Is it really so important for established companies to innovate? Recent popular wisdom has asserted that companies should overhaul their cultures to encourage radical thinking and innovation in an effort to create new markets. But the skill-sets of most established companies are far better suited to scaling up newly-created markets (in other words, being fast seconds) than to creating those markets. In Fast Second, strategy experts Markides and Geroski explore the characteristics of new markets and describe the skills needed to create and compete in them (and how these skills match up with different types of companies). They illustrate how to determine which new markets have the potential to be successful and how to colonize them before your competitors do. They also explain why being a fast second is more financially rewarding than being innovative. Topics addressed include: Examples of successful fast second such as Microsoft, Amazon, Canon, JVC, Heinz, AOL, UK based Watson, Palm and more. The distinction between product/service innovation and new market creation; Which markets are appropriate to colonize; When to make your move; How to scale up a market (and do it without neglecting your established markets); Where to position your company in the market; Whether to be a colonizer or a consolidator.
Book Details:
- Author: Constantinos C. Markides
- ISBN: 9780470240182
- Year Published: 2004
- Pages: 208
- BISAC: BUS041000, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Management
About the Book and Topic:
Is it really so important for established companies to innovate? Recent popular wisdom has asserted that companies should overhaul their cultures to encourage radical thinking and innovation in an effort to create new markets. But the skill-sets of most established companies are far better suited to scaling up newly-created markets (in other words, being fast seconds) than to creating those markets. In Fast Second, strategy experts Markides and Geroski explore the characteristics of new markets and describe the skills needed to create and compete in them (and how these skills match up with different types of companies). They illustrate how to determine which new markets have the potential to be successful and how to colonize them before your competitors do. They also explain why being a fast second is more financially rewarding than being innovative. Topics addressed include: Examples of successful fast second such as Microsoft, Amazon, Canon, JVC, Heinz, AOL, UK based Watson, Palm and more. The distinction between product/service innovation and new market creation; Which markets are appropriate to colonize; When to make your move; How to scale up a market (and do it without neglecting your established markets); Where to position your company in the market; Whether to be a colonizer or a consolidator.
AUTHOR EXPERTISE/PLATFORM: Both are world recognized, Markides as a strategist, Geroski as an economist. Confirmed articles to hit target market and drive interest: Harvard Business Review (Fall ’03), Strategy & Business, California Management Review, and others. CONFIRMED ENDORSERS: Every bestselling strategy author will endorse: Michael Porter, Gary Hamel, Clay Christensen and Henry Mintzberg have all agreed to endorse. COMPANIES PROFILED: Heniz, JVC, Microsoft, Palm, Proctor & Gamble, Schwab, AOL, UK based Watson, Ford and more. TOPIC TIMELINESS: Companies are trying to figure out new ways to grow and reap financial success without a huge outlay of money to R&D. Authors offer a fresh and potentially controversial take on how companies can best accomplish this in the new work environment
About the Author
Constantinos Markides is author of the bestselling strategy book All the Right Moves (23,000 copies sold) and professor of strategic and international management at London Business School and Harvard Business School. He has taught many in-company programs at Honeywell, Pirelli, and Unilever, among others. He is a native of Cyprus, and lives in London. Paul Geroski is a professor of economics at London Business School whose specialties include competitive strategy and market structure. He is also Deputy Chairman of the Competition Commission, an economic regulation affiliate of the British government. He has written numerous books and articles and was a senior lecturer at the University of Southampton. He grew up in the U.S. but has lived in the UK since 1975.