Zone to Win: Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption

by Geoffrey A. Moore

Over the last 25 years, Geoffrey Moore has established himself as one of the most influential high-tech advisors in the world—once prompting Conan O’Brien to ask “Who is Geoffrey Moore and why is he more famous than me?”

Following up on the ferociously innovative ESCAPE VELOCITY, which served as the basis for Moore’s consulting work to such companies as Salesforce, Microsoft, and Intel, ZONE TO WIN serves as the companion playbook for his landmark guide, offering a practical manual to address the challenge large enterprises face when they seek to add a new line of business to their established portfolio. Focused on spurring next-generation growth, guiding mergers and acquisitions, and embracing disruption and innovation, ZONE TO WIN is a high-powered tool for driving your company above and beyond its limitations, its definitions of success, and ultimately, its competitors.

Moore’s classic bestseller, CROSSING THE CHASM, has sold more than one million copies by addressing the challenges faced by start-up companies. Now ZONE TO WIN is set to guide established enterprises through the same journey.

“For any company, regardless of size or industry, ZONE TO WIN is the playbook for succeeding in today’s disruptive, connected, fast-paced business world.” —Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce

“Once again Geoffrey Moore weighs in with a prescient examination of what it takes to win in today’s competitive, disruptive business environment.” —Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

"With this book, Geoffrey Moore continues to lead us all through ever-changing times...His work has changed the game of changing the game!" —Gary Kovacs, CEO, AVG

“ZONE TO WIN uses crystal-clear language to describe the management plays necessary to win in an ever-disrupting marketplace. Regardless of your level of management experience, you will find this book an invaluable tool for building long-term success for your business.” —Lip-Bu Tan, President and CEO, Cadence Design Systems

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Management, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Buisness, Technology

113 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 3, 2015

About the author

Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Mohr Davidow portfolio and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Intel, Box, Aruba, Cognizant, and Rackspace.

Moore’s life’s work has focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations. His first book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses on the challenges start-up companies face transitioning from early adopting to mainstream customers. It has sold more than a million copies, and its third edition has been revised such that the majority of its examples and case studies reference companies come to prominence from the past decade. Moore’s most recent work, Escape Velocity, addresses the challenge large enterprises face when they seek to add a new line of business to their established portfolio. It has been the basis of much of his recent consulting.

Irish by heritage, Moore has yet to meet a microphone he didn’t like and gives between 50 and 80 speeches a year. One theme that has received a lot of attention recently is the transition in enterprise IT investment focus from Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement. This is driving the deployment of a new cloud infrastructure to complement the legacy client-server stack, creating massive markets for a next generation of tech industry leaders.

Moore has a bachelors in American literature from Stanford University and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington. After teaching English for four years at Olivet College, he came back to the Bay Area with his wife and family and began a career in high tech as a training specialist. Over time he transitioned first into sales and then into marketing, finally finding his niche in marketing consulting, working first at Regis McKenna Inc, then with the three firms he helped found: The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute, and TCG Advisors. Today he is chairman emeritus of all three.

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Reviews

[Tigran Mamikonian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book full of management wisdom. I read this book as per recommendation of my friend from EO (eonetwork.org) and due to business related organisational issue. Before reading this book I was adept of all-rounded CEOs who would do both - achieve great operational results and open new products/markets.

Author succeeded in shaping my mind… The key idea is about focus and alignment between management to run company effectively in all aspects.
To be successful each manager should be given clear KPI from a single zone. If he/she is given KPI from two zones there will be contradiction and the focus will be lost…
Author defines 4 zones:
- Zone 1: Performance - key objective is to achieve sales number;
- Zone 2: Productivity - key objective is to achieve profitability and operational effectiveness;
- Zone 3: Incubation - key objective is to find new lines of businesses and catch the next wave;
- Zone 4: Transformation - key objective is to scale the succeeded projects from the Zone 3 and roll out over zone 1, making it core business.

Here comes very illustrative quotes from Moore on focus and zoning principle:
“...When a go-to-market organization is charged to scale two or more new franchises while at the same time being expected to make the numbers in the established lines of business, anyone with experience knows this is simply not going to happen."

“...To compete effectively, management must free itself from this bind. It needs to reconfigure its enterprise to fight independently on multiple fronts, acting in parallel but not in lockstep.
if it is the performance zone’s job to win the war at the top line, it is the productivity zone’s job to win the peace at the bottom line…"

“...If someone questions you putting all your eggs in one basket, just tell them, “In our company we like to lay eggs one at a time. By the way, we find most chickens do too.”

“...When you step back from it, it’s not all that unlike youth soccer. Like our overenthusiastic children, we all tend to run to the ball, and we all hope to score the goal. But business, like soccer, is a team sport, and success depends on understanding formation and playing position. That is what zone offense and zone defense are all about, in business as in sports…"

“...Specifically, what zone management ensures is that resource allocation, return on investment, organizational structure, operating cadence, success metrics, and management compensation all get aligned with the priorities and deliverables unique to each of the four zones…"

Explanation of key kind of work done while making performance improvements in Zone 1 (great mnemonics about HORSE, RIDER, TRAIL):
“… on areas that are significantly behind plan, the key question being do we double down on our current efforts or change course? Course changes can be grouped into three kinds under the mnemonic horse, rider, trail. That is, if our current plan is failing and we want to make a change, should we swap out the horse (the product or service we are offering), the rider (the manager in charge of the function that is underperforming), or the trail (the market segment we are targeting)?…"

I liked a lot the analogy made for Incubation zone:
“… Initial seed round: Validate the technology. Series A round: Build a minimum viable product and validate the market. Series B round: Target a beachhead market, build a viable whole-product solution, and win a dominant share of new sales within that segment. Series C round: Scale into adjacent markets in preparation for an exit into the transformation zone…"

As a bottom line for the book I realised how important is not mixing up KPIs of business CEO and senior team members. One of the key takeaway was that incubation zone should be as segregated as possible from the core business however should be funded by pre-defined amount of budget sourced from the core business.

Would recommend the book to all professional managers.

