I see this 1996 Harvard Business Review-article as an reply to all the critics of his frameworks and models (such as Henry Mintzberg and Gary Hamel). In his reply, Michael Porter discusses operational effectiveness in relation with strategic positioning. The author does this through explaining the difference between operational effectiveness and strategy ("It is necessary but not sufficient"), strategic positioning ("Competitive strategy is about being different."), strategic trade-offs ("The essence of strategy is what NOT to do."), strategic fit ("The success of a strategy depends on doing many things well - not just a few - and integrating among them."), and rediscovering strategy ("Although external changes can be the problem, the greater threat to strategy often comes from within.") Michael Porter concludes that both operational effectiveness and strategy are essential, but that the two have different agendas. Managers need to be aware that there is a difference between the famous management tools/fads (TQM, benchmarking, BPR, etc.) and strategy formulation. Just aiming for operational effectiveness often results in lower industry profits - so everyone loses out. The final point that the author makes to his critics is that "strategic continuity does not imply a static view of competition. Strategic continuity, in fact, should make an organization's continual improvement more effective."

I did enjoy this Harvard Business Review-article a great deal since it responds to comments from various critics. It also allows a comparison with other academics and business writers in the field of strategic management. I recommend it to managers and, certainly, all MBA/Business-students. The author uses simple US-English.

Their programming skills are terrible. I could not download some of the books I bought, could not burn into cd the ones I could download, and forget about making it work with an mp3 player, unless you're lucky.

I know about 5 people who bought stuff from there and only one had the luck of downloading a working file and burning it successfully to a cd.

The quality of the narrations is awful, at least in the books I managed to hear (only on windows media player, nothing else worked). If you're used to books on cd or tape, you're up for a big disappointment buying from audible.

On top of all that, they have the worst customer service I have ever witnessed. The site was not working right when I tried to purchase there for the first time. I sent them a message with no answer.

In a second attempt, I bought the stuff and some files never downloaded (which means they just stole my money and I don't know what I can do since I don't live in USA). I sent another message with no answer again.

Then their weird program, which turns Windows Media Player automatically on instead of working alone, showed no compatibility to Itunes and no possibility of burning cds or dreaming about hearing books on Ipod. I sent them a third message and nothing. A fourth and guess what? Nothing again.

So I am at least trying to warn other people here to avoid being caught by such scheme. I hope Amazon gets rid of audible as soon as possible. I always got great service from Amazon and the affiliated bookstores, or even other stores selling electronics, health products and others, but audible is just the worst company I ever wasted my money with. Too bad we cannot give notes to them like with the affiliated booksellers.

Sorry by the poor text, I am just mad with them.