Strategy for Executives is the only business strategy book that you and your teams will ever need. This book presents a self-contained strategy framework that introduces the core concepts of business strategy and its associated tools from scratch so that you don’t need any previous knowledge or experience. It gradually takes you from the basics and fundamentals of strategy to a level of depth that even if you’re an experienced executive, you will still find relevant and useful. More specifically, Strategy for Executives will help you: - Learn the fundamental concepts of business strategy from scratch - Create a solid plan to protect your core business from erosion and commoditization - Maximize your organization’s valuation with our seven different paths to grow - Ensure the implementation of your strategy using our execution system - Understand capital allocation and how it can help you achieve your organization’s goals It also includes a complementary downloadable mindmap and other tools which you can access for free at strategyforexecs.com. This framework is based on extensive multi-year research led by Sun Wu, a seasoned Fortune 500 executive, where he and his team broke down the most popular strategy frameworks of the last 40 years, extracted their core ideas, and tied them all together into a single didactical and self-contained body of knowledge. The idea is to build your strategy knowledge from the ground up through a unified framework avoiding the confusion that comes from learning this complex but critical subject from different sources. It combines Sun Wu’s over 15 years of real-life experience, complemented by a thorough revision of more than 300 books and research papers, and over 500 hours of videos, interviews and formal training. The final result is a concise guide that will help you understand and build a winning strategy from the ground up, supported by numerous examples of modern organizations including General Electric, Amazon, Netflix, HBO, NextEra Energy, Kodak, Google, GoPro, McKinsey & Co., Rolls-Royce, Walmart, Uber, Align Technology, United Parcel Service (UPS), FedEx, Sony, IBM, Dr Pepper Snapple, Square, and Procter & Gamble among others. Since every concept is explained from scratch, Strategy for Executives, currently in its 2019 edition, is the only strategy framework that you and your teams will ever need.

A self contained strategy framework to understand and create winning strategies from scratch.

How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don’t have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego. These companies: • Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities • Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others • Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it • Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board • Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.

Fad-Free Strategy provides a ground-breaking approach to making better business strategy decisions: more efficient, open to out-of-the-box opportunities and evidence-based. Most strategy books focus on Grand Strategy, the process that leads to high-level recommendations or, more accurately, hypotheses about where and how to compete. While this book briefly covers critical Grand Strategy practices, it deep dives into Operational Strategy, the process of validation, adaptation and possible rejection of those hypotheses. Operational Strategy is based on an in-depth understanding of customer preferences and anticipating the choices they make. Those choices rather than managers’ ambitions determine whether a strategy will generate the aspired financial results. The book explains, by means of detailed real-world cases across industries, how to generate validated solutions to any strategic problem such as: how to enter successfully into new markets, either as an innovator or as a latecomer? How to defend one’s position against aggressive new entrants? Or how to sustain margins when price is the only thing customers seem to care about? This remarkable book contains expert advice from accomplished strategic advisors and thought leaders Daniel Deneffe and Herman Vantrappen. Fad Free Strategy will be a useful tool for smart business executives at mainstream companies who are disappointed with strategy fads and simplistic solutions based on cherry-picked, anecdotal evidence from today’s hero companies. It will also appeal to economics faculty members teaching graduate courses in business strategy who are looking for an economics-based strategy textbook that is both rigorous and comprehensive. The book’s core ideas have been taught successfully in continuing and executive education programs at Harvard University and Hult International Business School.

This new edition of the popular The Strategy Pathfinder updates the micro-cases of real-life problems faced by companies and executives. These micro-cases help readers to engage with the kinds of situations they will encounter in their working lives while provoking discussions about key theoretical themes. Original presentation and design makes this an essential companion for both the business-school classroom and the executive briefcase. The Strategy Pathfinder brings experienced and potential executives alike an instant guide to the concepts and techniques they need to know. An innovative introduction to strategy. Makes readers active “producers” of strategy, rather than passive recipients of received wisdom. Presents essential pathways through the strategy jungle. Each case provokes discussion about a key theoretical theme. Encourages readers to form a view themselves, and then test it against the views of others, before offering recommendations about how best to proceed. Cases are drawn from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Supported by online lecturer supplements.

CEOs regularly identify strategic execution as their biggest challenge, and the top priority facing today's business leaders. Based on their research with senior executives across a variety of industries—and including firms like Marriott, Microsoft, SunTrust, UPS, and Vail Resorts—Kenneth J. Carrig and Scott A. Snell have distilled the elements that are most critical for execution. This book addresses the challenges of execution, why it matters, and why the approach remains elusive. It introduces an integrated framework for understanding four priorities underlying execution excellence. Ultimately, it all comes down to alignment, agility, ability, and architecture. The authors lay out a process for applying the framework, helping business leaders to diagnose their challenges and to determine their path toward breakthrough performance.

Business Strategy Essentials You Always Wanted To Know prepares new managers and leaders with the building blocks of business strategy. You will learn how to define strategy, different levels of strategy for the business versus departments, and how to plan tactics to implement those strategies. You are given tools to assist you with some of the more challenging aspects of strategy such as environmental scanning, SWOT analysis, and strategy analysis. After you have learned how to execute some of these strategies, you will learn what organization structures fit best with specific strategies. These timeless elements of strategy will provide you the fundamentals with a 21st century point of view. Business Strategy Essentials is part of the Management Essentials series that helps working professionals moving into management roles. The series addresses every aspect of business from HR to finance, marketing, and operations. Each book includes fundamentals, important concepts, and well-known principles, as well as practical applications of the subject matter.

The effectiveness of a good strategy well implemented determines a business' future success or failure. Yet history is full of strategic decisions, big and small, that were ill-conceived, poorly organized and consequently disastrous. This updated guide looks at the whole process of strategic decision-making, from vision, forecasting, and resource allocation, through to implementation and innovation. Strategy is about understanding where you are now, where you are heading and how you will get there. There is no room for timidity or confusion. Although the CEO and the board decide a company's overall direction, it is the managers at all levels of the organization who will determine how the vision can be transformed into action. In short, everyone is involved in strategy. But getting it right involves difficult choices: which customers to target, what products to offer, and the best way to keep costs low and service high. And constantly changing business conditions inevitably bring risks. Even after business strategy has been developed, a company must remain nimble and alert to change, and view strategy as an ongoing and evolving process. The message of this guide is simple: strategy matters, and getting it right is fundamental to business success.

Developed for students on short courses in strategy for example, doing an initial course at undergraduate, postgraduate or post-experience level, or studying strategy as part of a wider degree in the arts, sciences or engineering, this book focuses on the analysis and formulation of strategy.

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? 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—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. 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. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.