Ссылка на полную версию этого ревью (в том числе mind map) в моем блокноте https://www.evernote.com/l/ABYerkRzO-...

P.S. Также цитирую отзыв Павла Анненкова, по чьей рекомендации я прочитал эту книгу!

"В книге глубоко разобрана тема разделения бизнеса компании на отдельные области.
- Вашей компании надо постоянно искать новые возможности, чтобы не пропустить следующую волну роста и оседлать её.

- Одна и та же команда управленцев не может одновременно заниматься поиском и развитием новых направлений и при этом поддерживать стабильную работу текущей бизнес-модели.

- Для того чтобы эффективно управлять компанией надо разделить весь бизнес на 4 Зоны. Каждая из них имеет свою динамику развития и доходности. За работу каждой зоны отвечает отдельный руководитель.
1. Зона результативности. Задача руководителя здесь поддерживать работу текущей бизнес-модели и выполнять годовые и квартальные планы по продажам и прибыли. Чистая операционная работа.
2 Зона Продуктивности. Здесь задача руководителя внедрять более эффективные способы исполнения операционной работы. Новые подходы в логистике, маркетинге, обслуживания клиентов и работе с поставщиками. Этии нововведения должны улучшить работы Зоны 1.
3. Инкубационная Зона. Здесь вам надо отслеживать новые тренды в вашей отрасли и бизнесе в целом, брать и тестировать новые продукты, услуги, каналы сбыта и бизнес-модели. Пробовать, применять, ошибаться и двигаться дальше.
4. Зона Трансформации. Если какой то подход сработал в 3-ей зоне и вы решаете, что надо расширять его присутствие в вашем бизнесе, то тогда происходит перенос модели или продукта в 4-ю Зону. Здесь новое направление получает уже большие ресурсы и поддержку компании и начинается рост.

У руководителя каждой Зоны свои метрики и KPI. Я уже начал внедрять подход Мура в своих компаниях."

[Pavel Annenkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Одна из главных для меня бизнес-книг в 2016 году. Теперь понятно, почему и как надо разделять операционное и проектное управление в компании.

[Kadir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful framework and play book to use for any transformation.
Great examples.

[Chris Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zone to Win
Another timely, excellent piece of management theory from Geoffrey Moore.
YouTube Chalk Talk -> https://youtu.be/PDiCkAzMq54
Geoffrey Moore makes his living creating new frameworks in business that rationally explain company and market behavior, then using these frameworks to mine epiphanies for we lesser souls.
I remember reading “Crossing the Chasm” in the early 90’s and being blown away by how it made sense of the seeming chaos of the startup world. Chasm created a whole new, rational framework to explain that world. One so robust that it created its own language and definitions that are still being used, that have moved into the business lexicon as baseline facts.
When you hear someone casually toss out a phrase like “Early Adopter” and everyone in the room knows exactly what that is, you owe Geoffrey Moore’s insight. Few people can describe a market dynamic so clearly and then tell you why you care, why it matters and what you can do about it.
His new work Zone to Win is one of those books. The framework it creates is already moving into the lingua franca of the business world.
Why? Why do we care?
Because we are living in what can be called ‘the disruption economy’. There are waves of new and disruptive technologies assailing today’s companies. Disruption has been around forever but today is different. The disruptions are coming faster and with greater magnitude.
Immense shifts of private capital have created an disruption machine where disruptions at scale are being accelerated and pushed into every market every day.
Existing companies are being battered. They face, what Mr. Moore calls a ‘crisis of prioritization’. Do you focus on shoring up your traditional business that is under attack by the disruption? Or do you invest in owning the next disruption?
The problem is that current revenue and profit come from the existing customers and business, but future revenue and profit will only come from the disruptive business. If you stand still your business is eventually eaten by the disruption. If you shift to a new business, you sacrifice your revenue and profit?
Every large business is confronted by this impossible choice. What to do?
The only way a business can survive is to 1) catch the next wave and 2) prevent the next wave from catching you. This means you must play offense and defense at the same time.
It’s like coaching a youth soccer team. Before they get coaching the kids all just chase the ball. To win they need to spread out and play positions, or zones of offense and defense.
And this is where we need a new framework to figure out how to allocate our priorities. Because the old business and the new business are entirely different investments profiles and each needs to be successful.
This new framework is the ‘Zones to Win’. It is a four-box framework.
1. The performance zone – this is where the existing business lives. This is where your existing revenue and margin comes from. You need this business to do well and continue create returns for the investors and cash for the business. How you incent and drive this engine?
2. The productivity zone – this zone is all the tools and enhancements that squeeze revenue and profit out of the performance zone. What defensive investments can you make to fend of disruptions to your existing business? How can you optimize?
3. The incubation zone – This is a birthing area for new ideas. Similar to a venture capitalist the incubation zone is where you have a portfolio of nascent innovations that may turn into disruptors themselves (offense). Or may be co-opted to help defend the performance business (defense).
4. The transformation zone – This is where you pick one innovation from the incubator and you scale it rapidly to a) disrupt a business (offense) and b) create a new line of performance business that is equal to or more than 10% of your overall revenue.
At any point in time your business can be on offense by being the disrupter, one defense by being the dsruptee, or in a state of half-time where there is a pause in disruption. Where you are will determine your response.
The beauty of this framework is that it answers the ‘question of should I preserve my existing business or jump into a new business?’ The answer is ‘yes’ but use the framework to institute clarity and rigor so that you can do so successfully.
I’ll skip the performance zone and the productivity zone for now because they are similar to what you’re doing already. The framework just gives them focus, clarity and investment priority.
The incubation and transformation zones are what’s potentially new to a company. The incubation one is a way for companies to isolate and nurture innovation so that it too has clarity and investment without getting in the way of the performance zone.
These can be either internally developed technologies or acquisitions. You are farming all of these innovations like a venture capitalist in the expectation that one of them is going to break out and make it big, perhaps once a decade.
The rest will either be folded into existing offerings as enhancements for defense or offense, or they will be discontinued.
The big difference in this framework is the transformation zone. This is where we take one of the incubation zone initiatives and purposefully scale it to a new line of business.
Most big companies are terrible at this. They try to use the existing go-to-market infrastructure to launch and scale the new innovation. It doesn’t’ work. It creates conflicts of interest with the performance zone.
The key to the transformation zone is understanding that it takes a unique go-to-market engine to scale a new innovation. It has to scale quickly. The market opportunity window is quite small. You need to capture that opportunity and do it quickly.
This is where we talk about ‘Investment Horizons’.
Horizon One – Investments in Horizon One will be realized in the current fiscal year.
Horizon Two – Investments that will come to fruition in 2-3 years but will have negative cash flow until then.
Horizon Three – Investments that will pay back in 3-5 years and that are mostly your portfolio of R&D.
This how the company prioritizes investment. Horizon one is where we have performance and optimization of the current operating goals. Investments in Horizon two consist scaling an innovation to be a significant contributor in 2-3 years. Investments in Horizon three create the inventory of those investments.
It’s a brilliantly clear framework for the corporate world of today.
It allows the CEO, the BOD and every player on the field to focus on exactly what they need to do to make the company successful. It enables companies to defend their businesses against disruptive technologies while proactively nurturing and launching disruptions of their own. It enable the playing of offense and defense in a coherent and cohesive manner.
You can even apply this to your own life. Most of us have a portfolio of things we are working on and are forced to balance our investments of time and energy. If you look at the, let’s say 10 or so good ideas or projects you’re working on, how do you pick one and give it the attention to scale?
Most of us will try to average our energy investment across multiple projects which doesn’t move the needle in any of them. Or we will work hard on one but give up too early. Could the Zone to Win framework help you answer your personal conflicted priorities questions?
This is a great work of business theory in a small, easily digestible book. Buy it now because your CEO has already read it and is implementing this framework and you’ll need to know where you fall into it.

