Miles and Snow suggest that organizations responding to uncertainty in the environment do so with one of four approaches. Name and describe these approaches, and provide an example of each.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Defenders are expert at producing and selling narrowly defined products or services. Often they are old-line successful enterprises, such as Macy's and JCPenney, which in the 2010 era of consumer frugality found themselves losing customers to discounters like Walmart. They do not tend to seek opportunities outside their present markets. They devote most of their attention to making refinements in their existing operations, such as slashing prices.

A company described as "aggressive" is often a Prospector organization. Prospectors focus on developing new products or services and in seeking out new markets, rather than waiting for things to happen. An example of a Prospector company is Gap, which announced it would look for new sales by expanding abroad. Another such company is Apple.

Analyzers take a "me too" response to the world. Analyzers let other organizations take the risks of product development and marketing and then imitate (or perhaps slightly improve on) what seems to work best. For years, Microsoft has been accused of taking this approach.

Reactors make adjustments only when finally forced to by environmental pressures. In the worst cases, they are so incapable of responding fast enough that they suffer massive sales losses and are even driven out of business. Kmart, for instance, failed to respond to Walmart's development of its distribution and inventory management competencies, resulting in stalled growth and a significant reduction in market share. Kmart's core business never recovered from this reactive strategy.