Conventional wisdom on strategy is no longer a reliable guide. In Essential Advantage, Booz & Company's Cesare Mainardi and Paul Leinwand maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with coherence: a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique. Achieving this clarity takes a sharpness of focus that only exceptional companies have mastered. This book helps you identify your firm's blend of strategic direction and distinctive capabilities that give it the "right to win" in its chosen markets. Based on extensive research and filled with company examples--including Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, Tata Sons, and Procter & Gamble--Essential Advantage helps you construct a coherent company in which the pieces reinforce each other instead of working at cross-purposes.The authors reveal: * Why you should focus on a system of a few aligned capabilities * How to identify the "way to play" in your market * How to design a strategy for well-modulated growth * How to align a portfolio of businesses behind your capability system * How your strategy clarifies growth, costs, and people decisions Few companies achieve a capability-driven "right to win" in their market. This book helps you position your firm to be among them.

For most companies, cost cutting in a down economy means across-the-board slashing that "spreads the pain" of budget reductions across many departments. While that may sound like the best approach for getting critical results fast and for limiting political infighting, it is a mistake-one that will leave your company weaker, not just smaller. Instead, companies that need to reduce costs should treat the challenge as an opportunity to identify and reinforce their key capabilities, while divesting from those activities that do not truly reflect the business''s strengths or long-term goals. This more strategic approach will make your company more resilient as tough times continue and more robust as recovery begins.In Cut Costs, Grow Stronger, an e-book published as part of the Harvard Business Press Memo to the CEO series, Booz & Company''s Shumeet Banerji, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi provide executives with the tools they need to rapidly implement capabilities-driven cost reduction. First they demonstrate how to identify and clearly articulate your company''s key capabilities-not just core competencies or skill sets, but those very few strengths that, in combination, define how your organization competes. You can then use this information to create your company''s unique blueprint for effective and efficient cost reduction. The authors'' detailed, step-by-step framework walks you through the process, which can be completed in as little as two or three months-it''s something that you can do now. This practical guide to capabilities-driven cost-cutting is the tool executives need to confront the challenge of today''s economy while strengthening the foundation for what will set their company apart in the future.

Conventional wisdom on strategy is no longer a reliable guide. In Essential Advantage, Booz & Company''s Cesare Mainardi and Paul Leinwand maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with coherence: a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique.Achieving this clarity takes a sharpness of focus that only exceptional companies have mastered. This book helps you identify your firm''s blend of strategic direction and distinctive capabilities that give it the "right to win" in its chosen markets. Based on extensive research and filled with company examples—including Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, Tata Sons, and Procter & Gamble—Essential Advantage helps you construct a coherent company in which the pieces reinforce each other instead of working at cross-purposes.The authors reveal:· Why you should focus on a system of a few aligned capabilities· How to identify the "way to play" in your market· How to design a strategy for well-modulated growth· How to align a portfolio of businesses behind your capability system· How your strategy clarifies growth, costs, and people decisionsFew companies achieve a capability-driven "right to win" in their market. This book helps you position your firm to be among them.

How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don't have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego.These companies: * Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities * Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others * Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it * Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board * Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.

Conventional wisdom on strategy is no longer a reliable guide. In Essential Advantage, Booz & Company's Cesare Mainardi and Paul Leinwand maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with coherence: a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique. Achieving this clarity takes a sharpness of focus that only exceptional companies have mastered. This book helps you identify your firm's blend of strategic direction and distinctive capabilities that give it the "right to win" in its chosen markets. Based on extensive research and filled with company examples--including Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, Tata Sons, and Procter & Gamble--Essential Advantage helps you construct a coherent company in which the pieces reinforce each other instead of working at cross-purposes.The authors reveal: * Why you should focus on a system of a few aligned capabilities * How to identify the "way to play" in your market * How to design a strategy for well-modulated growth * How to align a portfolio of businesses behind your capability system * How your strategy clarifies growth, costs, and people decisions Few companies achieve a capability-driven "right to win" in their market. This book helps you position your firm to be among them.

For most companies, cost cutting in a down economy means across-the-board slashing that "spreads the pain" of budget reductions across many departments. While that may sound like the best approach for getting critical results fast and for limiting political infighting, it is a mistake-one that will leave your company weaker, not just smaller. Instead, companies that need to reduce costs should treat the challenge as an opportunity to identify and reinforce their key capabilities, while divesting from those activities that do not truly reflect the business''s strengths or long-term goals. This more strategic approach will make your company more resilient as tough times continue and more robust as recovery begins.In Cut Costs, Grow Stronger, an e-book published as part of the Harvard Business Press Memo to the CEO series, Booz & Company''s Shumeet Banerji, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi provide executives with the tools they need to rapidly implement capabilities-driven cost reduction. First they demonstrate how to identify and clearly articulate your company''s key capabilities-not just core competencies or skill sets, but those very few strengths that, in combination, define how your organization competes. You can then use this information to create your company''s unique blueprint for effective and efficient cost reduction. The authors'' detailed, step-by-step framework walks you through the process, which can be completed in as little as two or three months-it''s something that you can do now. This practical guide to capabilities-driven cost-cutting is the tool executives need to confront the challenge of today''s economy while strengthening the foundation for what will set their company apart in the future.

Conventional wisdom on strategy is no longer a reliable guide. In Essential Advantage, Booz & Company''s Cesare Mainardi and Paul Leinwand maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with coherence: a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique.Achieving this clarity takes a sharpness of focus that only exceptional companies have mastered. This book helps you identify your firm''s blend of strategic direction and distinctive capabilities that give it the "right to win" in its chosen markets. Based on extensive research and filled with company examples—including Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, Tata Sons, and Procter & Gamble—Essential Advantage helps you construct a coherent company in which the pieces reinforce each other instead of working at cross-purposes.The authors reveal:· Why you should focus on a system of a few aligned capabilities· How to identify the "way to play" in your market· How to design a strategy for well-modulated growth· How to align a portfolio of businesses behind your capability system· How your strategy clarifies growth, costs, and people decisionsFew companies achieve a capability-driven "right to win" in their market. This book helps you position your firm to be among them.

How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don't have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego.These companies: * Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities * Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others * Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it * Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board * Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.