Elephant's Dance: Modern Alchemy of Well-Known Large Enterprises

Author: Zhang Peng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: A Grand View of the Corporate Ecosystem in the 21st Century. This book draws on rich reports from globally renowned newspapers and magazines, extensively collecting profiles of prominent business leaders and scholars worldwide, their insightful quotes, the operational philosophies of well-known companies in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other regions, as well as strategies, practices, policies, and nearly 200 case studies of various global small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Additionally, it covers the top 10 emerging trends and trends in global business warfare and corporate management.
We are all blind, and the strategic processes of large enterprises are like elephants. We all grasp only a part of the elephant while overlooking the rest, making it easy to adopt narrow perspectives. Unfortunately, strategy only becomes effective when we engage with the entire elephant as a living organism.
Walmart's philosophy is straightforward: source goods at the lowest possible cost, then use the saved margin to offer customers ultra-low prices, allowing its products to sell out quickly from the shelves in the shortest time.
As the external environment begins to change rapidly, if we want to stay ahead of others, we must ensure that the speed of internal transformation exceeds the pace of external changes. — Peter Brabeck, CEO of Nestlé
Humans are prone to mistakes. After a production failure, the final solution must be on-site, addressing the issue directly. Repeating this approach can embed this method into the company's DNA. — Fujio Toyoda, President of Toyota
We cannot afford to lack a sense of crisis, as it helps us change. When everything is going smoothly, it's the day when things go wrong. — Jeong Yong-rak, CEO of Samsung Electronics