Rita McGrath

In this counterpoint to Roger Martin's article on habitual advantage, I point out that strategic inflections can completely change customer's behavior and illustrate with the example of the Dollar Shave Club.

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business? Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now.

In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy… Show more

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business? Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now.

In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Once the premise on which all strategies were built, this idea is increasingly irrelevant.

Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognized strategy expert Rita Gunther McGrath argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, organizations need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on even before they are exhausted. She shows how to do this with a new set of practices based on the notion of transient competitive advantage.

This book serves as a new playbook for strategy, one based on updated assumptions about how the world works, and shows how some of the world’s most successful companies use this method to compete and win today.

Filled with compelling examples from “growth outlier” firms such as Fujifilm, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Yahoo! Japan, and Atmos Energy, The End of Competitive Advantage is your guide to renewed success and profitable growth in an economy increasingly defined by transient advantage. Show less

The study finds that companies who achieved consistent growth over a long period of time managed to create a remarkable blend of consistency and innovation.

Complex situations call for different management approaches than those that are merely complicated - in this article, we explore what that means for you.

Business model innovation, it is commonly thought, is for new entrants. This article shows how incumbents as well as new entrants can uncover new opportunities for growth, citing examples from organizations as varied as on-line banking and Germany's Deutsche Post. A diagnostic that one can use to assess the potential of a business model is incorporated.

In uncertain situations, failure is inevitable. And yet most organizations do a dreadful job of benefitting from those failures that do occur. In this popular article, I describe how failures can sometimes be beneficial, and how leaders can create the conditions for intelligent failure.

All too often, leaders miss the early warning signs of impending business model erosion. In this interview, Sarah Cliffe and I discuss what leaders could do to improve their ability to take action in time. You can listen to a podcast version of this article by clicking on the link above.

New business model development, like any uncertain endeavor, requires discovery. The concept of ‘the business model’ is appealing because it suggests a change to the way that
strategies are conceived, created and executed against. In highly uncertain, complex and fast-moving environments, strategies are as much about insight, rapid experimentation and evolutionary learning as they are about the traditional skills of planning and rock-ribbed execution.

Discovery Driven Growth provides a field guide to leaders who seek to master the capabilities of innovation-fuelled, profitable organic growth. The book takes you systematically though a practical, easy to absorb process for identifying and screening opportunities and planning and launching new ventures. Clayton Christensen said "The ideas in Discovery Driven Growth are some of the most important tools of management and strategy that have ever been developed. Managers woh use these methods… Show more

Discovery Driven Growth provides a field guide to leaders who seek to master the capabilities of innovation-fuelled, profitable organic growth. The book takes you systematically though a practical, easy to absorb process for identifying and screening opportunities and planning and launching new ventures. Clayton Christensen said "The ideas in Discovery Driven Growth are some of the most important tools of management and strategy that have ever been developed. Managers woh use these methods will be able to navigate the uncertainties of growth ventures with confidence." Show less

The popular stage/gate method for structuring new venture reviews served to address the problem of runaway ventures. Unfortunately, it's go/no go approach leaves a lot of value on the table. This article presents an alternative approach, focused on capturing value, even from ventures that don't work out as planned.

Marketbusters describes practical, proven, ideas for insightfully identifying growth opportunities that will fill your innovation pipeline and create the platform for profitable growth. The book takes readers through five "lenses" for identifying opportunities: change the customer experience; reconfigure offers; change business models; capitalize on industry shifts and create entirely new markets. It is chock-a-block with specific and detailed instructions.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset borrows from the practices of habitual or serial entrepreneurs to bring the power of innovation and entrepreneurship to established corporations. In its pages, readers will find guidance for developing their own entrepreneurial leadership, together with practical worksheets, exercises and checklists.

This best-selling HBR article lays out a disciplined approach to planning for highly uncertain ventures that overcomes the pitfalls Clayton Christensen dubbed "innovation killers".