Strategic Supremacy: How Industry Leaders Create Growth, Wealth, and Power Through Spheres of Influence

This book take the "core philosophy" one step further. You gotta be a strategy geek though to really understand it.If the wonderful book BUILT TO LAST taught you how to work from the core, then this book teaches you how to protect your core.This book is revoultinary because the author really sees things in a new way. This book has helpt me understand me and my competitors. I understand what the core of my business is, and my competitors, the diffrence comes how we interact and work from the core ........it proves how complex business strategy really is. This book helps you undertand it!

Transcends the simplistic Chicken Little strategic approaches that recommend you blow yourself up to save yourself in the face of change and chaos. Rather than assuming the sky is falling, D'Aveni reveals, through wisely analyzed cross-industry and longitudinal studies, how the underlying character of firms can lead to startlingly successful and varied approaches for marketplace triumphs. Dr. Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld,Associate Dean, Yale School of Management, & Founder and CEO, The Chief Executive Leadership Institute, "The CEO College"

This book was incredibly readable. At times, even witty. It provides a big picture context but, at the same time, puts business trends and examples in a context so you can see whether they are really applicable to your company or situation. As someone who runs a startup, too much theory can bog me down so I liked that each chapter also included practical applications and checklists like, for example, ways to rethink your portfolio or to reduce your vulnerability. I guess my overall take is that Strategic Supremacy has an agenda that is bigger than just promoting a new, one-size-fits-all business strategy. It makes it very clear how defined and yet dynamic any company has to be right now - and it provides a very practical template for breaking away from traditional thinking and looking at my business and my industry in a new way.

"D'Aveni presents many examples taken from modern American companies, such as Anheuser Busch, GM and Microsoft... He presents his readers with many rules and recommendations to guide them through the development of a strategy for their company. The book's wide range of concept and models are helpful for the analysis of a firm's portfolio and the formulation of strategies for multimarket competition." --from "Books in Review" by Mark Baaij, Research Manager, The Boston Consulting Group, Europe, Jan/Feb 2002