Key Strategy Tools

Key Strategy Tools will help you cherry-pick the most useful approaches for your business, creating a robust strategy that withstands investor scrutiny and becomes your roadmap to success.

Covering 88 models and techniques, framed within an innovative strategy pyramid, this user-friendly manual takes you through each step of the process. Whether analysing your market, building competitive advantage or addressing risk, you'll find the strategic thinking tools you need at every stage.

• Introduction
• The Strategy Pyramid
• How to use this book
• Business vs corporate strategy
• Section 1: Knowing your business
• Overview
• Essential tools
1. Identifying key segments
2. Issue analysis (Minto)
• Example: British Aerospace's super segment
• Useful tools
3. The 80/20 principle (Pareto)
4. The segmentation mincer (Koch)
5. 5C situation analysis
6. SWOT analysis (Andrews)
• Section 2: Setting goals and objectives
• Overview
• Essential tools
7. Setting long-term goals
8. Setting SMART objectives
9. Maximising stakeholder values
10. Balancing stakeholders interests
• Example: Which goals count for RBS?
• Useful tools
11. Creating shared value (Porter and Kramer)
12. Economic value added (Stern Stewart)
13. Balanced scorecard and strategy map (Kaplan and Norton)
14. Core ideology (Collins and Porras)
15. Business as a community (Handy)
• Section 3: Forecasting market demand
• Overview
• Essential tools
16. Sizing the market and marketcrafting (Evans)
17. The HOOF approach to demand forecasting (Evans)
• Example: Galileo's hiccup in market demand
• Useful tools
18. Smoothing with moving averages
19. Income elasticity of demand
20. Survey methods of demand forecasting
• Survey of customers' intentions
• Salesforce estimation method
• The Delphi method
• Pilot test marketing
21. Statistical methods of demand forecasting
• Trend projection
• Regression analysis
• Barometric method (NBER)
• Section 4: Gauging industry competition
• Overview
• Essential tools
22. The five forces (Porter)
23. Assessing customer purchasing criteria
24. Deriving key success factors
• Example: Woolworths succumbs to the five forces
• Useful tools
25. Weighing economies of scale
26. Corporate environment as a sixth force
27. Complements as a sixth force (Brandenburger and Nalebuff)
28. PESTEL analysis
• Section 5: Tracking competitive advantage
• Overview
• Essential tools
29. Rating competitive position
30. The resource and capability strengths/imprtance matrix (Grant)
• Example: Cobra Beer's clever competitive advantage
• Useful tools
31. The value chain (Porter)
32. The product/market matrix (Ansoff)
33. Cross, spider and comb charts
34. Benchmarking
35. Structural interviewing
• Section 6: Targeting the strategic gap
• Overview
• Essential tools
36. The attractiveness/advantage matrix (GE/McKinsey)
37. The growth/share matrix (BGC)
38. Profiling the ideal partner
39. Identifting the capability gap
• Example: Komatsu targets the cat
• Useful tools
40. The strategic condition matrix (Arthur D. Little)
41. The 7S framework (McKinsey)
42. The opportunity/vulnerability matrix (Bain/L.E.K.)
43. Brainstorming
44. Scenario planning
• Section 7: Bridging the gap: business strategy
• Overview
• Essential tools
45. Three generic strategies (Porter)
46. The experience curve (BCG)
47. Strategic repositioning and shaping profit growth options
48. Making the strategic investment decision
49. Blue ocean strategy (Kim and Mauborgne)
• Example: Could Facebook be undone the way it undid MySpace?
• Useful tools
50. The tipping point (Gladwell)
51. Price elasticity of demand (Marshall)
52. PIMS (GE/SPI)
53. The 4Ps marketing mix (McCarthy)
54. Product quality and satisfaction (Kano)
55. The hierarchy of needs (Maslow)
56. The bottom of the pyramid (Prahalad and Leiberthal)
57. Business process redesign (Hammer and Champy)
58. Outsourcing
• Section 8: Bridging the gap: corporate strategy
• Overview
• Essential tools
59. Optimising the corporate portfolio
60. Creating value from mergers, acquisitions and alliances
61. The corporate restructuring hexagon (McKinsey)
62. Creating parenting value (Gould, Campbell and Alexander)
63. Core competences (Hamel and Prahalad)
64. Strategically valuable resources (Collis and Montgomery)
• Example: Virgin's brand as resource-based strategy
• Useful tools
65. Strategically distinctive resources (Barney)
66. Distrinctive capabilities (Kay)
67. Distinctive competences (Snow and Hrebiniak)
68. Dynamic capabilities (Teece, Pisano and Shuen)
69. Deliberate and emergent strategy (Mintzberg)
70. Stick to the knitting (Peters and Waterman)
71. Profit from the core (Zook)
72. The market-driven organisation (Day)
73. Value disciplines (Treacy and Wiersema)
74. Disruptive technologies (Christensen)
75. Co-opetition (Brandenburger and Nalebuff)
76. Growth and crisis (Greiner)
77. Good strategy, bad strategy (Rumelt)
78. Innovation hot spots (Gratton)
79. Strategy as orientation or animation (Cummings and Wilson)
80. The knowledge spiral (Nonaka and Takeuchi)
81. The eight phases of change (Kotter)
• Section 9: Addressing risk and opportunity
• Overview
• Essential tools
82. Strategic due diligence and market contextual plan review (Evans)
83. The suns & clouds chart (Evans)
• Example: Were the Beatles worth the risk?
• Useful tools
84. The compositive risk index and the 5x5 risk matrix
85. The risk management matrix
86. Expected value and sensitivity analysis
87. Black swans (Taleb)
88. Strategic bets (Burgleman and Grove)

A very comprehensive and well-planned book about different models any aspiring MBA or practicing manager should know.

A very good book to have in your library collection.