Spring 2009 issue of Horizons

GENERAL TOPICS

and other environmental-related issues. You would be hard pressed to find much pertaining to how this would apply to a business. However, if you look at businesses and industries that have survived the test of time, one of the key elements of their success is their mastery at strategically adapting the core of what their organizations do and how they do it. In putting together strategic plans for companies, a key element that is often left out is planning around the unknown – the organizational development required around dealing with adaptation. It is the organizations that are able to build into their strategies the capabilities to adapt and strategically transform that will sustain the ever-changing conditions inwhich businesses, customers and economies operate. This capability has become even more important as businesses in today’s economic environment are being faced with challenges that most likely were not part of existing strategic plans. The specific issue or event that is the catalyst for adaptation or transformation is not the key factor in establishing the impact that it will have on an organization. It is the ability of the business itself to react in a strategic fashion that will determine the degree of success it will have. In this article, we will look at a few examples of companies or industries to illustrate how their ability to adapt and transform have allowed them to sustain over a long period of time. The auto industry is a great example of how an industry has transformed multiple times over a long period and adapted itself. In the early years of the industry, the focus and strategy was on creating an alternative means of transportation. The automobiles were built typically one at a time and were not generally available to the majority of the population. The car companies were focused on producing a car and getting it to market. Over time, as people accepted the automobile as a primary means of transportation, various barriers, such as cost and the ability to produce the automobile efficiently, became the catalyst for strategic changes. The industry began focusing on improving manufacturing processes, eventually developing the concept of an assembly line,

Strategic Adaptation

for Long-Term Sustainability

By Dan Raskas

If you were to do a Google search on “adaptation for sustainability,” you would return nearly 3 million results, of which the overwhelming majority would be discussing topics such as the climate, social changes

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