Too Many Industries Suffering From “Detroititis”

Gary Hamel really hits the nail on the head in this blog posting...

Unfortunately, one can find Detroit-style thinking in industries other than autos.

Take the PC industry. Years ago, in an article written for the Harvard Business Review, I posed the following question: Why was the most expensive appliance in most homes—the personal computer—also the ugliest? PCs were clunky beige boxes that spewed cords and cables across your desktop like a disemboweled robot. A few years later Apple would introduce its first iMac, the candy-colored, all-in-one home computer that heralded the company’s creative renaissance.
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The same myopic thinking that led America’s car companies to surrender product leadership to Toyota, Honda and BMW, has led U.S. airlines to surrender service leadership to international carriers like Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, and Lufthansa. (My belief: There are only two reasons to fly internationally on a U.S. carrier—to retain your frequent flyer status or keep your boss happy by complying with corporate travel rules. In the last 20 years I’ve crossed the Atlantic more than 300 times—and only twice on a U.S. airline, thank God.)

Unlike the auto makers, the big U.S. airlines have been able to maintain a domestic oligopoly. They haven’t had to face foreign competitors within their home market—thanks to a legal prohibition on the foreign ownership of U.S. air carriers. This blatantly protectionist policy should make U.S. consumers hopping mad. Why should we be able to drive a Toyota from New York to LA, and not be able to cross the continent on Singapore Airlines, for example?