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Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

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344 BRAND RELEVANCE<br />

commitment may become obsolete or faulty, and its pursuit may<br />

be a wasteful exercise. There may be implementation barriers<br />

in design or in execution. The new offering may be undercut by<br />

another paradigm shift, perhaps brought about by a competitor ’ s<br />

innovation. If the strategic commitment is pushed by the top<br />

executives it can result in overinvestment and premature market<br />

entry, which may be diffi cult to reverse.<br />

That happened with Apple ’ s Newton, mentioned earlier, the<br />

PDA that was ahead of its time when launched in 1993 with<br />

handwriting recognition that did not work. One of the biggest<br />

failures in consumer electronics, its impact on Apple was larger<br />

than it should have been because of a huge commitment that<br />

not only had resulted in up - front investment but also kept the<br />

product alive for fi ve full years until Steve Jobs arrived and<br />

killed it.<br />

The term dynamic strategic commitment implies that the commitment<br />

is not forever. Is the new business meeting the target<br />

goals? Is the mature business experiencing any changes in the<br />

marketplace that shift the assumptions underlying the commitment?<br />

If so, the commitment strategy might be changed to<br />

using resources less aggressively or even exercising a milk or exit<br />

option.<br />

Dynamic strategic commitment is self - contradictory in that a<br />

true commitment would not have a dynamic element to it. The<br />

fact that a commitment is reviewable means that it is not fi rm<br />

and raises logical and organizational complications. The solution,<br />

in part, is a credible organization - wide resource allocation<br />

system, a topic to which we now turn.<br />

Organization - Wide Resource Allocation<br />

An innovative organization needs to have a third characteristic<br />

in addition to being selectively opportunistic and having<br />

dynamic strategic commitment. It must be capable of allocating<br />

resources through a process that is disciplined, objective, and

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