Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies: How to Achieve Growth, Competitive Advantage, and Increased Profits [Hardcover]

Michael E. McGrath (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1994

Product strategy is the most important determinant of success for high-technology companies. It defines the products on which a company bases its business and shapes the way those products will win or lose against the competition. Yet even in high-technology companies, very few executives understand how to conceive and shape successful product strategy. Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies shows how to formulate product strategies that lead to successful products. This comprehensive guide covers everything high-tech companies should consider in developing their strategies, including timing, technological change, globalization, product differentiation, cost and price, and contingency planning, as well as marketing and financial considerations. Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies offers more than strategic guidance. Through more than 250 examples, you'll discover how product strategy has been used at such companies as Microsoft, IBM, Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard, and many others. Through their trials, errors, and successes, and through the book's expert insights, you'll have a complete framework for building your own innovative, competitive product strategy.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 298 pages
• Publisher: Irwin Professional Pub; 1st edition (October 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786301465
• ISBN-13: 978-0786301461
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,464,934 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In 1986 when Michael McGrath initiated the PACE® (Product and Cycle-time Excellence)decision process for product development,it enabled thousands of companies to reduce time-to-market. In Business Decisions!he now changes the way and the process of how companies make decisions. Author and decision-making expert Michael McGrath has devoted his career to making winning business decisions. He has advised some of the largest companies in the world and created innovative new decision techniques used by hundreds of successful businesses. He has made countless decisions as a CEO building a world-leading consulting firm and leading a public company turnaround. He is the author of the best-selling book Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies and founder of Decide Better. He currently is the executive chairman of Thomas Group, and serves on a number of private and nonprofit boards.

Decide Better!
Decide Better was founded in 2007 to help businesses and individuals achieve success through making better decisions. The company has two series of books. The Decide Better Self-Help series is targeted at individuals, with Decide Better! for a Better Life and Decide Better! for College published in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Business Decisions! is the first book in the Decide Better Business Series, with additional books and workbooks to follow. In addition to publications, Decide Better also provides decision workshops for executives, teams, and boards, as well as presentations to large groups. For more information, go to www.DecideBetter.com/BusinessDecisions.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book for any product marketing manager, September 22, 1998

By 

Tsion Gonen CEO Genuine Connections Inc. tsio... (Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies: How to Achieve Growth, Competitive Advantage, and Increased Profits (Hardcover)

This is not a 10 minutes guide for a great product. This is really a great place to learn how to better understand product strategy. The book covers crucial issues such as the importance of good platform strategy, differentiation and others. The text is clear and full of real life examples.

Marketing managers and product managers will appreciate this excellent book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, October 19, 2000

By 

Ron Zanetti (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies: How to Achieve Growth, Competitive Advantage, and Increased Profits (Hardcover)

The idea of Product Platform or Product Architecture as being the basis for longer term success hadn't been something that I had taken into consideration in any depth before I read this book. Certainly being able to work with code and making sure it was "maintainable", and free of spagetti, was not new, but this book helped clarify for me the details of why it's imporant to plan out the product platform, and how a smartly based strategy that focuses the team on the platform first and the emd-user feature set in view of that, really improves the stability and performance of the product.

The team at Ernst and Young in Seattle that I worked with used this book as a reference as we built new web-based technologies. Thank you Michael McGrath!

I see there's a new version just released this month, and I will be purchasing it.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies, September 19, 2000

By 

Michio Hiraga (Isehara-shi, Kanagawa-ken Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies: How to Achieve Growth, Competitive Advantage, and Increased Profits (Hardcover)

There is a good and generic template or framework for corporate management in US for senior managers in every company of every industry for them to be able to review their leadership, their strategy, and operation of organizations with respect to satisfaction of all the stake holders and business performance. That is Baldridge National Qaulity Award Program. This book is supplying us with very specific suggestions how the contents should be, what specific options are to respond to Criteria for Performance Excellence in crucial categories of National Quality Award. I believe this book enables every senior managers to be able to posiotion their practices in management with respect to the plentiful examples of ideas as a measure so that they will be able to find or identify his strength or weakness in every important aspects of corporte management of high-tech companies. Take a look at this book. Then you will find your own idea for improvement. When someone is there who says "I find nothing interest in this book" then he or she will be a great manager in some company achieving extraordinary and sustainable success in industry.