Product Description

Drawing on his 20 years of pioneering research and work with some 400 top companies, Robert offers today's executives guidance in strategy formulation, implementation, and deployment. Filled with examples drawn from the experiences of today's commercial leaders and interviews with CEOs of companies in a variety of industries, this updated edition of a revolutionary and inspiring best seller offers a sure-fire process of strategic thinking that's been tested and refined in the "war rooms" of America's most successful corporations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38764 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 269 pages

Download Description
In this updated edition of his groundbreaking best-seller, author Michel Robert stresses strategic thinking as today's most powerful management tool and the key to a winning, growth-oriented strategy.

From the Back Cover
Advance your company using the surefire process that's been tested and refined in the "war rooms" of America's most successful corporations. Don't "play the game" the way your competitors do. Instead formulate and deploy a distinctive strategy that changes the rules to your favor. In this updated edition of the best-seller, Strategy Pure & Simple II: How Winning Companies Dominate Their Competitors, noted consultant Michel Robert shows you how to use strategic thinking, today's most important management tool, to put your company on a growth-oriented path to the future.

Find out how to:
overcome the key obstacles to strategic thinking;
craft a future profile for your organization;
articulate a meaningful business concept;
utilize strategic leverage;
make competition practically irrelevant;
benefit from product innovation and market fragmentation;
avoid mistakes when making alliances and acquisitons

Filled with fascinating case studies that reveal the wisdom of Robert's theories, this bold and inspiring guide will help you to outthink, outsmart, and outpace your competitors.

About the Author
Michel Robert is founder and president of Decision Processes International, Inc., a consulting firm headquartered in Westport, Connecticut which has 60 partners in 15 countries. His clients include such major companies as Caterpillar, 3M, and GATX. A noted lecturer and the author of six books including Product Innovation and Strategy Pure & Simple: How Winning Companies Outpace their Competitors, his writings have appeared in many business magazines and journals.

Customer Reviews

A good overview
You will not be able to defeat your competitors by imitating them, says Michel Robert founder and president of Decision Processes International, Inc. Instead you must find something that you do better than your competitors, something different. Michel Robert has created a step-by-step method you can use to create a winning business strategy based on what you do best, not what your competitors are doing.

1. Identify your company's driving force. The driving force of your company can be either a skill set, a kind of technology or a specific market segment. All decisions, including product development, customer to target and markets to enter are based on your driving force.
2. Write a short business concept. The business concept should address the specific types of products/services, customers, market segments and geographic markets to which your strategy applies, and how the company will add value to these products/customers. The business concept should also have a tone of growth and a direction for the future of the organization.
3. Identify and nurture the skills or areas of excellence needed to implement your strategy. An area of excellence is something your company does better than anything else it does, and better than anything the competitors do. Your areas of excellence must be aligned with the driving force of your company.
4. Identify the critical issues you must address to implement the strategy. Address critical issues for implementation in four areas: Structure, Processes/Systems, Skills/Competencies, and Compensation. Create operational and strategic plans for improvement. Make sure you budget enough resources to make everything happen.

Robert also provides tips on how to anticipate and manage the strategies of your competitors.
· Make sure that your strategy puts you in a position to control or influence your market.
· Identify your competitors as well as their driving forces and strategies.
· Attack your competitor's strategy by diluting, diminishing or neutralizing their areas of excellence.

Thickest Marketing Brochure ever!!!
This book is the thickest marketing brochure I have ever read. The case studies was interesting BUT it is all about trying to get you to use the authors (very expensive I'm sure) services to "guide" you through the process. On page 173 there is an example where some CEO told Michel Robert that he is the only person in the room that would stand up to him (to the CEO that is) or something to the likes of it - get over yourself mate.

Gets the job done
I first read "Strategy Pure & Simple (I)" back in the early '90s, just before embarking on my first strategic planning job. Since then, I have managed strategic planning and implementation processes at a total of six different operational subsidiaries of two very large financial services groups.
As a financial controller and later a CFO, I have read a great many other books and articles about strategy and planning. Most of those were actually quite interesting, but when it came down to setting up and managing a actual, real-life planning process, I always turned back to Strategy Pure and Simple, because it is just GOOD ENOUGH.
- It includes all important issues that must be addressed during planning;
- more importantly, it reminds you of staying focused on those issues that happen to be key to your company (given its market, own caracteristics, timing, resources, etc.);
- still more importantly, it insists on interaction between the planning team and the management team, and helps with examples of visual aids and cues;
- it really helps a lot in communicating with line and senior managers during the planning process, getting them involved, assuring buy-in, and finally ensuring that the plan, when finished and approved, actually is implemented by those in charge. And, in the end, that is certainly what matters most.
I have now joined a new company in another industry, and have to manage yet another strategic planning process. Well, the best I can say about Strategy Pure & Simple is, I have fished out my 1993-vintage copy, and look forward to using it once again.