Competing for the Future - Hardcover

Hamel, Gary; Prahalad, C. K.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0875844162 ISBN 13: 9780875844169

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 1994

Synopsis

New competitive realities have ruptured industry boundaries, overthrown much of standard management practice, and rendered conventional models of strategy and growth obsolete. In their stead have come the powerful ideas and methodologies of Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, whose much-revered thinking has already engendered a new language of strategy. In this book, they develop a coherent model for how today's executives can identify and accomplish no less than heroic goals in tomorrow's marketplace. Their masterful blueprint addresses how executives can ease the tension between competing today and clearing a path toward leadership in the future.

About this title

About the Authors

Fortune magazine labels Gary Hamel “the world’s leading expert on business strategy.” The Economist calls Hamel “the world’s reigning strategy guru.” Hamel’s landmark books, Leading the Revolution and Competing for the Future, have appeared on every management bestseller list and have been translated into more than 20 languages. The Journal of Business Strategy recently listed Hamel as one of the 20th century’s 25 most influential business thinkers, along with business pioneers such as Henry Ford and Bill Gates. Over the past twenty years, Hamel has authored 15 articles for the Harvard Business Review, and has also written for the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The Financial Times and many other business publications around the world.

Since 1983, Hamel has been on the faculty of the London Business School where he is currently Visiting Professor of Strategic and International Management.

For ten years, Hamel served as Chairman of Strategos, a company that helps companies drive “innovation to the core,” and has trained tens of thousands of individuals around the world in the art of business innovation. The Strategos approach to innovation has been covered in major business magazines around the world and is the subject of several Harvard Business School case studies.

Hamel received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and has held faculty appointments at the U. of M. and Harvard Business School. He is a fellow of the World Economic Forum and serves on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal. Hamel lives in Northern California.

C. K. Prahalad is the Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration at the Michigan Business School.

Reviews

Hamel and Prahalad (coauthors of Harvard Business Review) develop judicious, provocative managerial theses in this sophisticated work. Rejecting recent downsizing and reengineering trends, they present their blueprint for transforming an industry's structure, which, they stress, is the primary challenge facing today's managers. The authors focus on tomorrow's competition and opportunities, vitalizing the company for the future and outrunning competitors to "get to the future first." Pioneering ideas on strategy, leadership competencies and market forces abound in this study. Concepts are presented with numerous visual aids. 50,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; first serial to Fortune; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hamel and Prahalad have coauthored a number of best-selling, award-winning articles for the Harvard Business Review on corporate strategy and competition. Among them has been The Core Competence of the Corporation, HBR's most reprinted article ever. Expanding on this earlier work, they suggest here that the current emphasis on corporate structure (re-engineering, downsizing, etc.) is misplaced and that corporations that will be successful in the future will transform their industry rather than themselves. That transformation will occur by developing strategies to exploit a company's core competencies instead of its current product line. For example, Nike's core competence is not shoe quality, but, rather, design and merchandising. Likewise, Sony's is miniaturization; McDonald's, convenience; and Wal-Mart's, logistics. The authors' accessible style (most footnotes are from the popular business press, and Fortune plans to serialize their book) and thought-provoking insights should make this a much-sought-after business title. David Rouse

Hamel and Prahalad, both academicians and active consultants of strategic management with an international focus, give us a provocative, future-oriented book that shows how an organization can seize control of its industry and create future markets. Unlike the recent books promoting downsizing, restructuring, and/or reengineering, this timely volume advances an aggressive framework of "industry transformation" as the way to be strategic. The dozen chapters present practical advice about how to dominate emerging opportunities while staking out new competitive space within the industry. The authors challenge business leaders to change the status quo. The audience for this well-written work's is today's business executives; academicians and advanced students should also find it worthwhile.
Joseph W. Leonard, Miami Univ., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0875844162
• ISBN 13: 9780875844169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352