Own the Future: 50 Ways to Win from The Boston Consulting Group

Own the Future: 50 Ways to Win from The Boston Consulting Group

by Michael Deimler, Richard Lesser, David Rhodes, Janmejaya Sinha
Released April 2013
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118591703

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Book description

The world faces social, political, and economic turmoil on an unprecedented scale—along with unsettling levels of turbulence and volatility. Market leadership today is less of a predictor of leadership tomorrow. Therefore, senior executives today must strive to own the future.

In Own the Future, The Boston Consulting Group, one of the world's most prestigious and innovative management consulting firms, offers a roadmap. Drawing on the firm's experience advising organizations on how to achieve and sustain competitive advantage, this book offers 50 ideas to help readers chart their organization's path to future leadership. The articles are organized along ten attributes critical to success in the current environment—adaptive, global, connected, sustainable, customer-first, fit to win, value-driven, trusted, bold, and inspiring.

The future may be unknowable, but The Boston Consulting Group offers insights from its 50 years of practice on how readers can position their organization to win—to change the game and to own the future.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Introduction
  6. Part I: Adaptive
    1. Chapter 1: Why Strategy Needs a Strategy
      1. Finding the Right Strategic Style
      2. When the Cold Winds Blow
      3. Operating in Many Modes
    2. Chapter 2: Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage
      1. The Ability to Read and Act on Signals
      2. The Ability to Experiment
      3. The Ability to Manage Complex Multicompany Systems
      4. The Ability to Mobilize
      5. The Challenge for Big Business
    3. Chapter 3: Systems Advantage
      1. Properties of Adaptive Systems
      2. Guidelines for an Adaptive Systems Approach
      3. Moving toward an Adaptive System
    4. Chapter 4: Adaptive Leadership
      1. Dimensions of Adaptive Leadership
      2. Modulating the Leadership Model
    5. Chapter 5: Competing on Capabilities
      1. Becoming a Capabilities-Based Competitor
      2. A New Logic of Growth: The Capabilities Predator
  7. Part II: Global
    1. Chapter 6: Globality: The World beyond Globalization
      1. Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything
      2. The Seven Struggles
      3. The Way Forward
    2. Chapter 7: The New Global Challengers
      1. Global Challengers
      2. Competition and Cooperation
      3. The Game Has Changed
    3. Chapter 8: Winning in Emerging-Market Cities
      1. The Rise of the Cities
      2. Capturing the Consumer Opportunity
      3. Capturing the Infrastructure Opportunity
      4. The New Agenda for Emerging-Market Growth
    4. Chapter 9: What the West Doesn't Get about China
      1. How Multinationals Should Navigate the Emerging China
    5. Chapter 10: The African Challengers
      1. A Fresh Perspective
      2. African Contenders
      3. Keys to Success
      4. The Global Challenge
      5. Looking Ahead
  8. Part III: Connected
    1. Chapter 11: The Digital Manifesto
      1. A Shifting Center of Gravity
      2. The Internet Meets Main Street
      3. A Digital Future
      4. The CEO's Agenda: Building the Digital Balance Sheet
      5. The Policy Maker's Agenda: Keeping the Internet Moving
    2. Chapter 12: Data to Die For
      1. Why Do Companies Come Up Short?
      2. Strategies That Pay Off
      3. The Need for a Strategy
    3. Chapter 13: The Collision of Power and Portability
      1. The Power-Portability Spectrum
      2. The Portability Paradigm
      3. The Power-Portability Collision
    4. Chapter 14: China's Digital Generations 3.0: The Online Empire
      1. A Massive Mass Medium
      2. Not Just Fun and Games
      3. A Nation of Avid Adopters
      4. The Power of Digital Dialogue
      5. A Call to Action
  9. Part IV: Sustainable
    1. Chapter 15: The Benefits of Sustainability-Driven Innovation
      1. The Stakeholder Effect
      2. The Role of Top Management
      3. Recommendations
    2. Chapter 16: Creating Practical Consumer Value from Sustainability
      1. A Challenging Opportunity
      2. Breaking Through
      3. Focusing Green Products on Consumers' Concerns
      4. Timing the Market
    3. Chapter 17: Potential Impacts of the New Sustainability Champions
      1. Innovations on the Ground
      2. Following the Leaders
      3. Moving Forward
  10. Part V: Customer First
    1. Chapter 18: Breaking Compromises
      1. Uncompromising Opportunity
      2. A Pathway to Growth
      3. Creativity, Flexibility, and Nerve
    2. Chapter 19: Brand-Centric Transformation: Balancing Art and Data
      1. Rules to Remember
      2. Understanding the Brand-Benefit Ladder
      3. A Four-Step Solution
    3. Chapter 20: Unlocking Growth in the Middle: A View from India and China
      1. Four Steps to Business Model Innovation
      2. Early Questions for Executives
    4. Chapter 21: Treasure Hunt
      1. The Dynamic Market Meets the Unpredictable Consumer
      2. Why People Trade Down
      3. Strategies for Winning
      4. The Trend Will Continue with or without You
  11. Part VI: Fit to Win
    1. Chapter 22: High-Performance Organizations
      1. Leadership
      2. Design
      3. People
      4. Change Management
      5. Culture and Engagement
