ABSTRACT
The manner in which Jeff Flowers and David Friend, Carbonite’s founders, expanded beyond their well-tested software skills as they entered the small business market exemplifies sensible risk-taking. Sara Campbell, too, applied the tenets of sensible risk when she launched new retail stores as a destination for finished product that she was contractually obliged to produce. We have also seen how ignoring or violating those same tenets-as Genzyme did when it postponed construction of a new plant or as Sara Campbell did when she trusted Talbots’s sales projections-can unravel years of solid strategic planning. We can observe how the tenets apply to the challenges facing a wide range of enterprises, despite the obvious differences among both the types of risk and the organizations.
