This remarkable anthology of articles on strategy and management is an essential companion for executives facing the need to rethink their businesses. Whether the task is to defeat new or entrenched competitors, it is often necessary to go back to the basics and to consider radical departures. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy will help readers do both because it contains seminal concepts about reducing costs and gaining market share, as well as new thinking on the power of networks, pricing and segmentation, and the impcat of ever cheaper communications and distribution.

With the exception of several articles that appeared first in the Harvard Business Review, most of the pieces in this book are "Perspectives" short essays that were originally published by The Boston Consulting Group for its clients. The ideas they present were almost all develop and tested in the course of working with clients worlwide to improve both position and performance.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is regarded as one of the premier management consulting its founder, Bruce Henderson, with inventing the field of corporate strategy. The themes that run through BCG's ideas - the importance of competitive advantage, the need to "break compromises " and "de-average" the numbers, the value of time, and the power of seeing second or third order causes - are more relevant than ever because the need for effective strategy has never been greater. This is a book for managers who want to understand how the business world really works and how to change the course of their companies based on that understanding.

The Boston Consulting Group on Staregy offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry.

Table of Contents:

PART ONE The Nature of Business Strategy

Strategic and Natural Competition, Bruce D. Henderson, 1980 2



PART TWO The Development of Business Strategy

Foundations 9

The Experience Curve Reviewed: History, Bruce D.

Henderson, 1973 12

The Experience Curve Reviewed: Why Does It Work?

Bruce D. Henderson, 1974 15

The Experience Curve Reviewed: Price Stability,

Bruce D. Henderson, 1974 18

The Pricing Paradox, Bruce D. Henderson, 1970 24

The Market-Share Paradox, Bruce D. Henderson, 1970 27

More Debt or None? Bruce D. Henderson, 1972 29

The Rule of Three and Four, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 31

The Product Portfolio, Bruce D. Henderson, 1970 35

The Real Objectives, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 38

Milestones 40

Life Cycle of the Industry Leader, Bruce D. Henderson, 1972 43

The Evils of Average Costing, Richard K. Lochridge, 1975 46

Specialization or the Full Product Line, Michael C. Goold, 1979 48

Stalemate: The Problem, John S. Clarkeson, 1984 51

Business Environments, Richard K. Lochridge, 1981 56

Revolution on the Factory floor, Thomas M. Hout

and George StalkJr., 1982 59

Time-The Next Source of Competitive Advantage,

George Stalk Jr., 1988 63

Competing on Capabilities: The New Rules of Corporate Strategy,

George StalkJr., Philip B. Evans, and

Lawrence E. Shulman, 1992 82

Strategy and the New Economics of Information,

Philip B. Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, 1997 99

Collaboration Rules, Philip Evans and Bob Wolf, 2005 120



PART THREE The Practice of Business Strategy

The Customer: Segmentation and Value Creation 137

Segmentation and Strategy, Seymour Tilles, 1974 139

Strategic Sectors, Bruce D. Henderson, 1975 141

Specialization, Richard K. Lochridge, 1981 143

Specialization: Cost Reduction or Price Realization,

AnthonyJ. Habgood, 1981 145

Segment-of-One? Marketing, Richard Winger

and David Edelman, 1989 147

Discovering Your Customer, Michael J. Silverstein

and Philip Siegel, 1991 151

Total Brand Management, David C. Edelman

and MichaelJ. Silverstein, 1993 154

Pricing Myopia, Philippe Morel, George StalkJr.,

Peter Stanger, and Peter Wetenhall, 2003 157

Trading Up, MichaelJ. Silverstein and Neil Fiske,

2003 and 2005 162

Trading Down: Living Large on $150 a Day,

Lucy Brady and Michael J. Silverstein, 2005 168

Innovation and Growth 173

From the Insight Out, MichaelJ. Silverstein, 1995 174

Capitalizing on Anomalies, Lawrence E. Shulman, 1997 176

Breaking Compromises, George StalkJr., David K. Pecaut,

and Benjamin Burnett, 1997 179

A New Product Every Week? Lessons from Magazine Publishing,

Gary Reiner and Shikhar Ghosh, 1988 183

Innovatingfor Cash, James P. Andrew and

Harold L. Sirkin, 2003 186

Acquiring Your Future, Mark Blaxill and

Kevin Rivette, 2004 189

Deconstruction of Value Chains 194

The New Vertical Integration, John R. Frantz and

Thomas M. Hout, 1993 195

The Deconstruction of Value Chains, Carl W. Stern, 1998 198

How Deconstruction Drives De-Averaging, Philip B. Evans, 1998 201

Thinking Strategically about E-Commerce, Philip B. Evans

and Thomas S. Wurster, 1999 205

From "Clicks and Mortar" to "Clicks and Bricks,"

