Billion-Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years - Hardcover

Carroll, Paul B.; Mui, Chunka

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1591842190 ISBN 13: 9781591842194

Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover, 2008

Synopsis

Analyzes the costly mistakes of companies throughout the past quarter century to counsel business professionals on what not to do, in a guide that profiles key strategy failures and challenges popular beliefs about leadership, luck, and effective execution. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Paul B. Carroll wrote for The Wall Street Journal for seventeen years. The author of Big Blues, he founded Context, the first new economy magazine, in 1997. Now a freelance writer, he lives outside Sacramento, California.

Chunka Mui is the coauthor of the major business bestseller Unleashing the Killer App. He lectures and consults widely on strategy and innovation, and lives in Shelburne, VT.
 
Chunka Mui and Paul B. Carroll would go on to co-author two other books, The New Killer Apps: How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Startups and A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing a world we can proudly leave our kids by 2050.

Reviews

Carroll (Big Blues) and Mui (Unleashing the Killer App) collaborate to perform an autopsy on some of the most spectacular business failures and corporate disasters in recent times, hunting down the fatal strategies responsible. The authors examine more than 750 inexcusable corporate collapses, neatly cataloguing them into eight common failure patterns: doomed practices, including the Illusion of Synergies, as illustrated by the ruinous merger attempts by Sears and Dean Witter; Faulty Financial Engineering, as conducted by Tyco and Revco; Staying the (Misguided) Course Too Long, a sin committed by Kodak, which missed the boat on digital photography; and Consolidation Blues, as depicted by U.S. Airways, which crashed as a consequence of buying up too many companies too quickly. While there are assuredly lessons in defeat and the authors' detailed analysis and bracing honesty is welcome, readers hoping for a more encouraging or inspirational business book might find Carroll and Mui's avalanche of disastrous failures, avoidable bankruptcies and destruction of shareholder value a depressing—if highly instructive—read. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

With lessons learned from extensive research into 750 major bankruptcies between 1981 and 2006, including Enron, Conseco, Texaco, Kmart, and Refco, authors Carroll and Mui set out to help corporate management avoid failure from bad strategies. Almost one-half of the failures could have been avoided if the companies had been aware of strategy pitfalls or had become cautious in the face of clear warning signs. The authors describe seven basic strategic failures, including estimating synergy from mergers, which proves to be exaggerated; aggressive use of accounting or financing mechanisms; staying the course in spite of a clear business threat; and riding the wrong technology, which fails. We also learn about the psychological implications of management banding together when something is wrong rather than individuals standing up for what is right and the important benefits of introducing a devil’s advocate into a strategy’s deliberative process. This well-researched book provides valuable insight for corporate executives and investors. --Mary Whaley

Edition details

• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1591842190
• ISBN 13: 9781591842194
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 310