NICK SKELTON is a highly successful speaker and consultant whose acclaimed Corporate Combat presentation shows how to use the principles of warfare to beat the competition.
An ex-army officer, he spent 15 years in various sales and marketing roles from rep to board level, in major companies including Mars, Duracell and Rothmans.
Michael Porter meets Sun Tzu in this essential guide to beating the competition on the business battlefield.
The language of the military has long been an integral part of our business vernacular - we 'defend market share', 'go on the offensive' and use 'killer apps'. And we are all aware of the McDonald's vs BurgerKing 'burger war,' and the 'cola war' between Coke and Pepsi.But we could do no better than to look at actual military history and the way battles have been fought and won over the past 2500 years to find ways of winning on the business battlefield.
Corporate Combat adds the historical context and modern business application to the'business is war' metaphor. It presents a fascinating interweaving of real military campaigns with actual business cases to demonstrate how millennia of military strategy can be used to build a competitive business strategy for the next century.
From the triumphs of the great Roman armies to the major battles of the American Civil War, from guerilla warfare in IndoChina to the strategic genius of Alexander the Great, the author shows how to apply and adopt the actual strategies of centuries of military campanigns to your business in order to beat the competition.
In a book that will appeal to anyone onvolved in business strategy from mid- to top-management, Nick Skellon demonstrates that the three lessons of successful military operations - possession of an effective SWAT (superior weapons and tactics system), a high force-space ratio, and a strong defensive position - are directly transferable to a business seeking competitive advantage.
A thorough understanding of the lessons will enable any company, of any size, to determine which of the four fundamental strategies is the most successful to pursue. With examples from companies as diverse as Wal-mart, Dyson, Microsoft and Honda, Nick Skelton shows that with the right strategy, deployed at the right time, your company can compete with the giants even though it may not be one, turn its competitors into followers and thrive in the competitive market.