[Haw Kuang Oh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched a YouTube of Geoffrey Moore on Zone to Win a couple years ago, but reading the book gave me so much more insights of Moore's thought process behind the 4 zones and the offense/defense playbook.

Looking at the realignments/repriotizations in our business groups and company over the years, one would have to wonder if the outcome could have been any different (dare I say better?), if our leaders had followed the strategies behind Zone to Win.

The cased studies of Salesforce and Microsoft were relevant and useful. And I especially liked the horse-rider-trail analogy used by Moore:
"Course changes can be grouped into three kinds under the mnemonic horse, rider, trail. That is, if our current plan is failing and we want to make a change, should we swap out the horse (the product or service we are offering), the rider (the manager in charge of the function that is underperforming), or the trail (the market segment we are targeting)?"

Strongly recommended for those who would like to delve into business management strategies.

[MundiNova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I read this for work

The company I work for is in a state of transition, so this book was helpful in understanding management's recent choices. As for the content of the book, the language is for those who spend their lives writing PowerPoint slides, taking golf lessons, and reading Malcom Gladwell books (the reuse of the phrase "tipping point" killed me). If that doesn't describe you -- and you aren't required to read this book -- you may want to pass. There are better written business books out there. This isn't a fun read for the average layman.

Now for the good parts: unlike every other business book on the market, Zone to Win gives a specific playbook for CEOs to compete in a disruptive market. There are very specific actions to take and pitfalls to avoid. Most business books I read are full of affirmations and generalizations. Not Zone to Win. Here you have a 3 to 5 year roadmap on how to restructure a publicly traded company to adapt to change. Whether the roadmap truly works ... that I can't say. But it sounds like a good plan!

[Федор Кривов · Rating 4 out of 5]

Главная идея книги - разделяйте бизнес на 4 зоны, делите зону основного производства и зону новых направлений. Мне не хватило конкретных кейсов, как именно это было организовано в реальных компаниях, примеры SalesForce и Мелкософта показались довольно поверхностными.

Заметки:

Если речь идет о выборе продуктов, на которые компания собирается сделать ставку, выбирайте только один продукт. Не два и не три – один. Это важнейшая обязанность СЕО. Выберите один продукт, который станет вашим следующим прорывом, а затем расскажите о нем всем – клиентам, акционерам, партнерам, сотрудникам и всей отрасли. Если кто-то обвинит вас, что вы сложили все яйца в одну корзину, просто ответьте: «Наша компания предпочитает откладывать яйца по одному. Кстати, мы обнаружили, что большинство куриц поступает так же».
Мы приближаемся к сути кризиса в определении приоритетов: вы сталкиваетесь с ним, когда пытаетесь достичь двух противоположных целей. С одной стороны, нужно поддерживать выпуск прежних продуктов, чтобы основанные на них бизнес-модели продолжали функционировать. При этом приходится компенсировать постепенное снижение объема выручки ростом чистой прибыли. Многие из пятидесяти шести СЕО успешно справились с этим. В то же время примерно каждые десять лет необходимо создавать одно совершенно новое бизнес-направление с исключительно высоким ростом доходов. Вот этого они сделать не смогли.
• Зона основного производства находится в центре внимания CEO и его команды, причем акцент делается на организации стабильного и эффективного менеджмента в противоположность решительному лидерству. С��О постоянно в курсе дел и иногда вмешивается, но в основном зоной управляют менеджеры следующего в иерархии звена. Они действуют в соответствии с целями и бюджетными показателями, зафиксированными в годовом операционном плане. Особое внимание они уделяют выполнению плана. Цель – превратить зону в подобие хорошо смазанной машины, которая приносит отличную прибыль с учетом рисков и практически не доставляет неприятностей. Это генератор выручки. • В зоне продуктивности основную часть времени сотрудники тратят на поиск возможностей для повышения эффективности операций в зоне основного производства. Главная цель – сэкономить ресурсы на вспомогательных операциях, чтобы инвестировать их в основные операции или получать дополнительную прибыль за счет экономии. Это генератор прибыли. Если выручка – это результат работы зоны основного производства, то величина прибыли – это итог деятельности зоны продуктивности. Обе зоны должны тесно взаимодействовать. • В зоне инкубации постоянно развиваются несколько новых проектов. Каждая разработка финансируется в соответствии с тем, насколько она потенциально способна захватить следующую большую волну – здесь не тратят средства на «интересные» проекты без перспективы масштабирования. Активно проводятся слияния и поглощения с целью заполучить команды, разрабатывающие технологии следующего поколения. Кроме того, в любое время могут проявиться признаки того, что одна или несколько разработок уже готовы к масштабированию. Это ваш пул кандидатов на роль главного нападающего. В то же время, в случае атаки стороннего инноватора на ваши основные товарные категории, этот пул послужит резервом для оборонительных действий. • Любая трансформация – рискованное, дорогостоящее и изнурительное мероприятие, поэтому зона трансформации, вероятно, годами будет пустовать. По сути, это лучший вариант: значит, у компании есть еще один плодотворный год с весьма достойной прибылью и относительно невысокими рисками. Помните: чтобы стать компанией мирового уровня, вам нужна всего одна прорывная разработка раз в десять лет. Когда она появится, на масштабирование уйдет по меньшей мере года три, и этот процесс будет весьма болезненным для компании. Вам наверняка захочется насладиться несколькими спокойными годами, чтобы окупить инвестиции и восстановить силы.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is mostly targeted at medium to large corporations faced with technology changes.
- as "disruptors" (innovators of new technology that is breaking traditional silos, e.g. Salesforce, Amazon)
- as "disruptees" (a company who's traditional business is attacked by a new comer: think library chains attacked by Amazon, Windows attacked by Android)

The book describes a very clear and concise way a methodology to structure companies according to those disruptions, which he calls the "zone management".

Several areas and ideas resonated with me, and I'm writing them down for future reference:

- Plan along 3 horizons: H1 (current FY), H2 (2~3 years), H3 (3~5years) ==> most companies do yearly plans based on H3 horizon which is usually too far ahead.

- Differentiate SYSTEMS vs PROGRAMS.
>> "Systems" help improve the EFFICIENCY of the company (doing things right). They should not tolerate exceptions, and have been designed over time to improve usage of resources.
>> "Programs" help improve EFFECTIVENESS (doing the right things). They are important during transformation and changes, and ave more agility built in.

- In the "incubation zone" (an area that is dear to me as I'm working on innovative products), this sentence is essential:

"To achieve the first milestone takes technical talent, some of which should come from in-house, else you risk pursuing a dream that does not connect back to the entreprise. That said, additional expertise should come from outside, specifically in the disruptivetechnology itself. Finally, even at this early stage, you need an entrepreneur, a single point of accountability for delivering the sum of all future outcomes. Remember, you are not funding a research project, you are funding a company."

- Salesforce uses a V2MOM across the company (from CEO to the last individual contributor). This is public for all to see: Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, Metrics.

Some follow-up actions:
* Identify a client metric that can drive a 10X improvement. This is key to push a client to adopt your disruptive innovation.
* During a transformation, at every meeting, the General Manager of the new business needs to ask everyone "What can anyone do to accelerate progress?"

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Businesses are designed to be stable – shareholders want predictable growth and returns. However for a bussiness to catch the next big wave this is counter to stability. To internally grow a new bussiness it is likely to result in a reduction of the current results. To facilitate the growth of a new bussiness line extreme care needs to be taken to prevent innovation stagnation or from competition from other companies.

The book presents four zones.

Performance zone
Most of the revenue and profits are generated in this zone. The aim of this zone is to drive the top line sales numbers. Here products are stable and customers are relatively loyal. Each bussiness here constitutes > 10% of the total enterprise revenue. Here if our current plan is failing we can do one of three things:

Change the product or service we are offering

Change the manager in charge of the function that is under-performing

Change the market segment we are targeting

When a new fledgling bussiness comes along it is critical that this becomes the number one priority. It has to scale to >10% within a maximum of 3 years else it will be suffocated by the other bussiness lines. This means hitting targets is now the second priority as failing to scale the new bussiness line will mean that you will have missed the opportunity and all of the work to get it to this stage will have been wasted, additionally this bring on of a new bussiness line is a temporary upheaval which should return higher profits in the future.

��The first principle of zone defence is that you must never attempt to disrupt yourself. As an established enterprise, your number-one asset is the inertial momentum of your installed customer base. Your number-two asset is an ecosystem of partners that makes its living adding value to your established offerings.” “Successful disruptions disrupt other companies' bussiness, not their own.” If you are being attacked your target should be to neutralise the opposition (e.g. taxi firms using ride haling apps to counter Uber). These neutralisation assets could come from work you are doing in the incubation zone.

Performance Matrix
Source of revenue vs channel of revenue

Each cell must be accounted for, not just the rows and columns.
The rows must be >10% of the revenue to be taken seriously. As such only things in the performance zone are present here.

Productivity zone

The aim of the productivity zone is to improve the bottom line numbers. Here all of the functions which do not have direct accountability for revenue – such as Accounting, marketing, supply chain. The aim of the zone is

Regulatory compliance – Culture, values and tone set the direction of compliance with oversight, detection and remediation to correct. You have to design compliance in and monitor it vigilantly.

Improved efficiency (“doing things right”)

Improved effectiveness (“doing the right things”)

When budgeting these functions should be separate from the budget for other bussiness units since all other zones use their function – each bussiness unit should not need to estimate how much of the shared service they will use.

One key thing in this zone is to consider the end of life of bussiness units when it would be better to use the internal resource on something which brings the company more value. The best way is to have an end of life shared service since killing products is a specialist task.

Incubation zone

This is the place for ideas which are several years out. The ideas in the incubation zone should not be incremental of what you have currently (this is for the performance zone), these are for things which could grow into being their own credible disruptive innovation delivering billions of dollars of revenue within a decade. In the incubation zone it should build a highly competitive product into a bussiness with between 1-2% of the companies revenue, so this needs the best people. These are businesses in their own rights with specialist sales, marketing and competitive services to compete against other startups.

