Commitment

Ghemawat improves upon the traditional competitive strategy concepts in order to help determine how to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. The framework developed does provide an aid in the evaluation of strategic alternatives that is especially useful for major investment decisions. I suspect that further improvements on this framework in the sense of cuantitative support may come from developments within the realm of Real Options. Note: This review may be influenced by the fact that I took the strategy course of Pankaj Ghemawat at business school.

This book is so good that most readers without serious strategy or industrial economics background will not completely understand it. However, it's thesis is one of the few really new concepts in competitive strategy to come out since 1980. The book is not a theoretical work, but rather helps the reader understand how strategic committments can be used to sustain competitive advantage. A must for any well read businessperson, consultant, or MBA student.