers could make them themselves. We went to this frame maker and asked him to make frames for the Sears Motor Buggy and then to name us prices for those frames in large quantities. And so on throughout the whole construction of the Sears Motor Buggy. You will find every piece and every part has been given the most careful study; you will find that the Sears Motor Buggy is made of the best possible material; it is constructed to take the place of the top buggy; it is built in our own factory, under the direct supervision of our own expert, a man who has had fifteen years of automobile experience, a man who has for the past three years worked with us to develop exactly the right car for the people at a price within the reach of all. —EXTRACT FROM AN ADVERTISEMENT IN THE SEARS ROEBUCK & CO. CATALOG, 1909: 1150 223
- 2. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 224 224 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OUTLINE l Introduction and Objectives Input Costs Residual Efficiency l Strategy and Cost Advantage l Using the Value Chain to Analyze Costs l The Sources of Cost Advantage The Principal Stages of Value Chain Economies of Scale Analysis Economies of Learning Process Technology and Process l Summary Design l Self-Study Questions Product Design Capacity Utilization l Notes Introduction and Objectives For some industries, cost advantage is the predominant basis for competitive advantage: in commodities there is limited opportunity for competing on anything else. But even where competition focuses on product differentiation, intensifying competition has resulted in cost efficiency becoming a prerequisite for profitability. Some of the most dramatic examples of companies and industries being transformed through the pursuit of cost efficiency are in sectors where competition has increased sharply due to deregulation, such as airlines, telecommunications, banking, and electrical power generation. By the time you have completed this chapter, you will be able to: l Identify the determinants of relative cost within the industry or activity (“cost drivers”). l Assess a firm’s cost position relative to its competitors and identify the factors responsible for cost differentials. l Recommend cost-reduction measures. The analysis in this chapter is oriented around these objectives. In pursuing these objectives, we shall examine techniques for: l Identifying the basic sources of cost advantage in an industry. l Appraising the cost position of a firm within its industry by disaggregating the firm into its separate activities. l Using the analysis of costs and relative cost position as a basis for recommending strategies for enhancing cost competitiveness.
- 3. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 225 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 225 Strategy and Cost Advantage Historically, strategic management has emphasized cost advantage as the primary basis for competitive advantage in an industry. This focus on cost reflected the traditional emphasis by economists on price as the principal medium of competition – competing on price depends on cost efficiency. It also reflected the strategy preoccupations of large industrial corporations. For much of the 20th century, the development of large corporations was dominated by the quest for economies of scale and scope through investments in mass production and mass distribution. During the 1960s, the quest for scale efficiency provided the driving force for mergers in automobiles, steel, textiles, shipbuilding and other manufacturing industries. In 1968 the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published Perspectives in Experience, which documented the relationship between cost and accumulated experience. The result was a profound shift in thinking about cost analysis and the emergence of the experience curve as one of the best-known and most influential concepts in the history of strategic management (see Strategy Capsule 8.1). STRATEGY CAPSULE 8.1 BCG and the Experience Curve The experience curve has its basis in the sys- The relationship between unit cost and pro- tematic reduction in the time taken to build duction volume may be expressed as follows: airplanes and Liberty ships during World War Cn = C1 · n−a II.1 The relationship was generalized by BCG to where C1 is the cost of the first unit of production encompass not just economies in direct labor, Cn is the cost of the nth unit of production but in all costs (excluding materials). In a series n is the cumulative volume of production of studies, ranging from bottle caps and re- a is the elasticity of cost with regard to frigerators to long-distance calls and insurance output. policies, BCG observed a remarkable regularity in the reductions in unit costs with increased The experience curve has important implica- cumulative output. BCG summarized its obser- tions for business strategy. If a firm can expand vations in its “Law of Experience”: its output faster than its competitors, it can move down the experience curve more rapidly The unit cost of value added to a standard and open up a widening cost differential. The product declines by a constant percentage implication drawn by BCG was that a firm’s (typically between 20 and 30%) each time primary strategic goal should be maximizing cumulative output doubles. market share.2 (“Unit cost of value added” is total cost per unit To achieve this, firms should price not on of production less the cost per unit of produc- the basis of current costs, but on the basis of tion of bought-in components and materials.) anticipated costs – penetration pricing rather The figure below shows examples of experience than full-cost pricing. In the British motorcycle curves. industry, BCG observed that British motorcycle