The businesses in this zone are overseen by a venture board, here they decide on investment into independent operating units. Each unit is run the same way as a startup with venture-funding and milestones. Space in the incubation zone is limited so if a unit fails its technology should be assimilated into existing products and the team moved on. Successful units then have the option to move to the transition zone, if it is not already occupied, the technology could be introduced into an existing line of products, the unit could be spun off as a start up, sold (though seeking buyers might be a distraction) or shut down.

Transformation zone

When bringing on a new bussiness unit into the main bussiness it will cause problems for your existing bussiness. As an example your sales teams don't have the contacts to sell these products. Things in the transformation zone will under-deliver in the short term, but the aim of this is long term gain and bussiness stability.

The majority of the time the transformation zone is empty, a bussiness can not cope with such huge change very often. The most important thing to do is to complete the transformation than to make the current numbers – the growth of this bussiness unit is the businesses future, not its present. A company can only undertake one transformation at a time, taking on two at the same time will be too much for the company to bare. For the transformation to be successful every leader in the company must be aligned with the transformation.

From the moment a unit enters the transformation zone until it gets to 10% of revenue it will be a very destabilising forces within the company – above 10% it starts to stand on its own.

[Rik Van Bruggen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many of the points in this book are really great and valid, but also extremely simple. I just did not like the writing style or the way it was explained. The examples from Salesforce and Microsoft were quite good, but I feel like this book should have been a tedtalk, at most.

[Jaume Sués Caula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great organizational frameworks for CEOs in industries or with business models about to be disrupted (this is, all of them). Recommended reading together with Bold and Exponential Organizations.

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A business book - a _good_ business book - consists (primarily; there are some with additional ingredients) of three things: common sense, data, and a framework that provides a new focus on the first to and proposes a plan of action.

Moore is a bit short on the data, except in the final chapter, but his common sense is so sensible, and the framework sufficiently compelling, that this is in fact a good business book.

This is not a book for every business. Rather it is specific to businesses whose industry is being, or has a real potential to be, disrupted. Being the big dog in such a business has advantages and disadvantages: the advantages are clear: name recognition, business relationships, and inertia; the disadvantages are also clear: you are a target for the other dogs ... and inertia. Inertia is good because it will carry you for a while while someone else disrupts your industry; it is bad because it makes it hard to do the disrupting, or to respond properly when disruption comes from outside.

Moore suggests dividing your business priorities into four "zones."

The first zone, the "performance zone," is where - except for a complete start-up - most of your money comes from. It is your existing products, relationships, and distribution channels.

In the "productivity zone" are the programs and systems which, while they don't directly produce revenue, support the performance zone and make the revenue it produces profitable. Moore suggests that the activities of the productivity zone should be considered largely as _programs_ and _systems_. Systems are continuous and should be funded by corporate; programs should be funded by the entities in the performance zone which expect to use and benefit from them. The productivity zone covers regulatory compliance, efficiency ("doing things right"), and effectiveness ("doing the right things").

The "incubation zone" is the most interesting zone, to me. It is the development area for new products and services. Significantly, these products and services should not be owned by the performance zone; rather, they should be owned by "independent operating units," each with one initiative, and the goal of each IOU is to prove that its initiative is, first, doable, secondly, potentially profitable, and thirdly, scalable to be a major revenue stream for the larger company. Incubation zone initiatives may be cut off sharp if they fail in any of these things.

Finally, there is the "transformation zone," where disruption really happens. To be the disruptor, you take one - only one! - of the incubating initiatives and fund it fully, with the intention of scaling it quickly so that it becomes a major revenue stream (at least 10% of corporate revenue). This should not happen more than once in a decade or so, and when it does, it becomes the company's #1, make-or-break, priority.

When the transformation zone is activated, the rest of the incubation zone gets shortchanged. Initiatives may be spun off as separate companies, sold to other companies, or simply stopped.

What if your company is not the disruptor but the disruptee? This can happen, and then you have to play defense. The incubation zone may be the key here, as one or more initiatives may be grafted onto an existing product/service line to neutralize at least some of the disruptor's advantage. The goal is not to be "best in class," but to be "good enough" to compete, with the expectation that your existing customers will prefer to stay with the known entity. Having neutralized, you optimize your products/services and their positioning. Finally, you seek to differentiate your product as something special, not a me-too to the disruptor.

The final chapter of the book is in some ways the most interesting, a pair of case studies of how Salesforce and Microsoft have used some of these principles, strategies, and tactics - Salesforce on offense and Microsoft on defense. Salesforce's Marc Benioff called Moore in to consult twice; it is not clear whether Microsoft did or not, but the principles seem valid in each case.

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is the direct answer and the solution to Innovator's Dilemma for both sides: for a disrupter and for a disruptee. The whole concept grown from the consulting the author have made to Microsoft (as for disruptee) and to SalesForce (as for a disruptor) and divides the operation, management and the finances into 4 virtual zones. each zone has its own playbook for playing offense and defense, own goals and rules.

This concept is the great framework which I could see could be applied to an established company of every size when it tries to run a new product and/or protects itself from disruptor or even tries to disrupt its own category!

[Ignacio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed reading "Crossing the Chasm" back in the 1990's, but had forgotten about the author for a while. "Zone to Win" came as a refreshing read about someone who knows how to bring new ideas, methods and concepts to the table in an easy to understand and enlighting way.

"Zone to Win" focuses on how companies should respond to disruption pressures, how to defend or attack in an age of accelerated change. The book is clear and provides actionable methods on how to deal with rapid innovation and disruption in the marketplace.

Totally worth it!

[Aaron Delp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got about half way through but I’m not the target audience and book is more of an intellectual exercise as readers won’t be at a level where most companies large enough for this book to apply and be able to influence or change dynamics. Good insights and understanding but little practical advise outside big company execs.

[Fred Cheyunski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Managing to Deal with Disrupting Innovation Once Moore! - I saw that this book had been issued earlier and finally got around to reading to see this advance in Moore’s thinking as one of my favorite management authors, e.g. his conceptual frameworks usually add fresh and useful insights into the introduction, management and impact of disruptive innovations.

