| Renewable Advantage: Crafting Strategy Through Economic Time | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeffrey Williams
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (10 reviews)
Sales Rank: 908491
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 1416551239
Dewey Decimal Number: 338
EAN: 9781416551232
ASIN: 1416551239
Publication Date: September 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The task of continuously renewing a company is the greatest challenge confronting any chief executive. To enable managers to project renewal strategies likely to win in the future, Jeffrey Williams has constructed a dynamic road map of outcomes in what he calls "economic time," based on a ten-year study of growth, decline, and renewal patterns of hundreds of companies in forty-five industries. In this superbly readable book, Williams's revolutionary, award-winning concept of slow-, standard-, and fast-cycle economic time provides a unifying business language that the multicycle manager can use to compare the renewal opportunities of widely diverse products, companies, and markets.Using examples and studies from companies such as Starbucks, McDonald's, UPS, Compaq, Sony, Merck, Disney, Toyota, IKEA, Microsoft, Sony, Intel, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Chrysler, and Hewlett-Packard, Williams explains that the key idea in economic time is being able to manage products and organizations according to the speed and means by which economic value arises, decays, and is renewed. The drivers of economic time are isolating mechanisms -- a firm's unique capabilities that lie at the heart of its competitive advantage -- and that, in Williams's framework, "delay" product obsolescence. Building on his intuitively appealing model, Williams describes how his three laws of renewal -- convergence, alignment, and renewal -- provide guidelines by which managers can gain command over strategy in complex, dynamic competitive situations. Renewable Advantage is not only essential reading but also will become a standard reference for senior and division managers, business scientists and strategists, and general managers in all industries.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Great knowledge December 16, 2008
The concept of economic time allows the reader to gain a much better understanding of how sustainable a strategy and its associated advantages are. Great book.
The dimension of time makes the difference June 25, 2006
Strategic management is a fascinating topic, and attracts much authorship; at first glance, this work may look like 'just another book on strategy'. Fortunately, it is much deeper than that. Paying attention to different parts of the business environment, and tracking the rate at which change takes place across many parameters, the author examines strategy through the concept of 'economic time'.
While the concept is simple, its ramifications are not: companies operating in different cycles must learn to develop, test, market, partner, cannibalize, reinvent, re-release, give away, and change, in very different ways. This dramatically affects their organizational structures and resource allocation, as well as their culture. Dr Williams makes these points very clear, and has organized the book in a way that gives appropriate weight to the discussions that lead to a new way of thinking.
In particular, I would recommend the chapter on "Multicycle Management" to anyone working in a big company or conglomerate, which cannot get defined by a single cycle style.
Upon finishing this book, the reader will be armed with a new way of viewing departments, companies, even industries.
Renewable Advantage delivers Remarkable Advantage May 18, 2000
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Jeffrey Williams has delivered a new and important way for businesses to view their strategic position. Whether slow cycle, or fast cycle, his most important revelation is that no business has the right simply to exist. All businesses exist to maximize value to the stakeholder. Sometimes, maximum value is only achieved by transforming your business. Ultimately, maximum value may be achieved by breakup or dissolution of the business. Once these sobering realizations are assimilated, Professor Williams proceeds in a very readable and informative way to help businesses understand where they are, where their markets are, and how to maximize value where they need to be. A must read for voyagers through the New Economy.
Former CMU E-Commerce Student April 13, 2000
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Jeffrey Williams has broken new ground in the field of strategic management! This book will help guide managers and investors through the often cloudy world of economic time. By following the precepts laid out in this book, companies will be able to achieve sustainable competitive advantage regardless of the industry or competition. Professor Williams book is as engaging as his lectures. A must read!
Must read for any serious business person September 25, 1999
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Jeffrey Williams takes an new approach to analyzing competitive forces based on the new concept of economic time. This allows insight into how to manage and compete within different industries, or, within different divisions of a company. I found the insights to be unique, and extraordinarily valuable to me as an entrepreneur in the high tech industry.
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