Mastering Strategy: Workshops for Business Success

by Michael R. Braun, Scott F. Latham

Overview

Fun to read yet full of powerful business information, this guide provides a comprehensive toolkit for crafting winning strategies in today's competitive environment.

Mastering Strategy: Workshops for Business Success uses a series of workshops to strip away confusion and present popular and proven strategy frameworks in an easy-to-understand, straightforward, and entertaining manner. Using everyday language that avoids jargon, the workshops in this comprehensive toolkit help readers identify the competitive patterns of any industry, understand any company's competitive position in its market, formulate a set of strategic solutions for a company, and recognize the risk-returban trade-offs of those strategic solutions. The authors cover introductory competitive strategy concepts while also providing guidance for business people intent on taking their strategic thinking skills to the next level. From business professionals seeking to quickly grasp and employ strategy essentials, to would-be entrepreneurs sizing up the potential of their business opportunity, to scientists pursuing commercialization of their inventions, this book is the ideal resource to make each a more effective strategic thinker.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440829536
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/27/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Michael R. Braun, PhD, is associate professor of management and the Poe Family Faculty Fellow at the University of Montana.

Scott F. Latham, PhD, researches organizational decline, environmental turbulence, and innovation and consults with entrepreneurial organizations on business models, growth, and strategic positioning.

Table of Contents

Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

Workshop 1 Strategy, Defined: What We Talk About When We Talk About Strategy 1

Workshop 2 Understanding the Business Climate: Which Way Is the Wind Blowing? 11

Workshop 3 SWOT and Generic Strategies: Starting with a View from the Top 21

Workshop 4 The Five Forces: Pressure Points on Your Company's Profitability 31

Workshop 5 The Value System: Who's Kicking- and Kissing-Whom? 47

Workshop 6 The Value Chain: The Ins and Outs of Your Business 61

Workshop 7 The Core Competency: What's Your Secret Sauce? 75

Workshop 8 Diversifications: Where Do You Go from Here-and How Do You Get There? 87

Workshop 9 International Strategy: Stepping Out of Your Domestic Market 103

Workshop 10 Measuring Strategic Success: It Ain't a Strategy You Can't Measure It 117

Workshop 11 Strategy Implementation: Getting Your trategic Ducks in a Row 127

Workshop 12 Wrap-up: Mastering Strategy …and Beyond! 141

Notes 147

Bibliography 153

Index 159