Financial Times Guide to Strategy, 3rd edition
By Richard Koch
Financial Times / Pearson Education
August 2006
ISBN: 0273708775
352 Pages
$67.50 paper original
“Most CEOs claimed that they wanted to spend about a third of their time on strategy. That’s about 80-days in a typical working year”. McKinsey Research, 2003.
A strategy is an essential tool in business. How do you know what you're doing without one? But what exactly is a good strategy? How do you get one? What are the options? Which are the key concepts and models you need to know about?
In the third edition of this easy-to-read and logically structured guide, Richard Koch leads the reader through each critical step in creating, delivering and understanding successful strategy. Beginning at the level of the business unit, where most everyday business activities are carried out, he shows us which questions to ask, how to go about answering them and what action to take as a result.
With an updated section on corporate strategy and an A-Z reference of strategy concepts, the FT Guide to Strategy is your guide to corporate success!
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
1. The use and abuse of strategy
2. A brief history of strategy
3. Swings in strategic thinking: Six phases
4. Towards a synthesis
5. Progressive approximation in developing strategy
2. PART ONE: BUSINESS UNIT STRATEGY
A do-it-yourself guide
1. Overview
2. What businesses are you in?
3. Where do you make the money?
4. How good are your competitive positions
5. What skills and capabilities underpin your success?
6. Is this a good industry to be in?
7. What do the customers think?
8. What about the competitors
9. How do you raise profits quickly
10. How do you build long term value?
11. Conclusion
12. Addition note on the theory of business unit strategy
3. PART TWO: THE JOY OF CORPORATE STRATEGY
1. An ecological view of corporate strategy
4. Five dimensions of corporate strategy
5. The Campbell & Park new business insights
6. The new business traffic lights
7. Conclusion
PART THREE: STRATEGIC THINKERS
PART FOUR: STRATEGIC CONCEPTS, TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
PART FIVE: STRATEGIC SHIFTS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
The impact of increasing returns, networks, and the net
Author
Richard Koch is the author of 15 highly acclaimed books, including the best-selling
80/20 trilogy: The 80/20 Principle (over 700,000 copies sold), The 80/20 Individual,
and most recently Living the 80/20 Way.
As well as lecturing and broadcasting, he is an extremely successful entrepreneur
and investor. His ventures have included Filofax, Belgo, Plymouth Gin, Capstone,
and currently Betfair, the world’s largest betting exchange. Formerly
he was a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, a partner of Bain &
Company, and a founder of LEK Consulting. He was educated at the Universityof
Pennsylvania and at Oxford University.
He is now an outside director of several companies, including listed venture
capital houses in Luxembourg and the UK. He has homes in London, Cape Town,
and the south of Spain.
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