Growth Gamble: When Leaders Should Bet Big on New Business - and How They Can Avoid Expensive Failures [Hardcover]

Andrew Campbell (Author), Robert Park (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2005

Conventional wisdom tells us to try harder, be more innovative, take more risks-and almost every company tries. Only a tiny percentage of management teams settle for sticking to their core businesses and declining gracefully as their business matures.In reality, at least ninety percent of business attempts fail. Andrew Campbell and Robert Park's The Growth Gamble: When Leaders Should Bet Big on New Business-and How They Can Avoid Expensive Failures gives managers an alternative. Instead of investing heavily in experimenting with new growth areas and developing an innovative culture, the authors advise managers to be far more selective and to invest in new business only when the opportunity has a high probability of success. Rethink your business model. Read The Growth Gamble today.CONTENTSThe Challenge of New BusinessesBeating the OddsThe Difficulties of Building New LegsWhen Low Growth is Better than GamblingThe New Businesses Traffic LightsDiversificationSearching for New BusinessesIs There a Role for Corporate Venturing?Positioning and Supporting a New BusinessAn Age of Realism

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A timely and valuable contribution to our understanding of the challenges of birthing new businesses ... a wealth of deep insights, practical advice, and meritorious admonition. I have no doubt that this thoroughly researched and carefully argued book can help your company gamble more wisely on growth." From the Foreword by Gary Hamel, co-author of Competing for the Future; "Imagine gathering the world's leading management thinkers around a table to advise one company (a hypothetical McDonald's), then testing their advice against systematic research. The Growth Gamble provides just that kind of imaginary intellectual feast. This provocative book argues persuasively for seasoning grand growth goals with a dash of reality. New business development is really hard for established companies, and they should stop chasing rainbows of the next revolution." Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and author of Confidence; "The challenge of building the core as well as developing growth engines is one of today's most fundamental managerial challenges. The Growth Gamble by Campbell and Park has a clear, pragmatic, and research anchored point of view on this challenge. Better yet they provide the reader with a sense of the vitality of research in this domain. This book belongs on both academics' as well as managers' desks. Academics will come away with greater insights on the growth challenge. Managers will come away with both greater insights as well as specific actions to resolve the contradictions of managing for both today as well as tomorrow." Michael Tushman Paul R. Lawrence, MBA Class Of 1942 Professor Of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; "The Growth Gamble is a lucid examination of the most complex problem faced by most executives today - how to enter new businesses for the future without disrupting the profitable core of today. Managers will learn from the original examples and from Campbell and Park's provocative analysis of the need for growth." Chris Zook, Partner Bain & Co, and author of Profit From the Core and Beyond the Core; "This book is very insightful and also very practical - it provides the practitioner with some real hands-on advice as to what to do differently. We found its contents really helped shape our thinking." Stephen Ford, Head of Strategy Development, Boots Group PLC; "Although I do not agree with all of Campbell and Park's views, this is an important topic addressed in a solid, fact based way, informed by history. Few books meet these tests." Richard Foster, author of Creative Destruction; "Campbell and Park challenge some well documented views about growth and new business development. Their challenges are not always successful, but they do encourage rigorous thinking about how companies should search and select new businesses." Robert A. Burgelman is the Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and author of Strategy is Destiny; "Campbell and Park address a critical issue - new growth for the firm. Supported by manifold examples from practice, which have been distilled into guidelines for firms that aspire to grow new businesses, The Growth Gamble argues for a more cautious view than others, including myself, of how much venturing a company really can accommodate. As a result they provide a valuable antidote to exhortations for growth that drive firms to be overly ambitious." Professor Ian MacMillan, The Wharton School and author of Corporate Venturing and The Entrepreneurial Mindset

From the Publisher

Foreword by Gary Hamel, co-author of Competing for the Future.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (April 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904838049
• ISBN-13: 978-1904838043
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,591,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, September 8, 2005

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Growth Gamble: When Leaders Should Bet Big on New Business - and How They Can Avoid Expensive Failures (Hardcover)

Some senior executives are so eager for growth that they gamble their company's riches on new business initiatives that will probably fail. Researchers estimate that the failure rate for company-spawned business initiatives is as high as 99%. Authors Andrew Campbell and Robert Park tell companies to be selective about which growth opportunities they pursue - even if that means standing pat and accepting low growth. Growth, they say, is simply not possible at all times for all companies. They provide valuable tools, including a "traffic light" evaluation filter and a "confidence check" mechanism, to help you choose and execute new business endeavors. Wall Street has almost no greater profanity than "low growth," but if you take seriously your fiduciary duty to spend shareholders' dollars wisely, we think you should read this book. In the aftermath of the dot-com crash and the subsequent corporate-governance scandals, the time has come for a sober, systematic approach to growth.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More often than not, the tortoise DOES beat the hare..., April 29, 2009

By 

Rebecca Clement "Publisher, Soundview Executi... (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Growth Gamble: When Leaders Should Bet Big on New Business - and How They Can Avoid Expensive Failures (Hardcover)

Few would disagree that there's been a general acceleration in the global marketplace to which no organization is completely immune. Business book shelves are currently crammed with titles about "Speed Shifts," "Lightning Change," "Move Fast," "Adapt or Die" - but such catchphrases don't necessarily equate to solid business strategy. In Andrew Campbell's insightful book titled - "The Growth Gamble" - he argues that not all companies should strive for rapid growth. Soundview recommends this book because of its well-developed, contrarian position that "speed" is not always the economic panacea its hyped to be. Campbell explains that internal and external factors need to be considered such as: infrastructure flexibility; competitive variance and the quality of organizational talent. Once that assessment is made the organization may chart a steady or slow growth trajectory that spans years. While such a strategy may not be en vogue - neither is organizational failure. Unfortunately the economic landscape is cluttered with companies that grew too large, too quickly without rigorous analysis of growth decisions. Campbell also offers an innovative New Business Traffic Light Toolkit to aid in decision making - all of which supports the timeless moral that, "Slow and steady wins the race."