Lecture 2 Strategic Management

8/4/2019 Lecture 2 Strategic Management

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Lecture # 2 Strategic Management

Role of Serindipity in Business

Dr.K.Prabhakar


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Please see the next slide and tellme what information you get fromthis?


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It is Scotchgard Patent

and it is an happy accident-What is an happy accident?


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Seredipity

Serendipity is when someone findssomething that they weren'texpecting to find. In the simplest of

words, it means a "happy accident".

The fact is it is derived from

Sanskrit!


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The Sri Lankan Connection

The first noted use of "serendipity" in theEnglish language was by Horace Walpole. Ina letter to his friend he said he formed it fromthe Persian fairy tale The Three Princes ofSenendip; the heroes were always making

discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, ofthings they were not in quest of". The name

stems from Serendip, an old name forSrilanka from Arabic Sarandib,from SanskritSimhaladvipawhich literallytranslates to "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions

Island"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit


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Importance of Sagacity

One aspect of Walpole's originaldefinition of serendipity is "sagacity"ofbeing able to link together apparently

innocuous facts to come to a valuableconclusion. Thus accident inventionsare as important as other types of

inventions.


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Pencillin Another example of serendipity in science is

associated with Alexander Fleming and hisdiscovery of pencillin against the serious diseasesat the time. He accidentally left a petri dish

of Staphylococcus bacteria open and a moldhad got inside which had appeared to have killedaround the bacteria. It turned out that it was thefungus Pencillum and he turned the fungus into a

groundbreaking anti-biotic.


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Prepared Mind The French scientist Louis Pasteur also

famously said: "In the fields of observationchance favors only the prepared mind. This isoften rendered as "Chance favors the prepared

mind. Shakespeare expressed the samesentiment "All things are ready if our minds beso."


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What iscommon in all

these images ?


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Intution and Innovation should notbe a standard operating procedure

'Inoneselflies thewhole worldand if you knowhow to look and learn, then the door is there andthe key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can giveyou either the key or the door to open, except

yourself.

Reference: ' Krishnamurti in 'You are the World'.
http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carnaval.com/saturnalia/initiation_relief.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.carnaval.com/initiation/&usg=__Zn1aHiwV18lbjxSB8I1Jq4klntI=&h=201&w=233&sz=15&hl=en&start=6&sig2=t873r4jBJmLfysRwDsmEDQ&zoom=1&tbnid=ownAE4ND7NINiM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=109&ei=RPUTTur6HIrlrAf-tPCHBA&prev=/search?q=Initiation&um=1&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=607&tbm=isch&um=1&itbs=1http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carnaval.com/saturnalia/initiation_relief.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.carnaval.com/initiation/&usg=__Zn1aHiwV18lbjxSB8I1Jq4klntI=&h=201&w=233&sz=15&hl=en&start=6&sig2=t873r4jBJmLfysRwDsmEDQ&zoom=1&tbnid=ownAE4ND7NINiM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=109&ei=RPUTTur6HIrlrAf-tPCHBA&prev=/search?q=Initiation&um=1&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=607&tbm=isch&um=1&itbs=1


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The innovation has to be sustainableand fulfilling to humanity

The fall of human society has not occurredovernight. It has taken many centuries, manymillennia in fact, for the potentials and inherentgenius of the human being to degrade into

present condition. We are still inherently genius by nature and

central to the theme of this programme. Becausewe deny nature to the point of global pollution and

the destruction of our own bodies, our spiritualityand intelligence dwindle proportionally.


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Serendipity and Business M.E.Graebner describes serendipitous value in

the context of the acquisition of a business as"windfalls that were not anticipated by thebuyer prior to the deal": i.e., unexpected

advantages or benefits incurred due to positivesynergy effects of the merger.


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Innovation and Business

Success Ikujiro Nonaka points out that the serendipitous

quality of innovation is highly recognized bymanagers and links the success of Japaneseenterprises to their ability to create knowledge not

by processing information but rather by "tappingthe tacit and often highly subjective insights,intuitions, and hunches of individual employeesand making those insights available for testing

and use by the company as a whole".


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Blindspots Analysis Serendipity is a key concept in Competitive

Intelligence because it is one of the tools foravoiding Blind Spots (see Blindspots analysis)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Intelligencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Intelligencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindspots_analysishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindspots_analysishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Intelligencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_Intelligence


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Bahramdipity

Bahramdipity describesthesuppressionof serendipitousdiscoveries or research results by

powerful individuals. This occurs in mostorganizations that were driven byindividuals who are incompetent to lead

others.


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Meet Patsy OConnell Sherman

Sherman's 1947 high school aptitude test indicated shewould be most suited to the role of a housewife. Shermandemanded to take the boys version of the aptitude test.

The results reflected Sherman's interest in science andlisted dentistry or chemistry as her potential career path.

My opinion is the present day aptitude tests did notchange much from 1947.

Digression:Please read my article; An Analytical Study

on Assessing Human Competencies Based on Tests (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=163

2503 )
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632503http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632503http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632503http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632503


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What we learn from this?

Fail; and learn

from Failures


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Teach children or employees to fail!Yes. You can learn from failures.

"Anyone can become an inventor as long as theykeep an open and inquiring mind and never overlookthe possible significance of an accident or apparentfailure.

you can encourage and teach young people to

observe, to ask questions when unexpected thingshappen.

You can teach yourself not to ignore theunanticipated.

Just think of all the great inventions that have come

through serendipity, such as Alexander Flemingsdiscovery of Penicillin, and just noticing something noone conceived of before.


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Thermodynamically ImpossibleProduct

That challenge was met by Patsy Sherman, ayoung chemical researcher who joined 3M in1952. Sherman was assigned to work on aproject to develop a rubber material that would

resist deterioration from jet aircraft fuels. Patsy Sherman and her colleague, Sam Smith,were working on a project when they observedthat the accidental spill on a shoe would not washoff nor would solvent remove it. The area resisted

soiling. They recognized the commercial potentialof its application to fabrics during manufactureand by the consumer at home.


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Scotchgard Scotchgard was first sold in 1956, however, Patsy

Sherman and Samuel Smith obtained U.S. patent#3,574,791 in 1973, for the method for treatingcarpets, now known as Scotchgard. The name

Scotchgard is a combination of the words Scotchand a misspelling of the word guard.


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Present State of Scotchguard

In 1999, the United States Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) began an investigation into the class ofchemicals used in Scotchgard, after receiving information onthe global distribution and toxicity of perflurooctanesulfaonate (PFOS),the "key ingredientofScotchgard.

The Compound perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), aPFOS precursor, was an ingredient and also has beendescribed as the "key ingredient of Scotchgard. Under USEPApressure,in May 2000 3M announced the phaseout of theproduction of PFOA, PFOS, and PFOS-related products.

3M reformulated Scotchgard and since June 2003 has

replaced PFOS with perfluorobutanesulfonicacid (PFBS). PFBS has a much shorterhalf-life in people thanPFOS (a little over one month vs. 5.4 years). In May 2009PFOS was determined to be a persistent organicpollutant(POP) by the Stockholm Convention.(Source:Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanesulfonamidehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorobutanesulfonic_acidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorobutanesulfonic_acidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Convention_on_Persistent_Organic_Pollutantshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Convention_on_Persistent_Organic_Pollutantshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Convention_on_Persistent_Organic_Pollutantshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorobutanesulfonic_acidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorobutanesulfonic_acidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanesulfonamide


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Please do be

innovative. It hasno barriers except

you.

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Lecture 2 Strategic Management