James Edgar Collins Quotes

There’s no reason for Gillette to be world class on the web, but there’s every reason for Gillette to be world class in producing billions of high powered razor blades at low cost.

The way you want to respond is to ask a question: Is this technology directly relevant to our hedgehog concept? If the answer is YES, then we want to become pioneers, not in the technology, but in the application of that technology specifically linked to our hedgehog concept.

The point of that is, if you look at Walgreen’s history, they’ve always been pioneers in the application of technology. They’re the only drugstore chain that I know to have their own satellite.

The answer I have is, you know, there a lot of things you can try to build to last. And what we try to do in our work is to come up with ideas that will last. Ideas that will stand the test of time.

That the potential to become Level 5 exists in you and me and the people we work with and that it is then a process or a journey to nurture that seed… in a culture by and large that doesn’t reinforce it.

So my answer is, YES, everyone can find a hedgehog concept. If these companies can do it, anyone can do it. And anybody who says they can’t is simply whining.