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Bruce C. N. Greenwald
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Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy Paperback – August 28, 2007

by Bruce C. Greenwald (Author), Judd Kahn (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 528 ratings
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Bruce Greenwald, one of the nation's leading business professors, presents a new and simplified approach to strategy that cuts through much of the fog that has surrounded the subject. Based on his hugely popular course at Columbia Business School, Greenwald and his coauthor, Judd Kahn, offer an easy-to-follow method for understanding the competitive structure of your industry and developing an appropriate strategy for your specific position.

Over the last two decades, the conventional approach to strategy has become frustratingly complex. It's easy to get lost in a sophisticated model of your competitors, suppliers, buyers, substitutes, and other players, while losing sight of the big question: Are there barriers to entry that allow you to do things that other firms cannot?
Previous page
  1. Print length
    416 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Portfolio
  4. Publication date
    August 28, 2007
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781591841807
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1591841807
  8. See all details
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Top reviews from the United States

brendan
5.0 out of 5 stars The 80/20 principle applied to business analysis
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2014
Verified Purchase
Carefully read the first half of this book a couple times and you can expect to deeply internalize the most general, enduring principles of analyzing competitive advantage and entry barriers.

This book's value is its simplicity. There's nothing groundbreaking here. Greenwald's got no axe to grind, no TED-talk tailored concept to (over) sell. The ratio of insight to fluff is very high, so you'll actually remember what you read.

Non-practitioner's won't grasp how valuable a simple, deeply internalized analysis framework is. Researching a company you know nothing about- cracking open a fresh 10-K - can be overwhelming. A simple framework focuses your attention, let's you filter out the noise, and zoom in on the pertinent.

Porter's five forces isn't wrong, it's just excessive and distracting. Sure, it's nice for an MBA assignment: go analyze company X on these five dimensions. But if the lesson learned is that equal effort should be expended analyzing "supplier power" as "entry barriers", then the student has been deceived.

Scholars love excessive complication. I recall the corporate finance section of the CFA exam, wherein project go/no-go decisions depend on said project's stock market Beta, with calculations carried out to the decimal point. All this "rigor" for calculating project discount rates despite the empirical fact that Beta doesn't work. It's not just slightly wrong. It gets the *sign* of the covariance-return relationship wrong. Amazing.

My point is that Greenwald runs counter this tendency. He cuts away the baloney, ignores the auxiliary, and solidifies the foundation of competitive analysis.

*The second half of the book, which deals with strategic interaction, isn't vital. It feels like Greenwald threw it in because his publisher wanted a longer book.
40 people found this helpful
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rene rosenthal
4.0 out of 5 stars competition
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
one of the best book I've read about competition, an easy-to-follow method for understanding the competitive structure of your industry and developing an appropriate strategy for your specific position. A simplified approach to strategy that cuts through much of the fog that has surrounded the subject.
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Chris Mannina
5.0 out of 5 stars Very valuable
Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book delves into competitive advantages, specifically looking at barriers to entry. Although the author acknowledges Michael Porter's work on competition as being invaluable, the author isolates barriers to entry as the single most important driver of an industry's competitive structure. There are numerous case studies which are very instructive and informative.

The only thing I would say that would give more insight would be to provide some framework for doing this analysis yourself. While I can fully grasp his analysis and conclusions, I don't believe there is sufficient information to help the reader to any of their own industry analysis (although that was not likely the scope of the book anyway).
3 people found this helpful
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Aliza Hausman
5.0 out of 5 stars Financial Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2017
Verified Purchase
This is the best book on marketing I have ever read. It completely broadens one's thinking beyond the basics of brand recognition and product advertising. With numerous case studies ranging from the PC industry to the creation of CDs to Rupert Murdoch's decision to Create the Fox Television Network, the book presents thorough leasons in business alchemy in a highly readable fashion.
7 people found this helpful
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Kaihan Krippendorff
5.0 out of 5 stars A guide to becoming a strategist
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2006
Verified Purchase
My two key takeaways from reading Greenwald's well-argued and counterintuitive premise are:

1. There are but a few fundamental sources of competitive advantage

2. Most companies can tap these sources at a local level (not a national or international level)

These show that the front-line manager - the regional coordinator of retail chain or the country manager of service firm - has the power (and the obligation) to pursue local competitive advantages. Greenwald provides a simple, intuitive method for helping such "front-line strategists" seek out a competitive edge.

