Competing for the Future

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 357 pages
• Published by: Harvard Business School Press April 1996
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0875847161
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0875847160
• Book Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 14.1 ounces

Product Review
Winning in business today is not about being number one--it's about who "gets to the future first," write management consultants Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. In Competing for the Future, they urge companies to create their own futures, envision new markets, and reinvent themselves.

Hamel and Prahalad caution that complacent managers who get too comfortable in doing things the way they've always done will see their companies fall behind. For instance, the authors consider the battle between IBM and Apple in the 1970s. Entrenched as the leading mainframe-computer maker, IBM failed to see the potential market for personal computers. That left the door wide open for Apple, which envisioned a computer for every man, woman, and child. The authors write, "At worst, laggards follow the path of greatest familiarity. Challengers, on the other hand, follow the path of greatest opportunity, wherever it leads." They argue that business leaders need to be more than "maintenance engineers," worrying only about budget cutting, streamlining, re-engineering, and other old tactics. Definitely not for dilettantes, Competing for the Future is for managers who are serious getting their companies in front. -- Dan Ring --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Hamel and Prahalad (coauthors of Harvard Business Review) develop judicious, provocative managerial theses in this sophisticated work. Rejecting recent downsizing and reengineering trends, they present their blueprint for transforming an industry's structure, which, they stress, is the primary challenge facing today's managers. The authors focus on tomorrow's competition and opportunities, vitalizing the company for the future and outrunning competitors to "get to the future first." Pioneering ideas on strategy, leadership competencies and market forces abound in this study. Concepts are presented with numerous visual aids. 50,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; first serial to Fortune; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
"On the road to the future, who will be the windshield, and who will be the bug?" - Gary Hamel To be competitive in today's world, you must focus not only on the here and now, but also focus on creating the future because "Nothing is more liberating than becoming the author of one's on destiny." Hamel and Prahalad deeply understand the very core of competition, and provide the reader with an understanding of how to build a great company. Chapter 1: Getting Off the Treadmill In addition to paying attention to their position in the current market, companies must focus more on creating the future of the industry and their stake in it. Chapter 2: How Competition for the Future is Different Competition for the future is competition to maximize the share of future opportunities. Chapter 3: Learning to Forget Unless a company wishes to meet the fate of the dinosaurs, it must stop looking in the rear view mirror. Chapter 4: Competing for Industry Foresight Industry foresight allows companies to envision ways of meeting unarticulated needs. Foresight arises from wanting to make a difference in people's lives. Chapter 5: Crafting Strategic Architecture "Not only must the future be imagined ... it must be built." Strategic architecture is a set of plans on how to turn your dream into reality. Chapter 6: Strategy as Stretch "It is not cash that fuels the journey to the future, but the emotional and intellectual energy of every employee." Strategy must be built upon the juncture of where the firm is and where it wants to be. Chapter 7: Strategy as Leverage The real issue for many struggling managers is not a lack of resources, but too many priorities, too little stretch, and too little creative thinking about how to leverage resources. Chapter 8: Competing to Shape the Future Getting to the future first may empower a company to establish the rules by which other companies will have to compete. Chapter 9: Building Gateways to the Future Every top management team is competing not only to protect the firm's position within existing markets, but to position the firm to succeed in new markets. Chapter 10: Embedding the Core Competence Perspective All too often, opportunity that falls between the cracks of existing market and departmental definitions, gets overlooked. Chapter 11: Securing the Future What counts most is not hitting a bulls' eye the first time, but how quickly one can improve one's aim and get another arrow on the way to the target. Chapter 12: Thinking Differently "To ultimately 'be' different, a company must first 'think' differently." To share in the future, a company must learn as much about thinking differently as it does about what to do. Competing for the Future is a lively study in how to transform today's dreams into tomorrow's reality. Don't read this book at your own peril. Competing today, without regard to tomorrow's possibilities will certainly stack the odds in your competitor's favor. Michael Davis, President - Brencom Strategic Business Consulting