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Instructors’ Manual to Accompany Contemporary Strategy Analysis (9th edn. Wiley, 2016)
CHAPTER 8. INDUSTRY EVOLUTION AND STRATEGIC CHANGE
Introduction
As the introduction to Chapter 8 makes clear, change is a feature of all business situations. Hence,
challenges and opportunities arising from a changing business environment are present is every strategy
case study. This chapter takes a systemic view of the principal forces of change—especially technology and
demand—and develops implications for how industries evolve. This provides a basis for considering the
challenges of managing strategic change.
The key learning goals for this chapter are for students:
• To recognize the different stages of industry development and understand the factors that
drive the process of industry evolution;
Class Outline
In teaching this topic I use a case study of a firm that is grappling with the implications of a
radically changing industry environment. My preferred case for this is Eastman Kodak. Although
Kodak has failed in its mission to become a leading company in digital imaging (it entered
Cases
Eastman Kodak’s Quest for a Digital Future (R. M. Grant, Contemporary Strategy Analysis: Text and
Cases, 9th edn., Wiley, 2016).
On January 19, 2012, Eastman Kodak declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Faced with the challenge to its
Ford and the World Automobile Industry in 2015 (R. M. Grant, Contemporary Strategy Analysis: Text
and Cases, 9th edn., Wiley, 2016).
The historical account of the automobile industry allows identification of the major life cycles stages
The case demonstrates the potential for a declining, structurally unattractive circus industry to be
revitalized by strategic innovation. Cirque du Soleil was able to reinvent the circus industry and create
new market space by challenging the conventional assumptions about how to compete. It value innovated
by shifting the buyer group from children (end-users of the traditional circus) to adults (purchasers of the
traditional circus), drawing upon the distinctive strengths of other alternative industries, such as the
theatre, Broadway shows and the opera, to offer a totally new set of utilities to more mature and higher
spending customers.
