Breaking Compromises: Opportunities for Action in Consumer Markets from the Boston Consulting Group [Hardcover]

Michael J. Silverstein (Editor), George Stalk Jr. (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2000

Praise for Breaking Compromises "Take this book along on your next business trip. In about the time it takes to jet from New York to Chicago, you will gain fresh, practical insights into today's most challenging consumer goods topics, from e-commerce to globalization." -Robert A. Eckert, President and CEO, Kraft Foods, Inc. "These essays detail how successful companies find ideas, bring together resources to test them, learn from their mistakes, and, ultimately, how they succeed." -Steven S Reinemund, President and COO, PepsiCo, Inc. "Branded manufacturers need to refocus on developing new products to fend off consolidating retailers and private labels. Retailers need to uncover the missing link between the company's strategy and its implementation at the front line to provide the kind of service customers are demanding. The challenge is continuous innovation, which is about ideas and process, not one or the other. The essays in Breaking Compromises speak to the most pressing issues across the entire range of consumer businesses today." -William D. Perez, President and COO Worldwide Consumer Products, S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. "The consumer industry is undergoing a revolution, not only in how its products and services are made, distributed, marketed, and sold, but also in how consumers learn about, shop for, purchase, and repurchase them. The ideas in Breaking Compromises will help you not only to survive the upheaval in your environment but ultimately to leverage it for improved performance and the highest returns." -Indra K. Nooyi, Senior Vice President Corporate Strategy and Development, PepsiCo, Inc. "If the past decade has taught us anything about retail, it is that change is not only inevitable, it is imperative. To stand still is to declare defeat. To overcome complacency, outsmart and outexecute the competition, and stay ahead of shifting markets, a business must constantly and consistently replenish its stock of fresh insights. This compendium of business practices and wisdom is a very good first step." -Dan Finkelman, Senior Vice President Brand and Business Planning, The Limited, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Take this book along on your next business trip. In about the time it takes to jet from New York to Chicago, you will gain fresh, practical insights into today's most challenging consumer goods topics, from e-commerce to globalization. (Robert A. Eckert, President & CEO, Kraft Foods, Inc.)

Over the past few years, a select group of top CEOs and senior managers of consumer companies have received BCG's Opportunities for Action in Consumer Markets, a monthly series of articles written by members of the firm's consumer goods and retail practice. Now the rest of the business world can benefit from these ideas. Drawn from the consultants' own research and client work, the essays detail how successful companies find ideas, bring together resources to test them, learn from their mistakes, and, ultimately, how they succeed. (Steven S Reinemund, President & COO, PepsiCo, Inc.)

Branded manufacturers need to refocus on developing new products to fend off consolidating retailers and private labels. Retailers need to uncover the missing link between the company's strategy and its implementation at the frontline to provide the kind of service customers are demanding. The challenge is continuous innovation, which is about ideas and process, not one or the other. The essays in Breaking Compromises speak to the most pressing issues across entire range of consumer businesses today. (William D. Perez, President & COO, Worldwide Consumer Products, S.C. Johnson & Son)

The consumer industry is undergoing a revolution, not only in how its products and services are made, distributed, marketed, and sold, but also in how consumers learn about, shop for, purchase, and repurchase them. The ideas in Breaking Compromises will help you not only to survive the upheaval in your environment, but ultimately to leverage it for improved performance and the highest returns. (Indra K. Nooyi, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy & Development, PepsiCo,Inc.)

If the past decade has taught us anything about retail, it is that change is not only inevitable, it is imperative. To stand still is to declare defeat. To overcome complacency, outsmart and outexecute the competition, and stay ahead of shifting markets, a business must constantly and consistently replenish its stock of fresh insights. This compendium of business practices and wisdom is a very good first step. (Dan Finkelman, Senior Vice President, Brand & Business Planning, The Limited, Inc.)

