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Competing for the Future By Hamel Gary Prahalad C K
Winning in business today is not about being number one--it's about who "gets to the future first," write management consultants Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. In Competing for the Future , they urge companies to create their own futures, envision new markets, and reinvent themselves. Hamel and Prahalad caution that complacent managers who get too comfortable in doing things the way they've always done will see their companies fall behind. For instance, the authors consider the battle between IBM and Apple in the 1970s. Entrenched as the leading mainframe-computer maker, IBM failed to see the potential market for personal computers. That left the door wide open for Apple, which envisioned a computer for every man, woman, and child. The authors write, "At worst, laggards follow the path of greatest familiarity. Challengers, on the other hand, follow the path of greatest opportunity, wherever it leads." They argue that business leaders need to be more than "maintenance engineers," worrying only about budget cutting, streamlining, re-engineering, and other old tactics. Definitely not for dilettantes, Competing for the Future is for managers who are serious getting their companies in front. -- Dan Ring
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Gary Hamel
56 books176 followersDr. Gary P. Hamel is an American management expert. He is a founder of Strategos, an international management consulting firm based in Chicago.
Gary Hamel is Professor of Strategic Management at London Business School. He has researched strategy development in a multinational context.
Gary Hamel is Professor of Strategic Management at London Business School. He has researched strategy development in a multinational context.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
March 31, 2012
As best summarized by the authors this book is about: "The goal of this book then can be simply stated: to help managers imagine the future and, having imagined it, create it. We want to help them get off the restructuring treadmill and get beyond the reengineering programs that simply rev up today's performance. We want to help them capture the riches that the future holds in store for those who get there first."
This book truly and thoroughly re-defines what strategy is and how it can be leveraged to succeed in the future. The authors cover the various required aspects of conceiving a competitive strategy that positions for success. More importantly, the authors also discuss what can hinder the development and execution of a strategy. What particularly resonated with me is the focus on execution and the fundamental role it plays in the strategy.
A must read in the area of Strategy and Competition. Highly recommended.
Below are excerpts that I found particularly insightful:
1- "But without a point of view about the opportunity for change - for revolution - a company is more likely to forfeit the future than own it. The goal of this book is to help individuals, and the institutions to which they devote their efforts, develop such a point of view and turn it into reality. Only those who can imagine and preemptively create the future will be around to enjoy it."
2- "Any company that succeeds at restructuring and reengineering, but fails to create the markets of the future, will find itself on a treadmill, trying to keep one step ahead of the steadily declining margins and profits of yesterday's businesses."
3- "We believe, and will argue strongly, that a company must not only get to the future first, it must get there for less. Yet there is more than one route to productivity improvement. Just as any firm that cuts the denominator and holds up revenue will reap productivity gains, so too will any company that succeeds in growing its revenue stream atop a slower growing or constant capital and employment base. Although the first approach may sometimes be necessary, we believe that the second approach is usually more desirable."
4- "Out point is simple: It is not enough for a company to get smaller and better and faster, as important as these tasks may be; a company must be capable of fundamentally reconceiving itself, of regenerating its core strategies, and of reinventing its industry. In short, a company must also be capable of getting different."
5- "The logic is simple: To extend leadership a company must eventually reinvent leadership, to reinvent leadership it must ultimately reinvent its industry, and to reinvent its industry it must ultimately regenerate its strategy. For us, to management's primary task is reinventing industries and regenerating strategy, not reengineering processes."
6- "Competition for the future is competition to create and dominate emerging opportunities - to stake out new competitive space. Creating the future is more challenging than playing catch up, in that you have to create your own road map."
7- "In short, strategy is as much about competing for tomorrow's industry structure as it is about competing within today's industry structure."
8- "Flush with success, challengers often forget the most basic rules of corporate vitality: To be a challenger once, it is enough to challenge the orthodoxies of the incumbents; to be a challenger twice, a firm must be capable of challenging its own orthodoxies...To get to the future, a company must be willing to jettison, at least in part, its past."
