Product Description

Today, when your fortunes can literally change overnight, the new strategic imperative is making your moment of maximum risk your moment of maximum opportunity. In The Upside, Adrian Slywotzky provides bold and original ideas for growth breakthroughs as well as the practical tools to use Monday morning, such as

•How to change the odds for your next major initiative and create potential industry breakthroughs, as Toyota did with its expanding universe of Prius vehicles.

•Shape and exploit risk, don’t be shaped by it. Become a knowledge-intensive business and continuallyincrease the knowledge gap between yourself and rivals, as Coach and Tsutaya of Japan have convincingly done.

•A category killer can’t kill what’s not in its category. When basketball legend Bill Russell faced a taller, stronger Wilt Chamberlain, he led the Celtics to victory by inventing a different game. The same thinking lets Target prosper in a Wal-Mart world—and can help you outcompete the “unbeatable” rival in your own industry.

•When you come to a fork in the road—take it! Only a fraction of companies survive when industries experience technological or strategic transitions. To be a survivor, learn the secret that enabled Microsoft to weather the advent of the Internet—the art of the double bet.

•Stuckinabusinessbox? Findthebiggerbox—and then the biggest.When growth stagnates, capture more of your customer’s dollars through demand innovation and big-box thinking, as companies from Continental AG and Ikea to Procter & Gamble have done.

•Your competitors can also be your greatest enablers of profit. Stop competing yourself to death! The key is knowing when to compete and when to collaborate, as Apple has shown with its revolutionary approach to the music business.

In the 1980s conventional wisdom was that you could have high quality or low cost, but not both—until Japanese makers of cars and electronics showed otherwise. Now, high quality and low cost are required just to enter the marketplace. Today, we face a similar paradox when it comes to risk and reward. Rather than shrink from the high risk so integral to the tumultuous global economy, Adrian Slywotzky shows how it can be your greatest source of growth and future reward.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #246601 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-15
• Released on: 2007-05-15
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In his latest, business writer and consulting firm director Slywotzsky (The Profit Zone) seeks a formula for managing risk as neat as a calculator equation and as powerful as, say, Steve Jobs turning an iMac design flaw (no CD burner) into perhaps the biggest consumer success of the digital age-the iPod. To do this, Slywotzky partitions the uncertainty of doing business into seven risk categories: project failure, customer drift, transition failure, competition, brand errosion, industry slippage and corporate stagnation. Using timely real-world examples (Toyota's Prius turnaround, Samsung's refurbished image), Slywotzky shows how confronting threats directly-from market competition to personal fear-can turn them into stepping stones to success. Slywotzky's project autopsies can prove enlightening, but the author muddies his case with spurious attempts at mathematic precision, assigning an entirely hypothetical probability of success to each stage of a project (i.e., Toyota's cautious moves reduced the Prius's probability of failure from 95% to 20%). Though largely useful as a guide to common business threats, Slywotsky's attempts to quantify the unknowable parameters of risk may lead readers to conclude, paradoxically, that success depends on irrational factors like chance and paranoia just as much as any other.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Every day this newspaper reports on winners and losers of the business world: those who speculated and won, and those who played it safe and lost. This running commentary seems to confirm what everyone knows: risk and reward are closely related.

"But what if the reality is rather different? That is one of the central arguments of Adrian Slywotzky’s important new book. 'The conventional wisdom is that risk and reward go together — that to get great upside results, you need to accept big downside risks,' he writes. But risk and reward are not inextricably linked, he maintains. 'The leaders of today’s most successful companies aren’t risk takers, they’re risk shapers.'"
—Financial Times, 9 May 2007

"The business environment has become increasingly hazardous. Over the past decade or so, Slywotzky points out, credit ratings have steadily deteriorated, swings in earnings have become more pronounced, and catastrophic market-cap slides have become more frequent. The half-life of a winning strategy has never seemed shorter. So, writes the author, taking smart advantage of risk will be the 'crucial discipline for the first decade of the 21st century.' . . .

"In the end, The Upside offers a persuasive case that managers must own up to an honest appraisal of strategic risks–both downside and upside. It's the difference between betting smart and just betting."
—Business Week, 28 May 2007

"While executives continue to get blindsided by technology disruption, that's only one of multiple threats they are now facing. There are defecting customers, shifting business landscapes, category-killing competitors, faltering projects, and stagnating sales and profits.

