Strategy as Action: Competitive Dynamics and Competitive Advantage

I took a Strategy course that Prof. Smith (who I believe is one of the best professors of business strategy) teaches at the Smith School of Business. This book explains the process of formulating business strategy, analyzing industry value chains, predicting competitor moves, predicting industry structures, and all other aspects needed for a successful business strategy. Cases covered in the book are very informative and illustrate all principles of strategy elegantly. The methods listed in the book are immediately applicable. I highly recommend this book - 10 on 10!

Some books I bought had way too many examples that less than half the book was actually written to provide lessons. This book is filled with valuable informations and doesn't try to raise its price by adding pages of index that are unnecessary. Shows how to take concepts out of the book and put it into the real-life situation.

This is an almost unknown business book, but amazingly good. I would say as a companion to Porter's Competitive Advantage, you could do no better than this book, including Porter's own follow ons. The slim volume covers a suite of topics, many focused on real and effective but less than obvious strategies to avoid wars with rivals, be profitable in a competitive market, pre-announce products and freeze rivals, and more. What I didn't get anywhere else in business school so cohesively is Schumpeterian theory -- which I never did but now believe is the real value added of startups, especially in technology. It covers Ricardian actions (finding areas of relative resource advantage over competitors and using them to exploit the rival), growing out portfolios and then pruning them back as a way to find innovation that's successful, and a number of other excellent strategies and tactics. Authors use case studies from a number of firms but the one around Microsoft making announcements as the market leader to freeze rivals is wonderful.

I had the pleasure of taking a class with Professor Grimm at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. His knowledge base is incredible, and throughout the semester he never ceased to amaze me with his insights. If you don't have the opportunity to study with him, the book could be your best bet. He illuminates what "strategy" really means and demonstrates in understandable terms how we can actually execute it--not just talk about it in academic terms.