Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now

George Stalk hits a home run with this little volume entitled "5 Future Strategies You Need Right Now". Stalk's approach, with John Butman's able support, gets to the heart of the matter immediately. Each chapter begins with a compelling challenge, setting an immediate tension. All examples are real and relatable. Stalk doesn't give easy formulaic answers. Instead, my creative imagination and strategic mind were instantly engaged. His approach is invitational and his tone is intimate. It felt like he was a trusted advisor and we were having a viirtual dialogue. He's passionate about his ideas and often playfully irreverant. The chapter on "Infinite Bandwidth" alone is "worth the price of admission". I like this HBP series. The concept and formats are user friendly. Each book really does feel more like a memo. The ideas are timely. The brevity makes it easier to refer to and recommend. Stalk's book is staying on my desk, not on my bookshelves.

This is one of the titles in the "Memo to the CEO" series published by Harvard Business Press, each less than 200 pages in length and superbly produced. In fact, none is a "memo" or written solely for a CEO. In this volume, George Stalk explains how to become alert to "faint signals" of what could prove to be early indicators of possible opportunities to gain competitive advantages. Once those opportunities have been verified (Stalk suggests how to do that), appropriate strategies to exploit them will be needed. He focuses on five examples of strategies whose "sources of advantage are not only abundantly clear, but undeniable": supply-chain gymnastics (i.e. adroitly managing a global supply chain), sidestepping economics of scale (i.e. a "disposability" business model), embracing complexity (i.e. four ways to attract customers who are looking for a higher level of complexity), and infinite bandwidth (i.e. effortless receipt of any amount of information whenever and wherever desired and at no cost). Stalk offers "a high-level introduction to each of these emerging issues, along with suggestions for how to turn them into competitive advantage." He devotes a separate chapter to each of the five categories, then in the final chapter shifts his attention to examples of potential strategies that are "no more than faint signals today," identifies two emerging strategies on his "Watch List" awaiting further evidence of their potential to create competitive advantage, and then briefly discusses various "hallucinations" for which there are currently no corporate examples but are "worth pondering" nonetheless. But Stalk doesn't limit the narrative to what he has observed and tracked. He reassures his reader that other faint signals "are likely to be found in the world around you," in the reader's own competitive environment as well as beyond it to other industries and competitors to spot insights of others "who may have found a new way of operating and competing that can be transplanted into [her or his] industry to the great confusion of others...and then `plagiarize' the idea." Or when coming across an anomaly, to "understand its implications and use the insight to drive the business to new levels of performance." Comment: Over the years, I have worked with the owner/CEOs of countless small companies and have urged each of them to form an unofficial "advisory board" consisting of their banker, attorney, accountant, insurance agent, and at least one C-level executive of a large corporation if at all possible. I suggest that they meet as a group at least quarterly, perhaps for breakfast or lunch. After a brief update, the owner/CEO identifies one (and only one) especially important issue his or her company now faces and then chairs a brainstorm session in which advisory board members participate. Invariably, comments and suggestions from a wide variety of perspectives help the owner/CEO gain a better understanding of the issue and then to address it ef

From the publication of his landmark Competing Against Time through to this most recent work, George Stalk has always occupied the appropriate timeframe for true strategic thinking--the just-emerging horizon of a half-decade hence. Within the five phenomena he treats in this book, one can already see the shapes of powerful new competitive positions that will become second nature to us all with time. (His discussion of dynamic pricing, in particular, is especially provocative and suggests a number of ways in which incumbent firms can recapture significant profits now being leaked to intermediaries.) I like the book not just for the "what" of strategy that it contains, but also for the "how" that George reveals regarding his methodology of spotting and monitoring faint signals. Executive teams will benefit from both aspects of this work.

George Stalk has written concise guide to future business strategies that will be unfolding over the next decade and beyond. The read is entertaining and easy to follow with examples of current companies successfully implementing dynamic ideas and processes. This book is a valuable tool for every manager, entrepreneur or forward thinker doing business in the world today. I was lucky enough to get a chance to see George Stalk speak at this books launch. One can't help to think that these predictions are just the tip of the iceberg and we in business are fortunate to have access to the thoughts of such visionaries.

George Stalk has done it again. This time in very few words, he outlines exactly what you need to be thinking about to win in the next decade. Stalk is a management guru with practical experience and real insights. This book could go down as the Little Red Book of management. It packs a wallop and makes you think. Thanks for inspiration, insight, fun, entertaining stories and more. It's application cuts across industry, function, business stage. Get it and you will be ready for the future.