Cambridge Business Association
Simplify
Book

Simplify

How the Best Businesses in the World Succeed

Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood
Entrepreneur Press, 2016
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Innovative
  • Well Structured

Recommendation

Google dominates search, Amazon commands online retail, Ikea rules the furniture business, Apple and Samsung control the smartphone industry, Southwest Airlines outearns all other airlines and a few chains dominate the fast food industry. These companies became powerful in large part by doing less – that is, by simplifying. Though a bit repetitive, investors Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood tell you how to simplify your firm or protect it from rival simplifiers. getAbstract recommends their manual to the rare firm that can lead in “price simplification” or “proposition simplification” and to the majority of companies who must compete with their category’s giants.

Summary

Two Paths to Stardom

The Boston Consulting Group’s universal “Boston Box” strategic consulting model identifies companies as “dogs, cash cows, question marks or stars.” Stars are the companies everyone knows – Apple, Google, Ikea, and others – that dominate their industries. They’re only 2% of all firms. These giants change the game in their industries in one of two ways. They either radically cut costs and prices or they dramatically improve a facet of their service or product.

“Price-simplifiers” discover new materials, processes and efficiencies that allow them to cut production or delivery costs so steeply that they can reduce prices by at least half and sometimes up to 90%. “Proposition-simplifiers” radically reinvent a process or product to make it “a joy to use,” better and more beautiful.

Either path can lead to market domination that lasts years or decades and delivers exponential growth and profits. Neither path is easy. Both price simplification and proposition simplification require great risk and faith, breakneck speed and big expansion – all with no guarantee of success. Massive growth, global domination and unworldly profits await the most successful...

About the Authors

Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood invest in star firms. Koch wrote the best-selling The 80/20 Principle and 20 other books and co-founded LEK Consulting. Lockwood founded the London-based venture capital firm Piton Consulting and co-wrote Superconnect with Koch.

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