Product Description

Constantinos Markides contends that the essence of business strategy is to allow a company to create and exploit a unique strategic position in its industry. To do so, the company must make clear and explicit choices based on the answers to three difficult questions: Who should I target as customers? What products or services should I offer them? How should I do this in an efficient way? Any company engaged in strategy making must raise these questions, identify possible answers, and then choose what to do and what not to do. The objective should be to come up with ideas that differentiate the firm from its competitors-and thus stake out a unique strategic position. In All the Right Moves, a highly practical handbook on the fundamentals of strategy, Markides helps managers zero in on the critical choices that lie at the heart of all innovative strategies.

More important, Markides argues that even the best of strategies have a limited life. It is not enough to develop a unique strategic position or to improve the existing one. Companies must continually create and colonize new strategic positions, a difficult if not impossible task for many established firms. Markides explains how to overcome the obstacles to innovation so that even well-established companies can innovate by breaking the rules of the game.

All the Right Moves reveals how creative thinking leads to strategic innovation-the "breakthroughs" that separate winning strategists from also-rans. Markides approaches strategic thinking as a creative process in which examining an issue from a variety of angles often proves more productive than merely gathering data, and experimenting with new ideas can be more effective than conducting much scientific analysis. He poses key questions for readers to ask as he guides them through a step-by-step framework for developing their strategic thinking skills.

In a refreshingly clear and practical approach, All the Right Moves offers concrete advice for thinking through the tough choices that all business strategists must face. It distills the important elements of strategy into an easy-to-follow system for crafting today's-and tomorrow's-breakthrough business strategies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178586 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 220 pages

About the Author
Constantinos C. Markides is a Professor at the London Business School.

Customer Reviews

The inventor of WHO-WHAT-HOW strategic positioning
Markides is a professor at the London Business School. The basic idea in this excellent strategy book is as follows:

STRATEGIC POSITIONING is simply the sum of a company's answers to three questions:

> WHO should I target as customers?
> WHAT products or services should I offer them?
> HOW can I best deliver these products and services to these customers?

Strategy is all about making tough choices in these three dimensions (who, what, and how). Remember that deciding what NOT to do is just as important as deciding what to do...

The next issue is then to construct the appropriate organizational environment that will support the choices made. Also in this area, Markides contributes with a refreshingly clear and practical approach.

Markides argues that even the best of strategies will only have a limited life. Thus, companies must continually evaluate their performance and position in order to be able to quickly create and colonize new strategic positions. Strategy is a dynamic concept - not static. A very practical approach to innovate strategic thinking is to keep starting the process at different points: who/what/how, who/how/what, what/who/how, what/how/who, how/what/who, how/what/who, and finally how/who/what.

Thus, The marketing philosophy always starts externally at the customer (who?) and works backwards towards solutions (what?), and finally adapts the firm's delivery system (how?). But a strong trend during the last decade has been on the internal perspective on core competences, such as procurement or production. This method means that we start with own unique capabilities in the delivery system (how?), which then is translated into solutions (what?) and finally customers (who?). Radical innovation often is created this way, e.g. the "walkman". In practice of business development, we usually have to work in both directions.

This book is not a dry academic's dusty words. Markides uses a wealth of case stories on strategic positions. Being a Dane, I find it very nice indeed that the companies cited often are of European origin.

Nirmalya Kumar's brilliant book "Marketing as Strategy" (2004) expands on Markides' ideas in this book. They both are indebted to professor Derek Abell for the original concept presented in the landmark strategy book: "Defining the business" (1980).

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

Markides brings simplicity at last
This book is a fantastic read and gives a fantastic insight into novel yet simple ways of approaching business and strategy. Far too often we get bamboozled with theory which is completely unrealistic and impossible to implement - Markides has done a tremendous job and this has helped me in positioning things to my customers and internal business units

Gives the right framework to think various strategic issues
The book is a well written strategy book. Easy to read, simple in terms of terminology used and to the point. Markides did a very good job describing on how business should achieve an innovative strategic position. It's not theoreticall, on the contrary it has practical ways of achieving the requested innovative strategic position. It is surrounded with various real case studies that make it easier to understand the issues raised. A very good book to read if you are interested in business strategy.