Renewable Advantage: Crafting Strategy Through Economic Time
Although a work of scholarly research, Harvard professor Michael Porter'sCompetitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance(originally published in 1985 but reissued last year with a new introduction) has gained a wide audience. And now Williams' research should attract the same audience. Williams is a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Graduate School of Industrial Administration. Relying on his analysis of 10 years of data from hundreds of companies in 66 industries, he goes beyond Porter to argue that sustaining an advantage is not enough; inevitably, the competition will catch up. Williams shows that this so-called convergence is also predictable. He warns, then, that companies should strategically focus on renewing themselves periodically. With dozens of examples uncovered from his data, he shows how the timeline for convergence varies by product and by industry and how companies have successfully renewed themselves.David Rouse