15.

Three Versions ofStrategy as People

AS THE U.S. ECONOMY of the 1990s bubbled its way toward the twenty-first century, the appeal of strategy as process began to give way to the greater urgencies of fiercening capitalism. Corporate attention paid to the three Cs intensified. “Reengineering kind of overwhelmed time-based competition,” laments Mark Blaxill, until recently a partner at BCG. Even after the vogue for that particular construct collapsed, the pressure for continual, relentless cost cutting went on unabated.

As if finally listening to voices like those of Tom Peters, companies began paying greater heed to customers, or at least heed in new, more analytic forms befitting the march of Greater Taylorism. In 1996, Bain’s Fred Reichheld ...

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