7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy

What are the secrets to making a company enduringly valuable?

7 Powers breaks fresh ground by constructing a comprehensive strategy toolset that is easy for you to learn, communicate and quickly apply.

Drawing on his decades of experience as a business strategy advisor, active equity investor and Stanford University teacher, Hamilton Helmer develops from first principles a practical theory of Strategy rooted in the notion of Power, those conditions which create the potential for persistent differential returns.

Using rich real-world examples, Helmer rigorously characterizes exactly what your business must achieve to create Power. And create Power it must, for without it your business is at risk. He explains why invention always comes first and then develops the Power Progression to enable you to target when your Power must be established: in the Origination, Take-Off or Stability phases of your business.

Every business faces a do-or-die strategy moment: a crux directional choice made amidst swirling uncertainty. To get this right you need at your fingertips a real-time strategy compass to discern your true north. 7 Powers is that compass.

Hamilton Helmer has spent his career as a practicing business strategist. At Helmer & Associates (later Deep Strategy), a strategy consulting firm he founded, he has led over 200 strategy projects with major clients such as Adobe Systems, Agilent Technologies, Coursera, Hewlett-Packard, John Hancock Mutual Life, Mentor Graphics, Netflix, Raychem, and Spotify. Over the last two decades he has also utilized his Strategy concepts as an active equity investor and is currently Chief Investment Officer and Co-Founder of Strategy Capital. Prior to Helmer & Associates he was employed at Bain & Company. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Williams College. Mr. Helmer was Board Chair of American Science and Engineering (NASDAQ: ASEI) and currently teaches Business Strategy in the Economics Department of Stanford University.