Interview with Prof. Geoff Mallory
N Nagaraj
Dr. Geoff Mallory, Professor of Strategy with the Open Business School of The Open University, has come down to Chennai to lecture the students of the Open University Business School at Chennai. The OUBS is a unique institution in England, and the largest in terms of number of students. As Dr. Mallory puts it: ``We offer what we call `supported' distance education in wgich the normal texts are supported by audio-visual material and a local tutor.''
As a professor with OUBS, Dr. Mallory also has to undertake research apart from his teaching assignments. His research interests lie in two areas: One, performance measurement; and two, the study of literature and ideas behind comparative management. He was forthcoming on his second area of interest and has published a book, ``Making sense of managing culture'' with a Canadian colleague, David Cray.
Dr. Mallory says, ``Comparative management is basically the comparison of the same kind of copanies in two different countries and explaining why they perform in different ways or why they do perform the same way. The Differences come in because of differences in culture. In 1980, a Dutchman, Hopstede, surveyed 116,000 IBM employees around the world to find out the same thing. You and I view things differently. We communicate differently. When I say `No', I mean `No'. But I don't know if you say `No', you mean `No'. These differences affect the way we behave in organisations. We wanted to find out how.''
He continues, saying, ``Earlier, contact between different cultures in organisations came in only at the top level, or at most, at the divisional level. The company would have a senior manager in charge of the business in the country. This manager would be posted in the country for a few years and recalled and then sent elsewhere. Later, when companies started to have native managers in charge of their offices in that country, only the head of the division would have contact with the parent company. Now, with multi-cultural teams becoming very common, there is cultural interaction at all levels, not just at the top.'' This makes it imperative for organisations to know more about and manage culture. Dr. Mallory adds: ``A lot of Japanese companies are investing in and around Milton Keynes, where the OUBS is based. This is something they find is of great use.''
On conglomerates, he says: ``Conglomerates are ridiculed as fat and flabby but that is not true in all cases. A study of conglomerate perfromance against the Stock Market Index and against Trust Funds for a period over 18 years shows that the conglomertes outperformed the market and the funds.'' He adds: ``The basic argument over diversification is synergy. What companies need to successfully diversify is competency based synergy. The result of a diversification should be greater than the sum of its parts. When ICI split into ICI for the bulk chemicals business and Zeneca for its pharmaceutical business, that was because there was no competence-based synergy.''
Dr. Mallory continues: ``The synergy should enable you to offer more value. Take Tesco: They started as a supermarket, then began offering banking services and has now started offering internet services. Although the diversification would seem to be unrelated in terms of products and services, they have the synergy because they had a key competence synergy -- that of customer loyalty. Instead of approaching it from the point of view of `Where else can we deliver the same stuff?', the approach was `What else can we sell?'''
In response to a question that one approach to strategy that it is wisdom in hindsight -- a sort of post-event analysis that leads to a judgment on whether the strategy was good or not -- and that this post-event conference took away the glory of strategy, Dr Mallory says: ``Eventually, organisations run out of the ability to succeed by themselves. Some organisations succed in spite of whatever they do. That run of luck, if you want to call it that, will run out... The way they strategise would have to come to an end. If you walk into a bookstore, you will find some 25-30 stategy texts priced at around $25... everybody can become a strategist for $25, right? Strategy should not be taught as a bunch of techniques... but as a way of thinking. It is a way of thinking about where you want to be... in what environment are you in... what do you have? Strategy is about succeeding... how to compete, thinking about what you need and what capabilities you have. IBM, when it launched its 360 computer took a huge technological jump: nobody knew if it would work... nobody knew how to build it... but they said: let's go ahead and build it and that shaped the industry. Strategy is about informed analysis... it is about judgment.''
Dr. Mallory insists that ``the only way to strategise for success is to have an excellent monitoring system in place.'' Later in the interview, when talking about how some companies find it very difficult to scale up in times of need in spite of resources, he replies, ``that is one of the greatest competencies you need. In times of need, a company may have the resources, but may find it difficult to mobilise the resources. The ability to mobilise resources at will is a great capability.''