Dynamic Business Strategy: Competing in a Fast-changing, Uncertain Context: 4 (Inspiring the Next Game)

The playing field for business has changed significantly in recent decades. The pace of change is accelerating, driven by increased technological progress and shrinking business lifespans. Economic and political uncertainty has risen dramatically and is likely to remain at elevated levels. Industry boundaries are blurring, increasing the potential paths to competitive disruption. Strategy is not dead―in fact, as the gap between winners and losers within industries continues to grow, it is more important than ever. However, the playbook needs to be reinvented for today’s business environment. Classical sources of competitive advantage, such as scale and differentiation, have not gone away, but they have been complemented by new dimensions of competition. This book discusses the new role of strategy in a dynamic, unpredictable context. Part 1 of this book revisits classical strategy frameworks and what changes should be made to apply them to the modern era. Part 2 discusses new strategic capabilities companies need today, such as adapting to uncertain environments and shaping new or disrupted ones. Part 3 examines the expanding boundaries of strategy, including new competitive imperatives as well as the wider range of timescales on which businesses must now operate. Drawing on the work of the BCG Henderson Institute and its fellows and ambassadors over several years, Dynamic Business Strategy will help business professionals as well as academics and students with an interest in strategy understand the new competitive challenges that businesses face and develop a playbook to address them.

Martin Reeves is chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, BCG's think tank dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. Martin is also a member of the BCG Henderson Institute's Innovation Sounding Board, which is dedicated to supporting, inspiring, and guiding upstream innovation at BCG.

Martin is a regular contributor to HBR, MIT SMR, Fortune and other management journals on business strategy and management. <p/>

Kevin Whitaker was the analytics manager at the BCG Henderson Institute, BCG's internal think tank on the future of business strategy, through 2021.