I think they could easily piss off a lot of people, if it was important for the company.
What they can't do is become another kind of organization.
If new nimble competitors working in a new way appear, old companies, with vastly more money but a settled bureaucracy, just slowly die, rather than adapt.
They're not going to want to piss people off because it's viewed as an inherently destructive act. Instead they'd look for more positive resolutions. I can only speak for one Big Japanese Car Company having worked in their corporate office in the decision-making department.
- They'll use Microsoft Sharepoint and Microsoft OneDrive for file and document management, not because they're better products but because Microsoft wishes that they don't use a competitor's products and Big Japanese Car Co respects the desires of their partners.
- After a demo between a new company with superior in-car tech and an old partner with inferior in-car tech, BJCC chooses the old in-car tech because once you're a partner with BJCC, BJCC takes care of you through the good and the bad.
- If you direct a meeting, whether small or large and you say something incorrect, the one person in the crowd that noticed your mistake won't say anything and will actually nod their head in agreement and respect. This is due to the saving-face aspect of the culture.
- Bringing others on board with a decision when you don't have access to the primary data or analytics is much easier when it involves copying a competitor. It also diffuses responsibility if things go south. Saying we did secret teardowns of a Tesla model 3s and are basing our design decisions off these teardowns means you can say it was Tesla's decision, not "my" decision.
On the other hand, BJCC has historically cared a lot more about not pissing off car owners by making more reliable vehicles at fair prices that are less likely to break down. For that reason, at the end of the day, I buy a BJCC car.
It's the old argument of individualism vs. collectivism. The right balance is probably some amount of both.
> What they can't do is become another kind of organization.
That's a big problem many companies are facing in this day and age.
For example traditional newspapers companies are transitioning to digital publishing. This not only impacts how content is published but also how content is produced for a different medium.
I heard a podcast a couple fo years ago with (I believe) the CTO of the NYT. He said that the digital part of the NYT was almost a different company altogether. In the past years I worked at a paper publishing/education company and that was my experience as well. I was in charge of the digital product dept and we were like a black box inside the company. Nobody there really understood how we worked.
What they can't do is become another kind of organization.
If new nimble competitors working in a new way appear, old companies, with vastly more money but a settled bureaucracy, just slowly die, rather than adapt.