經濟學人的網站不在像以前那像對於近幾個月的內容完全開放，只有約是三個月前的內容或是一些市場資料是要付費的，從這個月起，每周只能讀五篇印刷版的文章。訂閱費還不便宜，看來以後就會少上經濟學人網站了。

這個標題十分吸引我，不知道是不是屬於內印刷版的文章？如果是那就虧大了！文章中既沒有詳述所買力亞海盜的營運模式，也沒有實例分析，不過就一般人所知的情節，加入一些流行的語彙像不對稱戰爭這種。

可以學到甚麼？大抵就是：

1.面對大公司的競爭對手，應該集中力量供其最弱的一環。

2.對大公司而言，要靈活，並且授與各地業務經理人應地制宜的彈性。

Pirate copy

What managers can learn from Somali pirates 

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PURVEYORS of management-speak are fond of quoting code insights frommilitary strategists. According to David James, a professor at Henley Business School,they would do better studying the management styles of some of thosethe armed forces are fighting, such as Somali pirates. Alongside PaulKearney, a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Marines, Professor James hasbeen studying the operations of the pirates, as well as insurgents inAfghanistan and Iraq, to see if they have anything to teach legitimatefirms.

purveyor  n.  a person or company that supplies something 提供者；供應商；供應公司

The threat to life and liberty aside, Somali pirates’ business modelis impressive. According to the professor, each raid costs the piratesaround $30,000. On average one raid in three is successful. The rewardfor a triumphant venture, however, can be in the millions. 

The organisation behind the pirates would be familiar to manyordinary businesses. For a start, they have a similar backend—includingthe kind of streamlined logistics and operations controls that would bethe envy of most companies. Their success has even prompted one villageto open a pirate “stock exchange”, where locals can buy shares in up to70 maritime companies planning raids.

But Professor James believes that the most important lesson firmscan learn is one of strategy. He teaches his MBA class that one reasonfor the pirates' success is that they avoid “symmetrical”conflict—challenging their targets head on by, for example, lining upagainst the Western navies patrolling the waters—battles they wouldsurely lose. Instead, they use stealth and surprise, attacking targetsat their weakest point. In this way, with only a dozen-or-so sailors,they wrest control of huge assets, in the form of oil tankers.

This is a lesson that serves smaller companies well as they look totake bites out of larger rivals. It might be foolish, for example, fora start-up to take on one of the traditional banks head-to-head—onlyanother large bank could afford the pyrrhic battle that would ensuefrom it protecting its market. But by picking a small, localised fighta start-up can make an impression before a bank has had time to react.An example, says Professor James, is wonga.com. It has taken marketshare by attacking banks' inflexible lending policies by offering loansfor the exact amount and length of time the customer wants. Itprocesses the loans extremely quickly and customers can even getimmediate approval using an iPhone app. 

Sometimes such an asymmetrical strike can shift the centre ofgravity in an industry. Nintendo, a computer-games firm, was competing,and failing, against two much better-resourced rivals—Sony andMicrosoft—in a sector where it seemed the only way to be successful wasto win an arms race of processing power and ever more sophisticatedtechnology. Nintendo opened a new avenue of attack based on the ideathat consumers would enjoy getting physically involved in video games,using a motion-sensitive controller to control the on-screen action.So, using relatively cheap technology, it invented the Wii, in theprocess opening up a whole new market for previous non-gamers. 

That smaller, nimble competitors make stealth attacks on largerrivals is a well-known phenomenon. Nonetheless, the way that largercompanies can defend themselves against attack is a matter of muchdebate. Professor James says that the key is to quicken decisionmaking. In his analogy, by the time the captain of an oil tanker hasspotted the pirates’ inflatables it is too late; big ships take a longtime to turn around. Similarly, once a large business has gone throughthe traditional process of observing an attack, orientating itself,deciding what to do about it and then acting (what Colonel John Boyd,an American military strategist, called an OODA loop) it is too late,the competition is upon it.

To help companies understand the best way to speed up their reactiontimes, the professor turned to another unpalatable source: insurgentsin Afghanistan. Despite stressing that he believes the outcomes oftheir strategies to be repugnant, he nonetheless says that he admiresthe management structures that makes them successful. 

One of the main lessons he learned, and which he teaches companieson his executive-education programme, Corporate Insurgency, is thatinsurgent leaders don’t micro-manage. Leaders of such movements are, inProfessor James’s words, "brand agnostic"—they allow their brand to beadopted by autonomous local cells with little central control. Themistake big business makes is to try to protect the brand by makingdecisions from its headquarters; better, he says, to allow localmanagers to respond quickly to local events.

agnostic  adj. a person who is not sure whether or not God exists or who believes that we cannot know whether God exists or not 不可知論者（對上帝的存在不能肯定或認為不可知）

He even goes as far as to suggest that companies set up “commando”forces; small units which work outside the traditional commandstructure of the company and which have a level of autonomy—“notholding the long committee meetings, not having the extended approvaland budgeting process”. If a big business as a whole cannot act as asmall, nimble player, these business units can.

http://www.economist.com/whichmba/somali-pirates