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Edge Strategy
Are you missing opportunities for growth that are right in front of you?
In today’s volatile economic environment, filled with uncertainty and sudden change, the forces pushing you to stay focused on the core business are extremely powerful. Profiting from the core is crucial, but the danger is that overfocus on the core can blind companies. Scanning the horizon for new markets and new products can also be tempting, but risky. Fixating too much on either strategy can cause you to miss the substantial opportunities for growth that are often hidden in plain sight, at the edge of the core business.
In this insightful yet practical book, strategy experts Alan Lewis and Dan McKone articulate a mindset that helps leaders recognize and capitalize on these opportunities.
The Edge Strategy framework challenges how the boundaries of your existing products and services map to your customers’ views of the world and then provides three different lenses through which you can see and leverage value:
• Product edge . How to capture incremental profits and other benefits by slightly altering the elements and composition of a core offering
• Journey edge . How to create and capture extra value by adjusting your role in supporting the customer’s journey to and through your offering
• Enterprise edge . How to unlock additional value from resources and capabilities that support your core offering by applying them in a different context, for a different offering or different set of customers
With engaging examples across many industries, Lewis and McKone coach you on how to identify and assess each of the different “edges” and then provide concrete insights and advice on applying edge strategy and tactics to use in specific business contexts. The book concludes with a ten-step process to help executives and managers find and leverage the edges in their own companies.
Edge Strategy is the concise, hands-on guide for growing your business by getting more yield from assets already in place, relationships already established, and investments already made.
In today’s volatile economic environment, filled with uncertainty and sudden change, the forces pushing you to stay focused on the core business are extremely powerful. Profiting from the core is crucial, but the danger is that overfocus on the core can blind companies. Scanning the horizon for new markets and new products can also be tempting, but risky. Fixating too much on either strategy can cause you to miss the substantial opportunities for growth that are often hidden in plain sight, at the edge of the core business.
In this insightful yet practical book, strategy experts Alan Lewis and Dan McKone articulate a mindset that helps leaders recognize and capitalize on these opportunities.
The Edge Strategy framework challenges how the boundaries of your existing products and services map to your customers’ views of the world and then provides three different lenses through which you can see and leverage value:
• Product edge . How to capture incremental profits and other benefits by slightly altering the elements and composition of a core offering
• Journey edge . How to create and capture extra value by adjusting your role in supporting the customer’s journey to and through your offering
• Enterprise edge . How to unlock additional value from resources and capabilities that support your core offering by applying them in a different context, for a different offering or different set of customers
With engaging examples across many industries, Lewis and McKone coach you on how to identify and assess each of the different “edges” and then provide concrete insights and advice on applying edge strategy and tactics to use in specific business contexts. The book concludes with a ten-step process to help executives and managers find and leverage the edges in their own companies.
Edge Strategy is the concise, hands-on guide for growing your business by getting more yield from assets already in place, relationships already established, and investments already made.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 19, 2016
22 people are currently reading
234 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 27, 2018
All you need to expand/better your business is to look out for opportunities/souces that already exist within your business - at the edge.
I find the idea very sensible - instead of looking for the new horizons, why not to look at the possibilities to better use the sources you already have? What if you can offer your customers more - by better understanding your capacities and their needs and plans?
The book is well in mapping the strategies already in practice, and can be a valuable source of eye-opening here.
Yet I would like more practical advice - the last chapter "Finding Your Edge" is quite short. I understand that the business needs to do their homework, yet more tips could help them more at that.
I find the idea very sensible - instead of looking for the new horizons, why not to look at the possibilities to better use the sources you already have? What if you can offer your customers more - by better understanding your capacities and their needs and plans?
The book is well in mapping the strategies already in practice, and can be a valuable source of eye-opening here.
Yet I would like more practical advice - the last chapter "Finding Your Edge" is quite short. I understand that the business needs to do their homework, yet more tips could help them more at that.
November 21, 2016
Perfect book for strategic marketing and positioning, don't expect suggestions on immediate growth and/or competitive advantage, this is really a call out for how to blend your offering to get increased value and profits, perfect for the corporate world
July 22, 2017
"... because edge strategies are aimed at harvesting more value from existing assets, enabling them tends to require a relatively lower level of capital outlay, that is, less new money at risk. This is not to say that they require no investment, but merely that the risk profile is very different from, say, a venture starting without the benefit of the same foundational assets. Second, edge strategy is, by definition, a calibration story. It does not involve stepping out into a new space that is not well understood. It is about reframing or repurposing very familiar interactions in a way that releases pent-up demand."
I really liked the discussion in this book, the examples, and the clear steps to consider edge strategy in any existing business.
I really liked the discussion in this book, the examples, and the clear steps to consider edge strategy in any existing business.
February 9, 2018
Written by two guys from my company, pretty interesting strategy that a lot of successful companies do intuitively. The strategy relies on leveraging your existing assets to expand your business into the periphery of your existing offerings and expand your presence in your customers journey where it makes sense. Also unbundling product offerings and including higher service or support for additional charges. For example, Best Buy uses Geek squad to provide additional service on top of electronic sales to draw in additional revenue, when they used to provide this service for free.
November 14, 2023
Must read Book for intrapreneurship
IF you choose to grow in your career under the comfort/cushion your company provides assuming you are not working for startup , then intrapreneurship is the way and if you are figuring ways to do it ,then this book is ready reckoner
IF you choose to grow in your career under the comfort/cushion your company provides assuming you are not working for startup , then intrapreneurship is the way and if you are figuring ways to do it ,then this book is ready reckoner
December 6, 2015
Here is, within this book, a strategy that is said to be ideally placed to help your business kick-start growth: all you need to do is look out for opportunities that may exist at the edge of your core business.
