Gurus on Business Strategy

How often have you wished you could find in one book a concise but accurate summary of all the best business thinkers?

Here is a one-stop guide to the world's most important writers on business strategy. It expertly summarises all the key strategic concepts and describes the work and contribution of each of the leading thinkers in the field.

It goes further: it analyses the pro's and con's of the key theories in practice and offers two enlightening case-studies. The third section of the book provides a series of detailed checklists to aid you in the development of your own strategies for different aspects of the business.

More than just a summary of the key concepts, this book offers valuable insights into their application in practice; it will provide you with a much broader grasp of the subject against which to develop your own business.

• Introduction
• What have the strategy gurus got to tell us?
• One: A taster of the gurus
• Introduction
• What is strategy?
• Understanding the external environment
• Understanding competitive advantage
• Strategic options and decision-making
• Implementation
• Learning and control
• Conclusion
  
• Two: Key strategic concepts
• Introduction
• Key concepts
  
• Three: The business strategy gurus
• Igor Ansoff (a major guru)
• Chris Argyris
• Christopher Bartlett and Samantha Ghoshal (major gurus)
• G Bennett-Stewart
• Blackadder
• Boston Consulting Group
• Cliff Bowman
• Braybrooke and Lindblom
• Campbell A and Goold (major gurus — despite being in the UK)
• Alfred Chandler (a major guru)
• A De Geus
• Eliyahu Goldratt
• Robert Grant
• Tony Grundy (the alternative guru — the author)
• Gary Hamel and S K Prahalad (major gurus)
• Charles Handy (a major guru — and from the UK)
• P Haspeslagh and D Jemison
• Gerry Johnson and Kevin Scholes (UK gurus)
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter (a major guru)
• Kaplan and Norton (major gurus)
• Kurt Lewin (a major guru — albeit a long time ago)
• P Lorange and J Roos
• McTaggart, Kontes and Mankins
• Henry Mintzberg (a major guru)
• Ian Mitroff
• Kenichi Ohmae
• R T Pascale (a major guru)
• Tom Peters (a major guru)
• Nigel Piercy
• Michael E Porter (a major guru)
• J B Quinn
• Alfred Rappaport
• Peter Senge (a major guru)
• A Slyvosky
• J C Spender
• E Stalk
• Sun Tzu (a major guru, now deceased)
• David Ulrich (a major guru)
• P Wack
• Jack Welch (a major guru)
• George Yip
• Four: Champney's health resort and the business strategy gurus
• Introduction
• Background
• Strategic analysis
• Strategic choice
• Implementation
• Champney's strategic breakthroughs
• Implementing the strategic breakthroughs
• A summary of Champney's strategic change breakthroughs
• Key lessons from the Champney's case
• Champney's — Some options for competitive strategy
• Organisational strategy — Options
• Case postscript
• Conclusion
• Summary of key points
  
• Five: Marks & Spencer and the business strategy gurus
• Introduction
• Marks & Spencer — The position mid-1990s
• Marks & Spencer — Recipes for success
• Marks & Spencer — The position 1997 – 2001
• Marks & Spencer — Turning to the future
• Conclusion
  
• Six: Checklist for managing strategy
• Introduction
• Organic business development strategies
• New product strategies
• New market strategies
• Selling more to existing customers
• New value-creating activities
• New distribution channel strategies
• New technologies
• Strategic and financial planning processes
• Restructuring strategies
• Information systems strategy
• Management buy-out strategies
• Alliance and joint venture strategies
• Setting strategy and objectives
• Acquisition evaluation
• Negotiating the deal
• Integration
• Operational strategies
• Conclusion
  
• Seven: Conclusion — gurus and the future

A book that not only describes the most important (with some omissions) management thinkers, but also shows profound insights and some nice case studies that are readable!

Recommended!