Rethinking Competitive Advantage: New Rules for the Digital Age

Digital pioneers have found new levers to create value: by imagining radically innovative services, then very rapidly deploying them on a vast scale (Netflix, Apple Store); by temporarily forgoing the quest for profits in favor of hypergrowth and market dominance (Google, Facebook, Tesla); by leaning on a platform, data and algorithms to optimize sales (Amazon) or resources (Uber). But nothing prevents traditional companies from following these same recipes, argues the author, who advises leaders of major groups including Novartis, Bank of America, Toyota, etc. The main challenge of this transformation is neither strategic nor technological, but organizational. The aim is to move from a hierarchically layered structure to a network of teams, to rehabilitate a long-term visionary leadership rather than a managerial one—and to take risks. Examples such as Walmart, General Motors or Disney show that such ambition is not unrealistic. A very rich book, both in its concrete advice and the renewed vision of strategy it proposes.