战略经济学(四)

Economies of Scale
Make-or-Buy in Insurance
Buying insurance utilizes economies of scale available to insurers
Large firms with sufficient capital can “selfinsure”
Which steps of the vertical chain to be outsourced?
Choice between the “invisible hand” of the market and the “visible hand” of the organization (Make or Buy)
Support Services
Support services can be major sources of value creation
– UPS – Logistics – Toyota – Human Resource Manager – Nike - Marketing
Defining Boundaries
Market firms are subject to market discipline, whereas in-house units may be able to hide their inefficiencies behind overall corporate success (Agency and influence costs)
Intermediate solutions are possible (Examples: Strategic alliances with suppliers, Joint ventures)
上游下游
Support Services
Accounting Finance Legal Support Marketing Planning Human Resource Management
Backward integration captures the profit margin of the supplier
Backward integration insures against the risk of high input prices
It makes sense to tie up the distribution channel in order to deny access to the rivals
To enforce a contract, an outside party (judge, arbitrator) should be able to
– observe the contingency – observe the actions by the parties – impose the stated penalties for non-performance
activities Resources consumed by influence activities represent
“influence costs” 为什么在过去几十年里，GM在拥有世界上最高生产量
的同时，它的许多零部件供应部门的成本也是最高的
Reasons to Make
Costs imposed by poor coordination Reluctance of partners to develop and share
Some Make-or-Buy Fallacies
Firm should make rather than buy assets that provide competitive advantages
Outsourcing an activity eliminates the cost of that activity
Role of Contracts
Firms often use contracts when certain tasks are performed outside the firm
Contracts list
– the set of tasks that need to be performed – the remedies if one party fails to fulfill its obligation
– the “completeness” of contracts – the body of contract law
Complete Contract
A complete contract stipulates what each party should do for every possible contingency
案例：Self-Insurance by British Petroleum
BP self-insures large losses but buys insurance for small losses
Why
Agency and Influence Costs
The incentives to be inefficient and innovative are weaker when a task is performed in-house
completely
Factors that Prevent Complete Contracting
valuable private information Transactions cost that can be avoided by
performing the task in-house Each problem can be traced to difficulties in
contracting
marketing Organizing the vertical chain is an important
part of business strategy
Vertical Boundaries of the Firm
Which steps of the vertical chain are to be performed inside the firm?
Economics of Strategy
Besanko, Dranove, Shanley and Schaefer
Chapter 3 Vertical Boundaries of the Firm
对外经济贸易大学国际商学院
Vertical Chain
Begins with the acquisition of raw materials Ends with the sale of finished goods/services Includes support services such as finance and
Make versus Buy
Decision depends on the costs and benefits of using the market as opposed to performing the task in-house
Outside specialists may perform a task better than the firm can
Firms need to define their vertical boundaries Considerations
– Economies of scale achieved by market firms – Value of market discipline – Ease of coordination of production flows in-house – Transactions costs when dealing with market firms
possible contingency to a set of actions One should be able to define and measure
performances One should be able to enforce the contract
Complete Contract (Continued)
faced by market firms
Influence costs
In addition to agency costs, performing a task in-house will lead to “influence costs” as well
“Internal Capital Markets” allocates scarce capital Allocations can be favorably affected by influence
Vertically Integrated Firms
In a vertically integrated firm, many of the steps in the vertical chain are performed in-house. Example: UIBE
Some firms choose to outsource many of the vertical chain tasks and become vertically disintegrated. than Make
Market firms (outside specialists) may have patents/proprietary information that makes low cost production possible
Market firms can achieve economies of scale that in-house units cannot
Real life contracts are usually incomplete contracts
Incomplete Contracts
Incomplete contracts
– Involve some ambiguities – Need not anticipate all possible contingencies – Do not spell out rights and responsibilities of parties
Contracts
Contracts protect each party to a transaction from opportunistic behavior of other(s)
Contracts’ ability to provide this protection depends on
No party can exploit others’ weaknesses To create a compete contract one should be
able to contemplate all possible contingencies One should be able to “map” from each
Agency costs are particularly problematic if the task is performed by a “cost center” within an organization
忽视代理成本优于消除代理成本 It is difficult to internally replicate the incentives