By pure coincidence, very soon after publishing my previous post I found an article that relates to its subject perfectly. The post was about how Hostess Brand Inc.’s lack of innovation left it trailing behind competitors and led to the company’s ultimate demise. The article “Accelerate!” by John P. Kotter acknowledges that “perhaps the greatest challenge business leaders face today is how to stay competitive amid constant turbulence and disruption.” This certainly echoes Hostess’s situation; the company failed to stay competitive in the face of changing consumer tastes. The article provides examples of companies that “recognized the need for a big strategic move but couldn’t pull themselves together to make it,” again recalling Hostess.

According to the article, “the old ways of setting and implementing strategy are failing us.” The world is moving faster and companies need to be rethinking their direction and implementing operational changes every few years if they want to stay in the game. Kotter proposes a second operating system, one that designs and implements strategy with an “agile, networklike structure” and a different set of processes from the traditional hierarchy of companies. This second system will allow companies to react more quickly and effectively to market changes or operational inefficiencies.