- 4. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 226 226 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Japanese clocks and watches, 1962–72 UK refrigerators, 1957–71 300 30K Price Index 1960 Yen 200 20K 100 75% SOURCE: BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP 70% slope 15K 50 100K 200K 500K 1,000K 5 10 50 Accumulated unit production Accumulated unit (millions) manufacturers adopted cost-plus pricing, Notes: whereas Honda priced to meet market share 1 Louis E. Yelle, “The Learning Curve: Historical Review and Comprehensive Survey,” Decision Sciences 10 (1979): objectives.3 The quest for experience-based 302–28. economies also points to the advantages of 2 For an analysis of the effect of market share on profit increasing volume by broadening product under differently sloped experience curves, see David Ross, “Learning to Dominate,” Journal of Industrial range and expanding internationally.4 Economics 34 (1986): 337–53. Empirical studies confirm a positive relation- 3 Boston Consulting Group, Strategy Alternatives for the ship between profitability and market share.5 British Motorcycle Industry (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1975). However, this does not mean that pursuing 4 Charles Baden-Fuller, “The Implications of the Learning market share necessarily leads to higher profits. Curve for Firm Strategy and Public Policy,” Applied It could be that causation runs the other way Economics 15 (1983): 541–51. (profitable companies use their profits to build 5 Robert D. Buzzell, Bradley T. Gale, and Ralph Sultan, “Market Share – A Key to Profitability,” Harvard Business to build market share) or that both profitability Review (January–February 1975); Robert Jacobsen and and market share are the joint outcome of David Aaker, “Is Market Share All That It’s Cracked up to some underlying factor – innovation or cheaper Be?” Journal of Marketing 49 (Fall 1985): 11–22. 6 Richard Rumelt and Robin Wensley, using PIMS data, labor.6 Even if market share dose lead to higher found the relationship between market share and profitability, it could be that the costs of in- profitability to be the result of both being joint out- creasing market share outweigh the profitabil- comes of a risky competitive process. “In Search of the Market Share Effect,” Paper MGL-63 (Graduate School ity advantages achieved.7 This is especially likely of Management, UCLA, 1981). if a number of companies are competing to 7 Robin Wensley, “PIMS and BCG: New Horizons or grow their market shares. False Dawn?,” Strategic Management Journal 3 (1982): 147–58. In recent decades, companies have been forced to think more broadly and radically about cost efficiency. Cost advantage has shifted to companies benefiting from low labor costs (e.g. Chinese companies) and those taking advantage of new technologies (Skype and Vonage in telephony). The result has been more dramatic and innovative approaches to cost reduction involving outsourcing, process reengineering, and organizational delayering.
- 5. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 227 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 227 Cost analysis has also adjusted to a more explicit recognition that cost advantage is the result of multiple factors, the balance of which varies greatly from industry to industry. In the clothing industry, wage rates are the critical factor; in petrochemicals, it is feedstock costs; while in semiconductors, it is yield rates. In some industries there may be alternative routes to low cost – in the steel industry, Severstal of Russia with its low input costs and Nucor of the US with its advanced technologies and high productivity are both low-cost producers. The key to analyzing cost advantage is to identify the key cost drivers within a particular industry. The Sources of Cost Advantage The key to cost analysis is to go beyond mechanistic approaches such as the experi- ence curve and probe the factors that determine a firm’s cost position. There are seven principal determinants of a firm’s unit costs (cost per unit of output) relative to its competitors; we refer to these as cost drivers (see Figure 8.1). FIGURE 8.1 The drivers of cost advantage l Technical input–output relationships ECONOMIES OF SCALE l Indivisibilities l Specialization l Increased individual skills ECONOMIES OF LEARNING l Improved organizational routines l Process innovation PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES l Reengineering of business processes l Standardization of designs and components PRODUCT DESIGN l Design for manufacture l Location advantages l Ownership of low-cost inputs INPUT COSTS l Nonunion labor l Bargaining power l Ratio of fixed to variable costs CAPACITY UTILIZATION l Fast and flexible capacity adjustment l Organizational slack /X-inefficiency RESIDUAL EFFICIENCY l Motivation and organizational culture l Managerial effectiveness
