Repeatability: Build Enduring Businesses for a World of Constant Change [Hardcover]

Chris Zook (Author), James Allen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2012

An argument for simplicity from the bestselling authors of Profit from the Core

Is radical reinvention the key to winning in today’s fast-paced world? Not judging by the results of some of the world’s best-performing companies.

In Repeatability, Chris Zook and James Allen—leaders of Bain & Company’s influential Strategy practice—warn that complexity is a silent killer of profitable growth. Successful companies endure by maintaining simplicity at their core. They don’t stray from, or regularly discard, their business model in pursuit of radical renovation. Instead, they build a “repeatable business model” that produces continuous improvement and allows them to rapidly adapt to change without succumbing to complexity.

Based on a multiyear study of more than two hundred companies, the book stresses the value of repeatability in business, showing how the “big idea” today is really made up of a series of successful smaller ideas driven by a simple and repeatable business model. Zook and Allen show how some of the world’s best-known firms combine a core differentiation model with speed, adaptability, and simplicity to land them at the top for long periods of time. These firms include: Apple, Danaher, DaVita, IKEA, Nike, Olam, Tetra Pak, Vanguard, and others.

CEOs, senior executives, managers, and investors all need to read this book. It’s the new blueprint for reaching the top—and staying there.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Zook and Allen call complexity the “silent killer” of modern business…” “The Bain duo correctly argue that successful companies can survive dramatic change by deciding which bits of their business models to preserve and which to dump.” — The Economist

“This exceptional book is a ‘must have’ resource.” — Forbes

“It has a rich repertoire of powerful examples, many clues for making our own organizations more “repeatable.” “…the book is pleasantly “simple” to peruse from cover to cover, exemplifying its “repeatable” model in its own way. It has been so far a wonderful experience reading the book.” — Journal of Product Innovation Management

“Repeatability is made compelling by the copious survey and case data and by the authors’ engaging presentation of their work.” — Research-Technology Management

“This is not a recipe for doing nothing. Far from it. Indeed concentrating “great repeatable models” that stick to consistent sets of principles is potentially as tricky and as time-consuming as engaging in all sorts of new initiatives. The difference is it is likely to be more effective.” — Future of Business (futureofbusinessblog.com)

“Repeatability provides business leaders with a blueprint for bringing consistency and clarity to their organizations and for putting them on track for profitable growth. But don't just take my word for it. American Express Chairman and CEO Ken Chenault says, ‘Repeatability is a terrific guide to adapting your business for success in uncertain times.’” — American Express OPEN Forum

“Repeatability once again proves what a productive pleasure it is to spend some time with Chris Zook.” — 800 CEO READ

“a terrific strategy book” — Seeking Alpha

ADVANCE PRAISE for Repeatability:

Ken Chenault, Chairman and CEO, American Express—
“Repeatability is a terrific guide to adapting your business for success in uncertain times.”

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO and President, LEGO Group—
“Very few businesses move beyond surviving to actually thriving and winning in their segments. The secret is to focus on what truly makes them unique, and to frequently refine and adapt this to changing circumstances through a repeatable business model. This requires hard thinking on why your business exists, and strict discipline to stay focused. Chris Zook and James Allen show how this can be achieved through clear thinking and hard, enduring effort.”

Sandy Ogg, Operating Partner, Blackstone—
“Strategy is more than a plan, more than a vision. Strategy is about delivering something better to customers than your competitors every day, which means translating strategy into front line actions and behavior. It is about capabilities, it is about engagement. Repeatability is the missing link to turn strategy into action.”

A. M. Naik, Chairman and Managing Director, Larsen & Toubro Limited—
“Driving profitable growth year after year requires a synergy of various aspects—vision, strategy, execution, continuous learning—along with passion and commitment to organizational goals. Repeatability offers practicable ideas on how CEOs can develop and implement a business model to empower leaders across the organization to replicate a proven growth formula.”

