Market Driven Strategy ^{2nd Ed.}

Now in its 21st printing, George S. Day's Market Driven Strategy first defined what it means to be "market-driven." Providing a foundation for Day's new companion volume The Market Driven Organization, this seminal work remains a vital resource for a generation of managers struggling to align their organizations to volatile markets. Contending that the rate of change in the market has clearly outstripped the speed at which a conventionally managed company can respond, Day makes a compelling case for first creating superior customer value, without which there can be no share-holder value. He presents a proven market-driven approach to formulating and implementing competitive strategy at the business-unit level — "in the trenches" — based upon materials that have been empirically tested and critiqued in more than 200 internal executive programs and strategic planning sessions at such companies as U.S. West, General Motors, Marriott, Kodak, and General Electric.

Day introduces the five critical, interdependent choices that managers must make to create a market-driven strategy. With dozens of examples from companies such as Otis Elevator, GE, H.J. Heinz, Ikea, Nestlé, Acuson, and 3M, he shows how forward-thinking companies select their markets, differentiate their products, choose their communication and distribution channels, decide on the scale and scope of their support activities, and select future areas for growth. Finally, Day persuasively documents the commitment to thinking and planning processes at these winning companies that harnesses the power of bottom-up understanding of customers and competitive realities with top-down vision and leadership.

• PART ONE: Strategic Choices in Competitive Markets
  1. Managing in Turbulent Markets
     • Choices and Challenges in Turbulent Markets
     • Successful Market Management
     • When Strategy Matters
  2. Strategies for Competing
     • Business Definition
     • Strategic Thrust
     • Performance Objectives
     • Attributes of a Sound Strategy
     • The Payoff from a Sound Strategy
• PART TWO: Processes for Developing Market-Driven Strategies
  3. Making Strategic Decisions
     • Approaches to Strategy Development
     • Adaptive Planning: Integrating the Approaches
     • Plans That Can Be Implemented
  4. Adaptive Planning
     • Situation Assessment
     • Real-Time Issues Management
     • Negotiating Objectives and Resources
     • Completing the Planning Process
• PART THREE: Assessing the Competitive Position
  5. Understanding Competitive Markets: Their Structure and Attractiveness
     • Defining the Market
     • Finding Attractive Segments
     • Market Attractiveness
     • Choosing the Market Arena and Target Segment
  6. Assessing Advantages
     • The Concept of Competitive Advantage
     • Customer-Oriented Assessments
     • Competitor-Centered Assessments
     • Integrated Assessments of Competitive Advantage
• PART FOUR: Choosing Arenas and Advantages
  7. Deciding How to Compete
     • Strategies for Competing
     • Strategies for Enhancing Customer Value
     • Cost Competitive Strategies
     • Changing the Competitive Strategy
  8. Deciding Where to Compete: Focusing and Sustaining the Advantage
     • Segmentation Focus Strategies
     • Choosing the Scope of Market Coverage
     • Sustaining the Advantage
     • Defending the Advantage
     • Lessons for Strategy
  9. Gaining Access to Markets
     • Channel Design Decisions
     • The Turbulent Channel Environment
     • Developing a Channel Strategy
     • Navigating the Turbulent Channel Environment
  10. Responding to Global Markets
      • Assessing the Extent of Globalization
      • Choosing Strategies for Competing Globally
      • Deciding How to Participate
      • Implementing Global Strategies
      • Meeting the Global Challenge
• PART FIVE: Renewing the Strategy
  11. Charting New Directions: Conditions for Successful Renewal
      • Staying Close to the Market
      • Setting the Strategic Direction
      • Sticking to the Knitting
      • Innovating under Time Pressure
      • Ensuring Organizational Support
      • The Conditions for Success
  12. Setting the Growth Direction
      • Growth Objectives
      • Strategic Purpose
      • Growth Path
      • Method of Participation
      • Toward a Strategic Guidance System
• PART SIX: Issues in Implementing market-Driven Strategies
  13. Choosing Market Strategies
      • The Process of Valuing Market Strategies
      • Why Value Analysis Is Not Strategy Analysis
      • Misleading Signals from Value Analysis
      • Finding a Role for Value Analysis
  14. Building a Market-Driven Organization: The Key to Competing Effectively
      • Perspectives on Market-Driven Organizations
      • Becoming Market-Driven
      • Toward Market-Driven Strategies
      • Notes

The book that introduced customer-focus as a strategy. Incredible enough, it is still valid, even as it is considered a classical text.