Week 12: Chapter 12 Discussion

Chapter 12 of Strategic Management: Creating Competitive Advantages outlines the five dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), the strategy-creating process that corporations use to identify and launch new ventures. The five dimensions of EO include autonomy, innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and risk taking. Combining these factors enables a corporation to improve their entrepreneurial performance. Autonomy is considered a willingness to stand alone or act independently to be able to capture an entrepreneurial opportunity. Innovativeness is a measure of how much effort a corporation puts into finding new opportunities and novel solutions. Proactiveness refers to a corporation’s efforts to capture new opportunities by monitoring trends, identifying the future needs of their customers, and anticipating changes in demand or new potential problems. Competitive aggressiveness is the effort a corporation extends to outperform its industry rivals. Risk taking refers to a corporation’s willingness to accept risk in the pursuit of a new opportunity. Grainger demonstrates each of the five dimensions of EO. Grainger demonstrates autonomy through the semi-independent operations conducted by Zoro and MonotaRO(1,2). Grainger developed an innovative digitally-based procurement process, to optimize their customer’s experience with purchasing products(3). This includes digital solutions, a procurement process analysis, and spend management support for their customer’s needs. Grainger was extremely proactive and willing to accept risk (risk-taking) in its early adoption of the e-commerce model. Grainger began developing its digital catalog on CD-ROMs before it even had a dot-com website(4). Knowing the success of its digital catalog, Grainger was willing to invest in its website and position itself as the strongest e-commerce brand for Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) supplies. Grainger embraces its competitive aggressiveness by supporting an endless assortment of millions of SKUs(5).

Grainger's Procurement Process Image(3)

References:

1.      MonotaRO Co. Affirms Independence Amid Grainger’s Controlling Stake - TipRanks.com

2.      Who Owns Zoro Tools? - AEANET

3.      Grainger Procurement Processes - Grainger Industrial Supply

4.      MDM4005.indd

5.      What is Competitive Landscape of Grainger Company? – PortersFiveForce.com