9- "The most foresightful firms aren't always the most profitable. All the foresight in the world, if not matched by a capacity to execute, counts for little. On the other hand, terrific executional ability, in the absence of industry foresight, is not enough to guarantee future success."
10- "A strategic architecture identifies "what we must be doing right now" to intercept the future. A strategic architecture is the essential link between today and tomorrow, between short term and long term...Strategic architecture is a broad opportunity approach plan."
11- "We believe that every firm must proceed toward the future with all due haste. But the way to measure speed in the journey to the future is not how fast one is committing financial resources, but how fast one is gaining additional insight into the precise route that will get one to the future first...The quest every management team should ask itself is, "How do we learn about the future faster than competitors, while making fewer and smaller irrevocable commitments?""
12- "Ultimately, one must find a way to close the gap between resources and aspirations that strategic intent opens up...The goal is to challenge managers to become more ingenious both in multiplying the impact of the firm's resource base and enlarging it."
13- "Aspects of Resource Leverage: Converging, Focusing, Targeting, Learning, Borrowing, Blending, Balancing, Recycling, Co-opting, Protecting, Expediting."
14- "The goal is to minimize both the time and investment required to turn foresight into genuine market opportunity...Stage 1 is competition for intellectual leadership...Stage 2 is competition to shape and foreshorten the migration paths between today's markets and industry structure and tomorrow's. Stage 3 is competition for market power and position once the new opportunities "take off" and the new industry structure begins to form."
15- "A core competence is a bundle of skills and technologies that enables a company to provide a particular benefit to customers."
16- "To be considered a "core" competence, a skill must meet three tests...Customer Value...Competitor Differentiation...Extendability."
17- "Competition for Competence: Competition to develop and acquire constituent skills and technologies -> Competition to synthesize core competencies -> Competition to maximize core product share -> Competition to maximize end product share (own brand plus OEM)."
18- "The goal is not to "hardwire" the core competence into the organization through structure changes, but to "soft-wire" the perspective into the heads of every manager and employee. This means (1) establishing a deeply involving process for identifying core competencies; (2) involving strategic business units in a cross-corporate process for developing a strategic architecture and setting competence acquisition goals; (3) defining a clear set of corporate growth and new business development priorities; (4) establishing explicit "stewardship" riles for core competencies; (5) setting up an explicit mechanism for allocating critical core competence resources; (6) benchmarking competence-building efforts against rivals; (7) regularly reviewing the status of existing and nascent core competencies; and (8) building a community of people within the organization who view themselves as the "carriers" of corporate core competencies."
19- "Everyone remembers the four Ps of marketing: product, price, promotion, and position. We'd like to suggest the 4 Ps of global preemption. The first P is, of course, preemption. We've argued that to capture the maximum returns to innovation, a company must have a capacity for global preemption. The other three Ps are the prerequisites for preemption: proximity, predisposition, and propagation."
20- "The attributes of a banner brand that determines its impact on buyer predisposition include (1) recognition...(2) reputation...(3) affinity...(4) domain...Multiplied together, recognition, reputation, affinity, an domain determine a brand's share of mind."
21- "To have a share in the future, a company must learn to think differently about three things: the meaning of competitiveness, the meaning of strategy, and the meaning of organizations."
22- ""Ambitious" doesn't mean taking big risks. Ambition means setting a stretching aspiration, and then using the tools of resource leverage to "derisk" that ambition."
23- "To create the future, a company must succeed in creating a synthesis of what are too often seen as antithetical organizational choices. (Corporate vs Business Units, Centralized vs Decentralized, Bureaucratic vs Empowered, Clones vs Renegades, Technology-led vs Customer-led, Diversified vs Core business."
This book truly and thoroughly re-defines what strategy is and how it can be leveraged to succeed in the future. The authors cover the various required aspects of conceiving a competitive strategy that positions for success. More importantly, the authors also discuss what can hinder the development and execution of a strategy. What particularly resonated with me is the focus on execution and the fundamental role it plays in the strategy.
A must read in the area of Strategy and Competition. Highly recommended.
