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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 35000000009255 | HF5415.5 D39 2013 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
Searching... | 30000010332484 | HF5415.5 D39 2013 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Shift your strategy downstream .
Why do your customers buy from you rather than from your competitors? If you think the answer is your superior products, think again.
Products are important, of course. For decades, businesses sought competitive advantage almost exclusively in activities related to new product creation. They won by building bigger factories, by finding cheaper raw materials or labor, or by coming up with more efficient ways to move and store inventory--and by inventing exciting new products that competitors could not replicate.
But these sources of competitive advantage are being irreversibly leveled by globalization and technology. Today, competitors can rapidly decipher and deploy the recipe for your product's secret sauce and use it against you. "Upstream," product-related advantages are rapidly eroding.
This does not mean that competitive advantage is a thing of the past. Rather, its center has shifted. As marketing professor Niraj Dawar compellingly argues, advantage is now found "downstream," where companies interact with customers in the marketplace.
Tilt will help you grasp the global nature of this downstream shift and its profound implications for your strategy and your organization. With vivid examples from around the world, ranging across industries and sectors, Dawar shows how companies are reorienting their strategies around customer interactions to create and capture unique value. And he demonstrates how, unlike product-related advantage, this value is cumulative, continuously building over time.
In an increasingly customer-centered world marketplace, let Tilt serve as your guide to shifting your strategy downstream--and achieving enduring competitive advantage.
Author Notes
Niraj Dawar is a strategic thinker and author who has worked with leading organizations on three continents. He is Professor of Marketing at the Ivey Business School in Canada and Hong Kong. He has worked with senior management teams in companies in the technology, banking, and consumer goods industries. His published work appears in the Harvard Business Review , MIT Sloan Management Review , and in the leading academic journals in marketing.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
Marketing professor Dawar (Ivey Business School, Canada and Hong Kong) describes the way a firm's strategy might tilt in one of two directions: upstream or downstream. When Dawar refers to an upstream tilt, he summarizes the strategic imperative as "how much more of this stuff can we make and sell?" In contrast, the downward tilt--Dawar's recommended approach--can be articulated by asking "what else do my customers want?" This, writes Dawar, is the difference between upstream horizons that are limited and possibly even lost due to changes in customer behavior and the product life cycle, and downstream flexibility gained by continually matching and updating a firm's competencies and values to address its customers' needs. Dawar offers a well-documented update on Theodore Levitt's classic 1960 Harvard Business Review article "Marketing Myopia." The key in both cases is that businesses must stay attuned to their customers and to the changing environment around them, keeping focus on their own strengths and the greater value they provide, and not simply on the product that they manufacture. Dawar includes many examples of businesses successfully using this strategy. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional audiences. D. Aron Dominican University
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. vii |
| Introduction: Tilting Downstream | p. 1 |
| Part 1 Your Center of Gravity | |
| 1 Finding the New Locus of Competitive Advantage | p. 19 |
| 2 Slashing Your Customers' Costs and Risks | p. 47 |
| 3 Seizing the Downstream Advantage | p. 69 |
| Part 2 The Perch: Mapping Market Networks | |
| 4 Seeing New Value in Your Customers | p. 79 |
| 5 Extracting Value from the Big Picture | p. 101 |
| Part 3 The Deep Dive: The Competitive Playing Field Inside the Customer's Mind | |
| 6 Scoping Out the Playing Field | p. 123 |
| 7 Taking Control of Criteria of Purchase | p. 131 |
| 8 Knowing Who Your Competitors Are | p. 157 |
| Part 4 The Bottom Line | |
| 9 Busting Myths in the Marketplace Wars | p. 173 |
| 10 Understanding Why Downstream Competitive Advantage Is Sustainable | p. 187 |
| 11 Tilting Your Strategy and Organization | p. 201 |
| Notes | p. 215 |
| Index | p. 221 |
| About the Author | p. 229 |