"But there's good news, too. Or so argues Slywotzky, director of the Oliver Wyman consulting firm and one of the shrewdest observers of the fast-changing world of commerce. H...

Review
"Every day this newspaper reports on winners and losers of the business world: those who speculated and won, and those who played it safe and lost. This running commentary seems to confirm what everyone knows: risk and reward are closely related.

"But what if the reality is rather different? That is one of the central arguments of Adrian Slywotzky’s important new book. 'The conventional wisdom is that risk and reward go together — that to get great upside results, you need to accept big downside risks,' he writes. But risk and reward are not inextricably linked, he maintains. 'The leaders of today’s most successful companies aren’t risk takers, they’re risk shapers.'"
—Financial Times, 9 May 2007

"The business environment has become increasingly hazardous. Over the past decade or so, Slywotzky points out, credit ratings have steadily deteriorated, swings in earnings have become more pronounced, and catastrophic market-cap slides have become more frequent. The half-life of a winning strategy has never seemed shorter. So, writes the author, taking smart advantage of risk will be the 'crucial discipline for the first decade of the 21st century.' . . .

"In the end, The Upside offers a persuasive case that managers must own up to an honest appraisal of strategic risks–both downside and upside. It's the difference between betting smart and just betting."
—Business Week, 28 May 2007

"While executives continue to get blindsided by technology disruption, that's only one of multiple threats they are now facing. There are defecting customers, shifting business landscapes, category-killing competitors, faltering projects, and stagnating sales and profits.

"But there's good news, too. Or so argues Slywotzky, director of the Oliver Wyman consulting firm and one of the shrewdest observers of the fast-changing world of commerce. He contends that an emerging discipline called strategic risk management can help forward-looking companies turn the most dangerous challenges to their advantage."
—Boston Globe, 3 June 2007

"Slywotzky's book is filled with fascinating examples of companies boldly but wisely doing extraordinary things. (IKEA is building houses!) I caught myself skipping ahead to discover outcomes and moving back and forth to contrast various examples. This is not a minor book. I suspect that it may well become a business classic."
—Execupundit, 8 June 2007

"In his latest, business writer and consulting firm director Slywotzsky (The Profit Zone) seeks a formula for managing risk as neat as a calculator equation and as powerful as, say, Steve Jobs turning an iMac design flaw (no CD burner) into perhaps the biggest consumer success of the digital age--the iPod. To do this, Slywotzky partitions the uncertainty of doing business into seven risk categories: project failure, customer drift, transition failure, competition, brand errosion, industry slippage and corporate stagnation. Using timely real-world examples (Toyota's Prius turnaround, Samsung's refurbished image), Slywotzky shows how confronting threats directly--from market competition to personal fear--can turn them into stepping stones to success."
—Publishers Weekly

"Successful businesses see risks down the road, plan for them--and dodge the bullets. Less agile firms ignore the threats and are torpedoed into oblivion.

"Potential risks include the failure of a big initiative, reduced margins industrywide, an unexpected new rival and the loss of core customers. Planning for these and other risks should be part of your ongoing strategy, says Adrian Slywotzky, co-author of the new book The Upside."
—Investor's Business Daily, 5 June 2007

"It's time to update conventional wisdom.

"For example, in the 1980s conventional wisdom said you could have high quality or low cost, but not both--until Japanese makers of cars and electronics showed otherwise. Now, high quality and low cost are required just to enter the marketplace.

"Today, a similar paradox involves the conventional wisdom on risks and rewards--that bigger rewards always require bigger risks. The challenge is to recognize that risk and reward are not inextricably linked, says management guru and author Adrian J. Slywotzky."
—Industry Week, July, 2007

“The Upside is all upside--quintessential clear thinking, Slywotzky at his best. Whether you are on the attack or worried about being attacked, this book shows you how to anticipate and capitalize on opportunities and threats others fail to see.”
—Clay M. Christensen, Harvard Business School, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma

“Converting risks into giant opportunities differentiates the leaders of the future. Adrian Slywotzky provides breakthrough thinking in this must-read book.”
—Ram Charan, author of Know-How and coauthor of Execution

“The Upside shows ways to create growth breakthroughs from threats that are both practical and inspiring. This is a must-read book.”
—Philip E. Rowley, CEO of AOL Europe