Below are excerpts that I found particularly insightful:
1- "But without a point of view about the opportunity for change - for revolution - a company is more likely to forfeit the future than own it. The goal of this book is to help individuals, and the institutions to which they devote their efforts, develop such a point of view and turn it into reality. Only those who can imagine and preemptively create the future will be around to enjoy it."
2- "Any company that succeeds at restructuring and reengineering, but fails to create the markets of the future, will find itself on a treadmill, trying to keep one step ahead of the steadily declining margins and profits of yesterday's businesses."
3- "We believe, and will argue strongly, that a company must not only get to the future first, it must get there for less. Yet there is more than one route to productivity improvement. Just as any firm that cuts the denominator and holds up revenue will reap productivity gains, so too will any company that succeeds in growing its revenue stream atop a slower growing or constant capital and employment base. Although the first approach may sometimes be necessary, we believe that the second approach is usually more desirable."
4- "Out point is simple: It is not enough for a company to get smaller and better and faster, as important as these tasks may be; a company must be capable of fundamentally reconceiving itself, of regenerating its core strategies, and of reinventing its industry. In short, a company must also be capable of getting different."
5- "The logic is simple: To extend leadership a company must eventually reinvent leadership, to reinvent leadership it must ultimately reinvent its industry, and to reinvent its industry it must ultimately regenerate its strategy. For us, to management's primary task is reinventing industries and regenerating strategy, not reengineering processes."
6- "Competition for the future is competition to create and dominate emerging opportunities - to stake out new competitive space. Creating the future is more challenging than playing catch up, in that you have to create your own road map."
7- "In short, strategy is as much about competing for tomorrow's industry structure as it is about competing within today's industry structure."
8- "Flush with success, challengers often forget the most basic rules of corporate vitality: To be a challenger once, it is enough to challenge the orthodoxies of the incumbents; to be a challenger twice, a firm must be capable of challenging its own orthodoxies...To get to the future, a company must be willing to jettison, at least in part, its past."
9- "The most foresightful firms aren't always the most profitable. All the foresight in the world, if not matched by a capacity to execute, counts for little. On the other hand, terrific executional ability, in the absence of industry foresight, is not enough to guarantee future success."
10- "A strategic architecture identifies "what we must be doing right now" to intercept the future. A strategic architecture is the essential link between today and tomorrow, between short term and long term...Strategic architecture is a broad opportunity approach plan."
11- "We believe that every firm must proceed toward the future with all due haste. But the way to measure speed in the journey to the future is not how fast one is committing financial resources, but how fast one is gaining additional insight into the precise route that will get one to the future first...The quest every management team should ask itself is, "How do we learn about the future faster than competitors, while making fewer and smaller irrevocable commitments?""
12- "Ultimately, one must find a way to close the gap between resources and aspirations that strategic intent opens up...The goal is to challenge managers to become more ingenious both in multiplying the impact of the firm's resource base and enlarging it."
13- "Aspects of Resource Leverage: Converging, Focusing, Targeting, Learning, Borrowing, Blending, Balancing, Recycling, Co-opting, Protecting, Expediting."
14- "The goal is to minimize both the time and investment required to turn foresight into genuine market opportunity...Stage 1 is competition for intellectual leadership...Stage 2 is competition to shape and foreshorten the migration paths between today's markets and industry structure and tomorrow's. Stage 3 is competition for market power and position once the new opportunities "take off" and the new industry structure begins to form."
15- "A core competence is a bundle of skills and technologies that enables a company to provide a particular benefit to customers."
16- "To be considered a "core" competence, a skill must meet three tests...Customer Value...Competitor Differentiation...Extendability."
17- "Competition for Competence: Competition to develop and acquire constituent skills and technologies -> Competition to synthesize core competencies -> Competition to maximize core product share -> Competition to maximize end product share (own brand plus OEM)."
