Good to Great

This chapter opens with another anecdote about the power of the Hedgehog Concept, this time in connection with technology. When drugstore.com went public in 1999, it drew investors primarily because of its innovative use of technology in the pharmaceutical space. Walgreens, however, maintained its Hedgehog Concept, opting to try new technologies methodically and gradually. While drugstore.com lost most of its initial market valuation, Walgreens’s stock continued to climb. The difference between these two companies was not technology per se, or even how quickly implementation happened, but in the core approaches that Collins has dissected in the previous chapters.

This story serves to strengthen the chapter’s central argument: that technology can be an extremely effective method of accelerating momentum, but that a new technology alone will not suffice to bring a company from good to great. No matter how innovative the technology, the tool itself is simply not enough if a company has not found its Hedgehog Concept, or if it suffers from ineffective leadership or a toxic company culture. As Collins puts it, “[T]echnology is important—you can’t remain a laggard and hope to be great. But technology by itself is never a primary cause of either […] greatness or decline” (157).