Strategic Inflection Points

I thought readers of this blog who are not familiar with this oft-quoted buzzword can benefit from the explanation given from the very person credited with the phrase, Andy Grove:

...a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.

Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change. They can be caused by competitors but they are more than just competition. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let's not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.

But strategic inflection points do not always lead to disaster. When the way business is being conducted changes, it creates opportunities for players who are adept at operating in the new way. This can apply to newcomers or to incumbents, for whom a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for a new period of growth.

You can be the subject of a strategic inflection point but you can also be the cause of one.

As you may have guessed, this idea can be well applied to our personal lives and any organization we are associated with. For many of us, we are the subjects of our strategic inflection points (translation: we are forced to change ourselves because of some outside factors). A better strategy is to of course reengineer for ourselves a strategic inflection point from time to time, to ensure that we do not live our lives in a complacent manner.

Grove discussed in his book the fiasco at Intel in 1994 when CNN ran a story on the design error in the Pentium chip Intel made. He however turned the situation to his advantage by responding swiftly to restore public trust and making himself vulnerable to the external factors in order to anticipate them (a process he called "constructive confrontation). Again, this is a quality that is worth adopting perhaps.

I can think of a few people in the Bible who experienced strategic inflection points. Abraham is a main case in point. When the call of God came to him in the land of Ur, the old man who was about to just enjoy retirement had to drop everything he had and accomplished, and follow the faith-shattering call to an uncertain territory. The rest of course is history, without which there is no Messiah for people of all nations.

Have you had any strategic inflection point lately?