Product Description

Imagine running a business without a strategy. It would be akin to driving blindfolded, to building a house without a blueprint. Yet just fifty years ago business plans were mere extrapolations of the status quo, heedless of the forces that determine the fate of todays organizations: competitive threats, customer needs and business costs. The concept of strategy changed all that, paving the way for the creation of the modern corporate world. recounts the birth and evolution of strategyarguably the most influential business paradigm of the past half centuryand the trials and triumphs of the surprising disruptors who invented it. Principal among them were four menBruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group; Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company; Fred Gluck, longtime managing director of McKinsey & Company; and Harvard Business School professor Michael Portereach obsessed with pinpointing how companies achieve competitive advantage over others. This insider account reveals the industrys pioneers as idea junkies: a new breed of intellectuals who wielded concepts as weapons for fighting business battles. Their relentless efforts to plumb the depths of competition exploded much of the prevailing wisdom, galvanized executives into action, and forced companies to understand themselves as never before.An important audiobook by one of managements keenest observers, provides listeners with a deeper understanding of the world they compete in, and a sharper eye for what worksand what doesntwhen forging strategy.