How Industries Evolve: Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance [Hardcover]

Anita M. McGahan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2004

There are specific rules that govern how change can successfully occur in a given industry. Companies whose growth strategies follow the rules of their industry succeed; those who break the rules fail. This book shows how to align strategy with the principles of industry change to achieve sustainable growth. Growth and innovation are essential for the long-term survival of every company and they are also the two arenas in which companies most consistently fail. This book offers a compelling reason for why this is happening and a breakthrough framework for turning it around.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

McGahan has worked closely with Michael Porter for more than a decade and is consistently identified as an up-and-comer in the strategy field.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 245 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; First Edition edition (November 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578518407
• ISBN-13: 978-1578518401
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #857,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Thoughts on how Industries Evolve and Making it Work, June 23, 2005

By 

Fred G. Sanford "Fred G. Sanford" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Industries Evolve: Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance (Hardcover)

Prof. McGahan (BC and HBS) has written an interesting book on how industries evolve and how a business executive can identify those trends and make $ out of it.

These are the key insights from the book,

1. 4 types of industry evolution patterns - Progressive (retail), Creative (pharma), Radical (fedex) and Intermediating (financial brokers).

2. These rules can be applied across core assets or core activities.

3. Two categories of phases of changes - [Fragementation, shakeout, maturity, declining]or [Emergence, Convergenc, Co-Existence and Dominance]

4. Her prescriptive approach to apply it to the industry,

- Identify what is your industry
- Determine Evolutionary Trajectory
- Determine nature of change - architectural/foundational
- Determine phase of change
- Apply principles of competition for each type

5. 2 kinds of tradeoffs - Leading vs. Following, Repositioning vs. Sustaining.

As you can well see these perspectives are not driven from lot of data and hard stats but more conjectures and hypothesis that are not well proven. I am not sure using this approach will help you make $ of money of these trends but it can get you tenureship at the local university.

FGS

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Academic but worth it, September 26, 2005

By 

Marcy "Marcy" (San Mateo, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Industries Evolve: Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance (Hardcover)

This book was written by a b-school professor based on many years of research. The framework takes a little while to absorb. We read and reread the book several times. Once we "got it," though, this really made a big difference in helping us understand how our business threatened larger firms. We made much better pricing decisions after reading it.

9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Plain Old Logic, December 25, 2004

By 

Brian Waldman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Industries Evolve: Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance (Hardcover)

This is a book definitely worth reading. While the concepts can be second nature to someone who considers themselves a strategic thinker, the way Dr. McGahan defines the different types of competitive environments and they ways to achieve success within them is simple and yet insightful. Any business person should put this on their must read list.