18- "The goal is not to "hardwire" the core competence into the organization through structure changes, but to "soft-wire" the perspective into the heads of every manager and employee. This means (1) establishing a deeply involving process for identifying core competencies; (2) involving strategic business units in a cross-corporate process for developing a strategic architecture and setting competence acquisition goals; (3) defining a clear set of corporate growth and new business development priorities; (4) establishing explicit "stewardship" riles for core competencies; (5) setting up an explicit mechanism for allocating critical core competence resources; (6) benchmarking competence-building efforts against rivals; (7) regularly reviewing the status of existing and nascent core competencies; and (8) building a community of people within the organization who view themselves as the "carriers" of corporate core competencies."
19- "Everyone remembers the four Ps of marketing: product, price, promotion, and position. We'd like to suggest the 4 Ps of global preemption. The first P is, of course, preemption. We've argued that to capture the maximum returns to innovation, a company must have a capacity for global preemption. The other three Ps are the prerequisites for preemption: proximity, predisposition, and propagation."
20- "The attributes of a banner brand that determines its impact on buyer predisposition include (1) recognition...(2) reputation...(3) affinity...(4) domain...Multiplied together, recognition, reputation, affinity, an domain determine a brand's share of mind."
21- "To have a share in the future, a company must learn to think differently about three things: the meaning of competitiveness, the meaning of strategy, and the meaning of organizations."
22- ""Ambitious" doesn't mean taking big risks. Ambition means setting a stretching aspiration, and then using the tools of resource leverage to "derisk" that ambition."
23- "To create the future, a company must succeed in creating a synthesis of what are too often seen as antithetical organizational choices. (Corporate vs Business Units, Centralized vs Decentralized, Bureaucratic vs Empowered, Clones vs Renegades, Technology-led vs Customer-led, Diversified vs Core business."
November 5, 2011
It is an okey book to read but it is very focused on big enterprises and their activities which makes it lose a bit value from my point of view.
I liked the ideas of the book and it has some good points. However, sometimes it felt like it took one chapter to explain something that could have been said more quickly. In a similar manner they use a lot of examples and I think repeat them at times in different chapters.
All in all, it was an interesting read and they have really nice ideas. Even though I can think in the real world it can be a bit tricky to implement them.
I liked the ideas of the book and it has some good points. However, sometimes it felt like it took one chapter to explain something that could have been said more quickly. In a similar manner they use a lot of examples and I think repeat them at times in different chapters.
All in all, it was an interesting read and they have really nice ideas. Even though I can think in the real world it can be a bit tricky to implement them.
December 14, 2014
This book is all about "core competence", a term coined by the authors (Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad) several years before and had become an industry buzz word. I liked the book as it tried to elevate strategy to a different status, a more positive one, in the eyes of companies.
It was however surprising that nothing much has changed the shape and face of what strategy is in companies since the time this book was written. Strategy is still considered a burden in several organizations and consulting firms have taken control and ownership of that function. Strategy in effect has turned out to be a wasteful exercise involving several resources working over time to create nothing for the future.
Hamel and Prahalad come up with a strong viewpoint on how strategy is about what the future could look like from an industry transformation standpoint. This does not take into consideration what you as a company are doing today and how successful or unsuccessful you are today. This foresight is based on core competence and what it can do for a company.
They then recommend that the company needs to evaluate what it should do today to get to that new World in the future. I think that is the single biggest change in mindset that I believe not may companies are willing to adopt even today. Strategy has definitely been about what we can do in the next 3-5 years, given what we have today as a company. A point that the authors raise in their book and try to change.
This is a good read and has obviously been a top seller since a long time. The point that it hasn't changed the industry landscape and strategy's position in general may however make you wonder whether academic dictum really means anything in a corporate world where bureaucracy rules and "change" is always hard to adapt to.
Nanda Kishore Rajanala Aham - The Other I
It was however surprising that nothing much has changed the shape and face of what strategy is in companies since the time this book was written. Strategy is still considered a burden in several organizations and consulting firms have taken control and ownership of that function. Strategy in effect has turned out to be a wasteful exercise involving several resources working over time to create nothing for the future.
Hamel and Prahalad come up with a strong viewpoint on how strategy is about what the future could look like from an industry transformation standpoint. This does not take into consideration what you as a company are doing today and how successful or unsuccessful you are today. This foresight is based on core competence and what it can do for a company.