- 6. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 228 228 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE The relative importance of these different cost drivers varies across industries, across firms within an industry, and across the different activities within a firm. By examining each of these different cost drivers, in relation to a particular firm we can do the following: l Analyze a firm’s cost position relative to its competitors and diagnose the sources of inefficiency. l Make recommendations as to how a firm can improve its cost efficiency. Let’s examine the nature and the role of each of these cost drivers. Economies of Scale The predominance of large corporations in most manufacturing and service indus- tries is a consequence of economies of scale. Economies of scale exist wherever proportionate increases in the amounts of inputs employed in a production process result in lower unit costs. Economies of scale have been conventionally associated with manufacturing. Figure 8.2 shows a typical relationship between unit cost and plant capacity. The point at which most scale economies are exploited is the Minimum Efficiency Plant Size (MEPS). Scale economies are also important in nonmanufactur- ing operations such as purchasing, R&D, distribution, and advertising. Scale economies arise from three principal sources: 1 Technical input–output relationships. In many activities, increases in output do not require proportionate increases in input. A 10,000-barrel oil storage tank does not cost five times the cost of a 2,000-barrel tank. Similar volume-related economies exist in ships, trucks, and steel and petrochemical plants. 2 Indivisibilities. Many resources and activities are “lumpy” – they are unavailable in small sizes. Hence, they offer economies of scale, as firms are able to spread the costs of these items over larger volumes of output. A national TV advertising campaign or a research program into fuel cell technology will cost much the same whether it is being undertaken by Toyota FIGURE 8.2 The long-run average cost curve for a plant Cost per unit of output Units of output per period Minimum Efficient Plant Size
- 7. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 229 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 229 or Daihatsu. However, the costs as a percentage of sales will be much lower for Toyota because it has almost 20 times the sales of Daihatsu. 3 Specialization. Increased scale permits greater task specialization that is manifest in greater division of labor. Mass production – whether in Adam Smith’s pin factory or Henry Ford’s auto plants (see Chapter 6) – involves breaking down the production process into separate tasks performed by specialized workers using specialized equipment. Specialization promotes learning, avoids time loss from switching activities, and assists in mechanization and automation. Similar economies are important in knowledge-intensive industries such as investment banking, management consulting, and design engineering, where large firms are able to offer specialized expertise across a broad range of know-how. Scale Economies and Industry Concentration Scale economies are a key determinant of an industry’s level of concentration (the proportion of industry out- put accounted for by the largest firms). However, the critical scale advantages of large companies are seldom in production. In packaged consumer goods – cigarettes, house- hold detergents, beer, and soft drinks – economies of scale in marketing are the key factor causing world markets to be dominated by a few giant companies. Advertising is a key indivisibility: a 60-second TV commercial can cost over $5 million to produce, but the real cost is in showing it – Sony’s launch of its PlayStation 3 will incur advert- ising costs of about half a billion dollars. Figure 8.3 shows the relationship between sales volume and average advertising costs for different brands of soft drinks. Consolidation in the world car industry has been driven by the huge costs associated with new model development (see Table 8.1). Small and medium-sized auto com- panies have been acquired by larger rivals simply because they lacked the necessary volume over which to amortize the costs of developing new models. Thus, VW acquired Skoda, Seat, and Rolls Royce, while Ford acquired Jaguar, Mazda, Land Rover, and Volvo. To survive, smaller auto producers must license technology and designs from their bigger competitors.1 FIGURE 8.3 Economies of scale in advertising: US soft drinks 0.20 Advertising Expenditure ($ per case) Schweppes SF Dr. Pepper Tab 0.15 Diet 7-Up Diet Pepsi Diet Rite 0.10 Fresca Seven-Up 0.05 Sprite Dr. Pepper Pepsi Coke 0.02 10 20 50 100 200 500 1,000 Annual sales volume (millions of cases)
- 8. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 230 230 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE TABLE 8.1 The Development Cost (Including Plant and Tooling) of SOURCE: R. M. GRANT, “DAIMLERCHRYSLER AND THE WORLD AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY,” IN GRANT AND NEUPERT (EDS), CASES IN CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY ANALYSIS, 3RD EDN New Automobile Models Model Estimated development cost Ford Mondeo/Contour $6 billion GM Saturn $5 billion Ford Taurus (1996 model) $2.8 billion (OXFORD: BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, 2003). Ford Escort (new model, 1996) $2 billion Renault Clio (1999 model) $1.3 billion Chrysler Neon $1.3 billion Honda Accord (1997 model) $0.6 billion BMW Mini $0.5 billion Rolls Royce Phantom (2003 model) $0.3 billion Similar scale economies exist in passenger aircraft production. The $18 billion development cost of the Airbus A380 Superjumbo will require sales of 