From experts at McKinsey & Company's world-renowned growth practice comes a highly practical, field-tested approach to initiating and sustaining growth in companies of all sizes. . Growth unleashes benefits beyond the economic. It revitalizes organizations and invigorates the people in them, creating energy, a sense of purpose, and the glow of being on a winning team. Like the alchemy of old, it seeks to transform the everyday into the exalted by means that seem little short of magical. Yet growth is often elusive, achieved at unacceptable costs, or managed in fits and starts. Based on over three years of research and application at high-performing companies around the world, The Alchemy of Growth is a comprehensive, practical approach to initiating, achieving, and sustaining profitable growthtoday and tomorrow. As the book shows, the secret is to manage business opportunities across three time horizons at once: extending and defending core businesses, building new businesses, and seeding options for the future. The Alchemy of Growth offers managers at all levels the tools and concepts for investing in the right initiatives, capabilities, and talent to propel their companies into the future.

Reviews

This slender volume is the latest in a growing number of books from accounting, management, or consulting giants. Here, the topic is that most elusive of business concepts, growth. Coauthors Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White are partners at the renowned consulting firm of McKinsey & Company, specializing in growth strategies. They feel that the growth creation process has three stages: maximizing current business, building emerging issues, and developing viable options. This framework is used to examine successes and failures while exploring the interrelated issues of inertia, momentum, business history, opportunity, leadership, and sustained growth. The last third of the volume consists of two-page summaries of the 30 companies used as successful examples. The concepts are clear, logical, and well documented with footnotes, but this type of business book will date quickly even if the underlying theoretical framework is sound. Public and undergraduate libraries will find this an acceptable though optional purchase.ÄPatrick J. Brunet, Western Wisconsin Technical Coll. Lib., LaCrosse Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.