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Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy - Hardcover

Greenwald, Bruce; Kahn, Judd

  • 4.30 out of 5 stars
    2,014 ratings by Goodreads
 
9781591840572: Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1591840570 ISBN 13: 9781591840572
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover, 2005

Synopsis

Presents a theory of competition that challenges the methods of Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy, arguing that a competitor's ease in entering or expanding in a given market is the only essential factor in determining advantage, in a guide that also provides a range of examples and application lessons. 50,000 first printing.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Bruce Greenwald is the Robert Heilbrun Professor of Economics at Columbia University Business School, where his class on strategy draws standing- room- only crowds. He and Judd Kahn are the authors of the business bestseller Value Investing.

Reviews

A conscious simplification of Michael Porter's classic Competitive Strategy, this book treats only one of Porter's five forces, "potential entrants." According to the authors (Value Investing), avoiding competition is the only way to escape "a level playing field in which anyone can join... [and] only the best... survive and prosper." Most of the book discusses ways to gain protected positions from which businesses can be run badly but still earn abnormal returns. Cutting prices, matching prices and using domination of one market to create a monopoly in another are all discussed; legality is mentioned only briefly and indirectly. The best of their recommendations is to find small, declining, local markets without existing competitors. Despite the title, the book seems aimed more at investors than managers. Stockholders appreciate the value of mediocre companies that generate steady, unexciting profits in local markets without much notice; they like them because the stock is cheap. Managers usually aspire to build something better, in order to make the stock expensive. Still, this book is a useful counterpoint to the idea that conflict and growth are good for their own sakes. (Aug. 18)
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Publisher
Portfolio Hardcover
Publication date
2005
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1591840570
ISBN 13 
9781591840572
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
416
Rating
  • 4.30 out of 5 stars
    2,014 ratings by Goodreads