Mar 10, 2008
Market Busters Book
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Opportunities for achieving blockbuster growth don’t have to be “pie-in-the-sky” ventures. In fact, they are likely hiding in plain sight along a company’s existing business platform. Here is a revolutionary new framework for identifying and exploiting them—before competitors do
There’s no way around it. Companies must grow to survive. But the dismal failure rate of most growth strategies speaks volumes about how poorly understood—and therefore grossly mismanaged—this vital business process really is.
In this hands-on guide, Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan outline a systematic, field-tested method for identifying specific types of growth opportunities, choosing the best option for a company’s competitive situation, and executing that strategy in a way that achieves spectacular growth. Best of all, the authors show that these opportunities can easily be found within a firm’s existing customer base, offerings, internal processes and competitive arena.
McGrath and MacMillan argue that the key to exploiting these opportunities lies in strategic moves they call “MarketBusters”: approaches that dramatically reconfigure profit streams in an industry and upend conventional competition. Based on an intensive three-year research program, MarketBusters reveals forty marketbusting moves used by firms to successfully transform their market spaces. The book maps these moves to five strategic lenses through which companies can analyze their current business, and includes targeted “prospecting questions” and corresponding tools to guide executives as they mine these areas for growth opportunities:
Products and Services: Transform your offerings to play up the positive attributes, lessen or eliminate the negative, and ultimately make your offering clearly superior to competitors’
Customers: View customers the way they view themselves, and intelligently tap into their experiences in order to change their perspective in your favor
Redefine Your Business and Associated Key Metrics: Radically change some factor that drives performance in your industry, either to significantly boost your numbers or to help your customers become more competitive in their markets
Anticipate or Exploit Industry Shifts: Capitalize on—or spark—a major upheaval in your industry before competitors do
Create a New Market Space: Identify and exploit radically new opportunity spaces—whether wholly new markets or arenas your company has never competed in
The authors also describe a simple analytical tool to assist executives in ensuring they have prepared their organizations to successfully execute the chosen strategy. Vivid company examples from industries as diverse as manufacturing, software, retail, and pharmaceuticals illustrate each move in practice, and cautionary tales reveal common pitfalls that could cause well-intentioned strategies to backfire.
Filled with tools, checklists, and techniques proven to work in even the most unforgiving competitive environments, MarketBusters is the indispensable field guide to realizing sustained, profitable growth.
