The Ultimate Competitive Advantage: Secrets of Continuously Developing a More Profitable Business Model

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 334 pages
• Published by: Berrett-Koehler Publishers March 12, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1576751678
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1576751671
• Book Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
It's a challenge to discuss business models compellingly, but management consultants Mitchell and Coles do an impressive job of it here. Their thesis: the best-performing corporations are those that constantly review and update their business models to adapt to changing conditions. Their supporting stories in particular are well-chosen, fleshing out entrepreneurial successes from companies from a dry cleaner in Newton, Mass. to the Mandalay Resort Group. At the "award-winning" cleaners in Newton, for example, the owner established a VIP service at no extra charge; customers could drop off laundry any time of the day, have the costs charged to a credit card and use a separate line when picking up their clothes. The benefits for the owner? He cut costs by ensuring swift payment and could process the VIP customers' orders before or after business hours, thus diminishing the demands on his employees manning the counter during busy opening hours. That example shows up in Chapter Three, "Eliminate Costs That Reduce Customer and End-User Benefits," and like the rest of the book, the case studies are clearly and enthusiastically presented with literary epigraphs and helpful chapter summaries that front each chapter. The lessons are far from shocking (e.g., "Cut Harmful Costs"), but it's a worthy review of sound business practices. The core message, for businesses big and small: survival depends on constant business model improvement, especially in tough economic times.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
Authors Donald Mitchell and Carol Coles conducted a ten-year study of companies that had grown the fastest over a three-year period. Their research reveals that while unsuccessful companies doggedly apply outdated business models, the successful ones improve their models every two to four years.

The Ultimate Competitive Advantage provides a straightforward, systematic method any company can use to review and improve its business model and each of its key components: pricing, costs of doing business, and benefits added. Dozens of concrete examples from companies of all sizes and types are provided.

Reader Reviews
Too many business managers focus on a successful company's minimum requirements. Have customers; collect receivables; remit payables; weather disasters; out-maneuver competitors and not unimportantly; report profits. Donald Mitchell and Carol Coles, two Massachusetts-based business consultants, in their third book, challenge managers to recognize that business model obsolescence is the major unperceived opportunity for and at the same time threat to their enterprises. By simply adding these five foundational principles to the list, they can become "all they can be": 1. Serve more people with what is perceived as improved performance, more rapidly and in more ways with fewer resources. 2. Make each thought and activity apply to people and their purposes that are not now being served. 3. Involve more people when considering each thought and activity. 4. Begin each morning with the thought you are starting a new company. 5. Strengthen your stakeholders' commitment to these principles. There can be little doubt that if more managers attached each day armed with these principles, their companies, customers and everyone they contacted would experience improved lives.