Customer Reviews

Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It

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In this book, Al Ries defines corporate focus as an organization's "necessary" and relentless pursuit to specialize within its industry. For example, one of Ries' examples, PepsiCo, should've focused on its core competency (the Pepsi cola brand), and spun off all other divisions such as its food chains division (KFC, Pizza Hut, Del Taco) and its snack foods division (Frito Lay). PepsiCo, he claims, will lose the war with Coca-Cola unless it focuses on just one enemy (Coke) rather than several. Interestingly enough, Ries's prophecy towards future focus within organizations happens to have become the biggest hit on Wall Street in 1997, and in the case of PepsiCo, came true.

Overall, Ries's call for corporate focus makes a lot of sense. He provides some wonderful examples throughout the book where companies have lost steam through a lack of focus, and then regained it through refocusing. In fact, probably the greatest contribution of this book comes from Ries's expansive milieu of business examples to support his focus-centered thesis. However, this book's downfall becomes apparent in its mid-section where Ries exposes his ignorance about other business philosophies that he imagines are different than his own. For example, his discussion of quality-based management (TQM) is hopelessly misinformed and biased, which will become obvious to even the neophyte in TQM philosophy. It is through his discussion of quality-based management where Ries's bias towards only his way of doing things is exposed. Also exposed is the fact that Ries's area of expertise is marketing, and he consequently pays less respect to others areas of business (namely, operations and support areas).

Although I enjoyed the many excellent business examples that Ries provides for the reader, and would recommend the book for that reason alone, I would not recommend the book as a whole. I believe that Ries's focus-centered thesis has trapped him to focus only on his way of focusing. To put it another way, Ries's focus will help a company perhaps attain its desired financial and market results, but can not contribute to the overall growth and development of the organization. As experienced here at JOICO, the word focus (without proper understanding) can be used in a multitude of different ways. Furthermore, we may focus on a certain type of product or market niche so much that we may miss the changing trends in the world that will someday make our focus and market dominance irrelevant. For example, Ries encourages Kodak to concentrate on its core competency, chemically processed film, and leave the digital stuff to another company. That may be good for Kodak's focus, but will probably kill Kodak in the long-term when chemically processed film becomes a thing of the past.

This book is very interesting, but I would not recommend it to the easily swayed business reader. Ries' is a sweet-talking salesman when it comes to his point of view, and it takes a well-educated outside view to see through some of his arguments.

The book is full of valuable information. But Al Ries does not know how to use facilitators to reading. Such as the use of short paragraphs, sections in each chanpter, short chapters etc. The books written by the duo (Ries and Trout) where much better.

The team was very good. It brought us The 22 immutable laws, Positioning, marketing Warfare etc..., But alone I think Ries lacks flare and and trout lacks substance.

Get back together and show us more of the Old stuff.

About five years ago my colleagues and I at a technology start-up called Inforte found this book. As we grew from 15 to 450 professionals the counsel in this book was a life saver! Inevitably new members of the executive team would want to execute line extensions, get into training, outsourcing, software development, etc. but we did as Al advised and stuck to our guns - focusing only on services. His point - focus is like the sun, as it spreads out it becomes weaker and diluted. On the other hand, concentrated like a laser it is at its strongest.

This book was the best and easiest way to explain to new team members our philosophy. Three years later we were able to meet Al and ask him to join our Board - where his continued application of focus, the brand strength, the increased margins, the stability - all had tremendous payoff. I have read all of his books and if you can only read one - this is it! A great book to give starting Entrepreneurs and pays off large dividends for anyone running a business. It is also a quick read and keeps a fun, macro perspective on the topic.

For the most part, the ideas in this book are correct: the companies that identify their core businesses and focus on them exclusively are the ones that are most successful. PepsiCo is an often-used example of a company without focus because it is in both the soft-drink business and the restaurant business. Ries argues that this lack of focus causes companies to be valued less. Thus, even though PepsiCo's restaurant business is the largest in the world (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.), it is valued less than McDonald's, which is smaller but focused. And, even though PepsiCo's revenues are higher than Coke's, again, it is valued less than Coke, Coke being a more focused company. The author outlines several specific problems unfocused companies face, like distracted management and competing against potential customers (e.g., PepsiCo would have a hard time selling soda to McDonald's because it competes against it in the fast-food business).

There is also some good commentary about brand extensions and why they often don't work. For example, "Reebok" might be a great shoe brand, but carrying it over into other products, like Reebok fitness clubs, isn't likely to work. He gives lots of examples to think about, but his logic is sometimes faulty. For example, in trying to argue that Coke should have stuck with the separate "Coke" and "Tab" brands instead of launching "Diet Coke," he points out that the market share of the Coke-plus-Diet-Coke combination today is about the same as the original market share of the Coke-plus-Tab combination. In other words, there was no benefit to replacing Tab with Diet Coke. But this conclusion is invalid because it assumes that Tab could have held its market share. But maybe the only way that Coke could have kept its market share in the face of new competition from Diet Pepsi was to replace Tab with Diet Coke. Who knows? It's not so simple as the author would like us to believe.

