The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy

Classic Concepts and New Perspectives, 2nd Edition

By: Carl W. Stern - editor, Michael S. Deimler - editor

Narrated by: Melissa Hughes

Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

A collection of the best thinking from one of the most innovative management consulting firms in the world.... 

For more than 40 years, The Boston Consulting Group has been shaping strategic thinking in business. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry. Here's a sampling of the provocative thinking you'll find inside: 

• "You have to be the scientist of your own life and be astonished four times: at what is, what always has been, what once was, and what could be." 
• "The majority of products in most companies are cash traps.... [They] are not only worthless, but a perpetual drain on corporate resources." 
• "Use more debt than your competition or get out of the business." 
• "When information flows freely, reputation, more than reciprocity, becomes the basis for trust." 
• "As a strategic weapon, time is the equivalent of money, productivity, quality, even innovation." 
• "When brands become business systems, brand management becomes far too important to leave to the marketing department." 
• "The winning organization of the future will look more like a collection of jazz ensembles than a symphony orchestra." 
• "Most of our organizations today derive from a model whose original purpose was to control creativity." 
• "Rather than being an obstacle, uncertainty is the very engine of transformation in a business, a continuous source of new opportunities." 
• "IP assets lack clear property lines. Every bit of intellectual property you can own comes with connections to other valuable innovations."

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2006 The Boston Consulting Group (P)2012 Gildan Media

Great essays, poor presentation

This is a great collection of essays, but the reading was dry. The information, while a bit dated, was really helpful for understanding some business developments of the past few decades, and some of the predictions turned out to be brilliant, especially the ones about a scrappy underdog called Wal-Mart.

The presentation was extremely dry, though. I "read" a lot of business books on here. I know I'm not getting the Royal Shakespeare Company. this was so dry I contemplated just reading it, though. It was difficult to hold my attention. there was also no bumper music between essays, just a quick recitation of the title, so it read easy to get lost. This did NOT play well with my ADHD lol

A difficult read

A lot of content but no clear structure to the book, going from very heavy technical concepts to anecdotes to case studies but not well woven together. This one was a difficult read for me.