Singapore Airlines' Balancing Act
新加坡航空通过管理四个悖论，同时实现服务卓越和成本领先，打破了传统战略观点，为追求双重战略的企业提供了借鉴。
Singapore Airlines is widely regarded as an exemplar of excellence in an industry whose service standards are tumbling. What's not so well known is that the company is also one of the civil aviation industry's cost leaders. SIA's success in executing a dual strategy of differentiation and cost leadership is unusual. Indeed, management experts, such as Michael Porter, argue that it's impossible to do so for a sustained period since dual strategies entail contradictory investments and organizational processes. Yet SIA, and a few other emerging-economy companies, view the dualities as opposites that form part of a whole. SIA executes its dual strategy by managing four paradoxes: Achieving service excellence cost-effectively, fostering centralized and decentralized innovation, being a technology leader and follower, and using standardization to achieve personalization. The results speak for themselves: SIA has delivered healthy financial returns; it has never had an annual loss; and except for the initial capitalization, the Asian airline has funded its growth itself while paying dividends every year.