The Impossible Advantage: Winning the Competitive Game by Changing the Rules [Hardcover]

Wolfram Wördemann (Author), Andreas Buchholz (Author), Ned Wiley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 24, 2009

Conventional business strategies tell you that differentiation, the right positioning, and defining your superior edge will turn you into the ‘best player’ in your market – but this is wrong. The Impossible Advantage reveals that success can be achieved by changing the market in which you operate, rather than trying to beat the competition.  The authors illustrate that the biggest, most spectacular and groundbreaking business success stories feature companies that make the rules – instead of just following them. The best companies seem to know how to break, change, or reinvent the rules of the market that everyone else follows.

This book:

• Will help you to break through to an entirely new level of thinking: winning the game by changing the rules in your own favour.
• Explains that you don’t need a technological breakthrough, product innovation or a massive marketing budget to change the rules of the competition.
• Shows you that you can become a ′game changer′ and gain a seemingly ‘impossible’ advantage even over far larger competitors, no matter how large your market or how small your segment is.
• Introduces you to four compelling ‘Game Changing Strategies’ that work for managers from any industry or business sector.

For more information on The Impossible Advantage, go to the official website: http://www.impossible-advantage.com

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...reveals that success can be achieved by changing the market in which you operate" (Finance & Management Faculty, March 2009)

"Thought provoking for someone who wants to break into a mature market or break out of the pack in a competitive market space. "--UC Irvine's Merage School Research on Strategic Innovation

"(...) good recipes for success. A must-read for all marketing and advertising people. Particularly in these challenging times." --Maurice Levy, Chairman & CEO, Publicis Groupe

"Most surprising about the ideas in The Impossible Advantage is that they haven't been widely spread among business and management schools for years." --John C. Kornblum, Former US Ambassador and Chairman of Lazard Germany

"When we started, our perspectives were modest and our budgets were tight. But then we came up with that game Changing idea (...) Read this book and find out how to make The Impossible Advantage work for your business, too." --Helmut Thoma, Founder of RTL, Germany's Number-One TV station

From the Inside Flap

The competition in the marketplace is a game, no doubt, much like any other game… except for one small, but most significant difference: in the market, some of the players are also the rule makers.

From a classic game perspective, these rule makers or Game Changers enjoy nothing less than an ‘impossible advantage’ over the vast majority of their competitors who are happy to simply play along by the rules.

Few managers truly understand the fine art of how to control the intangible and somehow enigmatic ‘laws and rules’ of the competition in the marketplace. And hardly anybody knows about the compelling and proven techniques of how to purposefully change them in their own favour.

‘The Impossible Advantage’ reveals some surprising news: how virtually anybody can learn the art of the Game Masters and Game Changers. There are no demanding prerequisites: just get ready to engage in a mind-opening and provocatively different way of thinking.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470717122
• ISBN-13: 978-0470717127
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,307,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Impossible Advantage. winning the competitve game by changing the rules, April 5, 2009

By 

Edwin P. Wiley (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Impossible Advantage: Winning the Competitive Game by Changing the Rules (Hardcover)

Combining many years of successful business and consulting experiences, the three authors offer a novel perspective on thinking "outside the box" of marketplace dogma. They have devised a disciplined approach to identifying and instituting winning competitive strategies, easily applied by knowledgeable marketplace participants, and have described many compelling real life case studies illustrating their approach. As noted by Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Groupe, the book is a "must read for all marketing and advertising people." Indeed, it should be absorbed by managers in all types of business and professional pursuits.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A way out of groupthink that works, March 8, 2009

By 

Alatriste "yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" (Texas) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Impossible Advantage: Winning the Competitive Game by Changing the Rules (Hardcover)

I don't usually like business books, especially since I've retired from corporate life. But this one is pretty good.

It offers a practical method to generate fresh thinking to break free from the conventional wisdom and see a business from an entirely new perspective. I've read a lot of books and was exposed to many trendy techniques for doing that which were utter garbage. The most robotic conformity I ever saw was at "think outside the box" meetings at IBM. This book is not one of those.

The paradigm is that of a game, like baseball, which is played on two levels. A game itself is played according to rules on the baseball diamond -- nine innings, three outs, etc. That is the first level. The second is that there exist league organizations that rewrite the rules. Clearly rewriting the rules can completely change outcomes of games. Subtract one run for every five errors and a different kind of team might win the pennant. Applying this to business, the existing competitive practices and players are the first level. They are playing a game according to the existing rules. A player, or a new entrant, can change those rules. This is a key insight, that players can change the rules during the game and don't need anyone's permission to do it. There is no "league" management.

Red Bull could never succeed as another soda pop against Coke and Pepsi. But as the originator of a new market -- "energy drink"-- not only does it succeed but Coke and Pepsi, despite their great resources cannot overcome being the "copy" to Red Bull's "original" and cannot overtake it. So Red Bull changed the game from "soda pop", where Coke was the Yankees, to "energy drink" where Red Bull is the Yankees and Coke is the Cubs.

This and other examples, drawn from the consulting experience of the authors, are interesting and support the thesis well. I also think that the game playing perspective has application outside of business. The book has sparked off a firecracker string of ideas for me having to do with how I see my life and goals outside of financial issues. Redefining problems leads to different solutions.

Five stars. Buy this one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening: It really changes how you think!, March 18, 2010

By 

Youngtimer "Youngtimer" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Impossible Advantage: Winning the Competitive Game by Changing the Rules (Hardcover)

Full disclosure: One of the authors is my boss. But boy, after reading this book do I have an idea why he became the boss. It's the way brilliant marketing minds think. Big. Radical. Game-changing.

Like Red Bull who took on Coke. Their soda tasted horrible. They called it "energy drink" and by that changed the rules. Coca-Cola looked almost wimpy. Game, set and match.

Apple's Steve Jobs took geeky, complex MP3 players and turned them into overpriced lifestyle must-haves. Game changed, competition dwarfed.

This book has dozens of such examples, all from the real world. Some big (like the iPod and Red Bull) some from small and medium-sized businesses that the authors advise about strategic marketing, branding, positioning, growth, competitive strategy and innovation. From technology to pharmaceuticals, they cover a wide range of industries.

And I have to say: Once you get into their mindset after reading the first chapter or two, your brain works differently. This book should need a prescription for its mind-altering properties!

The next day, you go to work and question everything about your market. Your product, your position, your distribution, your brand, your pricing - and most importantly your competition.

You now think like Steve Jobs and the guy with the unspellable name who founded Red Bull (Dietrich Mateschitz). Your competitors don't because they have not read this book.

Now it's your turn. You can crush them. Because you know how to change the rules of the game. They still simply play along.

Wimps.

By the way: Two of the authers also wrote What Makes Winning Brands Different: The Hidden Method Behind the World's Most Successful Brands - a veritable Financial Times bestseller.