INTEL’s strategy : planned economy or decentralisation ?

Robert A. Burgelman teaches strategic management of technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has spent a great deal of time studying Intel, a company which is unlike any other. He developed a long-lasting friendship with Andrew Grove who was Intel’s managing director, and who orchestrated Intel’s transformation from a memory chip company into a microprocessor giant. Few companies can pride themselves on being as successful as this. It is all the more impressive because Intel managed to rediversify when the market for personal computers decreased, and it was able to benefit from the development of the Internet and communication networks. Robert A. Burgelman was involved in these exciting changes. What did he bring to the subject he was studying ? The answer seems to be colour : Burgelman divided Intel’s business into green products (new products) and blue products (the old chip business). This classification helped to determine the processes coming from either management or innovation within the various divisions and departments of the company, as well as defining the complex relationships which are maintained in the same organisation. Is this unusual ? One thing is certain, it has now become the norm in Intel to talk about green and blue.