The Second Curve : Managing the Velocity of Change

Ian Morrison

ISBN 10: 1857881273 / ISBN 13: 9781857881271

Published by Nicholas Brealey, London England, 1996

About this Item

Anticipate the pace of change. Identify your company's new direction. Know when to jump onto the second curve. 272 pp. Seller Inventory # 046486

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Second Curve : Managing the Velocity of ...

Publisher: Nicholas Brealey, London England

Publication Date: 1996

Binding: Cloth

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Edition: First Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Change is the buzzword for today's business leaders. But unless prepared, massive changes in the marketplace can erode a company. This volume introduces a way to ride the first curve - a company's traditional business carried out in a familiar corporate climate - to the all-important second curve of the new consumers, new markets and new technologies, combined to bring about sweeping, irrevocable alterations in the way every industry functions. But the art is to know whether or not what one thinks is a second curve really is one - or whether it's a phantom, just something going bump in the corporate night. Sorting out the new technologies that will take off from those that will fail - even if they fail in interesting ways - is very difficult and critical. And sorting out real growth potential from hype is difficult even in non-technology areas. Is the second-curve candidate a Southwest Airlines or People's Express Is it a Toys 'R' Us with its 22 per cent market share or Child World, a chain that once had 130 stores with $180 million, but went bankrupt a few years ago The following little-known but useful piece of wisdom may be helpful in sorting out real second curves from there is a tendency to overestimate the impact of phenomena in the short run, and to underestimate in the long run. For most large companies, choosing one or the other curves to work on is a luxury they can't afford. The driving forces of change described will continue to generate two curves, and to make it to the 21st century, these companies must learn to manage on both. Large corporations will have to go beyond re-engineering, time-based competition and core competencies as the sole means of growth. They must build second-curve organizations to perpetuate themselves as market leaders, while at the same time getting the most they can from their first-curve business. Those that don't will wither and die

Review:

The business world is undergoing a profound revolution as the new millennium inches closer, and one of the best assessments of its implications and possibilities comes from Institute for the Future president Ian Morrison in his The Second Curve: Managing the Velocity of Change. This thoughtful work advances one simple yet striking concept: business leaders must stop focusing on the short-term and start planning for the long run. Making the most of current profits is the first curve in business, Morrison writes; shifts in technology and the marketplace signify the second. Understanding how these critical changes develop and knowing what they mean, he contends, will help business leaders make the necessary leap from one to the other.