400 planes to reach break-even. Limits to Scale Economies Despite the prevalence of scale economies, small and medium-sized companies continue to survive and prosper in competition with much bigger rivals. In the automobile industry, the most profitable companies in recent years have been medium-sized producers such as Peugeot, Renault, and BMW In US and . European banking, smaller banks have consistently been more profitable on average than the big boys. The efficiency advantages of scale are offset by three factors: first, the ability of smaller companies to differentiate their offerings more effectively; second, the greater flexibility of smaller companies; third, the greater difficulty of achieving motivation and coordination in large units.2 Economies of Learning The experience curve is based primarily on learning-by-doing on the part of individuals and organizations. Repetition develops both individual skills and organizational routines. In 1943 it took 40,000 labor-hours to build a Convair B-24 bomber. By 1945 it took only 8,000 hours.3 The more complex a process or product, the greater the potential for learning. Learning curves are exceptionally steep in semiconductor fabrication. When IBM introduced 0.18 micron, copper-interconnector chips, yields increased from zero to over 50% within the first two months. LCD flat screens are notoriously difficult to manufacture – a single defective chip may render an entire screen useless. The dominant position of Sharp and Samsung in flat screens is primarily a result of volume-based learning resulting in exceptionally high yields.4 Learning occurs both at the individual level through improvements in dexterity and problem solving, and at the group level through the development and refinement of organiza- tional routines.5 Process Technology and Process Design For most goods and services, alternative process technologies exist. A process is tech- nically superior to another when, for each unit of output, it uses less of one input
- 9. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 231 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 231 without using more of any other input. Where a production method uses more of some inputs but less of others, then cost efficiency depends on the relative prices of the inputs. Hence, the assembly of desktop PCs, Dell’s Palmer North 2 plant in Austin, Texas is highly automated, while its two plants in Xiamen, China (where wages are about 90% lower) are much more labor intensive. New process technology may radically reduce costs. Pilkington’s float glass pro- cess gave it (and its licensees) an unassailable cost advantage in glass production. Ford’s moving assembly line reduced the time taken to assemble a Model T from 106 hours to six hours between 1912 and 1913. When process innovation is embodied in new capital equipment, diffusion is likely to be rapid. However, the full benefits of new processes typically require system-wide changes in job design, employee incentives, product design, organizational structure, and management controls.6 Between 1979 and 1986, General Motors spent $40 billion on new process technology with the goal of becoming the world’s most efficient manufacturer of automobiles. Yet, in the absence of fundamental changes in organiza- tion and management, the productivity gains were meager. After a tour of Cadillac’s state-of-the-art Hamtramck plant in Detroit, Toyota chairman Eiji Toyoda told a colleague, “It would have been embarrassing to comment on it.”7 By contrast, Toyota, Nucor, Dell Computer, McDonald’s, and Wal-Mart have established cost leadership through adapting their organizations and human resource management to the re- quirements of their new process technologies. Indeed, the greatest productivity gains from process innovation typically are the result of organizational improvements rather than technological innovation and new hardware. The central components of Toyota’s system of lean production are just-in- time scheduling, total quality management, continuous improvement (kaisan), team- working, job flexibility, and supplier partnerships rather than robotics or IT.8 Harley-Davidson’s gains in productivity during the late 1980s and early 1990s re- sulted from reorganizing its production processes, human resource management, and control systems, but with limited investment in automation and new manufacturing hardware.9 Business Process Reengineering During the 1990s, recognition that the re- design of operational processes could achieve substantial efficiency gains stimulated a surge of interest in a new management tool called business process reengineering (BPR). “Reengineering gurus” Michael Hammer and James Champy defined BPR as: the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.10 BPR recognizes that production and commercial processes involve complex inter- actions among many individuals and evolve over time with little conscious or consist- ent direction. With information technology, the temptation is to automate existing processes – “paving over cowpaths,” as Michael Hammer calls it.11 The key is to detach from the way in which a process is currently organized and to begin with the question: “If we were starting afresh, how would we design this process?” Hammer and Champy point to the existence of a set of “commonalities, recurring themes, or characteristics” that can guide BPR. These include: l Combining several jobs into one. l Allowing workers to make decisions.