      6. A New View on Organizational Success
    2. Chapter 23: Shaping Up: The Delayered Look
      1. Mapping the Problem
      2. A Cascading Process
    3. Chapter 24: Getting More from Lean: Seven Success Factors
      1. Different Definitions and Evolving Goals
      2. It's Tough to Do Well
      3. Seven Key Success Factors
    4. Chapter 25: The Demand-Driven Supply Chain
      1. What Is a DDSC?
      2. Evolving Capabilities
      3. Six Success Factors
      4. Benefits of a DDSC
    5. Chapter 26: Pricing Fluency
      1. A Master Program for Pricing
      2. Implementing the Master Plan for Long-term Success
      3. Support for the Journey
    6. Chapter 27: The IT Organization of the Future
      1. Why Should the IT Unit Drive Business Change?
      2. Adopting the Mind-Set of a Business Change Driver
      3. Developing the Capabilities Necessary to Drive Business Change
      4. Engaging Business Leaders
  12. Part VII: Value-Driven
    1. Chapter 28: The Experience Curve Reviewed
    2. Chapter 29: The Rule of Three and Four: A BCG Classic Revisited
      1. Testing the Rule of Three and Four
      2. Implications for Decision Makers
    3. Chapter 30: The CEO as Investor
      1. What an Investment Thesis Is—and Is Not
      2. A Tale of Two CEOs
      3. Identifying the Right Value Pattern
    4. Chapter 31: Focusing Corporate Strategy on Value Creation
      1. The Logic—and Limits—of Traditional Corporate Strategy
      2. An Integrated Model of Value Creation
      3. Business Strategy, Financial Strategy, and Investor Strategy
    5. Chapter 32: Powering Up for Postmerger Integration
      1. Finding the Strategic Pulse of a PMI
      2. Our Lesson
    6. Chapter 33: Resilience: Lessons from Family Businesses
  13. Part VIII: Trusted
    1. Chapter 34: Social Advantage
      1. Obstacles to Integration
      2. Aligning Social and Business Dimensions
      3. Creating Social Advantage
      4. Starting the Journey
    2. Chapter 35: From Reciprocity to Reputation
      1. Reciprocity
      2. Reputation
      3. Technology
      4. Implications
    3. Chapter 36: The Return of the Politician
      1. Taking Back the Power
      2. Responding to the New Realities
    4. Chapter 37: Collaboration Rules
      1. Tuesday, December 2, 2003
      2. Saturday, February 1, 1997
      3. Obsession, Interaction, and a Light Touch
      4. What They Know and How They Know It
      5. The Power of Trust and Applause
      6. Cheap Transactions and Plenty of Them
      7. A Model for Many
  14. Part IX: Bold
    1. Chapter 38: Thinking in New Boxes
      1. We Cannot Think without Models
      2. The Art of Thinking in New Boxes (Because Thinking outside the Box Is Not Enough)
      3. How to Create New Boxes
    2. Chapter 39: Rethinking Scenarios: What a Difference a Day Makes
      1. A New Box for Scenarios
      2. From Fact to (Near) Fiction
      3. Rethinking Scenarios
    3. Chapter 40: Business Model Innovation: When the Game Gets Tough, Change the Game
      1. What Is BMI?
      2. BMI's Potential to Change the Game
      3. What Can Go Wrong?
      4. Establishing a Capability for BMI
      5. Questions for Mobilizing the Organization
    4. Chapter 41: The Deconstruction of Value Chains
      1. The Logic of Value Chains—Undermined
      2. Patterns of Deconstruction
      3. The Implications of Deconstruction
    5. Chapter 42: Time-Based Management
      1. Time and Innovation
      2. Time and Service
      3. Time and Integration
      4. Time and Business Process Reengineering
    6. Chapter 43: The New “Low Cost”
      1. History and the Golden Rules of Low Cost
      2. The New Wave of Low-Cost Business Models
      3. How Should Traditional Companies React?
      4. A Call to Action
    7. Chapter 44: The Hardball Manifesto
      1. Fundamental Corporate Purpose
      2. A Never-Ending Cycle
    8. Chapter 45: Leading Transformation
      1. Winning in the Medium Term
      2. Funding the Journey
      3. Building the Right Team, Organization, and Culture
  15. Part X: Inspiring
    1. Chapter 46: Jazz vs. Symphony
    2. Chapter 47: Probing
      1. Probing Takes Us beyond Data Analysis
    3. Chapter 48: Smart Simplicity
      1. Rule 1: Improve Understandingof What Coworkers Do
      2. Rule 2: Reinforce the People Who Are Integrators
      3. Rule 3: Expand the Amount of Power Available
      4. Rule 4: Increase the Need for Reciprocity
      5. Rule 5: Make Employees Feel the Shadow of the Future
      6. Rule 6: Put the Blame on the Uncooperative
      7. Why Not Aim for Smart Simplicity?
    4. Chapter 49: Strategic Optimism: How to Shape the Future in Times of Crisis
      1. The Glass Half Full: Optimism in Times of Crisis
      2. Carpe Diem: Turning Optimism into Action
      3. 10 Steps to a New Way of Doing Business
    5. Chapter 50: Lessons from My Three Decades with the Change Monster
      1. Be Bold
      2. Be Utterly Obvious
      3. Be Careful What You Promise
      4. Make Commitments Stick
      5. Forget Happy
      6. Take Culture Seriously and Work On It Explicitly
      7. Be Responsible and Stay Responsible
      8. Stay Connected
      9. Provide Interpretation and Meaning
      10. Celebrate the Accomplishments Along the Way
  16. Contributors
  17. Index

Product information

  • Title: Own the Future: 50 Ways to Win from The Boston Consulting Group
  • Author(s): Michael Deimler, Richard Lesser, David Rhodes, Janmejaya Sinha
  • Release date: April 2013
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118591703