Compete Smarter, Not Harder E-Book

William Putsis

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 267

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

How to compete in the right space for greater profitability and growth The Internet, mobile technology, the ubiquity of information and the availability of big data have dramatically increased the speed and impact of success and failure. Companies today know that they must be competitive, but precisely where, and more importantly how, to compete is not always easy to identify--until now. Compete Smarter, Not Harder explains how to prioritize market opportunities so that a company's strengths in one area can be leveraged across multiple markets. Using cutting-edge academic research and extensive industry practice, author William Putsis outlines the strategic decisions needed to determine which space provides the best margins, overall profitability, and growth potential. * Details a step-by-step process for strategic prioritization, from strategic market selection to the tactics of execution, providing competitive advantage across markets * Written by Doctor William Putsis, a professor of marketing, economics, and business strategy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has consulted and led executive development efforts with leading companies throughout the world Prioritize with conviction. Make absolutely sure that all of your hard work goes toward the right space.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for Compete Smarter, Not Harder

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Importance of Fundamentals

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 2: Finding the Right Market Opportunities

TDS—A Transition to the Publishing Supply Chain of Today

MP3.com, Apple, Sony and Lessons Learned Today

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 3: Managing the Risk of Growth

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 4: Choosing and Competing Effectively in the Right Space

The Story of the Agricultural Chemical Manufacturer and the Helicopter Pilot

Legacy Frameworks: The Industry's Supply Chain

Key Points in Developing a Strategic Control Point

Expanding along the Value Chain Follows a Classic Process

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 5: Targeting the Right Customers in the Right Space with the Right Offering

The Story of Henry Ford and the Vagabonds

Nike's Beachhead Strategies—Getting to the Key Segments and Following the Money

American Express and the Strategic Implications of Segmentation Choice

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Some General Rules to Remember

Key Business Tools

Chapter 6: Understanding Your Customers in the Right Space

Choice Analysis and Customer Insight, Quantified

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 7: Vertical Incentive Alignment and Asset Specificity

Virtual Vertical Integration

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 8: Setting Tactics in Today's Environment

The Story of the Whaling Ship Essex…Why What You Know May Be More Dangerous than What You Don't

Points of Positioning

Points in Time—Offering Timing

Points of Value—Value Extraction Considerations

Winner's Curse

Points of Access—Strategic Barriers to Entry and the Story of Blockbuster

Points of Touch—The Embodiment of Your Strategy

Chapter Summary and Key Business Principles

Key Business Tools

Chapter 9: What Is So Different about Today? Conclusions and Lessons for the Future

Speed

Interconnectedness

Ubiquity (Mobile)

Always On

Notes

Index

Praise for Compete Smarter, Not Harder

“In today's technology-driven, ‘ready—fire—aim’ business environment, competitive strategy is all too often left behind by the push to deliver the next shiny thing. Real competitive strategy is about prioritization; most important, prioritization that wins for customers, thereby winning for the business. Compete Smarter, Not Harder is on target with its simple steps to ensure the business prioritizes its efforts in an effective, efficient manner, and most important, excludes those things that are not within the strategy and only distract or divert the business. This book does a great job illustrating the importance of knowing where and how to compete. Bill's stories resonate and clearly illustrate those business principles that define success while pointing out the fallacies that are often employed as fact when making business decisions. Make this book part of your business education and keep it in your reference library.”

—Greg Bowlin,Strategia Global, LLC., and former–Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Jeppesen, Inc.

“This book delivers high-quality service to both scholars and practitioners. From a research perspective, it demonstrates step-by-step analysis of how to make strategic decisions on where or where not to compete in such a rapidly changing market as today, based on the process of screening for priorities. Meanwhile, it also provides specific solutions for a practitioner like me when it comes to making real and critical decisions.

Some traditional books about marketing or strategy are highly focused on one or few specific regions or customers. However, this book seeks for a universal solution by drilling into the core of competing in the right market, in the right part, for the right customers, with the right incentives, and with the right offering. Therefore, the principles and tools can be utilized worldwide without boundaries, in the United States, China, and anywhere else.

The thought-provoking principles and tools is not elaborated in a traditional way. It is quite impressive that the book is filled with vivid examples and logical statements. The examples cover from literature, relevant theories, to the business world.

Making strategic decisions sometimes is so critical and highly related to the fortune of the entire organization. The book would enrich practitioners' minds by making important contribution to their understanding about what to focus and hence the quality of strategy decisions.”

—Kehai Xie,Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer of Peking University Founder Group Co., Ltd.

Cover design: Paul McCarthy

Copyright © 2014 by Dr. William Putsis. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Putsis, William, 1959-

Compete smarter, not harder : a process for developing the right priorities through strategic thinking/Dr. William Putsis.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-70871-2 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-74702-5 (ebk): ISBN 978-1-118-74716-2 (ebk)

1. Strategic planning. 2. Target marketing. 3. Marketing—Management. I. Title.

HD30.28.P8678 2013

658.8′02—dc23

2013016302

Prioritynoun (pl. priorities)a thing that is regarded as more important than another.

Introduction

Priority

“The art of the wise is knowing what to overlook …”

—William Blake

I know you recognize the following story. The names and situation may be different, but the story is the same, for it plays out all the time inside of companies around the globe:

Scene:A conference room inside a company's office with managers sitting around an oval conference table.Issue:Deciding on a future strategic direction and customer base.Manager 1:We have a great offering that would fit perfectly with segment X, where market growth rates are off the charts.Manager 2:No, we need to go after market Y; the margins with this group are incredible.Manager 3:You're both wrong! We can't alienate our core. The largest market by far is Z, so our focus should be here.Manager 4:Our budget allocation for next year is constrained; how are we even going to fund this expansion? Perhaps we need to think about reorganizing.

We've all lived these conversations. Who usually wins? The person who wins is typically the one with the highest position on the org chart, the one who controls the budget, or who talks the loudest. But who should win? The one who's right.

Today more than ever, companies need to make choices about allocating scarce resources. Not only must they decide in what part of the market they should compete, but they must also adopt the right tactics for the part of the market in which they are competing. Moreover, just as important is the need to determine where not to compete. Doing precisely this—setting the right priorities at every stage of the process, from the 30,000-foot view of strategic vision to the detailed “in the weeds” tactics on the ground—is what good companies do at every step. How to set priorities at every decision point is what this book is about.