- 10. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 232 232 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE l Performing the steps of a process in a natural order. l Recognizing that processes have multiple versions and designing processes to take account of different situations. l Performing processes where it makes the most sense, e.g., if the accounting department needs pencils, it is probably cheaper for such a small order to be purchased directly from the office equipment store along the block than to be ordered via the firm’s purchasing department. l Reducing checks and controls to the point where they make economic sense. l Minimizing reconciliation. l Appointing a case manager to provide a single point of contact at the interface between processes. l Reconciling centralization with decentralization in process design – e.g., via a shared database, decentralized decisions can be made while permitting overall coordination simply through information sharing. BPR has resulted in major gains in efficiency, quality, and speed (see Strategy Capsule 8.2), but in many instances has produced disappointing results. One of the major realizations to emerge from BPR is that most business processes are complex. To redesign a process one must first understand it. Process mapping exercises reveal that even seemingly simple business processes, such as the procurement of office supplies, involve complex and sophisticated systems of interactions among a number of organizational members. As we noted in Chapter 5, many organizational routines operate without any single person fully understanding the mechanism. Hammer and Champy’s recommendation to “obliterate” existing processes and start with a “clean sheet of paper” runs the risk of destroying organizational capabilities that have been nurtured ever a long period of time. Product Design Design-for-manufacture – designing products for ease of production rather than simply for functionality and esthetics – can offer substantial cost savings, especially when linked to the introduction of new process technology. l Volkswagen cut product development and component costs by redesigning its 30+ different models around just four separate platforms. The VW Beetle, Audi TT, Golf, and Audi A3, together with several Seat and Skoda models, all share a single platform. l The IBM “Proprinter,” one of the most successful computer printers of the 1980s, owed its low costs (and reliability) to an innovative design that: – reduced the number of parts from 150, found in the typical PC printer, to 60; – designed the printer in layers so that robots could build it from the bottom up; – eliminated all screws, springs, and other fasteners that required human insertion and adjustment and replaced them with molded plastic components that clipped together.12
- 11. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 233 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 233 STRATEGY CAPSULE 8.2 Process Reengineering at IBM Credit IBM Credit provides credit to customers of IBM many efforts to improve the process, two for the purchase of IBM hardware and soft- managers undertook an experiment. They took ware. Under the old system, five stages were a financing request and walked it around involved: through all five steps. The process took 90 minutes! 1 The IBM salesperson telephoned a request On this basis, a fundamental redesign of for financing. The request was logged on a the credit approval process was achieved. The piece of paper. change was replacing the specialists (credit 2 The request was sent to the Credit checkers, pricers, and so on) with generalists Department where it was logged onto a who undertook all five processes. Only where computer and the customer’s the request was nonstandard or unusually creditworthiness was checked. The results complex were specialists called in. The basic of the credit check were written on a form problem was that the system had been de- and passed to the Business Practices signed for the most complex credit requests Department. that IBM received, whereas in the vast majority 3 There the standard loan covenant would of cases no specialist judgment was called for be modified to meet the terms of customer – simply clerical work involving looking up loan. credit ratings, plugging numbers into standard 4 The request was passed to the pricer who formulae, etc. determined the appropriate interest rate. The result was that credit requests are pro- cessed in four hours compared to six days, total 5 The clerical group took all the information employees were reduced slightly, while the total and prepared a quote letter, which was number of deals increased one hundred times. sent to the salesperson. Because the process took an average of six Source: Adapted from M. Hammer and J. Champy, Reengin- days, it resulted in a number of lost sales and eering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolu- delayed the sales staff in finalizing deals. After tion (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993): 36–9. l Service offerings too can be designed for ease and efficiency of production. Motel 6, cost leader in US budget motels, carefully designs its product to keep operating costs low. Its motels occupy low-cost, out-of-town locations, it uses standard motel designs, it avoids facilities such as pools and restaurants, and it designs rooms to facilitate easy cleaning and low maintenance. Capacity Utilization Over the short and medium term, plant capacity is more or less fixed, and variations in output cause capacity utilization to rise or fall. Underutilization raises unit costs
- 12. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 234 234 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE because fixed costs must be spread over fewer units of production. In businesses where virtually all costs are fixed (e.g., airlines, theme parks), profitability is highly sensitive to shortfalls in demand. During periods of peak demand, output may be pushed beyond the normal full-capacity operation. As Boeing discovered in 1997 and then in 2006, pushing output beyond capacity operation increases unit costs due to overtime pay, premiums for night and weekend shifts, increased defects, and higher mainten- ance costs. In cyclical industries, the ability to speedily adjust capacity to downturns in demand can be a major source of cost advantage. During the 2001–2 stock market slump, the online brokerage companies that remained profitable were those that adjusted their operations to reduced transactions. Critical to effective adjustment is the ability to distinguish cyclical overcapacity – common to all cyclical industries, from semiconductors and construction to hotels and railroads – from the structural over- capacity that affects automobiles, gasoline retailing, and the US hospital industry.13 Input Costs The firms in an industry do not necessarily pay the same price for identical inputs. There are several sources of lower input costs: l Locational differences in input prices. The prices of inputs may vary between locations, the most important being differences in wage rates from one country to another. In the US, software engineers earned an average of $82,000 in 2005. In India the average