TABLE OF CONTENTS "Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality."
Peter F. Drucker , management consultant and author, 1909 2005
This chapter provides a comprehensive example of the Strategic Balancing method based on an actual client, renamed here as the fictitious Quality Foods Incorporated. While working with Quality Foods, I was getting deep into the balanced strategic planning method when I received a call from Washington, D.C. to work with the U.S. Navy on a new type of communication system. The call was urgent, and I had to leave within eight hours or lose my spot on the development team. My duties with the U.S. Navy and its contractor involved rather mundane management duties, but the job paid a lot of bills. So I ran to my MBA class that morning, finished teaching a few minutes early, and raced to the airport, buying a tie and fresh shirt on the way.
Flying out of Logan, I take the manuscript for this book out again and remember my challenging friend's last comment: "So what about innovation?" The flight is short and I can't get her challenge out of my head. I have...