Philip B. Evans and Thomas S. Wurster, 2000 208

Thermidor: The Internet Revolution and After,

Philip B. Evans, 2001 210

The Online Employee, Michael S. Deimler and

Morten T. Hansen, 2001 214

Richer Sourcing, Philip B. Evans and Bob Wolf, 2004 218

The Real Contest between America and China,

Thomas Hout andJean Lebreton, 2003 223

Performance Measurement 227

Profit Center Ethics, Bruce D. Henderson, 1971 229

The Story ofJoe (A Fable), Bruce D. Henderson, 1977 232

Controllingfor Growth in a Multidivision Business,

Patrick Conley, 1968 234

Making Performance Measurements Perform,

Robert Malchione, 1991 237

Economic Value Added, Eric E. Olsen, 1996 240

New Directions in Value Management, Eric E. Olsen, 2002 244

Workonomics, Felix Barber, Jeff Kotzen, Eric Olsen,

and Rainer Strack, 2002 248

Resource Allocation 254

Cash Traps, Bruce D. Henderson, 1972 255

The Star of the Portfolio, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 258

Anatomy of the Cash Cow, Bruce D. Henderson, 1976 259

The Corporate Portfolio, Bruce D. Henderson, 1977 262

Renaissance of the Portfolio, Anthony W. Miles, 1986 265

Premium Conglomerates, Dieter Heuskel, 1996 268

The End of the Public Company-As We Know It,

Larry Shulman, 2000 271

Advantage, Returns, and Growth-In That Order,

Gerry Hansell, 2005 275

Organizational Design 281

Profit Centers and Decentralized Management,

Bruce D. Henderson, 1968 282

Unleash Intuition, Richard K. Lochridge, 1984 285

Network Organizations, Todd L. Hixon, 1989 289

The Myth of the Horizontal Organization, PhilippeJ. Amouyal

andJill E. Black, 1994 292

The Activist Center, Dennis N. Rheault

and Simon P. Trussler, 1995 295

Shaping Up: The Delayered Look, Ron Nicol, 2004 298

A Survivor's Guide to Organization Redesign, Felix Barber,

D. Grant Freeland, and David Brownell, 2002 302

Leadership and Change 309

Why Change Is So Difficult, Bruce D. Henderson, 1967 310

Leadership, Bruce D. Henderson, 1966 312

How to Recognize the Need for Change, Carl W. Stern, 1983 315

Sustained Success, AlanJ. Zakon

and Richard K. Lochridge, 1984 318

Strategy and Learning, Seymour Tilles, 1985 323

Let Middle Managers Manage, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 1991 327

Jazz versus Symphony, John S. Clarkeson, 1990 330

The Change Curve, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 2001 333

Leadership in a Time of Uncertainty, Bolko von

Oetinger, 2002 342

Leading in Emotional Times, Jeanie Daniel Duck, 2002 345

The Forgotten Half of Change, Luc de Brabandere, 2005 347



PART FOUR Business Thinking

Business Thinking, Bruce D. Henderson, 1977 354

Brinkmanship in Business, Bruce D. Henderson, 1967 357

Business Chess, Rudyard L. Istvan, 1984 361

Probing, Jonathan L. Isaacs, 1985 366

Creative Analysis, Anthony W. Miles, 1987 369

Make Decisions Like a Fighter Pilot, Mark F. Blaxill

and Thomas M. Hout, 1987 370

The Seduction of Reductionist Thinking, Jeanie

Daniel Duck, 1992 373

Choices, Again, BarryJones and Larry Shulman, 2003 376

The Hardball Manifesto, George StalkJr. and

Rob Lachenauer, 2004 377



PART FIVE Social Commentary

Failure to Compete, Bruce D. Henderson, 1973 383

Inflation and Investment Return, Bruce D. Henderson, 1974 384

Conflicting Tax Objectives, Bruce D. Henderson, 1975 385

Dumping, Bruce D. Henderson, 1978 387

Adversaries or Partners? Bruce D. Henderson, 1983 389

The Promise of Disease Management, Joshua Gray

and Peter Lawyer, 1995 393

Making Sure Independent Doesn't Mean Ignorant,

Colin Carter and Jay W. Lorsch, 2002 400