They then recommend that the company needs to evaluate what it should do today to get to that new World in the future. I think that is the single biggest change in mindset that I believe not may companies are willing to adopt even today. Strategy has definitely been about what we can do in the next 3-5 years, given what we have today as a company. A point that the authors raise in their book and try to change.
This is a good read and has obviously been a top seller since a long time. The point that it hasn't changed the industry landscape and strategy's position in general may however make you wonder whether academic dictum really means anything in a corporate world where bureaucracy rules and "change" is always hard to adapt to.
Nanda Kishore Rajanala Aham - The Other I
May 8, 2009
This book was included in my book: The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. www.100bestbiz.com
November 6, 2012
Not sure why this doesn't show? This book is: Competing for the Future - Gary Hamel and C.K Prahalad
March 30, 2016
One of the best business books I've ever read.
October 30, 2023
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Эта книга входит во множество списков самых значимых книг по менеджменту. Понять, почему это так я, конечно, могу, ибо важность инноваций на предприятии, её устремление в будущее, никогда не отрицалось, а наоборот повторялась словно мантра. Проблема с этой книгой, которую я попытался прочитать дважды и дважды в этом деле не добился успеха, состоит в том, что авторы пытаются растянуть одну идею - идею важности ориентированности на будущее в бизнесе - на целую книгу. На протяжении всей или почти всей книги авторы то и дело что приводят примеры того, как разные компании внедряют радикальные новшества в свою деятельность. Только вот читать об этом сотни раз очень и очень скучно. Да, невозможно предложить какую-либо бизнес-модель, которая в будущем принесёт успех компании со 100% вероятностью. Единственное что можно сделать, это создать культуру принятия радикальных изменений и новаций в бизнесе. Тут можно вспомнить, в связи с этим, такие фирмы как 3M и Intel, которые чаще всего приводятся в качестве примера фирм, которые приняли культуру постоянных изменений. Да вот только предложить на эту тему что-то больше просто невозможно (кроме общих, обтекаемых тезисов, которые по существу, для реальной ситуации, абсолютно пусты). Именно поэтому я не смог дочитать книгу до конца ни в первых раз, ни во второй. Да и честно сказать, о важности имплементации инноваций и даже принятия радикальных изменений в компании пишут в каждой третьей или четвёртой книге по менеджменту, т.е. это является уже общим местом.
Так почему же эта книга столь популярна? Думаю, популярна вовсе не книга, а идея. Эта книга вся посвящена этой важной идеи. Вот и получилось, что идея перенесла свою популярность на книгу. Возможно, конечно, во второй части книги авторы предлагают что-то ещё, помимо бесконечных примеров из мира бизнеса. Однако я не смог себя заставить второй раз перечитывать всё то, что я уже читал, ибо и первый раз это было очень и очень скучно. Сейчас, в какой-то момент я понял, что я просто потрачу время зря. Повторюсь: для практического использования книга одновременно бессмысленная и самоочевидная. Возможно, авторам стоило ограничиться большой статьёй или статьями для журнала HBR.
This book is on many lists of the most significant management books. I can understand why this is so, of course, because the importance of innovation in the enterprise, its aspiration to the future, has never been denied but rather repeated like a mantra. The problem with this book, which I tried to read twice and failed twice, is that the authors try to stretch one idea - the idea of the importance of being future-oriented in business - into an entire book. Throughout the whole or almost the whole book, the authors give examples of how different companies introduce radical innovations into their activities. But it is very, very boring to read about it hundreds of times. Yes, it is impossible to propose any business model that will bring success to a company with a 100% probability in the future. The only thing that can be done is to create a culture of embracing radical changes and innovation in business. In this regard, one can think of companies such as 3M and Intel, which are most often cited as examples of firms that have adopted a culture of constant change. But it seems impossible to offer anything more on this topic (except for general, streamlined theses, which, in essence, for the real situation, are absolutely nothing). That is why I could not finish the book either the first or the second time. To be honest, the importance of implementing innovations and even making radical changes in a company is written about in every third or fourth management book, i.e., it is already commonplace.