This offering builds on and extends his series of 7 books that began with 1990’s "Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Collins Business Essentials)" to his previous book, 2012’s "Escape Velocity: Free Your Company's Future from the Pull of the Past" (see my reviews). Like most of Moore’s earlier works, this one is based on recent consulting experiences and lessons learned necessitating modifications and updates to his approach (action learning). He indicates his hope that this installment will complete the series and be his last, but due to his popularity time will tell.

Within the book, Moore adds 4 management zones (performance, productivity, incubation and transformation) to his 2x2 matrix that was introduced as the stages of technology adoption in his first book. He proceeds by describing the unavoidability for organizations in facing disruptive innovation and the crisis in prioritization it triggers. Moore goes on to outline his updated zone framework for managing these issues (a third of book), descriptions of each zone, installing zone management including cases of Salesforce and Microsoft, and concluding remarks.

As usual as in his other books, the author uses an engaging style, straightforward, easy, quick read, clear language and diagrams. However, in this one there are only 5 diagrams compared to 13 in his previous book. This pared down presentation is not totally surprising given the focus on more specific management team guidance to cope with the crises of disruption. During the course of the book, Moore stresses such points as the importance of existing organizations of managing zones separately and the criticality in setting and following through with priorities. He also emphasizes the creation of annual plans as well as conduct of quarterly business reviews to track progress and make corrections as part of highly prescriptive playbooks of particular value to executives and those leading business segments and functions.

As I read, I recognized again the concerns of mine as a business consultant over years in appreciating Moore’s efforts to provide simple and powerful models for resolving conflicts and accelerating business transformation. At the same time, I reflected on his attention to business growth and commentaries such as Douglas Rushkoff's in his "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity." I also thought of books I having been reading more recently like Robert Scholes’ "The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline" and "English after the Fall: From Literature to Textuality" (see my reviews) and possible parallels. I found myself wondering about the adaptation and recasting required by the Humanities and other University disciplines that are also experiencing disruption in their own ways. Such thoughts were particularly ironic given Moore’s early career as a Ph.D. English professor who moved into marketing and achieved his consulting and publishing success; perhaps even at that time he saw the "handwriting on the wall" that others should be heeding today.

Especially, if you find musings such as mine interesting take a look this book in managing to deal with disrupting innovation and the author’s efforts for the first time or once more.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book but kind of hard to read because it seems to depend pretty heavily on Escape Velocity: Free Your Company's Future from the Pull of the Past. The main reason I bought and read this one is because Gene Kim had discussions with Moore in Kim's recent podcasts, and praised this book quite a bit as an influence on Kim's The Unicorn Project. I can see that.

Basically this is a book about how a company can organize itself to either disrupt a market or avoid getting disrupted by competitors. Anyway, if you read it after Escape Velocity this is a nice handbook for turning the crank on disruption. I think if you've read the earlier book, then maybe this one gets 4 or even 5 stars: Without the prior reading, this just feels too scaffold-y.

My one possible insight about this book is that it is about really huge enterprises. (Indeed, I think the ideal reader would be a Fortune 500 CEO.) The two case studies at the end are about Salesforce and Microsoft -- companies that can actually launch a completely new line of business. (In passing, Moore suggests that companies that would apply his techniques have sales to the tune of $10 billion or more.) Because of this, I don't think its techniques would work for a much smaller company, though it does make some critical points, the biggie being, perhaps, that if you want to incubate new ideas, the incubation "zone" needs to be completely set-aside from business as usual. Incubating innovations cannot be in the same budget as everything else, and are going to have their own tempo. Another big point is that if you want to create a new business line from an incubating product, you can only do one at a time.

One chapter that possibly can be read for a smaller business the chapter on "The Productivity Zone" (back office areas: marketing, IT, Legal, Finance, etc.) -- there are a lot of good ideas on optimization and how this area supports sales.

Even though I believe the book generally doesn't fit smaller companies or startups, I think you can take its lessons for larger companies as cautions for smaller ones: For instance, Moore is very clear that it is damn hard to introduce a new business line even for large enterprises. What does this mean for smaller companies? Don't try to do that. You are probably not going to be successful introducing a new business line without wrecking your company: You may be better off spinning off an incubating area. That point really resonated with my experience.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall good.

I wholeheartedly agree that:

1. Limited Go-To-Market bandwidth or outright conflict is more of a problem in scaling new innovations than is R&D or a lack of ideas. In the status quo, the GTM org in the performance zone will de-prioritize new solutions relative to proven solutions. It requires a concerted push, not business as usual.

2. Expecting an incubation zone activity to contribute meaningfully to the performance zone (revenue) too quickly is a recipe for frustration all around. The new solution won't meet ambitious quarterly or annual sales goals. It wastes the time of sales teams and clients who have to understand the new solution that probably doesn't have its product market fit or value prop honed, and they're probably trying to sell it to a marginal client who isn't likely to be an early adopter. It wastes the time of the incubation zone staff because they have to educate their own sales people or do the selling themselves to this marginal client target, move at the slow speed of their performance zone counterpart who's juggling many things at once, and put up with the inevitable delays when some more promising sales opportunity with a proven product arises at that client or another client covered by that rep. The result is unmet sales targets, wasted time, and slow iteration of an incubation (that really needs quick iteration and fast failure) that eventually dies.

I have issues with the book that prevent me from giving it 5 stars.

1. I don’t know how to reconcile that each manager must have a KPI in only one of the four zones, but can manage their own zone as a smaller 4-zone setup. He doesn’t really explain. Shouldn’t those be incompatible?

2. How does a smaller business or a business unit within a larger organization approach the incubation zone? Funding will be too limited to set up the truly independent operating unit companies he suggests, so you’ll inevitably have to share resources with the performance and productivity zones. But he says you can’t. What are the options?

3. How do we identify what is a sustaining innovation vs. what requires activation of the transformation zone? My business is currently attempting to bring a new product to scale that creates a new (sub-?)market, but sold to our traditional clients, and the buyers with those clients are sometimes the same, sometimes different. My CEO isn't really leading it (although another powerful person is), and it seems to be succeeding. Does this count as our transformation project for this 2-3 year period? Can we scale other products concurrently?

