All the Right Moves: A Guide to Crafting Breakthrough Strategy | 
 enlarge | Authors: Constantinos Markides, Constantinos C. Markides
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Category: Book
List Price: $32.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 477314
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 220
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0875848338
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4012
EAN: 9780875848334
ASIN: 0875848338
Publication Date: December 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In All the Right Moves, author Constantinos Markides argues that business strategy is all about making difficult choices: Who will be your target customers? What will you offer them? How will you do it? The goal for every company should be to answer these questions differently from its competitors-and thus stake out a unique strategic position. With this highly practical handbook to the fundamentals of strategy, Markides helps managers zero in on the important choices that lie at the heart of all innovative strategies. More importantly, Markides argues that even the best of strategies have a limited life. Companies must therefore continually search for new strategic positions to colonize, a task which many established companies find difficult if not impossible. Markides explains how to overcome the obstacles to innovation so that even firmly established companies can innovate by breaking the rules of the game. Markides reveals that strategic thinking should be approached as a creative process, examining an issue from a variety of angles is often more productive than gathering data, and experimenting with new ideas can be more effective than much scientific analysis. All the Right Moves shows how creative thinking leads to strategic innovation-the "breakthroughs" that can separate winning strategists from also-rans. Markides 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 breakthrough business strategies.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
The inventor of WHO-WHAT-HOW strategic positioning December 3, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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
Integrates Strategy, New Products and Organization Learning April 28, 2001
This is the best strategy book that I have ever read (and I have read a few including Gary Hamel's books). This book clearly lays out the need for and process of developing a business innovation strategy. It does this without getting too preachy. Another reason that this book is so good is that it effectively builds on powerful concepts in organizational learning and new product development, thereby integrating some important concepts from these fields to build a strong, broad position for strategy and strategic thinking. If you are interested in innovation strategy, organizational learning and new product development, you need to read this book.
Exploration...Discovery...Conquest August 7, 2000
35 out of 36 found this review helpful
All the Right Moves
Markides provides a cohesive and comprehensive guide to crafting breakthrough strategy for ANY organization. The basic premise of his book is that "superior strategy is all about finding and exploiting a unique strategy in the company's business while at the same time searching for new strategic positions on a continuing basis." He organizes his materials as follows:
Part I How to Create a Unique Strategic Position
* How to decide what your business is
* How to decide who your customers and what to offer to them
* How to "play the game"
* How to identity and secure strategic assets and capabilities
* How to create the right organization environment
* How to develop a superior strategic position
Part II How to Prepare for Strategic Innovation
* How strategic positions develop
* How to evaluate and respond to strategic innovation
* How to take a dynamic view of strategy
In the final chapter, Markides concedes that "designing a successful strategy is a never-ending quest. Even the most successful companies must continually question the basis of their business and the assumptions underlying their 'formula for success.' (In fact, in one way or another, this is what most successful companies have done to get where they are.). New who/what/how positions are constantly popping up around the mass market, and established companies must be on the lookout for them. Like a modern-day Christopher Columbus, each company must set out to explore its industry's evolving terrain, searching for new and unexploited strategic positions."
In this brilliant book, Markides explains HOW.
A valuable guide to the basics of strategy June 8, 2000
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Markides argues:"The essence of strategy is to choose the one position that your company will claim as its own. A strategic position is simply the sum of a company's answers to these three questions: Who should I target as customers? What products or services should I offer them? How should I do this? ... Ultimately, strategy is all about making choices, [to achieve] a distinctive strategic position ... The most common source of strategic failure is the failure to make clear and explicit choices in each of these three dimensions." In itself, the statement is simple, even obvious. But, as he points out, many companies fail to make these explicit choices. The value of the book lies in how the author works through these propositions. The advice is good common sense, laced with valuable insights. The language is clear and simple. The approach is systemic - the author is as concerned with how all the elements fit together within a dynamic market as with the elements themselves. Each chapter ends with a good summary of the arguments. Even highly complex and highly dynamic strategies rest on these simple foundations. The book therefore provides both an excellent guide for those new to wrestling with strategy and excellent 'mental furniture' with which to approach more complex formulations.
A thought provoking guide to What is Strategy? March 15, 2000
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
All the Right Moves grapples with the issues which form the essence of the strategic management field. Professor Markides provides readers with a landscape for strategy which covers: 1) positioning, 2) business system interdependence, and 3) dynamics of competition. Positioning is recouched in an easy to understand and apply framework based on a new Who-What-How combination. An important message is that positioning is only part of the story. Once position is determined, management must coordinate a complex system of interrelated and interdependent activities which typically extend beyond our cognitive limits of bounded rationality. Further, once these activities are coordinated for one position, the firm cannot stand still. Competitive dynamics erode away any advantage over time, and therefore firms must continuously question their positioning . I whole-heartedly recommend this refreshing and thought provoking book to managers and academics alike.
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