Elephants and Cheetahs [WIP]
About
Classroom notes for Elephants and Cheetahs course offered by the legendary Saral Mukharjee at IIMA for Operations Strategy domain. These notes would also cover topics discussed in his book titled the same."I know nothing"
"Enlightenment will come"
Systems
[] What is a system?[] Hierarchy of Complexity
[] Mutual Causal Processes aka Feedback loops -- positive and negative
[] Dominant and Latent feedbacks
[] Innovation and feedback loops
[] Structures, behaviours and patterns
Elephants: Cost Leadership
Elephants play on cost leadership.Core characteristics of an Elephant:
- High Volume
- Low Variety
- High Standardisation
- High fixed cost, low variable cost
- 100% capacity utilization to spread the fixed cost over volume; also because demand is steady.
- Elephants can influence their suppliers to incorporate better practices to reduce the suppliers cost-- bringing down costs for themselves too in the process.
Cheetah: Time Responsiveness
Cheetahs are concerned about the "cost of time".Core characteristics of a Cheetah:
- Low Volume per Variety
- High Variety
- High Customisation
- High fixed cost, low variable cost
- Max 75% capacity utilization
- Cheetahs need suppliers who can scale up to meet their demands too. And hence the entire supply chain would be of Cheetahs.
Quality
[] What is Quality?[] Dimensions of Quality
[] Cost of Quality
Case: (Jiro Dreams of Sushi)[]
Case: (Sushi-belt restaurants)[]
Created: 2 Nov 2022
Modified: 2 Nov 2022