4. The idea that you can only scale one innovation at a time in the transformation zone seems suspect. Perhaps Steve Jobs was such a genius visionary that he could pick a wave every three years and almost always be right. I find it hard to believe that Amazon wasn't also trying to scale other innovations at the same time as AWS, they probably just didn't work so we don't remember them. Moore makes things seem more premeditated or idealized/cleaner than they probably were, a common issue with business books that rely on past case studies. Just because only one thing did scale successfully doesn't mean you shouldn't try to scale multiple transformations at once. I can understand not scaling five new things at once, but two seems possible. Unless I'm misunderstanding what a transformation really is, which takes me to...

5. I think there's a difference between a transformation of an existing business to catch a new wave, and adding a net new line of business that has limited interaction with the existing core business. I think Moore's framework in this book (and its prescription for limiting transformation zone to one initiative) applies better to the former. A good example of transformation is Porsche's successful transition into the SUV market, and more recently, into EVs (success TBD). This was a transformation of an existing core business, which required strong CEO support. AWS was a disruptive innovation, but was it a "transformation" of Amazon in the same way Porsche transformed itself? AWS was a new business line with new types of customers -- wasn't it run somewhat autonomously? Was it competing for GTM bandwidth with Amazon's consumer-facing retail platform? I kind of doubt it, but possibly.

[Jason MacDee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent nearly the entire book trying to determine if the practices were fractal. The beginning of the book claims they are not, it’s the whole company or nothing. But it doesn’t feel like that as you read and the case studies apply below that level. Then finally in the last chapter it says that you don’t have to use the whole company, but you do have to isolate the practices to inside the boundary where you apply it. I would have love that info in the intro.

The practices seem practical and like a mashup of all the popular all-or-nothing approaches for the last few decades, just more precisely applied into more appropriate contexts. That’s the kind of advice I’ve built for my teams for my whole life. To me that means the practices could probably work. But that might be confirmation bias speaking. If the practices don’t work though, the final chapter speaks to the biggest power of the book though: a common language. Getting everyone to speak the same language for these ideas is a massive win even if nobody can agree on what to do.

The books is jargon heavy, its major weakness in my opinion. It’s definitely for a post-MBA audience, which makes sense considering it’s explicitly written toward CEOs. It was a hard read as an audiobook, I’d recommend a text copy if you want to put it into practice.

[Kim Pallister · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a HUGE Geoffrey Moore fan, and consider Inside the Tornado to be among the best books about how the technology markets operate. So, I was super excited to a see a new book from him.

This is another strong analysis of tech industry dynamics and a framework for segregating work within established companies between their core business and new areas of growth and incubation.

I'd give it 5 stars but for 2 small complaints - really just areas for improvement in future editions (I hope):
1. After reviewing the framework in the abstract, he goes through two examples of companies applying it's principles: Salesforce and Microsoft. I'd have liked some further examples - maybe of some who struggled to apply the framework.
2. Of particular interest to me - the author points out that business unit GMs who's business reside in one of Moore's 'zones', can themselves able a smaller version of the framework *within* their business unit. I'd have liked some examples of "zone-to-win within zones".

Those nits aside, this is a great book.

[Alexandr Iscenco · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is written mostly for founders, owners, CEOs, and general managers in large corporations. For them it might be quite informative and handy for planning and managing mergers & acquisitions, corporate dynamics, and so on. The book is also a quick read, which is also a plus for those super-busy general managers.
For the rest of the reader audience, even for entrepreneurs, the value of the book is diminished, as one cannot really apply the learnings of the book in practice. Although, business consultants might get some useful information out of it for their work.
Nevertheless, I managed to adapt the four zones described in the book to my personal and professional life when I had initiated my "career disruption".
Final thing to note here: the language of the book is not always clear. The author uses a number of obscure phrases and sentences that do not really fit into the context. Furthermore, there are cases
of sentences being not structured correctly and missing a few words. It gives an impression that the book was written in a hurry, just to get it to the market.

[Dakota Dunne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone wants to win, but in today’s age of technology disruption companies are finding it harder to launch new product lines successfully while keeping existing ones running at a profit. Consultant Geoffrey A. Moore, also the author of Crossing The Chasm, offers a remedy for companies that are struggling to find growth: “zone management.” His four-zone model guides you through the ups and downs of tough decision making, with the aim of “catching the next wave” – and you don’t need to be a surfer for that. Moore stresses that discipline and good management practices are non-negotiable along the way. Although it’s a short book, some parts of this guide feel a bit repetitive and redundant – but skipping is permitted as long as you make sure to use this handy manual as your reference while you “zone your org.” I recommend Moore’s short read to all managers in technology-heavy industries, no matter your level or experience.

[Siyun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book recommended to my colleagues at the PM Bookclub.

ZTW is a practical handbook for established enterprises about "how to do innovation right", paired with data and real world examples. Contrary to conventional wisdom, established enterprises enjoy many competitive advantage over disruptive startups, the author points out. But they need to assume a new mindset of management: assign projects/initiatives into 4 distinctive yet interconnected zones that are resourced, organized and measured differently from each other, on different time horizons.

The writing tho, as one would expect from a business book, can be boring and redundant at times.

Being said that, there are still plenty gems to be found in the book. Highly recommend to those who are decision makers or influencers in mature, large enterprises.

[Timothee · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a little bit of a bore to read, but the concepts are pretty good. I would suggest you google the book and check out the summary version instead.
The concepts that are really good are around:
1. how to make sure to keep different zones separated with different rules (think about skunk works at Lockheed, or Waymo and Google).
2. how and when to move a business from one zone to the next (think Google starting the Cloud division to play defense against AWS).
Finally, once you see this split with zones you might want to rethink your organization to match this as well (and by organization, I think both company or team level).
Again, the concepts are great and it's a good conversation to have with your team, the book is just not enjoyable :)

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Even if you are not under a current threat of disruption, you need to assume you will be soon and use the intervening period to get yourself into fighting shape.”

