Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't [Hardcover]

Stephen Wunker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2011

ARE YOU READY FOR THE FUTURE?

New markets have powered the greatest business successes in history, from Standard Oil to Facebook. How can you discover and pursue new markets to make your business thrive?

In Capturing New Markets, world-renowned business strategist Stephen Wunker argues that the first step is to stop applying traditional formulas of success and understand the unique dynamics in fast-changing new markets. He guides you through the process of creating counterintuitive strategies, such as treating competitors as collaborators, timing market entry, and targeting narrow niches before big customer segments. Capturing New Markets has been named one of the five Best Business Books of 2011.

Whether you work for a huge corporation or for yourself, Capturing New Markets helps you find new sources of growth. Based on Wunker's groundbreaking work with Clayton Christensen--the Harvard Business School legend who coined the term "disruptive innovation"--plus Wunker's extensive experience in the trenches, this practical and fascinating guide shows how companies:

• Identify, create, and dominate new markets
• Avoid the pitfalls of commodization and find new ways to grow
• Develop and sustain new sources of growth into the future

Drawing on dozens of case studies plus data-driven research, this revolutionary approach to business shows you how to turn new markets into the drivers of growth--propelling you and your company into a whole new world of opportunity. You'll learn how to anticipate customer demands and meet emerging needs before anyone else does. You'll discover how to spot ideas ready for explosive growth, and how to lead new markets while your competitors are just waking up to the opportunity. You'll also see how to make these strategies work in companies that are both small and very large.

Capturing New Markets upends traditional thinking about business strategy, showing what will work in a new economy marked by turbulence and change. This is the resource you need to transform industries and the prospects of companies within them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Capturing New Markets is a great book. It is a thorough, well-written, and well-evidenced piece on corporate strategy that provides guidance on how to identify, build, and succeed in new markets in a creative yet disciplined manner. Wunker's work has much to offer entrepreneurs from all walks of life." -- CanadaOne

"Wunker does an excellent job of helping CEOs and entrepreneurs recognize the next big thing." -- BizEd, The Leading Voice of Business Education

"The power of the book is how Stephen Wunker combines a strong theoretical framework for finding, developing, and dominating new markets, with the practical means to put an effective strategy in place to exploit the new market profitably and effectively...Read the very user friendly and essential book." -- Business Daily

"Wunker has produced an excellent, thoroughly researched and accessible book on corporate strategy that should be of value to entrepreneurs and managers seeking to move established businesses in new directions." -- The Irish Times

From the Back Cover

"Capturing New Markets offers a new and rigorous toolkit that charts a clear path to this business imperative. This is a major new contribution to the field with practical takeaways just when we need them most."
--Vijay Govindarajan, Professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, and First Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant at GE

"Prepare to have your existing concepts of new markets turned upside down. This is not another academic 'thought experiment,' but a practical, experience-driven manual for all who aspire to enhanced growth. New markets are all around us--not just in the developing world. Wunker provides fresh perspectives in an extremely readable how-to manual that will allow the reader to discover unmet need and enter new markets wherever they are. All in all, an essential read for every new market pioneer." 
--Dr. Garry Neil, Corporate VP for Science & Technology, Johnson & Johnson

"Capturing New Markets reveals critical patterns underlying why some new ventures become big businesses, and others do not. The journey to creating new markets can be full of uncertainty, and understanding these patterns provides a big advantage to informed entrepreneurs."
--Charles Warden, Managing Director, Versant Ventures

"While new markets fuel business growth, traditional approaches to marketing and strategy can be poorly suited to these super-dynamic environments. Through abundant and engaging examples, Capturing New Markets shows you how to establish priorities and tap growth opportunities with lower cost, lower risk, and higher impact."
--Anish Shah, President & CEO India, GE Capital

"Intensifying competitive environments require that all companies continually think about and explore new growth opportunities. Capturing New Markets provides critical guidance on how to evaluate and build new markets with a creative yet disciplined approach." 
--Brad Gambill, Chief Strategy Officer, Singapore Telecom

"Capturing New Markets is a compass for business transformation. The book combines fascinating stories with clear takeaways that enable readers to chart their long-term courses and to begin with concrete steps tomorrow morning." 
--Greta Metts, Head of Global Marketing Innovation and Business Transformation, Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals

"Entrepreneurs are barraged with urgent issues, and it is easy to lose sight of strategy. Amidst all the pressing things you have to do in building a business, make it a priority to read Capturing New Markets. This book gives succinct and powerful advice that can save you immense amounts of time and money while substantially boosting your odds of success." 
--Suneet Wadhwa, cofounder of Snapfish.com and Serial Entrepreneur

"Wunker has created a valuable tool for anyone seeking to drive meaningful change in a market or an organization. Bridging theory to case studies, he creates effective, practical and actionable advice for those seeking opportunity within change."
--Meredith Baratz, Vice President, Market Solutions, UnitedHealthcare

"In fast-moving markets, leaders can never rest. Capturing New Markets lays out a clear and convincing route for how big companies can act like nimble entrepreneurs in building new sources of growth."
--Ingrid Johnson, CEO Retail and Business Banking, Nedbank

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (May 19, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071767444
• ISBN-13: 978-0071767446
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #914,549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Wunker has a long track record of creating successful ventures. His accomplishments include:

- Developing dozens of new growth platforms for clients in a decade of consulting to both start-up and large firms across six continents
- Creating one of the world's most successful mobile commerce firms and one of the first mobile Internet devices
- Pioneering the use of cellphones as marketing tools

In addition to his entrepreneurial and corporate venturing experience, he was a long-term colleague of the leading innovation authority Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in building up his consulting practice, Innosight. He now leads New Markets Advisors, a firm dedicated to helping companies find, enter, and win in new markets. His previous experience includes years with the management consultancy Bain & Company, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Soros Foundations.