So why is this book so popular? I think it's not the book that is popular, but it's the idea. This book is all about this important idea. So, it turned out that the idea transferred its popularity to the book. Perhaps, of course, in the second part of the book, the authors offer something else besides endless examples from the business world. However, I could not bring myself to reread for the second time everything I had already read because the first time, it was very, very boring. Now, at some point, I realized that I would just waste my time. Again, for practical use, the book is both pointless and self-evident. Perhaps the authors should have limited themselves to an article or articles for the HBR journal.
Эта книга входит во множество списков самых значимых книг по менеджменту. Понять, почему это так я, конечно, могу, ибо важность инноваций на предприятии, её устремление в будущее, никогда не отрицалось, а наоборот повторялась словно мантра. Проблема с этой книгой, которую я попытался прочитать дважды и дважды в этом деле не добился успеха, состоит в том, что авторы пытаются растянуть одну идею - идею важности ориентированности на будущее в бизнесе - на целую книгу. На протяжении всей или почти всей книги авторы то и дело что приводят примеры того, как разные компании внедряют радикальные новшества в свою деятельность. Только вот читать об этом сотни раз очень и очень скучно. Да, невозможно предложить какую-либо бизнес-модель, которая в будущем принесёт успех компании со 100% вероятностью. Единственное что можно сделать, это создать культуру принятия радикальных изменений и новаций в бизнесе. Тут можно вспомнить, в связи с этим, такие фирмы как 3M и Intel, которые чаще всего приводятся в качестве примера фирм, которые приняли культуру постоянных изменений. Да вот только предложить на эту тему что-то больше просто невозможно (кроме общих, обтекаемых тезисов, которые по существу, для реальной ситуации, абсолютно пусты). Именно поэтому я не смог дочитать книгу до конца ни в первых раз, ни во второй. Да и честно сказать, о важности имплементации инноваций и даже принятия радикальных изменений в компании пишут в каждой третьей или четвёртой книге по менеджменту, т.е. это является уже общим местом.
Так почему же эта книга столь популярна? Думаю, популярна вовсе не книга, а идея. Эта книга вся посвящена этой важной идеи. Вот и получилось, что идея перенесла свою популярность на книгу. Возможно, конечно, во второй части книги авторы предлагают что-то ещё, помимо бесконечных примеров из мира бизнеса. Однако я не смог себя заставить второй раз перечитывать всё то, что я уже читал, ибо и первый раз это было очень и очень скучно. Сейчас, в какой-то момент я понял, что я просто потрачу время зря. Повторюсь: для практического использования книга одновременно бессмысленная и самоочевидная. Возможно, авторам стоило ограничиться большой статьёй или статьями для журнала HBR.
This book is on many lists of the most significant management books. I can understand why this is so, of course, because the importance of innovation in the enterprise, its aspiration to the future, has never been denied but rather repeated like a mantra. The problem with this book, which I tried to read twice and failed twice, is that the authors try to stretch one idea - the idea of the importance of being future-oriented in business - into an entire book. Throughout the whole or almost the whole book, the authors give examples of how different companies introduce radical innovations into their activities. But it is very, very boring to read about it hundreds of times. Yes, it is impossible to propose any business model that will bring success to a company with a 100% probability in the future. The only thing that can be done is to create a culture of embracing radical changes and innovation in business. In this regard, one can think of companies such as 3M and Intel, which are most often cited as examples of firms that have adopted a culture of constant change. But it seems impossible to offer anything more on this topic (except for general, streamlined theses, which, in essence, for the real situation, are absolutely nothing). That is why I could not finish the book either the first or the second time. To be honest, the importance of implementing innovations and even making radical changes in a company is written about in every third or fourth management book, i.e., it is already commonplace.
So why is this book so popular? I think it's not the book that is popular, but it's the idea. This book is all about this important idea. So, it turned out that the idea transferred its popularity to the book. Perhaps, of course, in the second part of the book, the authors offer something else besides endless examples from the business world. However, I could not bring myself to reread for the second time everything I had already read because the first time, it was very, very boring. Now, at some point, I realized that I would just waste my time. Again, for practical use, the book is both pointless and self-evident. Perhaps the authors should have limited themselves to an article or articles for the HBR journal.
