E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

A company I like a lot, Harley Davidson failed where Walmart a company that I don’t particularly care for succeeded. 

Harley was faced with the problem of being pigeon holed in to one market (albeit a large one). To combat that Harley Davidson has diverted some of its effort in to developing Buell. Great move. Harley did not fully relinquish control. Bad move. Result: Harley tried to apply Harley methods and overhead and Buell could not make money, Buell image got mixed in with Harley and thus both Harley and Buell lost some of their appeal in their target markets.

Walmart was threatened by e-tailers, it spun off walmart.com. They created a whole new startup with a whole new culture, and did not remerge the two companies until walmart.com was a mature profitable venture that could stand on its own.

Once again proving that entrepreneurial management is the foundation of a successful business and one cannot go forward, while they are too intertwined in to the past.