Profit From The Core
Growth Strategy in en Era of
Turbulence
SECRETS TO
SUSTAINED,PROFITABLE GROWTH REVEALED
NINETY PERCENT OF COMPANIES
worldwide failed to achieve sustained, profitable growth over the past decade. While
current business wisdom calls for "new rules" for strategy and organization, a
breakthrough book reveals that the answer to the growth dilemma actually lies in basic,
enduring economic principles.
Based on a sweeping ten-year
study of more than two thousand technology, service, and product companies in a variety of
industries, Profit from the Core argues that most growth strategies fail to deliver value
or even destroy itprimarily because they wrongly diversify from the core business. The
authors contend that this timeless strategic precept building market power in a
well-defined core remains the key source of competitive advantage and the most viable
platform for successful expansion.
Drawing from hundreds of
in-depth case studies, interviews with more than one hundred CEOs, and the authors' broad
consulting and business experience, the book identifies and explains three key factors
that differentiate growth strategies that succeed from those that fail: (1) reaching full
potential in the core business; (2) expanding into logical adjacent businesses surrounding
that core; and (3) preemptively redefining the core business in response to market
turbulence.
The authors identify the
classic problems that incumbents encounter in each of these areas and borrowing lessons
from private equity and start-up ventures explain how to resolve them in today's
rapidly changing business environment. The book concludes with guidelines for how
companies can become sustained value creators capable of successfully refining and
revamping the core business over time.
Identifying enduring, often
counterintuitive principles that fly in the face of new economy hype, Profit from the Core
is an indispensable strategic guide to achieving long-term, profitable growth in any
business.
Christopher Zook is a
Director of Bain & Company and Head of its Worldwide Strategy Practice.
James Alien is CEO of
evolution Global Partners, a venture capital firm that helps launch new, Internet-enabled
businesses.
189 pages