was $24,000. In less-skilled occupations, differentials are much wider: in Suzhou, China, workers assembling iPods and laptop computers for Asustek earned $54 a month in 2006.14 l Ownership of low-cost sources of supply. In raw material-intensive industries, ownership or access to low-cost sources can offer crucial cost advantage. In oil and gas, finding and development costs for the three “supermajors” (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP) were over $9 per barrel in 2005; for Saudi Aramco they were under $2. l Nonunion labor. Where employment costs account for a major part of total costs, cost leaders are often the firms that have avoided unionization. In the US airline industry, nonunion Jet Blue had average salary and benefit cost per employee of $50,700 in 2005 compared with $70,200 for United (80% unionized). l Bargaining power. Where bought-in products are a major cost item, differences in buying power among the firms in an industry can be an important source of cost advantage.15 Wal-Mart’s UK entry (with its acquisition of Asda) was greeted with dismay by British retailers – they recognized that Wal-Mart would be able to use its massive bargaining power to extract additional discounts from Asda’s suppliers, which it could use to fuel aggressive price competition. Residual Efficiency In many industries, the basic cost drivers – scale, technology, product and process design, input costs, and capacity utilization – fail to provide a complete explanation
- 13. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 235 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 235 for why one firm in an industry has lower unit costs than a competitor. Even after taking all these cost drivers into account, unit cost differences between firms remain. These residual efficiencies relate to the extent to which the firm approaches its efficiency frontier of optimal operation. Residual efficiency depends on the firm’s ability to eliminate “organizational slack”16 or “X-inefficiency”17 – surplus costs that keep the firm from maximum-efficiency operation. These costs are often referred to as “organizational fat” and build up unconsciously as a result of employees – both in management and on the shop floor – maintaining some margin of slack in preference to the rigors of operating at maximum efficiency. Eliminating excess costs is difficult. It may take a shock to a company’s very survival to provide the impetus for rooting out institutionalized inefficiencies. When faced with bankruptcy or a precipitous fall in profitability, companies can demon- strate a remarkable capacity for paring costs. For example, as part of the rescue of Nissan Motor by Renault, the ensuing cost cutting implemented by turnaround CEO Carlos Ghosn cut Nissan’s operating costs by 20% during his first year.18 In the absence of a threat to survival, high levels of residual efficiency are typically the result of an organizational culture and management style that are intolerant toward all manifestations of unnecessary costs. At Wal-Mart, for example, parsimony and frugality are virtues that take on a near-religious significance. Using the Value Chain to Analyze Costs To analyze costs and make recommendations for building cost advantage, the com- pany or even the business unit is too big a level for us to work at. As we saw in Chap- ter 5, every business may be viewed as a chain of activities. In most value chains each activity has a distinct cost structure determined by different cost drivers. Analyzing costs requires disaggregating the firm’s value chain to identify: l The relative importance of each activity with respect to total cost. l The cost drivers for each activity and the comparative efficiency with which the firm performs each activity. l How costs in one activity influence costs in another. l Which activities should be undertaken within the firm and which activities should be outsourced. The Principal Stages of Value Chain Analysis A value chain analysis of a firm’s cost position comprises the following stages: 1 Disaggregate the firm into separate activities. Determining the appropriate value chain activities is a matter of judgment. It requires understanding the chain of processes involved in the transformation of inputs into output and its delivery to the customer. Very often, the firm’s own divisional and departmental structure is a useful guide. Key considerations are: l the separateness of one activity from another; l the importance of an activity; l the dissimilarity of activities in terms of cost drivers;
- 14. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 236 236 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE l the extent to which there are differences in the way competitors perform the particular activity. 2 Establish the relative importance of different activities in the total cost of the product. Our analysis needs to focus on the activities that are the major sources of cost. In disaggregating costs, Michael Porter suggests the detailed assignment of operating costs and assets to each value activity. Though the adoption of activity-based costing has made such cost data more available, detailed cost allocation can be a major exercise.19 Even without such detailed cost data, it is usually possible to identify the critical activities, establish which activities are performed relatively efficiently or inefficiently, identify cost drivers, and offer recommendations. 3 Compare costs by activity. To establish which activities the firm performs relatively efficiently and which it does not, benchmark unit costs for each activity against those of competitors. 4 Identify cost drivers. For each activity, what factors determine the level of cost relative to other firms? For some activities, cost drivers are evident simply from the nature of the activity and the composition of costs. For capital-intensive activities such as the operation of a body press in an auto plant, the principal factors are likely to be capital equipment costs, weekly production volume, and downtime between changes of dies. For labor-intensive assembly activities, critical issues are wage rates, speed of work, and defect rates. 5 Identify linkages. The costs of one activity may be determined, in part, by the way in which other activities are performed. Xerox discovered that its high service costs relative to competitors reflected the complexity of design of its copiers, which required 30 different interrelated adjustments. 6 Identify opportunities for reducing costs. By identifying areas of comparative inefficiency and the cost drivers for each, opportunities for cost reduction become evident. For example: l If scale economies are a key cost driver, can volume be increased? One feature of Caterpillar’s cost-reduction strategy was to broaden its model range and begin selling diesel engines to other vehicle manufacturers in order to expand its sales base. l Where wage costs are the issue, can wages be reduced either directly or by relocating production? l If a certain activity cannot be performed efficiently within the firm, can it be outsourced? Figure 8.4 shows how the application of the value chain to automobile manufac- ture can yield suggestions for possible cost reductions.