I recommend this highly for anyone who aspires to be a strategist.
10 people found this helpful
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IZski
4.0 out of 5 stars Good information
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2017
Verified Purchase
I came across Greenwald's other works and decided to give this a shot. From the perspective of an investor, the entire book is not totally "a must read." It certainly was worth reading and it will be valuable to analyze companies with the book's general ideas in mind. I was looking for a book that would help me find and analyze a company's competitive position better. This book did just that. B-
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JP
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and interesting book
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2008
Verified Purchase
I bought this book after seeing that it was one of two textbooks for Columbia University's Security Analysis course. (The other textbook is  the 1988 edition of Security Analysis .) Apparently the author of Competition Demystified, Bruce Greenwald, used to teach the class. The course readings from this book were pages 1-77, 160-181, 220-238, and 322-363.

The book is primarily about how investors can identify, and how businesses can establish & defend, a sustainable competitive advantage (i.e. a wide economic moat). Greenwald and Kahn obviously come from the Graham/Buffett style of investing.
9 people found this helpful
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Marcello Silva
5.0 out of 5 stars I am always reading, I am 33 years old ...
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2016
Verified Purchase
I am always reading, I am 33 years old, and this book has been the most important business book I have ever read in my life. It provides a straightfoward framework to analyse and understand the quality of a business, the existence of barriers to entry and the sustainability of these barriers (when identified that barriers currently exist).
13 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Guilherme Quadros dos Santos
5.0 out of 5 stars Value of most (competitive advantage)
Reviewed in Brazil on January 26, 2023
Verified Purchase
Great for value investing and checking on different kind of competitive advantages
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Sukethu Lalwani
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece
Reviewed in India on August 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
This book changes the entire perception about competitive strategy and case studies are well articulated. This book is a must read for investors, analysts as well as anyone who wants to understand competitive advantages.
3 people found this helpful
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Kiran B.
5.0 out of 5 stars A Revelation for Every Serious Economist and Investor
Reviewed in Germany on May 12, 2020
Verified Purchase
This book is a revelation for everyone seriously involved in any part of the business world. I usually do not write reviews, but this book deserves appraisal and much more attention from stakeholders in business.

Based on his extensive knowledge gained through his career in investment academia, Bruce Greenwald authored a brilliant book which provides a general framework for analyzing competitive situations and their possible outcomes and impact on the involved firms. Beginning with a general introduction to strategy and tactics, Greenwald first pays tribute to Michael E. Porter's 5-Forces-Model and explains his approach to strategy by building on the groundwork of the Porter's model. However, a serious disadvantage of Porter's model is its complexity, which results in a difficulty of applying the model on competitve situations due to the exhaustive analysis required, i.e. keeping an eye on every force at all times during the analysis will inevitably confuse the analyst. Greenwald solves this dilemma by solely focusing on one force: Barriers to Entry. These barriers form the basis for every other force and define the market, in which the firm operates. Without barriers to entry a firm cannot develop and enjoy sustainable competitve advantages over the long term. Therefore, barriers to entry are a crucial part of economical decision-making for the firm and a useful analytical tool for quick-checking the competitive surroundings.

What makes this book a great read is the fact that Greenwald uses many real-world competitive situations (Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Apple, Polaroid etc.) to illustrate the framework's applicability.

However, the biggest merit of this book is the investment valuation approach described in the last part of the book. This investment valuation approach is a powerful alternative to the established valuation models (e.g. Discounted-Cashflow-Model) used in today's financial world, because it includes the importance of strategic decision-making in the valuation process. Furthermore, the investment valuation model is not future-oriented (in contrast to the DCF-model), resulting in a dramatically lower error rate and smaller valuation range compared to other models, which are highly sensitive to variations of critical variables. This model is congruent with the value investing philosophy; accomplished investors such as Warren Buffett and Seth Klarman developed their individual approaches similar to Greenwald's model.

For me personally, this book constitutes one of the most important books of the investment world. Competition Demystified stands out because of the analytical tools and general approach to investment theory. This book definitely deserves a place next to Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" (Side Fact: Bruce Greenwald is the successor emeritus of Benjamin Graham as a professor at Columbia Business School in New York).

Some recommendations for potential readers:
- Regard this book as the transcript of university lectures, i.e. try to study and really comprehend the content.
- Don't rush through the book, let it sink in and use it as a toolbox for thinking about economy at large and investment in particular.
- Spread the word to improve the quality of economical decision-making in today's world (especially in consulting, investment banking and management).
5 people found this helpful
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Martin Zhong
4.0 out of 5 stars Overcomplicated but quite good
Reviewed in Australia on January 10, 2021
Verified Purchase
Overall the book does have some useful points and case studies but the way it is written is overly complicated and hard to understand. Keep it simple and have short sentences. Don't try to be too verbose - just makes it a headache to read.
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German Loewe
5.0 out of 5 stars Brillante
Reviewed in Spain on February 27, 2014
Verified Purchase
Me parece un muy buen libro de estrategia, porque se desarrollan las razones económicas que hay detrás de las famosas ventajas competitivas.
One person found this helpful
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