Profit from the Core
A Return to Growth in Turbulent Times
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- €35.99
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- €35.99
Publisher Description
When Profit from the Core was published in 2001, it became an international bestseller, helping hundreds of companies find their way back to profitable growth after the bursting of the Internet bubble.
The 2007 global financial meltdown reaffirmed the perils of pursuing heady growth through untested strategies, as firms in industries from finance to retailing to automobiles strayed too far from their core businesses and suffered the consequences. In this updated edition of Profit from the Core, authors Chris Zook and James Allen show that a renewed focus on the core is more critical than ever as firms seek to rebuild their competitive advantage coming out of the downturn—and that a strong core will be the foundation for successful expansion as the economy recovers.
Based on more than ten years of Bain & Company research and analysis and fresh examples from firms responding to the current downturn, the book outlines what today’s executives and managers need to do now to revitalize their core, identify the next wave of profitable growth, and build on it successfully. Zook and Allen explain how companies can:
Develop a strong, well-defined core and use it to establish a leadership positionFollow the golden rule of strategy: discourage competitors from investing in your coreAssess whether your core is operating at its full potentialUncover hidden assets in your core that provide the seeds for new growthFind a repeatable formula to apply core business strengths in adjacent markets
Building on powerful and proven ideas to meet today’s formidable business challenges, Profit from the Core is the back-to-basics strategy field guide no manager should be without.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this short, focused and well-reasoned book, Zook, the head of worldwide strategy for the prestigious consulting and investment firm Bain & Co., and Allen, head of a venture-capital company, argue persuasively that focusing on what a business does best is the easiest and most efficient way for companies to grow and be profitable. This idea isn't new, of course: in the 1980s, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, in their classic In Search of Excellence, called it "sticking to your knitting"; a decade later, most notably in the Harvard Business Review, Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad described the concept as focusing on "core competencies." But, Zook and Allen maintain, as firms rushed to embrace the Internet, executives forgot this basic truth. Taking the idea one step further, they contend that by looking at what a firm does best, executives will also find it easy to spot inefficiencies within their businesses. Based on a study of 2,000 companies, the book concludes that three factors differentiate growth strategies that work from those that don't: (1) make sure to get everything possible out of the core business, (2) expand into related businesses and (3) redefine the business before someone else (e.g., a competitor) does. Zook and Allen stress "how to," giving managers a list of questions to ask and signposts to watch for as their companies evolve. As managers everywhere are re-examining their businesses in light of recent fallout among dot-coms and major layoffs and restructuring among even the most stalwart of companies, this book's timing could not be better.
