by George Stalk
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Product Description
It's easy to miss many innovations in strategy until they appear on the front page of a major business publication. But by then everyone--including all your competitors--is using them.
As a CEO or senior executive, your job is to detect these strategies?and implement them--before your competitors.
That's where this book comes in.
Author George Stalk has often been called a guru of business strategy. In the 1980s, before anyone else saw its importance, he and his colleagues at The Boston Consulting Group developed the concept of time-based competition: how meeting the needs of your customers faster than your competitors can give you an unassailable advantage.
In this Memo to the CEO, Stalk discusses five strategies that have not yet become widely practiced but are nonetheless worthy of your attention now. He offers advice on how to identify and manage them while they still present opportunities to jump ahead of the competition. They are:
Addressing supply chain deficiencies
One example of a supply chain crisis is the growing lack of West Coast port capacity. Stalk reviews the strategic implications of this problem, reveals its impact, and recommends specific courses of action.
Sidestepping economies of scale
Many business leaders are reexamining their assumptions about the benefits of scale. Scaling down, not up, and building "disposable factories" and even "disposable strategies" are becoming new keys to lowering costs and boosting performance.
Profiting from dynamic pricing
Today, using real-time data, it is increasingly possible to match the price of your product or service with the immediate, second-by-second needs of the customer.
Embracing complexity
Simplicity is the mantra of the day. But with examples from a few leading-edge companies, Stalk shows that embracing complexity can achieve competitive advantage.
Utilizing infinite bandwidth
In a world of infinite bandwidth, companies that know how to take advantage of it become more productive, efficient, and profitable, and create entirely new businesses along the way.
Written in a refreshingly clear, concise format, Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now is filled with actionable ideas for seizing these emerging strategic opportunities.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Smart and Solid, 2008-06-23
It is exactly what it is supposed to be: a memo to the CEO.
This means it does the job you want, meaning get some new ideas for the future of your business.
I must say that at the beginning of my read, I was not that impressed with it. It gets improved as one reads, and especially after the third strategy of running your business better.
You will not get tired with it, you will read it in a few hours and I think you will feel happy you have purchased it.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
From "faint signals" to competitive advantages, 2008-05-15
This is one of the titles in the "Memo to the CEO" series published by Harvard Business Press, each less than 200 pages in length and superbly produced. In fact, none is a "memo" or written solely for a CEO. In this volume, George Stalk explains how to become alert to "faint signals" of what could prove to be early indicators of possible opportunities to gain competitive advantages. Once those opportunities have been verified (Stalk suggests how to do that), appropriate strategies to exploit them will be needed. He focuses on five examples of strategies whose "sources of advantage are not only abundantly clear, but undeniable": supply-chain gymnastics (i.e. adroitly managing a global supply chain), sidestepping economics of scale (i.e. a "disposability" business model), embracing complexity (i.e. four ways to attract customers who are looking for a higher level of complexity), and infinite bandwidth (i.e. effortless receipt of any amount of information whenever and wherever desired and at no cost).
Stalk offers "a high-level introduction to each of these emerging issues, along with suggestions for how to turn them into competitive advantage." He devotes a separate chapter to each of the five categories, then in the final chapter shifts his attention to examples of potential strategies that are "no more than faint signals today," identifies two emerging strategies on his "Watch List" awaiting further evidence of their potential to create competitive advantage, and then briefly discusses various "hallucinations" for which there are currently no corporate examples but are "worth pondering" nonetheless.
But Stalk doesn't limit the narrative to what he has observed and tracked. He reassures his reader that other faint signals "are likely to be found in the world around you," in the reader's own competitive environment as well as beyond it to other industries and competitors to spot insights of others "who may have found a new way of operating and competing that can be transplanted into [her or his] industry to the great confusion of others...and then `plagiarize' the idea." Or when coming across an anomaly, to "understand its implications and use the insight to drive the business to new levels of performance."