Walter Kiechel III, author, The Lords of Strategy—
“For most industrial capitalists, the secret to success is being able to churn out the same product over and over, with uniform quality and at a predictable price. Zook and Allen argue that the key to strategic success is a company’s ability to do approximately the same thing with its business model, replicating the essential voodoo it does so well, in new markets and with new products. It’s a killer argument, one no strategist can afford to brush off.”

Angela Ahrendts, CEO, Burberry—
“Repeatability brilliantly encapsulates how executives today must lead change. Consistency and clarity for customers and your culture creates ‘less complexity, more energy, and better connectedness.’ Zook and Allen have proven this simple, adaptable model is critical for ‘sustained value creation’ of your company and greater community today.”

Sir Christopher Gent, Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline; former CEO, Vodafone—
“One of the hardest jobs of a CEO is to navigate the fine line between keeping the organization focused on day-to-day execution and making sure the company is ready to change its strategy in response to industry changes. With their idea of repeatable models that can adapt over time, Chris Zook and James Allen are offering something important to CEOs navigating a turbulent world.”

About the Author

Chris Zook is a partner at Bain & Company and co-head of Bain’s Strategy practice, where his work focuses on helping companies find their next wave of profitable growth. He is the author of the best-selling business books, Profit from the Core, Beyond the Core, and Unstoppable. James Allen is a partner in Bain & Company’s London office and co-head of Bain’s Global Strategy Practice. He is co-author of Profit from the Core and is a frequent speaker at the World Economic Forum and other conferences.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press (March 6, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422143309
• ISBN-13: 978-1422143308
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Zook is a Partner in Bain & Company's Amsterdam office and has been co-head of the Global Strategy Practice for the past 15 years. He specializes in helping companies find new sources of profitable growth.

He is the author of five books with Harvard Business Review Press in the past ten years including his new book "Repeatability: Build Enduring Businesses for a World of Constant Change," published in March 2012. Among his best-selling books are "Profit from the Core: a Return to Growth in Turbulent Times" (HBRP, January 2010), an updated edition of his 2001 book, "Profit from the Core: Growth Strategy in an Era of Turbulence," "Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth" (HBRP, May 2007) and "Beyond the Core: Expand your Market without Abandoning your Roots" (HBRP, November 2004).

Chris has received accolades for his work on strategy such as:
- Times of London "Top 50 Business Thinkers,"
- FT Guide to Strategy "One of most interesting strategic thinkers working today,"
- Top 100 business books of all time award,
- FT and Economist "Books of the year" list

He's been a featured guest on renowned business broadcast outlets, including NPR, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV. He is also a frequent author in "Harvard Business Review," and other business publications.

Chris is a frequent speaker at a wide range of international and business forums including the World Economic Forum, the World Knowledge Forum, the Forbes' CEO Conference, the BusinessWeek CEO Conference, and the Economist Summit.

He received a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Williams College, an M.Phil. in economics from Exeter College, Oxford University, and earned master's and doctorate degrees from Harvard University.

He presently splits his time between homes in Amsterdam and Boston.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling advice for organizational strategy February 23, 2012

By John Gibbs TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Only about 9 percent of global companies have been able to achieve more than a modest level of sustained and profitable growth over the course of the last decade, according to Chris Zook and James Allen in this book. Enduringly successful companies maintain a for a simplicity at their core by adhering to a consistent set of principles which the authors describe as "great repeatable models".

The research used by the authors provides the following significant findings:

* 80 percent of variation in financial returns among all businesses in the world is accounted for by their performance relative to other companies within their industry, as opposed to their choice of market.
* New growth initiatives--organic or by acquisition--have success rates of only about 20-25 percent, much lower than most executives realize.
* The odds of success (surviving and re-establishing a profitable trajectory) in redefinition are extremely low, less than one in ten.
A significant majority of the companies which were successful over the long term had "great repeatable models" , and the three most important design principles for such models were:
* A strong, well-differentiated core, involving unique assets and deep competencies
* Clear non-negotiables involving a common understanding of the company's core values and the key criteria used to make trade-offs in decision making
* Systems for closed-loop learning, for driving continuous improvement across the business