July 22, 2020
If you can get over its snobbish style and "we know the best, everybody is sh*t" attitude, it is pretty insightful. It is not as groundbreaking as it sells itself to be (they haven't come up with the quantum mechanics theory of strategy, it is mostly common sense); but overall it provides good planning for macro, long-term strategy. If you are in high-tech, Deeptech business it provides good ammo for strategic discussions. Also, I should admit that they got 80% of the tendencies for the next 20 years right; that's the strong point. So it did not age in that sense.
July 16, 2017
Totally worth it
Totally worth reading it. As the authors themselves put it, it's a book about making a difference. With plenty of real life experiences, the authors lead us to learn to enlarge our vision and knowledge... to see how we can better compete for the future. Highly recommended.
Totally worth reading it. As the authors themselves put it, it's a book about making a difference. With plenty of real life experiences, the authors lead us to learn to enlarge our vision and knowledge... to see how we can better compete for the future. Highly recommended.
June 7, 2019
Mandatory reading to whosoever want to learn about visionary strategy. This book has great content and describes very interesting and diverse cases.
It's very repetitive though, and lacks direct references to scientific studies. Maybe this happens because scientific research on networks of companies wasn't so advanced by the time this book was written.
It's very repetitive though, and lacks direct references to scientific studies. Maybe this happens because scientific research on networks of companies wasn't so advanced by the time this book was written.
July 11, 2019
How to think like an entrepreneurial non-profit. I have not see any other book re non-profit management & leadership that is this helpful to explore how to expand your current "business" and to create new and additional programs/services.
Read
July 7, 2017Antiquated
December 1, 2017
Good ideas, but a hard read. Worth the effort, but slow and kind of tangled.
August 30, 2018
still relevant today. especially the last chapter.
November 23, 2018
This is a nice book, really I love it.
March 3, 2019
Fantastic book!
July 10, 2019
There are many books in this revolutionary one. It generates many ideas to build a meaningful business and helps to find purpose in our actions
July 17, 2019
Another great follow up by Gary Hamel! How to remain competitive and relevant as a leader in a new and innovative world.
June 21, 2022
High-level view of innovation at companies, with some interesting thoughts around core competencies and how companies need to manage differently in the future. It's a bit dry and repetitive.
July 22, 2025
It's in English
In 2000 I had been a professor of Molecular Biology for ten years. Although things were going well, I felt that I had fallen into an intellectual rut. So I decided to enter an "Executive MBA Program". "Executive" in this context just means that the students in the program are full-time employed managers and remain that while in the program. I argued that as a professor running a lab I was effectively in middle management, and they bought it!
It was one of the best things I ever did. I thought that there I would meet people who I would never meet as a prof, and I was right. Furthermore, many of them were very smart and capable people. My fellow students were without question the best part of the experience.
Aware of my ignorance of business, I essentially put on my reading list every book any professor mentioned. And thus I came to read Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad's Competing for the Future. Most of these business books were dreadful -- Competing for the Future distinguished itself by not being awful. It is not *good*. But it is not awful. For one thing, it is written in English. Most of these business fad books are written in impenetrable jargon. And with even the least critical thinking skills you quickly discern that the jargon is not there to express difficult technical concepts, but just to hide the truth that the authors don't really have any clear ideas.
Competing for the Future is not like that. It is written in language that an intelligent native English speaker can make sense of. Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad have ideas, and if you read their book you will understand those ideas. I don't say that the ideas are particularly good or original, but just by making sense they stand head and shoulders above most business books.
Blog review.
In 2000 I had been a professor of Molecular Biology for ten years. Although things were going well, I felt that I had fallen into an intellectual rut. So I decided to enter an "Executive MBA Program". "Executive" in this context just means that the students in the program are full-time employed managers and remain that while in the program. I argued that as a professor running a lab I was effectively in middle management, and they bought it!
