The runaway international bestseller with more than 600,000 copies sold, now expanded to make its message even more compelling for todays market leaders.. Why is it that Casio can sell a calculator more cheaply than Kelloggs can sell a box of corn flakes? Why can FedEx absolutely, positively deliver your package overnight but airlines have trouble keeping track of your bags? What does your company do better than anyone else? What unique value do you provide to your customers? How will you increase that value next year? As customers demands for the highest quality products, best services, and lowest prices increase daily, the rules for market leadership are changing. Once powerful companies that havent gotten the message are faltering, while others, new and old, are thriving. In disarmingly simple and provocative terms, Treacy and Wiersema show what it takes to become a leader in your market, and stay there, in an ever more sophisticated and demanding world.

Table of Contents

* Introduction * How to Fail in Business Without Even Trying * The New Rules of Competition * The Winners Choice * The Discipline of Operational Excellence * One Companys ExperienceAT&Ts Universal Card * The Discipline of Product Leaders * One Companys ExperienceIntel Corporation * The Discipline of Customer Intimacy * One Companys ExperienceAirborne Express * Setting Your Value Discipline Agenda * Creating the Cult of the Customer * Sustaining the Lead * Epilogue

Reviews

Using data from CSC Index, a management consulting firm whose work spawned the bestseller Reengineering the Corporation, Treacy and Wiersema present their case on how corporations can become number one in their market. Their central thesis is that companies can't be all things to all people and therefore must concentrate on one of three areas‘operational excellence (low prices), product leadership (the newest products) or customer intimacy (providing complete solutions to meet customers' business needs). Once a company chooses the area it wants to focus on, all systems in the company must serve that primary goal, although the authors stress that companies must remain at least adequate in the areas that they are downplaying. Treacy and Wiersema, both of whom are management consultants, provide short case studies on how three companies‘AT&T Universal Card, Intel and Airborne Express‘used this focusing technique to carve themselves a major share of business in their respective markets. Written with a minimum of management jargon, the work seems aimed primarily for executives at large companies, although small businesspeople could find relevant ideas here. $500,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Feb.)

Consultants and business strategists Treacy and Wiersema provide the conceptual model for companies to attain and sustain market leadership. Their plan is simple: put unmatched value (best product, best total solution, or best total cost) in the marketplace while meeting threshold standards in other dimensions of value. Making the improvement of the chosen value to customers the focus of the entire company will result in corresponding shareholder value. The authors follow up their theory with practical guidelines for constructing an appropriate operational model, and offer many examples using well-known companies. A landmark work in market strategy that goes beyond TQM principles, this volume is essential for entrepreneurs and for public, academic, and corporate libraries.-Nancy Myers, Univ. of South Dakota Lib., Vermillion