It is a simple enough idea, yet it runs against so much commonly taught wisdom. Business owners are usually told to focus on their core business which, of course, is valid yet there is a potential to ignore everything else that may be ripe for the picking. Today’s slow burner could be tomorrow’s next big thing; if only you would notice it.
It all makes for an interesting, fresh read that looks at three distinct kinds of edges – product edge, customer journey edge and enterprise edge. The reader is then guided, with practical real-world examples, to identifying and assessing the right kind of edge that might exist for their company before looking at how it might be possible to benefit from it. There is a powerful mix of marketing, management and strategy for the reader to get their teeth into. Even if you are not sold on the concept of edge strategy, it is highly likely that you will still benefit from the guidance on offer. The authors believe that it is near-as-possible universal in application, no matter what size of company or area it operates in.
“The issue for most firms, regardless of industry, is that they seem to be programmed to just do more of what they do best: extending their presence to more regions, expanding their range to more customers, or just plain selling more stuff. We often find that companies are so focused on doing more of what they do every day that they start to think everything in their organization has a singular purpose. They understand the purchase process inside out, they drive vendors and channels, and they chart operational flows in NASA-worthy detail, all in ruthless pursuit of optimization. The problem with “more” is that it only works for a while. There are only so many locations, so many customers, and so much output that is in demand until saturation occurs. Even when companies think that they have plenty of rows to till in their particular fields, they turn around to find familiar or new competitors, squatting on their land and harvesting their crops. The inevitable market-share game also proves a fool’s errand, a war of attrition where even the cleverest of core strategies is ultimately copied, resulting in a return to a similar equilibrium,” wrote the authors.
So what happens then? “Companies are eventually motivated to look for growth in far-flung places. Typically, this means acquiring rival companies; developing adjacent, but quite different, businesses; or searching for “blue oceans” of uncontested market space. The trouble with these strategies is that while the rewards can be high, so too can the odds of failure. The myopia associated with core business perfectionism often blinds us to the value of what we already have. Looking around for new bets, companies also tend to overlook a significant, untapped source of profit that exists in the near field – on the edge of the core business, through the sale of ancillary goods and services that actually make existing customers’ interaction with the business more complete,” continue the authors.
The promised “edge strategy” is within reach, even if most will ignore it. They know no other way, or are not prepared to listen, learn and try a different approach. Maybe with this book, you and your company will transcend onto a new level.
It is a very reasonably priced book with plenty of potential upside and arguably zero downside.
Autamme.com
It is a simple enough idea, yet it runs against so much commonly taught wisdom. Business owners are usually told to focus on their core business which, of course, is valid yet there is a potential to ignore everything else that may be ripe for the picking. Today’s slow burner could be tomorrow’s next big thing; if only you would notice it.
It all makes for an interesting, fresh read that looks at three distinct kinds of edges – product edge, customer journey edge and enterprise edge. The reader is then guided, with practical real-world examples, to identifying and assessing the right kind of edge that might exist for their company before looking at how it might be possible to benefit from it. There is a powerful mix of marketing, management and strategy for the reader to get their teeth into. Even if you are not sold on the concept of edge strategy, it is highly likely that you will still benefit from the guidance on offer. The authors believe that it is near-as-possible universal in application, no matter what size of company or area it operates in.
“The issue for most firms, regardless of industry, is that they seem to be programmed to just do more of what they do best: extending their presence to more regions, expanding their range to more customers, or just plain selling more stuff. We often find that companies are so focused on doing more of what they do every day that they start to think everything in their organization has a singular purpose. They understand the purchase process inside out, they drive vendors and channels, and they chart operational flows in NASA-worthy detail, all in ruthless pursuit of optimization. The problem with “more” is that it only works for a while. There are only so many locations, so many customers, and so much output that is in demand until saturation occurs. Even when companies think that they have plenty of rows to till in their particular fields, they turn around to find familiar or new competitors, squatting on their land and harvesting their crops. The inevitable market-share game also proves a fool’s errand, a war of attrition where even the cleverest of core strategies is ultimately copied, resulting in a return to a similar equilibrium,” wrote the authors.
So what happens then? “Companies are eventually motivated to look for growth in far-flung places. Typically, this means acquiring rival companies; developing adjacent, but quite different, businesses; or searching for “blue oceans” of uncontested market space. The trouble with these strategies is that while the rewards can be high, so too can the odds of failure. The myopia associated with core business perfectionism often blinds us to the value of what we already have. Looking around for new bets, companies also tend to overlook a significant, untapped source of profit that exists in the near field – on the edge of the core business, through the sale of ancillary goods and services that actually make existing customers’ interaction with the business more complete,” continue the authors.
The promised “edge strategy” is within reach, even if most will ignore it. They know no other way, or are not prepared to listen, learn and try a different approach. Maybe with this book, you and your company will transcend onto a new level.
It is a very reasonably priced book with plenty of potential upside and arguably zero downside.
Autamme.com
February 7, 2022
New-ish Mindset
This book needs an updated/edited version. 2015 for publication makes this book somewhat obsolete for most of the examples. So much more technology and complete world changes have happened since its publication. Topic matter somewhat irrelevant to me as a homemaker, but interesting subject matter for business professionals looking for lower risk, higher growth opportunities.
This book needs an updated/edited version. 2015 for publication makes this book somewhat obsolete for most of the examples. So much more technology and complete world changes have happened since its publication. Topic matter somewhat irrelevant to me as a homemaker, but interesting subject matter for business professionals looking for lower risk, higher growth opportunities.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews