Companies that purposefully set out to excel are remarkably few and far between. The number of those who have a strong, well-thought out strategy for success are even fewer. Based on five years of research and field-testing, Breakout Strategy gives you a “fast track” strategic vision that can push your company to incredible new rates of growth and expansion. Strategy and leadership experts Sydney Finkelstein, Charles Harvey, and Thomas Lawton show how to craft a strategy that fits your business, whether you're a small start-up or an established national or international company. They also give you the tools to adapt that strategy as you grow and expand. Their system features five key initiatives: Create a workable vision by understanding the needs and aspirations of a company Face customers with a value proposition that covers all the important bases Align what a business does with what the customer truly desires Balance the people and process sides of business to deliver on promises Liberate the energies of any strategy's toughest critic-those who work within the business Breakout Strategy puts these initiatives in context by examining how diverse companies achieved breakout growth, including jetBlue, Harley Davidson, and Starbucks. It also sheds light on how a poor strategy can topple a once-successful company off the pedestal of market dominance, such as Krispy Kreme's overly ambitious expansion strategy that stretched the company and the brand too thin. With the systematic approach in Breakout Strategy, you'll be able to travel the fast track to market triumph, leaving your competitors struggling to catch up.

Drawn from five years of research and field testing, this volume introduces the "fast track" concept, describing successful strategies that result in rapid business growth for any organization.

Airlines willing to develop insight from foresight relating to the expected ’step phase changes’ will eventually improve their margins. However, the backward-looking airline, managed using old strategic levers and short-term metrics, will cease to exist, merge, shrink, become more dependent on government support, or become irrelevant. ’Management innovations’ are not going to deliver the required improvements; innovation within management is essential for airlines' survival. In Flying Ahead of the Airplane, Nawal Taneja analyzes global changes and thought-provoking scenarios to help airline executives adjust and adapt to the chaotic world. Drawing on his experience of real airline situations worldwide, the author concludes that there is a gulf between what executives are doing now and what they need to do to stay ahead of the curve. To close this gap, the author suggests that airline executives focus on just three relevant initiatives: a) aligning business and technology strategies, b) redesigning organization structures to centralize the role of the scheduling function, and c) developing relevant brands that integrate social networking technology. To support this third initiative, the book provides insights on branding from 20 fascinating non-aviation case studies from around the world. Flying Ahead of the Airplane will assist practitioners in airlines of every size to integrate future trends into their mainstream thinking and launch flexible business models to manage risk and compete effectively in the ’flattening world’.

A major issue of dynamic growth management is the coordination of current requirements of the company with demands that have to be met in the future. Prof. PhD Rico J. Baldegger is Director and Professor of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the School of Management Fribourg (HEG-FR), Switzerland. He has studied at the Universities of St. Gallen and Fribourg, Switzerland. His research activities concentrate on innovative start-ups, the entrepreneurial behavior of individuals and organizations, as well as the phenomenon of rapid-growth companies. He has published several books and articles and, since the beginning of the 1990s, he has been the manager of a business for company development. Moreover, he is a serial entrepreneur, as is demonstrated by the many companies he has created.

Airlines are buffeted by fluctuating political and economic landscapes, ever-changing competition, technology developments, globalization, increasing deregulation and evolving customer requirements. As a consequence all sectors of the air transport industry are in a constant state of flux. The principle aim of this book is to review current trends in the airline industry and its related suppliers, thereby providing an insight into the forces that are changing its dynamics. The factors that are reshaping the structure of the industry are examined with a view to identifying the key issues whose impact will be critical in the future. The book features two very distinct sections. The first contains short contributions from industry executives at CEO/VP level from airlines, aircraft/engine manufacturers, safety and navigational provider organisations, who have set out their take of where the airline industry is heading. This commercial input sets the scene for the book and provides the bridge to the second section, which is composed of 18 chapters written by distinguished academic authors. Each chapter presents a valuable insight into a specific area of the air transport industry, including: airlines, airports, cargo, deregulation, the environment, navigation, strategy, information technology, security and tourism. The shared objective of the authors is to describe and explain the core competencies that are determining the current shape of the industry and to examine the forces that will change its direction going forward. The book is written in a management style and will appeal to all levels of personnel who work for airlines across the world. It is also written for airport authorities, aerospace manufacturers, regulatory and government transportation agencies, researchers and students of aviation management, transport studies, tourism and the wider air transport industry.

Why is it that some companies turn out to be more successful when doing the opposite of what is prescribed in many of the current books on management and strategy? Interestingly, many of the companies depicted as very successful companies in the standard literature end up not faring well over time - probably because they somehow end up in a dangerous autopilot mode. What this suggests is that the conventional literature cookbook isn’t telling us the whole story. Even if companies have temporarily developed from an ugly duckling to a white swan, the popular recipes for success may be clipping such companies’ wings. Conversely, companies adhering to disruptive business models are seen to be more agile and to possess a higher degree of actionability. Such next generation companies are labeled black swans. They thrive because they are bold and embrace the great unknowns of tomorrow with open minds and eyes. At the same time, they are able to take advantage of incumbents’ fears, risk-aversion and blindness to what’s coming. Beyond Strategy delves into the inner workings of such black swans as Apple, Aravind, Emirates, Huawei, Natura, Ryanair and Tata and addresses the rise and fall of Nokia. The authors provide explosive evidence of black swan companies working against the norms to enter unchartered waters, determined not to adhere to the best practice of others, but rather to create a genuine next generation practice. Next generation companies and their underlying philosophies are here to stay – are you?

Discover the four traits of the best performing, but least known, breakout firms in BRIC countries "Rough diamonds" are the best performing firms in the BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) countries. These firms compare favorably with the top 500 firms and the top 25 manufacturing firms in their countries and comparable firms worldwide, exceeding them profit margins and return on assets over an extended time period. This book outlines who these firms are and explains their exemplary performance through the Four Cs for Sustaining High Performance: Capitalizing on late development; Creating Market Inclusive Niches; Crafting Operational Excellence; and Cultivating Profitable Growth. Offers a description of the four major traits that high performance companies in Brazil, Russia, India and China have in common Contains company profiles from BRIC countries that have proved to be successful Written Sam Park the president at Skolkovo-Ernst & Young for Emerging Market Studies and Chair Professor of Strategy at Moscow School of Management Skolkovo This important resource outlines the four traits of the best performing, but least known, breakout firms in BRIC countries.