17 July
Industry and Market Structure
Market and industry structures are quite brittle. One small scratch and they disintegrate, often fast.
Industry and market structures appear so solid that the people in an industry are likely to consider them foreordained, part of the order of nature, and certain to endure forever. A change in market or industry structure is a major opportunity for innovation. In industry structure, a change requires entrepreneurship from every member of the industry. It requires that each one ask anew: “What is our business?” And each of the members will have to give a different, but above all a new, answer to that question.
Large, dominant producers and suppliers, having been successful and unchallenged for many years, tend to be arrogant. At first they dismiss the newcomer as insignificant and, indeed, amateurish. But even when the newcomer takes a larger and larger share of their business, they find it hard to mobilize themselves for counteraction.
For example, the U.S. Post Office did not react when UPS and FedEx took away larger and larger shares of its business. What had made the Post Office so vulnerable was rapid growth in the demand for urgent delivery of time-sensitive documents and packages.
7月17日
行业与市场结构
市场和行业结构其实十分脆弱。一个小小的划痕，就可能让它们迅速瓦解。
行业和市场结构看上去如此稳固，以至于行业内部的人往往把它们视为命中注定、属于自然秩序的一部分，并认为它们必将永远延续。
然而，市场结构或行业结构的变化，正是重大的创新机会。行业结构一旦发生变化，就要求行业中的每一个成员展现企业家精神。每个人都必须重新提出这个问题：“我们的业务是什么？”而且，每个成员都必须给出不同的、更重要的是全新的答案。
那些长期成功、长期未受挑战的大型主导性生产商和供应商，往往会变得傲慢。起初，他们把新进入者视为无足轻重，甚至认为对方不够专业。但即使新进入者不断夺走越来越多的业务，它们仍然很难迅速动员起来采取反击行动。
例如，当UPS和联邦快递不断夺走美国邮政的业务时，美国邮政并没有及时作出反应。真正使它变得脆弱的，是市场对具有时效性的文件和包裹进行紧急递送的需求迅速增长。
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