- 15. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 237 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 237 FIGURE 8.4 Using the value chain in cost analysis: an automobile manufacturer SEQUENCE OF ANALYSIS VALUE CHAIN COST DRIVERS 1. IDENTIFY ACTIVITIES Prices of brought-in Establish the basic framework of the value SUPPLIES OF components depend upon: chain by identifying the principal activities COMPONENTS Order sizes of the firm. AND Total value of purchases MATERIALS over time per supplier 2. ALLOCATE TOTAL COSTS Location of suppliers For a first-stage analysis, a rough estimate Relative bargaining power of the breakdown of total cost by activity is PURCHASING Extent of cooperation sufficient to indicate which activities offer the greatest scope for cost reductions. Size of R&D commitment 3. IDENTIFY COST DRIVERS INVENTORY Productivity of R&D/design (See diagram) HOLDING Number and frequency of new models 4. IDENTIFY LINKAGES Sales per model Examples include: 1. Consolidating purchase orders to R& D/DESIGN/ increase discounts increases inventories. ENGINEERING Scale of plant for each 2. High-quality parts and materials reduce type of component costs of defects at later stages. Vintage of the process 3. Reducing manufacturing defects cuts COMPONENT technology used warranty costs. MANUFACTURE Location of plants 4. Designing different models around Run length per component common components and platforms Level of capacity utilization reduces manufacturing costs. ASSEMBLY 5. MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR Scale of plants COST REDUCTION Number of models per plant For example: Degree of automation Purchasing: Concentrate purchases on TESTING/ Level of wages fewer suppliers to maximize purchasing QUALITY Employee commitment economies. Institute just-in-time CONTROL and flexibility component supply to reduce inventories. Level of capacity utilization INVENTORIES R&D/Design/Engineering: Reduce OF FINAL Level of quality targets frequency of model changes. Reduce GOODS Frequency of defects number of different models (e.g., single range of global models). Design for commonality of components and platforms. SALES AND Cyclicality and unpredictability Component manufacture: Exploit MARKETING of sales economies of scale through concentrating Flexibility and responsiveness production of each component on fewer of production plants. Outsource wherever scale of Customers’ willingness to wait production or run lengths are suboptimal DISTRIBUTION or where outside suppliers have technology advantages. For labor-intensive Number of dealers components (e.g., seats, dashboards, Sales per dealer trim), relocate production in low-wage DEALER AND Desired level of dealer support countries. Improve capacity utilization CUSTOMER Frequency and seriousness through plant rationalization or supplying SUPPORT of defects requiring components to other manufacturers. warranty repairs or recalls
- 16. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 238 238 PART III THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Summary Cost efficiency may no longer be a guarantee of Increasingly, approaches to cost efficiency are profitability in today’s fast-changing markets, but less about incremental efficiencies, and more in almost all industries it is a prerequisite for suc- about fundamentally rethinking the activities cess. In industries where competition has always undertaken by the firm and the ways in which it been primarily price based – steel, textiles, and organizes them. By focusing on those activities mortgage loans – increased intensity of competi- in which the firm possesses a cost advantage tion requires relentless cost-reduction efforts. and outsourcing others, and by extensively reengi- In industries where price competition was once neering manufacturing and administrative pro- muted – airlines, banking, and electrical power – cesses, firms have succeeded in achieving firms have been forced to reconcile the pursuit dramatic reductions in operating costs. of innovation, differentiation, and service quality Given multiple drivers of relative cost, cost with vigorous cost reduction. management implies multiple initiatives at differ- The foundation for a cost-reduction strategy ent organizational levels. Careful analysis of exist- must be an understanding of the determinants of ing activities relative to competitors can pinpoint a company’s costs. The principal message of this cost-reduction opportunities by lowering input chapter is the need to look behind cost account- costs, accessing scale economies, and better ing data and beyond simplistic approaches to the utilizing capacity. At the same time, the firm determinants of cost efficiency, and to analyze must seek opportunities for innovation and pro- the factors that drive relative unit costs in each cess redesign to exploit new sources of dynamic of the firm’s activities in a systematic and com- efficiency. prehensive manner. Self-Study Questions 1 A number of industries have experienced rapidly increasing global concentration in recent years: commercial aircraft (led by Boeing and Airbus), steel (led by Mittal Steel), beer (led by SAB-Miller, Anheuser Busch, and Heineken), investment banking (led by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Morgan Stanley), defense equipment (led by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman), and delivery services (led by UPS, Federal Express, and Deutsche Post/DHL). For each industry, are economies of scale the major rationale for increasing concentration? If so, identify the sources of economies of scale. If not, how can increasing global concentration be explained? 2 In Strategy Capsule 2.3 (Chapter 2), we observed that Ford’s profitability was low primarily because its costs were high. Using the value chain shown in Figure 8.4 and what you know about Ford (including the information in Strategy Capsule 2.3), what suggestions would you offer as to how Ford might lower its costs of producing cars? 3 To what extent are the seven cost drivers shown in Figure 8.1 relevant in analyzing the costs per student at your business school? What recommendations would you make to your dean for improving the cost efficiency of the business school?
