Peter Wickens said that one of the most important things he did as Managing Director of Nissan-United Kingdom, a very successful organization, was to align the organization to a common strategy and set of goals: " a leader (must) align the organization, to ensure that all its components are pointing in the same direction; that all are working together to achieve the same objectives."11 With all this in mind, more than rhetoric is needed to align the organization. There's ample evidence that it does work, but before launching into an "alignment" exercise, Bob still wants to make sure that the tools are well understood before further developing the strategy and aligning the company to that strategy.

More importantly, as CEO, Bob Neurath wants to understand all the other issues that will affect Beta's success. Beyond getting the marketing and sales right, as discussed in Chapter 1, for example, questions that keep going through his mind are:

• What about innovation? Innovate or die is an oft heard refrain. How will Beta position itself to continue to innovate and develop new products and processes, despite continuing price and cost pressures that sap away funding for that innovation?

• What about outsourcing, or off-shoring as it is sometimes called? Given the extreme price/cost pressures in some businesses, does it make sense to move some operations to foreign countries, where labor costs are much lower? What are the benefits? What are the risks? Does having a manufacturing presence in China or India...