Description
Book SynopsisFor the past 43 years, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has been shaping the way business is done all over the world. This book, a compilation of 75 of BCG's most influential articles and pieces on strategy, is an indispensable source of fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry.
Trade Review"Essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in strategy." (
Long Range Planning, 40/2007)
Table of ContentsForeword xiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Part One The Nature of Business Strategy
Strategic and Natural Competition, Bruce D. Henderson, 1980 2
Part Two The Development of Business Strategy
Foundations 9
The Experience Curve Reviewed: History, Bruce D. Henderson, 1973 12
The Experience Curve Reviewed: Why Does It Work? Bruce D. Henderson, 1974 15
The Experience Curve Reviewed: Price Stability, Bruce D. Henderson, 1974 18
The Pricing Paradox, Bruce D. Henderson, 1970 24
The Market-Share Paradox, Bruce D. Henderson, 1970 27
More Debt or None? Bruce D. Henderson, 1972 29
The Rule of Three and Four, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 31
The Product Portfolio, Bruce D. Henderson, 1970 35
The Real Objectives, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 38
Milestones 40
Life Cycle of the Industry Leader, Bruce D. Henderson, 1972 43
The Evils of Average Costing, Richard K. Lochridge, 1975 46
Specialization or the Full Product Line, Michael C. Goold, 1979 48
Stalemate: The Problem, John S. Clarkeson, 1984 51
Business Environments, Richard K. Lochridge, 1981 56
Revolution on the Factory Floor, Thomas M. Hout and George Stalk Jr., 1982 59
Time—The Next Source of Competitive Advantage, George Stalk Jr., 1988 63
Competing on Capabilities: The New Rules of Corporate Strategy, George Stalk Jr., Philip B. Evans, and Lawrence E. Shulman, 1992 82
Strategy and the New Economics of Information, Philip B. Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, 1997 99
Collaboration Rules, Philip Evans and Bob Wolf, 2005 120
Part Three The Practice of Business Strategy
The Customer: Segmentation and Value Creation 137
Segmentation and Strategy, Seymour Tilles, 1974 139
Strategic Sectors, Bruce D. Henderson, 1975 141
Specialization, Richard K. Lochridge, 1981 143
Specialization: Cost Reduction or Price Realization, Anthony J. Habgood, 1981 145
Segment-of-One® Marketing, Richard Winger and David Edelman, 1989 147
Discovering Your Customer, Michael J. Silverstein and Philip Siegel, 1991 151
Total Brand Management, David C. Edelman and Michael J. Silverstein, 1993 154
Pricing Myopia, Philippe Morel, George Stalk Jr., Peter Stanger, and Peter Wetenhall, 2003 157
Trading Up, Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske, 2003 and 2005 162
Trading Down: Living Large on $150 a Day, Lucy Brady and Michael J. Silverstein, 2005 168
Innovation and Growth 173
From the Insight Out, Michael J. Silverstein, 1995 174
Capitalizing on Anomalies, Lawrence E. Shulman, 1997 176
Breaking Compromises, George Stalk Jr., David K. Pecaut, and Benjamin Burnett, 1997 179
A New Product Every Week? Lessons from Magazine Publishing, Gary Reiner and Shikhar Ghosh, 1988 183
Innovating for Cash, James P. Andrew and Harold L. Sirkin, 2003 186
Acquiring Your Future, Mark Blaxill and Kevin Rivette, 2004 189
Deconstruction of Value Chains 194
The New Vertical Integration, John R. Frantz and Thomas M. Hout, 1993 195
The Deconstruction of Value Chains, Carl W. Stern, 1998 198
How Deconstruction Drives De-Averaging, Philip B. Evans, 1998 201
Thinking Strategically about E-Commerce, Philip B. Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, 1999 205
