The Well Timed Strategy: Managing the Business Cycle for Competitive Advantage

Most companies ignore one of their best opportunities for honing competitive advantage: the opportunity to proactively manage business cycles and macroeconomic turbulence. Despite the profound impact that the business cycle has on the fortunes and fate of so many businesses large and small--and the employees and investors that depend on them--not fa single book offers a comprehensive guide to strategically and tactically managing the business cycle. The Well-Timed Strategy shows how to manage not just the business cycle and industry cycles but also today's unprecedented level of macroeconomic turbulence. Peter Navarro shows how to align every facet of business strategy, tactics, and operations to reflect changing business conditions. Drawing on hundreds of examples, Navarro distills clear, simple management principles for managing economic upswings and downswings. Navarro addresses everything from inventory, production, and supply chain management to marketing, pricing, and long-term capital investment. Navarro presents examples from around the globe, ranging from Broadcom and Cemex to Paccar and Xilinx Chinese real estate developers to U.S. small caps. Clear, concise, and exceptionally readable, The Well-Timed Strategy makes complex macroeconomic forecasting easy to understand -- and even easier to act upon.

Introduction xvii

Chapter 1: Strategies and Tactics of the Master Cyclist Executive 1

Chapter 2: Countercycling Your Capital Expenditures 15

Chapter 3: The Acquisitive Master Cyclist Buys Low and Sells High 39

Chapter 4: The Art of “Cherry Picking” and Other Well-Timed Tactics of the Human Resources Manager 55

Chapter 5: “Macromanaging” Your Production, Inventory, and Supply Chain 75

Chapter 6: Master Cyclist Marketing Through the Business Cycle Seasons 95

Chapter 7: Pricing the Cycle and Managing Credit and Account Receivables 111

Chapter 8: Proactive Profiting From Oil Price Spikes, Interest Rate Hikes, and Exchange Rate Risks 129

Chapter 9: When You Can’t Beat the Business Cycle, Hedge Its Risks! 149

Chapter 10: Surviving–and Prospering from–the Economic Shocks of War, Terrorism, Drought, and Disease 169

Chapter 11: The Master Cyclist’s Favorite Forecasting Tools 185

Concluding Thoughts 211

Appendix A: The Master Cyclist Project’s Treasure Trove of Data and All-Star Team 213

Appendix B: A Business Cycle Primer 223

Notes 233

Index 239

Peter Navarro is a business professor at the University of California, Irvine.

 

He is author of the best-selling investment book If It’s Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks and the best-selling audio lecture course “Big Picture Investing: How, When, and Why the Stock Market Moves.” His weekly newsletter on the economy and stock market is distributed widely and is available to the public at www.peternavarro.com.

 

A widely sought-after and gifted public speaker, Navarro has appeared  on Bloomberg TV, CNN, CNBC, NPR, and all three major network news shows. Navarro’s articles have appeared in a wide range of leading publications, including Barron’s, Business Week, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Sloan Management Review.

 

Professor Navarro holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.