Top 6 Best Business Strategy Books
Introduction
Strategy is an area of business that is often ignored until there is a problem. For example, a drop in product sales or a new competitor shows up, or perhaps profit margins are in decline. Now, up until something like that happens what we often do is we rely on strategy substitutes, like having a bold vision, or setting ambitious goals. Those things are great, but they are not strategy. And, in some cases, they can prevent you from pursuing the real thing.
The Importance of Strategy
If you’re interested in putting together an effective strategy for business success then the books in this list can help. They cover critical themes, including “how to make the competition irrelevant”, “how to avoid being disrupted by innovative startups”, “how to increase profits by creating a competitive advantage”, “how to sell disruptive products to mainstream customers”, the “difference between a good strategy and a bad strategy”, and “tips for turning a good company into a great company”.
Blue Ocean Strategy (W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne)
Many businesses make the mistake of obsessing about their competition. And, as a result, they end up trying to win over the same customers with a similar product in an undifferentiated strategy. Blue Ocean Strategy can help you avoid this fate by making the competition irrelevant. It explains “how to create and capture new demand”, “how to break the value/cost trade-off”, and “how to redefine market boundaries” to create a leap in value for buyers. It’s a must-read for any business leader that wants to create or sustain healthy profit margins.
The Innovator’s Dilemma (Clayton Christensen)
It’s no secret that many successful businesses fail in the face of disruptive innovation. But what is surprising is that this outcome isn’t necessarily due to bureaucracy, arrogance, poor planning, or even short-term investments, like you might suspect. Instead, it’s often the strengths of well-managed customer-driven businesses that, ultimately, cause them to fail. The Innovator’s Dilemma explains “how a relentless focus on serving customer” needs can cause a great business to be overtaken by an innovative startup. Most importantly, it covers practical strategies for avoiding this kind of disruption. So, it’s a must-read for the leaders of well-established businesses, as well as founders of disruptive startups.
Understanding Michael Porter (Joan Magretta)
The goal of a great company is to earn profit, not to take business away from rival brands. Yet, even if you’re focused on creating value and earning profit, you will inevitably face competitors who try to emulate your success and eat into your margins. Understanding Michael Porter is a practical guide to Michael Porter’s best business strategy advice. It explores “how to create a competitive advantage”, “how to sustain healthy profit margins”, and ultimately “how to deal with competitors”. The book can help you craft a strategy for building and sustaining profitability, even in a competitive market.
Crossing the Chasm (Geoffrey A. Moore)
Many innovative businesses fail to attract a mainstream audience to their product or service. They build initial momentum with enthusiastic early adopters but are unable to win over the broader, more lucrative mainstream market. And as a result, they severely limit future business growth and fail to capture the full profit potential of what they’ve built. Crossing the Chasm explains “how to market disruptive products to a mainstream audience”. The insights apply to any product or service that requires that customers change their habits or behaviors in order to use it. So, if your solution breaks with industry norms or challenges the status quo, then this is a must-read book for you.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy (Richard Rumelt)
Many business leaders fail to establish an effective plan for their organization. They mistake the process of defining a bold vision or setting ambitious goals with creating a business strategy. And, as a result, they fail to identify the true challenges that they face and they have no concrete plans for dealing with them. Good Strategy/Bad Strategy can help you craft an effective plan. One that takes advantage of your organization’s strengths and your rivals’ weaknesses to create a competitive edge. And by demonstrating the difference between good and bad strategies, the book makes it easier to avoid common mistakes along the way.
Good to Great (Jim Collins)
Every once in a while, a relatively average company makes the leap from good results to great results. And they do so independent of industry trends or other external factors that might otherwise help to explain their sudden success. So, this phenomenon begs the question, “how can a good company become a great company”? Well, Good to Great helps to explain “why some companies make the leap and others do not”. It explores six powerful business concepts that were identified during a comprehensive study of companies that had already made a good to great transformation. And the book makes each of these insights very accessible for others looking to achieve similar results.
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Conclusion
So, those are some of the best business strategy books that you can read. If you’re interested in learning more, there are dedicated lists that cover some of the favorite books on startups, product development, marketing, leadership, management, and other business-related topics. But that’s it for this list, if you have any questions or comments about anything that we covered here, let me know down in the comments section. And be sure to visit brandeddatahub.site for more on the best business books for entrepreneurs.