- 17. CSAC08 1/13/07 9:23 Page 239 CHAPTER 8 COST ADVANTAGE 239 Notes 1 To be more precise, the economies of amortizing 9 R. M. Grant, “Harley-Davidson Inc.,” in R. M. Grant product development costs are economies of volume (ed.), Cases in Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 6th edn rather than economies of scale. The product (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). development cost per unit depends on the total volume 10 M. Hammer and J. Champy, Reengineering the of production over the life of the model. Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution 2 D. Schwartzman, “Uncertainty and the Size of the Firm,” (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993): 32. See also Economica (August 1963). M. Hammer, Beyond Reengineering: How the Processed 3 L. Rapping, “Learning and World War II Production Centered Organization Is Changing our Work and our Functions,” Review of Economics and Statistics Lives (New York: HarperBusiness, 1996). (February 1965): 81–6. See also K. B. Clark and 11 M. Hammer, “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, R. H. Hayes, “Recapturing America’s Manufacturing Obliterate,” Harvard Business Review ( July–August Heritage,” California Management Review 1990). (Summer 1988): 25. 12 R. E. Gomory, “From the Ladder of Science to the 4 “Exploiting the Flat Screen Frenzy,” Forbes.com Product Development Cycle,” Harvard Business Review (December 12, 2003, http://www.forbes.com/business/ (November–December 1989): 103. manufacturing/2003/12/12/cz_bf_1211tv.html); “Japan 13 J. Billington, “Listening to Overcapacity – Lessons from Watches Display Market Go Flat,” RedHerring.com the Auto and Health Care Industries,” Harvard ( January 10, 2001). Management Update (Boston: Harvard Business School, 5 L. Argote, S. L. Beckman, and D. Epple, “The 1998, Reprint # U98068). Persistence and Transfer of Learning in Industrial 14 C. Joseph, “I-Pod City,” Mail on Sunday (London: June Settings,” Management Science 36 (1990): 140–54; 11, 2006): 56–7. M. Zollo and S. G. Winter, “Deliberate Learning and 15 See R. M. Grant, “Manufacturer–Retailer Relations: the Evolution of Dynamic Capabilities,” Organization The Shifting Balance of Power,” in G. Johnson (ed.), Science 13 (2002): 339–51. Retailing and Business Strategy (New York: John Wiley, 6 R. H. Hayes and R. Jaikumar, “Manufacturing’s Crisis: 1987). New Technologies, Obsolete Organizations,” Harvard 16 R. Cyert and J. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm Business Review (September–October 1988): 85; and (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963). R. M. Grant, A. B. Shani, R. Krishnan, and R. Baer, 17 H. Leibenstein, “Allocative Efficiency Versus X- “Appropriate Manufacturing Technology: A Strategic Efficiency,” American Economic Review 54 (June 1966). Approach,” Sloan Management Review 33, no. 1 18 K. Kase, F. J. Saez, and H. Riquelme, The New Samurais (Fall 1991): 43–54. of Japanese Industry (Edword Elgar, 2006). 7 M. Keller, Collision (New York: Doubleday, 1993): 19 On activity-based costing, see R. S. Kaplan and 169–71. S. R. Anderson, “Time-Driven Activity-based Costing,” 8 J. Womack and D. T. Jones, “From Lean Production to Harvard Business Review (November 2004): 131–8; Lean Enterprise,” Harvard Business Review (March– J. Billington, “The ABCs of ABC: Activity-based Costing April 1994); J. Womack and D. T. Jones, “Beyond and Management,” Harvard Management Update Toyota: How to Root Out Waste and Pursue Perfection,” (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, May Harvard Business Review (September–October 1996). 1999).
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