Peggy Johnson Quotes

Nokia and Research in Motion needed a modern operating system. They could have bought Palm or Android before Google did, but they didn't. Today, it's probably too late, and at the time they would have been criticized for overpaying, but as they say - shift happens.

I think you have to be a niche player. You've got to find smaller ideas that are going to benefit in the conditions as they are. You can change the conditions and always try to find ways to make money in the conditions as they exist.

Executives need ample flexibility to respond to the market. That means both reducing costs and increasing innovation.

In the private sector, there is always innovation. There's always change. There's always improving productivity, and if you're not leading that, you'll be passed and ultimately go out of business. So there's an urgency to constantly update and renew and to rethink your enterprise.

An adaptable company is one that captures more than its fair share of new opportunities. It's always redefining its 'core business' in ways that open up new avenues for growth.

Assuming a specific resource is high cost is often a path to disruption when someone makes a different assumption.

Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity.

Why should I build an asset when I can buy it more cheaply than you can build it?

You have to make a decision whether it's a new product or you integrate it with an existing product. It takes time to work these things out.

We recognize the need to adapt to a changing competitive environment.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

The emphasis on innovation and technology in our companies has resulted in a few of them establishing global benchmarks in product design and development, manufacturing practices and human resource capabilities. However, there is no room for complacency.

This is a business. Be smart. Choose wisely.

We can reorient our products and business strategy because we are an agile organisation.

In a period of economic downturn, the overwhelming instinct is to pare back, cut costs, and lay off. If you do that, do so with your strategy in mind. The worst mistake is to cut across the board. Instead, reconnect and recommit to a clear strategy that will distinguish yourself from others.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

As much as it's sometimes hard to make choices about where you invest, it's equally hard to make choices about where you don't invest and what you eliminate.

The price we are willing to pay for safety cannot be infinite. It is distasteful to put a price on human life, but the more we spend on safety, the less we will have for our other goals.

What an entrepreneur does is to build for the long run. If the market is great, you get all of the resources you can. You build to it. But a good entrepreneur is always prepared to throttle back, put on the brakes, and if the world changes, adapt to the world.

Business is a string of seemingly impossible problems looking for solutions. Each problem you solve creates a new barrier to entry for your next competitor.

We must strike a balance between speed and thoroughness, between the need for time frames and the avoidance of mistakes which will later cost us dearly.

I made a cold calculation that I wasn’t going to waste time on a futile struggle.

Throwing money after security turns out to be a classic example of the law of diminishing marginal utility.

I'm not going to risk our precious military resources on an ineffective, unproductive mission.

The Ranbaxy acquisition doesn't preclude us from making more large acquisitions. The important issue is whether we have the management bandwidth to handle the acquisition.