What: Learn this framework that covers most major Western business strategies.
Why: Leading with a portfolio of strategy options will give you and your business a competitive edge.
Our Recommendation:
Although there are many classic business strategy authors (e.g., Porter, Pareto, Ansoff, etc.) worth reading, if we were to recommend only one business strategy book to read, this would be it. Published in 2015 by a few thought leaders at Boston Consulting Group, Your Strategy Needs a Strategy articulates a five category strategy framework within which many of the more prominent strategy approaches are organized and described.
We especially appreciate its strategy palette approach, “a robust way to select the right [strategy approach] for the right circumstances,” which avoids the all too frequent mistake of “a hammer assuming that everything looks like a nail.” Given its clear explanations, interesting case studies, and solid quantitative and qualitative foundation, both veteran strategy hands and those newer to the field will find this a worthwhile read.
From Amazon:
Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy.
In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment… They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories–Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable… In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch.
Purchase from Amazon here.
If your business is wrestling with a strategy challenge that you either have not been able to solve or need to have solved quickly and effectively, contact us at LIFT SME to schedule an initial scoping call at your earliest convenience.