Comment: Over the years, I have worked with the owner/CEOs of countless small companies and have urged each of them to form an unofficial "advisory board" consisting of their banker, attorney, accountant, insurance agent, and at least one C-level executive of a large corporation if at all possible. I suggest that they meet as a group at least quarterly, perhaps for breakfast or lunch. After a brief update, the owner/CEO identifies one (and only one) especially important issue his or her company now faces and then chairs a brainstorm session in which advisory board members participate. Invariably, comments and suggestions from a wide variety of perspectives help the owner/CEO gain a better understanding of the issue and then to address it effectively. Having now read Stahl's latest book, I think providing a copy of it to each advisory board member would be a good idea.
While reading Stalk's comments about aggressive but principled competition, I recalled Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win? that Stalk co-authored with Rob Lachenauer. The focus of that book is on winners in business who "use every legitimate resource and strategy available to them to gain advantage over their competitors...[and by doing so] attract more customers, gain market share, boost profits, reward their employees, and weaken their competitors' positions." Hardballers are wholly committed to winning "the game" and do so, key point, by always playing by its "rules." Their goal is always decisive victory so as to sustain dominance. With regard to social responsibility, it is noteworthy that Stalk and Lachenauer quote Milton Friedman's observation that there is "one and only one" in business: "...to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
Stalk has prepared those who read his brilliant book to be alert for "faint signals" of other anomalies, unmet consumer needs, nascent trends, etc. that they can add to their own "watch list" until their potential for competitive advantage have been evaluated. At least a few candidates for future strategies will emerge from this rigorous process, separated from other provocative but ephemeral issues that Stalk calls "hallucinations." Of course, meanwhile, it would also be beneficial if those within an organization who possess especially inquiring minds were to get together on a regular basis and discuss what I call "What ifs..., "Why nots...," and "Have you ever thought abouts..." as well as other discussion primers such as "Why hasn't someone invented...," "What really upsets me is....,"and "I really wish I had..." or better yet "I'd give anything for...."Mental calisthenics (isometrics?) such as these eventually led to the development of a built-in handle for containers of liquid detergent and a built-in funnel for containers of motor oil; also locating the striking area of a book of matches to the reverse side, making postage stamps adhesive, Post-its, ATMs, frequent flyer mileage programs, and ergonomic kitchenware.
Those who share my high regard for Stalk's insights and eloquence in this book are urged to check out his other works, notably Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition Is Reshaping Global Markets co-authored with Thomas Hout and the aforementioned Hardball as well as his various articles that appeared Harvard Business Review. Most can be purchased online and easily be downloaded.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Planning for the future is something all wise business man plan for , 2008-05-06
Planning for the future is something all wise business man plan for - the current is only temporary, but the future is always ahead for them, and what you sow now, you'll reap then. "Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now" is a comprehensive guide to five well thought out and planned strategies that business leaders can take and follow to help them guide their companies to a more highly successful future. "Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now" is a highly recommended handbook for any business leader who wants to be taken seriously and for community library business collections.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A notable contribution to the strategy canon, 2008-04-29
From the publication of his landmark Competing Against Time through to this most recent work, George Stalk has always occupied the appropriate timeframe for true strategic thinking--the just-emerging horizon of a half-decade hence. Within the five phenomena he treats in this book, one can already see the shapes of powerful new competitive positions that will become second nature to us all with time. (His discussion of dynamic pricing, in particular, is especially provocative and suggests a number of ways in which incumbent firms can recapture significant profits now being leaked to intermediaries.)
I like the book not just for the "what" of strategy that it contains, but also for the "how" that George reveals regarding his methodology of spotting and monitoring faint signals. Executive teams will benefit from both aspects of this work.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Like a little business time machine looking into the future!, 2008-04-02
George Stalk has written concise guide to future business strategies that will be unfolding over the next decade and beyond. The read is entertaining and easy to follow with examples of current companies successfully implementing dynamic ideas and processes.
This book is a valuable tool for every manager, entrepreneur or forward thinker doing business in the world today.
I was lucky enough to get a chance to see George Stalk speak at this books launch. One can't help to think that these predictions are just the tip of the iceberg and we in business are fortunate to have access to the thoughts of such visionaries.
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