The new CEO of the company where I work is reportedly a big fan of this book, so I figured it was prioritized reading! After college, I’ve never gotten around to reading that many management books, but even so, I knew of Geoffrey A. Moore and his writing, especially Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. With so many management books under his belt, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this one is well-written. It’s quite short and concise, and so well-structured that it will be easy to go back and look at specific sub-chapters. Believe me, that is not something that all management books are blessed with… I would recommend this book to anyone working in an established company in an industry challenged by disruption. Taking the quote above into consideration, that would include every industry.

The first chapter of the book paints a vivid picture of how today’s way of thinking can have drastic effects on established enterprises hit with disruption. The solution presented is the model of four zones with different purpose, and where each zone must be managed separately from the other three. Although there needs to be a lightweight corporate system that oversees all four zones in parallel, the governance model should segregate the zones from each other, and they should each have their own best practices, metrics, etc. The role of the CEO is to take final decisions on what types of business goes where, and to keep the narrative clear – both internally and externally!

The book further goes into how to use these different zones while playing offence (disrupting the market), defense (reacting to disruptions caused by someone else), or enjoying an inactive period of undisrupted productivity.

“Sustaining initiatives demand good management; disruptive ones, extraordinary leadership.”

I’ll now follow with a short description of the different zones, as much for my own memory as anything else:

The Performance Zone – This is the company’s established business, where almost all the top line is generated. Focus is on timely delivery and making the quarterly sales. An annual operating plan sets the execution metrics to be delivered on. The Performance matrix describes the structure by ensuring accountability per row (business line) and column (sales channel). A keyword in this zone is scale, where each row or column should be at least 10% of total enterprise revenue.

The Productivity Zone – Here resides the shared services of the company: marketing, HR, legal, etc. They are a cost center, but investments in them enables other business and secures the bottom line. Their main challenge is to manage three core deliverables – compliance, efficiency, and effectiveness – which becomes even more challenging in times of disruption.

The Incubation Zone – These are investments that are not expected to get big for several years. However, scale is still important! The ideas that reside here should be able to deliver a 10X improvement in a very important performance metric and have potential to scale to at least 10% of total enterprise revenue, and be able to do so as a net new line of business (not adjacent to an existing one). The initiatives are managed as venture-backed startups, competing for the funds available by hitting their milestones. The incubation zone should not to be confused with Skunk Works or a lab, which has more focus on learning, but ideas from that area could transfer to incubation zone.

When the company decides to play offence, one idea from the incubation zone is sent to the transformation zone for scaling and thereby disrupting competitors. When playing defense, ideas from the incubation zone will be used in the performance zone to protect current lines of business from disruption.

What stuck out to me about this section, is how alike intrapreneurship is to entrepreneurship. Finding the right leader for the incubation project is crucial, just as a charismatic CEO for a start-up, and “regular” company KPIs like annual sales should not be applied here. On the other side, it’s emphasized how the zone needs to be structured and decisive in shutting down less than successful initiatives.

The Transformation Zone – the final zone is different in that is not a constant line of business, but is created when the company is disrupted or wants to disrupt. This is where one disruptive business model gets to be scaled to size, or where one line of business from the performance zone can be brought in when their operating model needs to be reengineered to handle the disruption in the market. Moore puts a lot of emphasis on only bringing one business to scale in offence, which surprised me. But taking into account the big impact this has on the rest of the business, the resources to drive the growth needs to come from somewhere, it makes sense.

The examples in the final chapters, Salesforce and Microsoft, wraps the book up nicely and clarifies how the framework could look in practice. Looking forward to seeing how my company will be using this thinking more going forward!

[Andrew Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great working model for dealing with disruption

I found this to be a useful model for thinking about how to structure your organization around dealing with a disruptive competitor in business.

What I liked was that the book was pretty straightforward: it assumes that you’ve read Crossing the Chasm and the Innovator’s Dilemma, and doesn’t re-tread that ground deeply. Rather, it quickly summarizes those concepts and then goes directly to building out the organizational structure to apply those concepts. This book is heavy on teaching and telling, less so on philosophy, and that makes it pretty directly actionable.

[Cyrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good way model to look at the world, efficiently written. Only gripe I really have is that the analysis of Microsoft was really hand-wavy and light on details. A lot of credibity was lost when he touted the success of Bing. I don't know much about Microsoft's magical turnaround from uncool, on-the-way-out dinausaur with a hilariously goofy attempt at Windows phone to now being a pretty respectable company. And this chapter didn't help at all.

But overall the enjoyed the book, probably will never use anything I learned in it, since I won't be in the c suite of a public company, but still good to understand.

[Ted Kietzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book about managing your company or department in a time of disruption.

It develops a four quadrant taxonomical framework and maps business into it. To be frank, I think this type of insight is just okay. The zones described are somewhat useful as an organizational tool, but they’re also generalized into obscurity.

The real challenge I commend authors like this on is keeping their frameworks so vague that they apply in almost any case.

That being said, ideas like clear ownership matrices and prioritization of investment in a time of disruption are strong points. Not sure if the “zones” concept needed a whole book though.

[Grantztt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for incumbents trying to drive change

Moore is recognised as one of the great thinkers of our time on disruptive change, and this book brings us up to date with survivors (Microsoft) and the new behemoths (SalesForce). This book offers options to incumbents who are managing mature portfolios that are tipping over into decline, on how to manage change effectively, and transition to new portfolios that offer growth. An accessible book, with some great ideas to experiment with.

[Alexey Gruzdev · Rating 3 out of 5]

From my subjective experience, this book could be just few additional chapters to "Innovator's Dilemma", however, it worth noting, that in this book we at least have a common direction to follow not just formulation of problematic phenomena. I would recommend to read it for everyone who works at enterprises, but remember that you would not find a secret weapon - most likely, you could find a very well compiled guide with 2 examples of Salesforce & Microsoft. The book is very thin, so I believe you would finish it in a couple of days.