Chief Executive Boards International provides CEOs and business owners with peer advisory boards
 
           
 
               
 
 
 
 
 

"What I derive from CEBI is that its members help you to think outside YOUR box. You share ideas and gain the wisdom of the group. You gain additional knowledge on how to work on your business, not in it."

Frank Smith
President, C.F.S.P.
Frank E. Smith Funeral Home, Inc. & Crematory

 

Chief Executive Book Review # 8

 

COMPETING FOR THE FUTURE

Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad © 1994, Harvard Business School Press ISBN 0-87584-416-2

COMMENTS

The authors wanted to find out how small, resource-limited companies are able to challenge much larger and more established companies.

They concluded that some management teams are more “foresightful” than others.  They are capable of imagining products, services, and entire industries that did not yet exist and then giving them birth.

8 OF THE BEST IDEAS

  1. There are two ways to increase ROI.  One is denominator management – downsize, de-clutter, delayer, and divest.  The other is numerator management – increasing sales and revenues.  Too much emphasis has been put on denominator management.

  2. The true competitive advantage in the future will not be improved quality of existing services and products, but rather the capacity to create fundamentally new products and services.  Path-breaking is a lot more rewarding than benchmarking.

  3. The traditional boundaries between suppliers, buyers and competitors are becoming blurred.  AT&T might find Motorola to be a supplier, a buyer, a competitor and a partner.

  4. Intellectual capital depreciates.  You need to write off depreciating intellectual capital and invest in new appreciating intellectual capital.

  5. Rather than create a sense of anxiety in your employees you want to create a sense of urgency.

  6. Customers are notoriously lacking in foresight.  Traditional market research focuses on what the customer wants.  Before the advent of the minivan, no housewife ever asked for such a vehicle.

  7. Networking, or virtual integration, is replacing vertical integration.

  8. Foresight development

  1. Which customers will you be serving five years from today?

  2. Through what channels will you reach customers five years from today?

  3. Who will be your competitors five years from today?

  4. What will be the basis of your competitive advantage five years from today?

  5. Where will your margins come from five years from today?

  6. What skills or capabilities will make you unique five years from today

  7. What markets will you be in five years from today?

Chief Executive Boards International provides CEOs and business owners with peer advisory boards
 
           
 
               
 
 
 
 
 

"What I derive from CEBI is that its members help you to think outside YOUR box. You share ideas and gain the wisdom of the group. You gain additional knowledge on how to work on your business, not in it."

Frank Smith
President, C.F.S.P.
Frank E. Smith Funeral Home, Inc. & Crematory