Name: Haytham Date: 1/28/2014

Salah

APA Citation of the source:

Zenger, T. (2013). Strategy: the uniqueness challenge. Harvard Business Review, 91(11), 52-58. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/detail?sid=c1a12b66-73a1-41b39dda689eca0c48ab%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=127&bdata=JnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db =bth&AN=91571407.
Part 1: A synopsis of the article

The article describes the difficulty companies face when they try to use complex strategies that will require them to address the needs of more than one industry. The diversifications of these companies indicate that they look for blue oceans away from their competitors (Kim, & Mauborgne, 2005). These complex strategies result in pushing financial analysts away from reviewing their business because they need more than one analyst from different industries to work together in order to understand and evaluate such companies. This process takes more time and effort and decreases the analyst's coverage of these diversified companies. The author provides two solutions for this problem. The first is to increase the analysts awareness about the companys strategy. This can be performed by disclosing more information, or paying to independent equity research firms, to make the necessary coverage. The second proposed solution is to try to change the company to become private by looking for private equity investors who appreciate the company.

Part 2: An analysis of the article

The article relates particularly well to the blue ocean strategy which is studied in details in this course as it looks at diversified companies that try to make the competition irrelevant by

going after different industries (Kim, & Mauborgne, 2005). The research method was demonstrated clearly, and the research was focused in its purpose. The author provided good overview of earlier research in the same area but only those that supported his point of view. The article include some depth in studying the financial evaluation, based on the firms strategy and on the ease of assessment, but the author was only able to provide two possible solutions. The author provided few successful companies that fit his theory, like Monsanto and Georgia-Pacific. However, he did not provide information about the number of companies that comply with his interpretation of diversified companies, and he did not provide information about the percentage of companies going private out of these companies, nor about the percentage of undervalued companies in the stock market. . References Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue ocean strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.