This page is dedicated to some unusual decision factors.
Accidental heros
Battle of Britain
Betar not better
Blitzkrieg
Blunder
CD capacity
Computer revolution
Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962)
First in the market
Going to war
Killer Apps
Line in the sand
Standardization to death
The bloodiest wrong turn
To nuke or not to nuke?
Waterloo - Napoleon's Last Battle
A number of successful products were just accidents or late hour no brainer inclusions. For example:
The magic bullet Penicillin was discovered after a Petri dish was contaminated by a soil bacteria. Royal Air Force fought the Battle over Britain between the 10th July and 31st October 1940. Despite Radar, home advantage and the determination of its pilots RAF was slowly and steadily loosing the battle. Exhausted they waited for final attack on its infrastructure. Then few accidentally dropped bombs on Berlin enraged Hitler and he order bombing of London allowing RAF to regroup and win the battle. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few misdirected bombs.
The world is riddled with failed products which were better than their competitors. The classic case is Beta and VHS. In every respect Beta was better and cheaper to produce than VHS yet it failed. Allies quickly learned the art of blitzkrieg. The decisive factor in the length of World War II was not the blitzkrieg but the German skill of tactical withdrawals. No armies in the world before or since were better than Germans at withdrawing.
Blunder is a small Dutch company in Amsterdam http://www.stripwinkelblunder.nl/ It not surprising that most companies and politicians find it difficult to find and admit to Blunder.
The standard capacity of a CD is approximately 74 minutes long. "I think there is a world market for about five computers" - Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International Business Machines),1943 Mainframe boom was unexpected by IBM. Without significant competitors IBM become and still is the biggest computer company in the world (Microsoft is in terms of capitalization but not in products and diversification). Years later IBM saw a PC as business tool and for few years rode the wave. It failed to exploit ‘Personal’ in PC but Microsoft didn’t.
Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962)
“He felt the cortisone, too. Before press conferences and televised speeches, Kennedy's doctors increased his cortisone dose to help him handle the associated stress. This is very troubling. There is certainly no untoward physical stress associated with talking to reporters or cameras. Thus, we can presume he needed extra cortisone to deal with the psychological stress of such events. The psychological stress involved in such events, however, must pale in comparison to the stress of deciding whether to end civilization in the Cuban Missile Crisis, whether to invade Cuba, or what to do with American and Soviet tanks separated by 100 yards in Berlin, loaded, and with their muzzles pointed at each other. Did he call for extra cortisone then? And if he did, what is the right dose to give? Do Berlin and Cuba decisions warrant a higher dose than Viet Nam decisions?” -Boller, Paul F. Jr Some of the drugs that the president took - Cortisone, lomotil, paregoric ,phenobarbital, testosterone, trasentine, tuinal and amphetamines. Some historians believe that Khrushchev after meeting Kennedy misjudged his discomfort form pain during a long meeting as weakness and decided to place missiles in Cuba Very scary scenario life and death decisions influenced by drugs.
Initial success doesn’t guarantee the long term survival. In high tech industry the experience tends to be opposite. Agile followers in the long term are more successful for example Microsoft. In Canada and USA just about every early cable TV supplier no longer exists. In relatively late Australian cable TV market most of the content is now supplied by a single company. “Getting it right” is as critical as “Getting there first”
Genghis Khan built the greatest empire the world has seen by going to war to avenge murder of his family members. Starting with his father of he went waging war. When he run out of family members he could avenge he used the killing of his ambassadors as reason for more wars. El Salvador and Honduras soccer teams were engaged in three-game elimination match as a preliminary to the World Cup. Disturbances broke out during the first game in Tegucigalpa, but the situation got considerably worse during the second match in San Salvador. Honduran fans were roughed up, the Honduran flag and national anthem were insulted, and the emotions of both nations became considerably agitated. Early on the morning of July 14, 1969, concerted military action began in what came to be known as the Soccer War.
In computer industry ‘Killer App’ is an application which is overwhelming successful. Lotus 123 sold more PCs and created more accounting jobs than any other software. It was the first true killer app. Dot.Com boom was fueled by the killer app search. Before Internet the biggest online network was Mintel . It was design to replace French telephone books. It didn’t replace many telephone books but it created a new sex utility. Porno and chat drives Mintel. Just about every business attempts to use Mintel to make money failed. Yet business ignored Minitel evidence and jumped on a band wagon. Sex is an internet killer app.
It was January 49 BC, Caesar was staying in the northern Italian city of Ravenna and he had a decision to make. Either he acquiesced to the Senate's command or he moved southward to confront Pompey and plunge the Roman Republic into a bloody civil war. An ancient Roman law forbade any general from crossing the Rubicon River and entering Italy proper with a standing army. To do so was treason. This tiny stream would reveal Caesar's intentions and mark the point of no return. He crossed the Rubicon. The crossing of a small stream in northern Italy became one of ancient history's most pivotal events. From it sprang the Roman Empire and the genesis of modern European culture
In general industry standardization increases the business volume and depresses its profits. Early English railways were exceptionally profitable. Then rail gauge was standardized and the rest is history. Industry standardization leads to price only competition which is good for consumers. Unless you control the standard and it’s IP in the long term standardization benefits others more than your business. IBM PC created and published PC standard which we still use today. This created a PC boom. Most of profits were made by others.
The murder of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo is accepted by historians as the immediate cause of World War One though serious trouble - long term causes - had been brewing for sometime. On July 28th 1914, the heir to the Austrian Empire, Franz Ferdinand, was visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. There had been trouble at the start of his royal tour of Sarajevo when another car in his entourage was hit by a grenade and an Austrian officer had been injured. Clearly, Sarajevo was a dangerous place to be. Franz ordered that his route through Sarajevo be changed at the last minute as he wanted to see the injured officer in hospital. Unfortunately, his driver did not fully understand his instructions and got lost by taking wrong turn off. Stopping to check where he was, the driver attempted to reverse out on to the main street. By bad luck, he stopped right by a man called Gavrilo Princip. He was a member of the Black Hand Gang which wanted to rid Bosnia of Austrian rule. He had also been behind the grenade throwing and was now trying to disguise himself among the many people who lined the streets fearing the police might arrest him. Not believing his luck, Princip pulled out the revolver he had on him and shot Franz and his wife. Both died as a result
When USSR exploded its first atomic bomb USA knew it was a copy of its own design and they had only one bomb. USA had over 30 atomic bombs at that time President Truman was under extreme pressure to implement “To hit then now when we can policy”. Some historians believe that president Truman decided against using the A-Bomb because he was a grandfather.
Waterloo - Napoleon's Last Battle
Napoleon delayed the battle for a day. He was ill and slept whole night. During the battle Prussian army gets to the battle ground just in time to tip balance of power. The deciding factor for the battle outcome was not Wellington brilliance or resolve of English army but a simple case of some historians suspect food poisoning. Some years later Napoleon died of arsenic poisoning.
SMS 256 byte messaging was not expected to save mobile phone industry from bankruptcy.
Books have been written about this case and even chaos theory deployed to explain it.
The trigger point for VHS success was tracked down to a single (not a major) store offering VHS discount sale
This standard was chosen because it was long enough for an entire performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Windows 3.0, Internet and Email were another true killer apps they sold and are selling lots of PCs.
Killer app is the holy grail of the computer industry.
Billions of dollars were spent in search of a holy grail.
We spent very unpopular 1990s advising clients not spend fortune on the futile search.
All of the analytical research including the ‘Game theory analysis’ chose it as optimal policy.