- ISBN13: 9781422103159
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Commoditization-a virulent form of hypercompetition-is destroying markets, disrupting industries, and shuttering long-successful firms. Conventional wisdom says the best way to combat commoditization is differentiation. But differentiation is difficult and expensive to implement, and keeps you ahead of the pack only temporarily.
In Beating the Commodity Trap, Richard D’Aveni provides a radical new framework for fighting back. Drawing on an in-depth study of … More >>
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D’Aveni states today’s obvious truth “Commoditization can happen to any firm. Any product, any time.” What is not obvious is how to deal with this truth and the author does an excellent job of characterizing commoditization and provides good descriptions of strategies to combat it.
The book does not (and should not) include specific plans of attack other than through example because the complexities of actually implementing the recommended analysis and selecting a response strategy require organizational and market context for your situation. Sometimes readers are looking for “the solution” or “the magic pill” for their specific problem and this book provides you the principles and basis of understanding to start down that path while avoiding fatal mistakes.
The book does provide substantiated principles and a structure that can be used with your organizational and market context to beat the commodity trap. These principles are non-trivial, presented in an organized way and D’Aveni should be commended for providing this new framework.
Here are some points/quotes I enjoyed from the book:
a. “Once a company is caught in a commodity trap, differentiation is rarely enough to get it back out.”
b. In D’Aveni’s experience “commoditization is usually the result of failure to act early enough”
c. With regard to just discounting prices to battle the competition D’aveni states “This has the unfortunate and unintended effect of increasing the depth and severity of the commodity trap.’
d. With regard to the organizational decision making process for dealing with commodity traps D’Aveni makes a statement that is tried and true for the price benefit analysis he is describing and any other kind of managerial decision process for that matter. “…it is important to get managerial buy-in for the selected definitions, sources, and measures of benefits and prices before…otherwise the decision making process can get deadlocked by those who refuse to accept the results due to denial, or the decision making process may be derailed by those who choose to play politics with the data to enhance their personal goals and power.
If you are dealing with commoditization this book will provide a better understanding of your circumstances and better understanding creates better responses.
Dr. James T. Brown PMP, PE, CSP
Author, The Handbook of Program Management
Rating: 5 / 5