These are some other things I didn't like about the book:

The author rarely gives data to back up his claims. You just have to take him at his word. When he does give data, it is hardly sufficient. Often when trying to "prove" that Company A's focused strategy is better than Company B's unfocused strategy, the only piece of data he offers is a comparison of the two companies' profits for the most recent year, like this: Company A earned $100 million last year, whereas Company B lost $20 million. Therefore, Company A's strategy is better. The problem is that so many things can influence profits year-to-year that such snapshot comparisons have little significance. If he had shown trends over several years, that would have been meaningful, but that, of course, takes a little more research.

Many of the analogies in this book are way off the mark. For example, in one section, he is arguing that every company must be a niche company, since no company can expect to capture an entire market, or even close. His analogy? Franklin D. Roosevelt, our country's only four-term president, never got more than 61% of the vote in an election. How then, he asks, could a company capture 80 or 90% of a market? Huh?

My other major complaint is with the style of the book. In a typical chapter, he introduces an idea and then gives literally dozens upon dozens of examples to illustrate it. But the examples are each just a paragraph or two long. No data, no in-depth analysis.

Basically, this is a book with good ideas overall, but some ideas are suspect, and there is hardly any sound, quantitative data to back anything up. It's fitting that the cover has an endorsement from motivational guru Anthony Robbins, since the book is written very much in the motivational-speaker style: This is my idea, I'm saying it over and over, now you believe me.

What new markets and synergies can we build through corporate diversification and brand extensions? This, Al Reis contends, is a loaded question, one that companies repeatedly answer and act on to the detriment of stock market success and earnings growth.

Reis argues that all to often the focus of a company is lost as acquisitions are made that have nothing to do with the core area of expertise. Strong brands are often diluted through ill-conceived extensions. The wrong extension serves to distract the company, and confuse the consumer as to what the brand stands for. V8 Splash anyone?

The loss of focus, and the accompanying deterioration of market share and competitiveness are illustrated though countless examples from virtually all industries. "Focus" is engaging to read, clearly illustrates the authors' arguments, and weaves just the right amount of humor throughout, to keep you smiling.

Focus is a simple but powerful concept. Not only does it make for spectacular business strategy, but investment choices, and the structure of your personal/professional life as well. If you ever feel like weight of your ambitions and varied endeavors is detracting from your achievements, a little focus must be in order. Read this book, you'll be glad you did!

A brilliant explanation of the value of focusing in our businesses. It gives fascinating accounts of how billions have been wasted, and made, by following, or not, the principles outlined.

Interestingly, we realise that what Al speaks of is just as true in any area of our lives; whether running a group, organisation or doing something at home. A great read even if you don't have a business. All the books by Ries and his earlier partner, Jack Trout are the best in their fields.

Al, Thank you, for writing this book!

If you are a CEO or Marketing person you should read this book before you launch next business or marketing plan. This book is full of real examples about real companies (like IBM, Boston Market, Sony, and GE) who continue to fall in the trench when they cross over into a new product or service. The book isn't just rhetoric, but stuffed with practical advice on how to keep ahead of the competition by staying focused.

One my favorite lines from the book (paraphased)- "Butterflies are not called flying caterpillars because, in the mind, you just don't think of a caterpillar as a butterfly. His point being, if you are the market for inexpensive automobile, you are more likely to look at Honda, than BMW's newest low-end car.

I read the book first. I thought it dragged a bit. Then a friend lent me the cassette tape version. I found the spoken emphasis that Al Ries put into the recorded cassette tape version of the book made a HUGE difference. Of course, the whole Al Ries / Jack Trout school of thought is not one shared by everyone. But if you are in marketing, you need to get this. If you ar ean employee and you just want to define your career objectives more clearly, then this book is for you.

Al Ries is one of the sharpest marketing minds around. Focus is simply yet another excellent book he's put out. Read it and take heed: trying to do too much . . . trying to be too many things to too many people . . . diluting your efforts, money, and time over more projects than you can profitably and effectively handle -- these will all literally put you out of business. Many of his stories are based on big corporations. In my own case, I'm a one-man operation -- and the lessons are at least as true for me as they are for the hundred million dollar businesses. In my opinion, anything written by Al Ries (and his former co-author Jack Trout) is some of the best stuff anywhere.

It is so easy to try to have your business go in five directions at one time, especially when you are starting out and need the revenue. Read this book before you try the shotgun method of business development. If you are starting out in business you know that the truth is there is more opportunity than you can handle. Without focus you won't do justice to any of the opportunities you have before you. This book is simple and convincing.