The Financial Times Guide to Strategy

Description

Richard Koch is an author and entrepreneur-investor. He not only writes books about how to achieve more, start new companies, make more money, and enjoy life more, but he also practises what he advocates. He was one of three founders of LEK, a noted international strategy consulting firm; and for the past thirty-seven years has invested in new and fast-growth companies, and compounded his money at an annual rate of twenty-two percent. By his own reckoning, he is now a sterling billionaire. The companies he has started or been a significant investor in include Filofax, the Belgo moules-frites chain, Plymouth Gin, Betfair, Auto1, and Fanduel. The concepts he has used to make money are described in this Financial Times Guide to Strategy, in The Star Principle, and in The 80/20 Principle, which has sold well over a million copies and been translated into forty languages. He is based in Gibraltar and also has homes in Cape Town, Australia, and Portugal.

INTRODUCTION

1. The use and abuse of strategy

2. A brief history of strategy

3. Swings in strategic thinking: seven phases

4. Towards a synthesis

5. From quick and dirty strategy to nearly perfect strategy

PART ONE: BUSINESS UNIT STRATEGY

A do-it-yourself guide

1. Overview

2. What businesses are you in?

3. Where do you make the money?

4. How good are your competitive positions?

5. What skills and capabilities underpin your success?

6. Is this a good industry to be in?

7. What do the customers think?

8. What about the competitors?

9. How do you raise profits quickly?

10. How do you build long term value?

11. Conclusion

12. Addition note on the theory of Business Unit Strategy

PART TWO: CORPORATE STRATEGY

1.The joy of Corporate Strategy

2. An ecological view of Corporate Strategy

3. Five dimensions of Corporate Strategy

4. The strange power of the 35 word strategy

4. Conclusion

PART THREE: STRATEGIC THINKERS

PART FOUR: STRATEGIC CONCEPTS, TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO STRATEGY. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.The Financial Times Guide to Strategy is your unbeatable reference on strategy. It offers an incisive overview of both corporate level and business unit level strategy, an A to Z of the world’s leading strategic thinkers and introduces the key strategic tools and techniques you need to develop your own strategy. Based on long experience and on conversations with leading strategists around the world, Richard Koch helps you discover each critical step in creating, delivering and understanding successful strategy. The fifth edition of this bestselling book is your easy-to-read, jargon-free guide to the strategic models and thinkers you really need to know about. Updated with new tools and examples, The Financial Times Guide to Strategy shows you which questions to ask, how to go about answering them, and then what action to take. This is the smartest and most readable strategy guide available anywhere.

The Financial Times Guide to Strategy is your unbeatable reference on strategy. It offers an incisive overview of both corporate level and business unit level strategy, an A to Z of the world’s leading strategic thinkers and introduces the key strategic tools and techniques you need to develop your own strategy.

Based on long experience and on conversations with leading strategists around the world, Richard Koch helps you discover each critical step in creating, delivering and understanding successful strategy. The 5th edition of this bestselling book is your easy-to-read, jargon-free guide to the strategic models and thinkers you really need to know about. Updated with new tools and examples, The Financial Times Guide to Strategy shows you which questions to ask, how to go about answering them, and then what action to take. This is the smartest and most readable strategy guide available anywhere.

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