From the Inside Flap

Breaking Compromises "To break compromises, executives must first break with the conventional wisdom of their industry-about customers, about industry practices, and about the economics of the business. When they do, faster growth and improved profitability are the result." -from Breaking Compromises Innovation drives competition in today's volatile global marketplace, and a company's most potent competitive advantage resides in its ability to continually generate fresh insights and innovations. As evidenced by the experiences of some of the most spectacular business successes of the past several years, the key to sustained growth through innovation is knowing how to identify and "break" the fundamental compromises, or trade-offs, that industries impose upon their customers. Perhaps the most obvious example of such a trade-off is the time-honored idea that lower price equals lower quality. "The idea of breaking compromises can be a useful organizing principle to focus an entire organization on growth. It provides a systematic way to search for growth opportunities that are logical extensions of a company's existing business system." In Breaking Compromises, members of the world-renowned Boston Consulting Group show you how major players such as Charles Schwab, Circuit City, Chrysler, Coca-Cola, Amazon.com, and others have achieved sustained growth by exposing compromises and recalibrating the fundamental customer/product equation. More importantly, they teach you how to strategically position your organization to be able to continuously uncover and manage fresh growth opportunities through an unswerving focus on breaking compromises. "For a company to grow by breaking compromises, it must have the creativity to translate customer dissatisfactions into new value propositions, the flexibility to engage in constant reorientation of its business system, and the nerve to challenge business-as-usual in its industry." Available to the general business audience for the first time, the essays compiled in Breaking Compromises first appeared in Action in Consumer Markets, a monthly publication written by members of BCG's Consumer and Retail practice. These essays are based on the members' experiences working with many of the world's major companies on the front lines of the most competitive, rapidly changing business environment in history. In them, you will learn about the latest compromise-breaking strategies for branding, e-commerce, global markets, customer retention, and more. A groundbreaking exploration of the major forces driving the consumer and retail businesses over the past half decade, Breaking Compromises is essential reading for marketing executives and managers.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (May 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047138433X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471384335
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #645,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking and solid, January 17, 2000

By 

Robyn Lyall (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking Compromises: Opportunities for Action in Consumer Markets from the Boston Consulting Group (Hardcover)

A collection of papers from the Boston Consulting Group from the past four years. They have not dated which is nice.

Occasionally reads a little like a BCG presentation so can be a bit dry - but the CONTENT is great.

Has chapters of related material ie. REAL brand management for the 21st century; dealing with e-commerce effectively and strategically without wasting money.

Nice big picture stuff but with meat - you could actually use the material to kick start some thinking in your company.

Good stuff!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Valuable Best Practices and Mini Case Histories!, June 2, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Breaking Compromises: Opportunities for Action in Consumer Markets from the Boston Consulting Group (Hardcover)

The essays in this book were originally published over the last 10 years and present many coordinated perspectives on key consumer issues. In some consumer products and service companies, the functional silos argue over what to do and reach internal compromises that ignore providing customers, purchasers, and consumers with what they want. You would have to work in a dozen companies over a number of years to capture all of the useful observations in these essays. I found the work to be solid except for an emphasis on overly coordinating brand activities within a sector, and perhaps a little too much of a focus on the financial value of all this.

The sections cover Operating Efficiency, Retailing, Marketing and Selling, the Consumer, the Brand, E-Commerce, Global Markets, and Staying Ahead. I thought that the best sections were the first four.

My favorite essays were:

Don't Get Trapped in the Skills Gap;

Make in a Week What You Sell in a Week;

Price by Design;

The Power of Direct Store Delivery;

Inner Cities Are the Next Retailing Frontier;

Levels of the Game in Frequency Marketing;

The Research Advantage;

Winning a Segment-of-One at a Time;

Customer Retention;

One Size Doesn't Fit All;

Total Brand Management;

Winning on the Net;

Meeting the Local Challenge in China;

The Paradox of Success.

Whenever we address basic consumer issues, we should all be sure to remember the bad experiences we have every day: The line that doesn't move for 15 minutes; the person who cannot help you; the endless telephone menus; on-line help menus that don't help; and out of stocks. And that's before we get to rude and annoying service. It is easy to forget how bad things are. I recently went to a seminar where the panelists discussed how they spent their time waiting for slow Web pages to load.

If you are in a consumer products or services company, at least one of these essays will immediately improve your business. Only you will know which one!

Go beyond hitting budgets to building purchases and experiences that consumers look forward to!