It was one of the best things I ever did. I thought that there I would meet people who I would never meet as a prof, and I was right. Furthermore, many of them were very smart and capable people. My fellow students were without question the best part of the experience.
Aware of my ignorance of business, I essentially put on my reading list every book any professor mentioned. And thus I came to read Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad's Competing for the Future. Most of these business books were dreadful -- Competing for the Future distinguished itself by not being awful. It is not *good*. But it is not awful. For one thing, it is written in English. Most of these business fad books are written in impenetrable jargon. And with even the least critical thinking skills you quickly discern that the jargon is not there to express difficult technical concepts, but just to hide the truth that the authors don't really have any clear ideas.
Competing for the Future is not like that. It is written in language that an intelligent native English speaker can make sense of. Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad have ideas, and if you read their book you will understand those ideas. I don't say that the ideas are particularly good or original, but just by making sense they stand head and shoulders above most business books.
Blog review.
September 2, 2008
This is the best book on the big picture I've ever read (to date - Sept. 2007). The authors elaborate on REAL strategic thinking, not the 5-10 year junk that is SO prevalent in business and Christian literature (not that this is a Christian book by any means).
Real strategy that needs a good 10 to 50 years to germinate. Strategy that goes after goals that there is, currently, NO way to achieve! Sweet. Imagine wanting to get real-time, full audio-video communication between any two people in the world - and imagine this dream comes to you in 1974 -- THAT kind of "strategic thinking."
They explain it, they defend it, they show it in real-world examples. Then they dissect it and show how to get at it. But without spoon-feeding the content, just the process.
Perfect.
This makes it on my top 15 books I've ever read.
Real strategy that needs a good 10 to 50 years to germinate. Strategy that goes after goals that there is, currently, NO way to achieve! Sweet. Imagine wanting to get real-time, full audio-video communication between any two people in the world - and imagine this dream comes to you in 1974 -- THAT kind of "strategic thinking."
They explain it, they defend it, they show it in real-world examples. Then they dissect it and show how to get at it. But without spoon-feeding the content, just the process.
Perfect.
This makes it on my top 15 books I've ever read.
January 6, 2013
The book is a good introduction to some important strategic concepts. Although it is no longer required reading at top consulting firms, it is still relevant and important. The book was very interesting. Hamel and Prahalad focused on the three most important areas that can determine a company's success: core competencies, resources and capabilities. I think it's an important book to read.
December 10, 2013
The core message is 'Worry about the future'.
The book asks key questions to help leaders examine their organization: are we innovating enough? are we just following others? are we spending time on creating new products/markets? do we know what we're good at? do we understand our strategic direction and where it'll take us? etc etc
The book asks key questions to help leaders examine their organization: are we innovating enough? are we just following others? are we spending time on creating new products/markets? do we know what we're good at? do we understand our strategic direction and where it'll take us? etc etc
November 12, 2008
Businesses rarely spend enough time focused on the future; the Board and CEO should be creating markets for products that will be available a couple years out, and the strategy should be at least five years into the future.
May 22, 2016
How to think like an entrepreneurial non-profit. I have not see any other book re non-profit management & leadership that is this helpful to explore how to expand your current "business" and to create new and additional programs/services.
May 21, 2015
Competing for the Future is a must read for every manager and entrepreneur who wants to change the world. The book does not provide ready-made recipe to catch up with the future, this book teaches you how to think about the future. I highly recommend it.
February 12, 2023
O livro pode ser de 1994, mas ele ainda traz insights que ainda auxiliam as empresas hoje em dia. Na verdade, o livro abrange questões que são muito atuais como a dicotomia foco na tecnologia ou foco no cliente?
August 11, 2011
This book has a lot of great insights. It was written 17 years ago but it has many things that are still valid today. A must read for a manager.
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September 30, 2016An interesting book about corporate vision and a framework by which to begin to evaluate it. An interesting book for those trying to navigate corporations and identify growth opportunities.
January 31, 2012
Goodreads lost it - but this is "Competing for the Future" by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad
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