From “Clicks and Mortar” to “Clicks and Bricks,”
Philip B. Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, 2000 208
Thermidor: The Internet Revolution and After, Philip B. Evans, 2001 210
The Online Employee, Michael S. Deimler and Morten T. Hansen, 2001 214
Richer Sourcing, Philip B. Evans and Bob Wolf, 2004 218
The Real Contest between America and China, Thomas Hout and Jean Lebreton, 2003 223
Performance Measurement 227
Profit Center Ethics, Bruce D. Henderson, 1971 229
The Story of Joe (A Fable), Bruce D. Henderson, 1977 232
Controlling for Growth in a Multidivision Business, Patrick Conley, 1968 234
Making Performance Measurements Perform, Robert Malchione, 1991 237
Economic Value Added, Eric E. Olsen, 1996 240
New Directions in Value Management, Eric E. Olsen, 2002 244
Workonomics, Felix Barber, Jeff Kotzen, Eric Olsen, and Rainer Strack, 2002 248
Resource Allocation 254
Cash Traps, Bruce D. Henderson, 1972 255
The Star of the Portfolio, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 258
Anatomy of the Cash Cow, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 259
The Corporate Portfolio, Bruce D. Henderson, 1977 262
Renaissance of the Portfolio, Anthony W. Miles, 1986 265
Premium Conglomerates, Dieter Heuskel, 1996 268
The End of the Public Company—As We Know It, Larry Shulman, 2000 271
Advantage, Returns, and Growth—In That Order, Gerry Hansell, 2005 275
Organizational Design 281
Profit Centers and Decentralized Management, Bruce D. Henderson, 1968 282
Unleash Intuition, Richard K. Lochridge, 1984 285
Network Organizations, Todd L. Hixon, 1989 289
The Myth of the Horizontal Organization, Philippe J. Amouyal and Jill E. Black, 1994 292
The Activist Center, Dennis N. Rheault and Simon P. Trussler, 1995 295
Shaping Up: The Delayered Look, Ron Nicol, 2004 298
A Survivor’s Guide to Organization Redesign, Felix Barber, D. Grant Freeland, and David Brownell, 2002 302
Leadership and Change 309
Why Change Is So Difficult, Bruce D. Henderson, 1967 310
Leadership, Bruce D. Henderson, 1966 312
How to Recognize the Need for Change, Carl W. Stern, 1983 315
Sustained Success, Alan J. Zakon and Richard K. Lochridge, 1984 318
Strategy and Learning, Seymour Tilles, 1985 323
Let Middle Managers Manage, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 1991 327
Jazz versus Symphony, John S. Clarkeson, 1990 330
The Change Curve, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 2001 333
Leadership in a Time of Uncertainty, Bolko von Oetinger, 2002 342
Leading in Emotional Times, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 2002 345
The Forgotten Half of Change, Luc de Brabandere, 2005 347
Part Four Business Thinking
Business Thinking, Bruce D. Henderson, 1977 354
Brinkmanship in Business, Bruce D. Henderson, 1967 357
Business Chess, Rudyard L. Istvan, 1984 361
Probing, Jonathan L. Isaacs, 1985 366
Creative Analysis, Anthony W. Miles, 1987 369
Make Decisions Like a Fighter Pilot, Mark F. Blaxill and Thomas M. Hout, 1987 370
The Seduction of Reductionist Thinking, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 1992 373
Choices, Again, Barry Jones and Larry Shulman, 2003 376
The Hardball Manifesto, George Stalk Jr. and Rob Lachenauer, 2004 377
Part Five Social Commentary
Failure to Compete, Bruce D. Henderson, 1973 383
Inflation and Investment Return, Bruce D. Henderson, 1974 384
Conflicting Tax Objectives, Bruce D. Henderson, 1975 385
Dumping, Bruce D. Henderson, 1978 387
Adversaries or Partners? Bruce D. Henderson, 1983 389
The Promise of Disease Management, Joshua Gray and Peter Lawyer, 1995 393
Making Sure Independent Doesn’t Mean Ignorant, Colin Carter and Jay W. Lorsch, 2002 400
Index 405
