Managing with Dual Strategies [Hardcover]

Derek F. Abell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 1993

Rarely, if ever, do companies clearly distinguish between or balance the management of today's business and planning for the future. Derek Abell, internationally renowned for his pioneering work on strategic market planning, once again breaks sharply with conventional wisdom to demonstrate how a company can develop analytic marketing modes for not one but two distinct planning horizons. Managing with dual strategies, Abell argues, calls for new approaches not only to planning, but to organizational structure and management control. He makes specific recommendations on how current operating practices need to be adapted, and shows how leading firms are recognizing the dual nature of management as a new way of organizational life.

Planning for the present, Abell shows, requires a vision of how the firm must operate now given its unique competencies and resources. By involving each level within the management team from the CEO to financial planners, to line managers, Abell details how firms can pinpoint market opportunities through careful segmentation and identification of key success factors to "connect" with customers. At the same time, he distinguishes the importance of horizontal relationships for defining and focusing on internal strategies, and vertical relationships for being attuned to changing market realities.

Success today, he warns, does not ensure success tomorrow. Abell describes how world-class leaders such as Nestle, Caterpillar, and Heineken monitor both internal and external forces for market change, successfully mastering the present, and preempting the future. Preparing for the future requires understanding the full range of activities industry-wide, andanticipating changes in technology, buyer/seller behavior, and product life cycles. Abell explains how companies can develop and implement these co-existing visions and address the real forms of change that vitally affect their future -- today and tomorrow.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Brad Gale co-author of The PIMS Principles: Linking Strategy to Performance Connecting with customers today and preempting the markets of the future are truly the dual challenges that operating executives face. In Managing with Dual Strategies, Derek Abell provides a refreshing new perspective for simultaneously achieving current performance and driving change that will capture the future. -- Review

About the Author

Derek Abell, former Dean of IMEDE and former member of the Harvard Business School faculty, is professor and research coordinator at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland. He is an internationally recognized consultant in the fields of marketing, strategic management, entrepreneurship, and international business.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (August 9, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029001455
• ISBN-13: 978-0029001455
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #434,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dual planning: Strategy-for-Today and Strategy-for-Tomorrow, November 26, 2004

By 

Peter Leerskov "The Strategist, www.lace.dk" (Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing with Dual Strategies (Hardcover)

Derek Abell is an internationally recognized professor at the Swiss IMD business school. He has shown THOUGHT LEADERSHIP on strategy in books like Defining the Business (1980) and Strategic Market Planning (1979).

This book summarizes Abell's complete experience on strategic planning. And I promise you; he has a lot to offer!

This fall of 2004, a leading Danish business school still used this book as curricula for their MBA-level course on business development. I have many newer strategy books on my bookshelf, but I agree fully with their choice.

Abell's core idea is that TO SUSTAIN EXCELLENCE, COMPANIES NEED DUAL STRATEGIES - ONE FOR THE PRESENT AND ONE FOR THE FUTURE.

The distinction between a PRESENT ("today for today") and FUTURE ("today for tomorrow") orientation is not the usual short-term, long-term distinction - in which the short-term plan is simply a detailed operations and budgeting exercise made in the context of a hoped-for long-term market position. Present planning also requires strategy - a vision of how the firm has to operate now (given its competencies and target markets) and what the role of each key function will be. The long-term plan, by contrast, is built on a vision of the future - even more important, on a strategy for getting there.

Planning for today requires a clear, precise definition of the business - a delineation of target customer segments, customer functions, and the business approach to be taken; planning for tomorrow is concerned with how the business should be redefined for the future.

Planning for today focuses on shaping up the business to meet the needs of today's customers with excellence. It involves identifying factors that are critical to success and smothering them with attention; planning for tomorrow can entail reshaping the business to compete more effectively in the future.

Planning for today seeks to achieve compliance in the firm's functional activities with whatever definition of the business has been chosen; planning for tomorrow often involves bold moves away from existing ways of conducting the business.

Planning for today requires an organization that mirrors current business opportunities; planning for tomorrow may require reorganization for future challenges.

IN SHORT, PLANNING FOR TODAY IS ABOUT MANAGING CURRENT ACTIVITIES WITH EXCELLENCE; PLANNING FOR TOMORROW IS ABOUT MANAGING CHANGE.

I've read this book three times since it was published (okay, I may be somewhat slow). And each time, I add to my knowledge on working with strategy. Having worked very much with strategic management in practice over the last 15 years, I find it amazing that I cannot make more people read this book. But I won't give up. If you don't have time to read the full book, then consider reading Abell's article on the same subject in Sloan Management Review, spring 1999. However, the article doesn't include much on Abell's heavy toolbox presented in the book.

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business