He has published widely in journals such as Forbes and Harvard Business Review, and his television appearances include Bloomberg and the BBC. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Master's in Public Administration from Columbia University, and a BA cum laude from Princeton University. He has lived in the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, Ecuador, and Zambia, and now resides near Boston.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How to locate, penetrate, and dominate in new markets or in new customer segments January 10, 2012

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Opinions are divided (sometimes sharply divided) about where and how to generate new revenue sources when competing in a global economy such as the current one, and especially when one's resources are limited. W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne advocate what they characterize as a "blue ocean strategy," one that will enable business leaders to "break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant." In Mark Johnson's Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal, the "white space" referred to in the book's title "is the range of potential activities not defined or addressed by the company's current business model, that is, the opportunities outside its core and beyond its adjacencies that require a different business model to exploit." Advocates of these and other strategies stress the same objective: creating opportunities that others don't.

That is essentially what Stephen Wunker also has in mind when sharing his own thoughts about how to locate, penetrate, and dominate in new markets or in new customer segments. As indicated in the Preface, he really does explore in detail "how the strategies that companies pursue in established industries often do not apply when markets are nascent. Indeed, many of the best strategies for new markets - targeting nonconsumers, entering narrowly, avoiding sales channels, and other key moves - at first can seem counterintuitive. For established firms, success in new markets may also require acting in unfamiliar and entrepreneurial ways."

Rather than marinating his reader in theories, hypotheses, "what ifs," and subjunctive speculation, Wunker concentrates on real-world situations, involving real business leaders of real companies, and suggests what lessons can be learned from them. These exemplar organizations include Apple, Craig's List, eBay, Facebook, GE, Google, Monster.com, and Phillips. Throughout his lively and eloquent narrative, Wunker addresses majo0r business issues that include these:

o Why new markets matter
o How to find them and evaluate them
o How to assess "what doesn't [as yet] exist"
o How to attract the first customers (sometimes early adopters)
o How to identify and evaluate various "paths" to market penetration
o When to initiate penetration and how to sustain it
o How to take full advantage of an emerging market's potentialities
o How to create or strengthen a corporate competency while locating and exploiting a new market
o The nature and extent of government's "catalytic role"

I especially appreciate Wunker's makes skillful use of several reader-friendly devices such as a "The chapter covers..." section at the beginning of each chapter that serves as a head's up; and then a "Summary" at the end of each chapter that will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review key points later. Readers will also derive substantial benefit from various "Tables" and "Figures" that consolidate valuable information and are strategically located throughout the book. In Chapters 1-3 alone, they include "Economic transformation over five decades" (Page 6), "Most Valuable Companies in the United States and a Few of Their New Markets" (7), "Moving from Product Definition to Problem Definition" (27), "Monitoring New Factors for New Markets" (40), "Platforms beget platforms" (41), "Eight drivers of fast market growth" (61), and "Deconstructing the business model" (71).

This brief commentary can only begin to suggest the scope and depth of what Wunker shares. I know of no other single source that offers more and better advice on how to locate, penetrate, and dominate in new markets or in new customer segments. He concludes thusly: "New platforms, emerging consumers, and proliferating discontinuities are opening up countless new markets even as they threaten more established ones. The pace of change will not slow down. This is the time to act." Of course, it remains for each reader and her or his associates to determine whether or not that is appropriate to the given organization. Stephen Wunker can assist with making that decision.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for corporate innovators and intrapreneurs December 21, 2011

By B. Corum

Format:Hardcover

Masterfully written and filled with wisdom and insight gathered over years spent on the front lines of innovation, Steve Wunker's Capturing New Markets is a fast paced, engrossing, and fun "must read" for corporate innovators, intrapreneurs, and those seeking to change the game.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great primer on how to take on new markets October 12, 2011

By [e-mail]

Format:Hardcover

Anyone who has ever wondered how to expand their market or what new markets they should pursue needs to read Steve's book. Based on his personal business experience, as well as the insights and experiences of leading companies around the world, this is a great primer on how to take on new markets (and how not to). I highly recommend it.

Steve's own description of the book, found in the preface, is accurate and concise.
"This book explains how to find, enter, and win in new markets. It also explores how to create a corporate competency to generate growth from new markets over and over again. It provides a broad perspective on how to view new markets while also supplying a toolkit that can be deployed immediately."

Each chapter dives deep with excellent examples, illustrations and insights that clearly define the most important concepts and processes of mastering new markets. The chapters close with a summary of four or five key take aways from the chapter. These pithy nuggets are great for incubating ideas, starting discussions or reviewing key insights.

I had a number of "ah ha" moments sparked by the clearly presented concepts in the book. I felt as though I was being taught by a wise, understanding, and caring mentor.

This is a book to keep readily available. You will want to refer to it often, and will be rewarded each time you do.