Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551210 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Synopsis
In a world of product saturation and market crashes, can companies achieve double-digit growth? Absolutely! Old-line companies are creating new profits through 'demand innovation'. They're thinking beyond their products, exploring the opportunities that surround them and discovering exciting new possibilities for growth. Packed with case studies on how to mine your company's hidden assets that can improve the bottom line immediately, this book gives managers the tools they need to keep their company vital in challenging economic times.

Customer Reviews

Grow by leveraging your HIDDEN ASSETS
I've read three of Adrian Slywotzky's books during the last twelve months and I'm deeply inspired by his bright ideas on the art of profitability. This book focuses on how to profit via growth.

The key chapters are those that lay out the concepts behind "hidden assets" (that can be exploited to create value in new markets) and "demand innovation" (how to explore new ways to solve unmet customer needs via external analysis).

This is the universe of HIDDEN ASSETS that may be leveraged in a growth strategy:
1) Traditional Intellectual assets (intellectual property, competency/skills, and brand).
2) Customer relationships (reach/many, interaction/deep or frequent contact, insight/knowledge, authority/reputation).
3) Strategic real estate (unique value chain position, competitive market position, portal/gateway).
4) Networks (third-party relationships/partners, installed base/post-sale owners, user community, and deal flow/preferential access to potential transactions/M&As).
5) Information (market window/superior insight, technical know-how, software and systems, by-product information).

I found many of the case stories very inspiring, although the well-explained out-of-the-box story of "Cardinal Health" stood out as the most exciting.

The book draws on Slywotzky's previous books. It pursues the eternal theme ... that the path to profitability lies in truly understanding your current and future customers.

Being a business development manager, I search for relevant tools to apply the growth ideas to my own business. The cases in the book are very good.

Highly Recommended!
Leaders of established companies are now finding it harder to earn additional revenue. Authors Adrian Slywotzky and Richard Wise say managers must realize that the old reliable revenue sources - brand extensions, mergers, international growth - just aren't panaceas any more. The answer, they say, is "demand innovation." That means proactively making business more efficient for your suppliers upstream and your customers downstream. The authors bolster their argument with detailed, relevant case studies involving the likes of Cardinal Health, GM's OnStar, Virgin, Johnson Controls and many more. The case studies mostly manage to avoid the breathy, laudatory treatment that is virtually de rigueur when consultants write about their corporate subjects. The authors' "invisible balance sheet" concept is useful. They also provide seven immediate steps companies can take to improve earnings, even if they can't create fresh revenue streams. Because this book offers practical applications, as well as theoretical strategic insights, we recommends it to managers in established companies.