In my view this book makes a key contribution to the field of business strategy. The business environment has changed permanently over the past decade and it is now much more difficult to create sustained profitability. The three key design principles identified by the authors do seem to be very important for future success. I found the authors' reasoning compelling, and I highly recommend the book to anyone involved in devising organizational strategy.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How and why simplifying operations, sharpening focus, and liberating energy can be an antidote to escalating complexity February 27, 2012

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

As Chris Zook and James Allen indicate in the Introduction, they share an interest in why so few companies (i.e. less than 10%) "have been able to achieve more than a modest level of sustained and profitable growth over the course of the last decade." They cite three ways in which the nature of strategy is changing (see Pages 2-3) and then offer to explain how "the enduringly successful companies maintain a form of simplicity at their core. They have done so by creating what we call [begin italics] Great Repeatable Models [end italics] that adhere to a consistent set of principles." Actually, there are three: (1) a strong, well-defined core, (2) clear nonnegotiables, and (3) systems for closed-loop learning.

That is to say, Great Repeatable Models stay ahead because they compress the distance between management and the front line, enable better decisions to be made faster, and facilitate, indeed expedite continuous improvement. Although Zook and Allen carefully identify the "what" of building enduring businesses for a world of constant change, they devote most of their attention to explain HOW. This is consistent with the approach they take in Profit from the Core (Updated Edition, 2010). They thoroughly explain the three principles, devoting a separate chapter to each, then shift their attention - and their reader's - to an especially important consideration, entropy, and how business leaders must avoid or respond and then eliminate it with behaviors that will help their companies to sustain and adapt their repeatable models "to fight the natural forces of entropy that seek to stop them."

Readers will appreciate - and would be well-advised to review periodically - the "Ten Top Conclusions" that Zook and Allen share in Chapter 6 (Pages 199-202), material that compresses most of the most important insights shared in previous chapters. These conclusions "cut across different topics - how the world is changing and what it means for strategy, the power of the Great Repeatable Models, the design principles of strategies build around repeatable models, and their benefits, and of course, their limitations."

Zook and Allen also include a "Repeatable Model Diagnostic" (Table A2-1, Pages 214-216), followed by an especially informative "Summary of Top Thirty Case Studies" (AB Inbev to Vanguard) in Appendix 3, Pages 217-228. It is important to keep in mind, when reading this book, that "complexity has become the silent killer of growth strategies" and that understanding what repeatable models are not (e.g. performance of repetitive tasks, replication everywhere of a business concept, an endless to-do list forced upon frontline employees) is perhaps at least as important as understanding what they are. It is also important to keep in mind that there are multiple Great Repeatable Models in almost any industry, and, that "performance is more about management decisions than the business [one happens] to be in."

I think complexity resembles kudzu, at least in terms of its ability to "strangle" an organization. Chris Zook and James Allen can help to prevent or resolve that threat.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!! April 28, 2012

By Craig Stanovich

Format:Hardcover

As a small business owner, there is no shortage of advice on the need for detailed multi-year business plans, usually followed by the hackneyed "failing to plan is planning to fail" mantra. I get it. But complexity from all directions constantly threatens to overwhelm any small business - which is why Zook and Allen's Repeatability is an invaluable resource to anyone owning or managing a business. Clear and concise with numerous interesting and helpful illustrations, the focus of the book is the essence of what drives sustained growth and profit.

And that essence, which is based on extensive research, study and interviews, has been expertly distilled into a simple three-part business model that may be understood by one line from the book: "The fate of the successful and of the disappointed can often be traced to the ability to maintain, adapt and add differentiations. This is the acid test of sustainable strategy."

Repeatability is also a practical source - at the end of the chapters explaining each of the three elements of the business model, the authors provide questions designed to help the reader gauge how their business measures up.

Finally, the rationale for core values or "nonnegotiables" is quite refreshing. The notion that what you do as a business should spring forth from your shared beliefs and principles is compelling indeed.