Sporadic-innovation trap

Rita McGrath, Columbia Business School professor and author of the article, “Transient Advantage,” discusses several traps that can blind a company to the need for imminent changes to their strategy to preserve competitive advantage. These traps, discussed in the second half of the article, include: the first-mover trap, the superiority trap, the quality trap, the hostage-resources trap, the white space trap, the empire-building trap, and the sporadic-innovation trap.

Locate and post a link to an article in The Wall Street Journal, or another reputable source, about a company that fell victim to one or more of these traps.

• Identify the trap(s) and discuss why you believe the company’s management missed the warning signs.
• What were the impacts that resulted from falling for the trap(s)?
• Drawing on the guidance offered by Sherman in Chapter 6, what could they have done differently to avoid the trap(s)

Answer preview

After Blockbuster fell for the trap and closed many of its stores, many people lost jobs which affected them financially and socially. Blockbuster could have hosted premieres of films to stay in the market and created original films, and host singers and actors in the store to promote a new film release. All businesses need to follow upcoming trends to survive in the market, and in such instances, they should have started streaming movies and shows online like their competitors (Gunther, 2013). To stay in the market, they needed to create a museum in the United States where videocassettes could be displayed, and people would walk around checking them. In every business, marketing is essential. Blockbusters were more involved in late fees than on customer satisfaction like Netflix did when they came up. They also had a membership

[395 Words]