“Over the many years I have spent in the business world, I have consistently noted that one of the common characteristics of successful companies and entrepreneurs alike is that they are exceptionally skilled in managing risk, both pure financial risk and long-term strategic risks. The publication of The Upside is very timely indeed…it will make you think differently about strategic risk. It will help you recognize--and act to take advantage of –the growth opportunities concealed behind the major threats your business will face in the next several years."
—Dr. Clemens Börsig, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG; formerly CFO/Chief Risk Officer, Deutsche Bank AG

Customer Reviews

Dimensions of "a new strategic imperative"

I have read all of Adrian Slywotzky's previously published books and reviewed most of them. In my opinion, he is one of the most important business thinkers of the last several decades. What we have in Upside is a continuation of Slywotzky's emphasis on the importance of measuring what really matters, especially insofar as value migration during paradigm shifts within competitive markets are concerned, but I think there are some intriguing differences between this book and those which precede it. For example, Slywotzky establishes and then sustains throughout his narrative a conversational, at times almost (not quite) playful tone...certainly his tone is much less formal than in earlier works. Also, and more to the point, he devotes less attention to the "what" (i.e. seven strategies), preferring to focus primarily on the "why" and "how" of strategic risk management which enables just about any organization (regardless of size or nature) to "turn big threats into growth breakthroughs."

More specifically, a major initiative fails or at least falls far short of high hopes and great expectations; there is a significant loss of customer revenue; there is an paradigm, shift within the given industry; a seeming unbeatable competitor appears; loss of brand power and leverage; the given industry has become a no-profit zone; zero or insignificant organizational growth. "The first two jobs of strategic management are to sidestep the unnecessary blows [i.e. self-inflicted wounds] and mitigate the blows you can't avoid. You can avoid the biggest hits to your company's value through as strategic risk management system that uses the principles and techniques described in the rest of this book." Slywotzky then goes on to suggest: "Remember Warren Buffett's first rule: Preserve your capital. And also his second rule: See the first rule."

According to Slywotzky, "The first step in de-risking your product is to recognize the true odds of success; the second is to change them." He explains how in the first chapter, citing Toyota as an exemplary company and its development of the Prius as a case in point. I especially appreciate that, on page 32 and throughout the book, Slywotzky includes a checklist of key points within the given context. These are action steps for his reader to consider. "How many of these types of moves can you adapt for your next big project?" (The key words are "moves" and "adapt.") In fact, later in the same chapter and throughout his subsequent narrative, Slywotzky makes brilliant use of a reader-friendly device, "[name of company's] Moves to [name of initiative]."H e uses a variation of it (e.g. "Toyota's Further Moves to Change the Odds") to indicate that effective strategic risk management, responding effectively to "big threats," is an on-going process.

At least for me, some of Slywotzky's most valuable material is provided in Chapter Seven, "When Your Business Stops Growing." Although the first two jobs of a strategic management system are to sidestep the unnecessary blows and mitigate the blows that cannot be avoided, it can do much more than defend. "It is also an incredibly efficient means to find some of the biggest growth opportunities your business faces." Slywotzky first focuses on demand innovation (i.e. looking at customers differently in terms of their economic needs and other, higher order needs) and cites 12 examples which include Netflix, Crest Whitestrips, Harley-Davidson, and Swiffer. For example, Harley-Davidson uses a brand extension as the basis of a consumer lifestyle on which a host of activities and purchases can be centered. Purchase a product and you also buy into an entire lifestyle (Harley Owners Group or HOG) that celebrates the freedom of the open road.

In the same chapter, Slywotzky also has much of value to say about the second major vector, creating or discovering just one Big Idea for your business. For examples, he cites and discusses Ikea ("from home furnishings to the home itself"), NTT DoCoMo ("the phone as universal gatekeeper"), and Nike ("making fitness cool"). For those readers who do not know how to create or discover a Big New Idea for their own company, Slywotzky observes that "the company that is constantly generating testing, and discarding new business ideas will be in a better position to find, recognize, and capitalize on the big new idea when it comes along than its more slow-moving competitors." However different they may be in other respects, the most innovative companies (e.g. Apple, Google, Toyota, GE, and Microsoft) are guided and informed by the same conviction that it takes lots of bad ideas to get one good idea, lots of good ideas to get one excellent idea, and lots of excellent ideas to get one (as Steve Jobs characterizes it) "insanely great" idea.

Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to check out Adrian Slywotzky's earlier works (notably How to Grow When Markets Don't co-authored with Richard Wise and Karl Weber) as well Thomas Kelley's The Ten Faces of Innovation, Jeanne Ross's Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement, and From Resource Allocation to Strategy co-edited by Joseph Bower and Clark Gilbert.

Strategic Risk Shaping Drivers Superior Performance
I have been reading and applying Adrian Slywotzky's works on the broad topic of profitable growth for over fourteen years. What I find striking about all of his work is that the concepts presented are always clear, accessible, and market-hardened. I find reassurance knowing that as a management consultant, the insights or "business truths" that Slywotzky presents are distilled out of observing and analyzing a multitude of clients and their fiercest competitors in a global theater.

In The Upside, the concept of a "strategic risk management system" brings the topic of risk back into the strategy conversation in a positive and opportunistic way. Being prepared and turning threats into growth opportunities is the heart of this book. The notion that active and ongoing "risk-shaping" as a source of advantage and superior performance is missing concept in most corporate strategy conversations and a needed one. Private equity and other financial market leaders are masters of re-shaping risk to maximize returns and have been quietly doing so for years. The application of risk management to corporate strategy is a new and important dimension. My sense is that the merger of Mercer Management Consulting and Oliver Wyman provided the stimulus for deeper thought about the intersection of growth strategy and risk management.

As a corporate practitioner of growth acceleration I find Slywotzky to be core reading along with Harvard Business Review, and Sloan Management Review. These are the three best sources of distilled, market tested, high impact growth strategies that can be customized and deployed tomorrow. If you haven't read Value Migration, The Profit Zone, Profit Patterns, The Art of Profitability, and How To Grow When Market's Don't, you should absolutely add them to your reading list and business library. The Upside stands by itself, but the collection as a whole is an overwhelming arsenal of competitive moves that I have applied over and over again with striking results.

Perhaps the most important act you can perform is not just to read The Upside, but to use it, experiment with it, adapt it to your business situation, and put it into practice.

Dayton Semerjian
Senior Vice President, Strategy and Development Operations
CA, Inc.

Slywotzky Delivers Another Winner
According to Slywotzky, the success of any business comes down to a series of well-thought out and bold moves, which allow the company to seize an opportunity or neutralize some threat. Often, when successful, these moves are counter-intuitive and fly in the face of traditional business doctrine. Slywotzky challenges the widely-accepted doctrine that risk and reward are inextricably linked. According to this author, such unconventional and proactive moves are exactly why some of these companies have had the monumental successes they've had, while their peer companies have faltered. Slywotzky's Upside is a well-researched, well-written and easy read.

Upside presents a small history of the companies that we grew up with, that are currently battling it out in the marketplace and with which we interact on a daily basis. We know these companies well and this book gives us an insider's view of what's happening with them before the products hit our store shelves. Battle plans exposed! Slywotzky also highlights some corporate, brand and product strategies that have failed, leading to the devaluation or extinction of other companies that we've known and loved over the generations. In the process, Upside takes a good look at the following questions, among others:

1. Which companies develop a diversified portfolio of products, frequently rolling out new ones and which companies put all of their eggs (and the very best of their resources) into one basket, launching one behemoth?
2. Which companies have survived and thrived through myriad iterations by gathering and using data better than others? What does that mean for how your company uses its data?
3. Which major retailer strategically chose to redefine its market, making itself the dominant player in the process?
4. Which competitors combine resources as a cost-saving, survival tactic? How can you turn a competitor into an ally?
5. What are the bold moves these companies make to de-risk each strategy?

Slywotzky ends each chapter with a summary of each company's strategy and ends the book with a two-chapter workbook for readers to use to assess their own companies, industries and battle plans. I would stress that much of his work is also applicable to both small businesses and to individuals navigating their ways through their own strategic environments.

Readers of his earlier works know that Slywotzky's books tend to have an innovative delivery, and this book doesn't disappoint. In addition to using sports analogies in Upside, Slywotzky keeps a running tally of each endeavor's odds of success. This is innovative because it allows him to quantify that success is really the sum of many small decisions, none of which alone guarantees success, but taken together can add up quickly to very strong odds of success.

A great book, written by a management guru, student and teacher of business and corporate strategy, Upside makes a great addition to any business library.