Cambridge Business Association
Strategy Pure & Simple II
Book

Strategy Pure & Simple II

How Winning Companies Dominate Their Competitors

Michel Robert
McGraw-Hill, 1998
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • For Beginners

Recommendation

Michael Robert presents a well-organized plan to enable you to produce a distinctive strategy. He emphasizes the need for strategic thinking, which sets out a vision of where your company is going. Use this as your basis for making the appropriate choices and plans. Clarify what your company is, and is not, to avoid becoming scattered and overextended. Robert uses the metaphor of playing a game as his framework. Every CEO must carefully choose what game to play, and how to craft a strategy to make and shape the rules. To illustrate these principles, Robert draws on actual examples from client companies, alternating a step-by-step guide to strategic planning with brief case studies that demonstrate strategic thinking. getabstract recommends this book to top executives and managers in large companies.

Summary

Why You Need a Distinctive Strategy

You need a distinctive strategy because it will enable you to get into the best competitive position, which is having no competition at all. Don’t play the game the way your competitors do. Instead, develop a distinctive strategy that changes the rules in your favor.

Many companies use a strategy based on imitation, that is, using a competitor’s strategy, and then trying to out-market, out-sell, out-manufacture, or out-service them. This is the worst strategy to pursue. You end up in a race in which each company alternates being the leader. The race never ends, and no one wins.

To be in the best position, don’t try to gain at your competitor’s expense by using imitation. Develop a distinctive strategy of your own that produces a change in the rules of the game in your favor. To change the rules, out-think your competitors instead of trying to overpower them.

Companies that use this distinctive strategy successfully are found in every industry. Turner Broadcasting turned away from a standard broadcasting approach and instead created a new strategy based on news programming, and on satellite and cable links. Southwest...

About the Author

Michael Robert  is the founder and president of Digital Processes International, a consulting firm with 60 partners in 15 countries. He has consulted with major companies, such as Caterpillar, 3M, and GATX. He is the author of six books, including Product Innovation and Strategy Pure & Simple: How Winning Companies Outpace Their Competitors. His writing has appeared in many business magazines and journals.

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