Failsafe Strategies: Profit and Grow from Risks that Others Avoid

By Sayan Chatterjee

A revolutionary approach to pursuing your best business opportunities - without the risk This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131011111
• ISBN13: 9780131011113
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Wharton School Publishing
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Required reading for the strategist

Academics and practitioners spent years developing frameworks for competitive and industry analysis among many others. One important piece of strategy has been missing - it's risk. Sayan Chatterjee provides readers with an excellent framework that links other common strategy analysis frameworks with risk. The strength of the book is a solid outline of subjects and questions to improve your thinking about risk as a function of strategy. This should help you to be a step ahead of the competition, leveraging the "other" strategic options that are typically not considered by classic strategy options. In highly-competitive, commodity businesses, that's usually what strategies focus on. It is your responsibility, as a business owner or senior manager, to lead your company into the future by identifying and seizing possibilities. Failsafe Strategy helps you understand the risk factor within a market place and the strategic steps a company can take to enhance its competitive position. This is a must have book on strategy.

How effectively do you manage your risks?

As Arthur Anton, President/CEO, Swagelok succintly put it "Chatterjee helps you take a fresh look at your company's current business model and gives you a roadmap to implement change to align your everyday operations and long-term strategic planning. This book is a must-read for anyone involved in operations and trying to grow a business." This book sets the foundation for creative ways to leverage existing resources more effectively and mitigate risks.

Failsafe Strategies : Profit and Grow from Risks

Let's not kid ourselves. There's no such thing as a 'failsafe strategy'-except, perhaps, in management utopia. Every strategy, big or small, and no matter how well thought out, runs the risk of tripping over some stumbling-block (Murphy didn't get so famous for nothing). So why is Chatterjee, a professor of Management Policy at Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management, promising the impossible? Well, as it turns out, he isn't. Chatterjee's premise is simple: in a bid to avoid risks, companies often miss out on high-return opportunities. But there are ways to analyse and understand risks, and come up with strategies that, so to speak, skirt the risks and yet deliver value. First, "conceptualise multiple business models that can exploit the same opportunity." He calls this framework "outcome-to-objective", which juxtaposes the company's current capabilities with its strategic objective. Chatterjee takes the reader through a detailed approach to building a low-risk strategy. He uses several case studies, but is honest enough to admit that these weren't developed using any of his theories. Instead, these can be used as "exercises" to help "re-create these strategies" with the methodology. The final chapter, on developing multiple routes to reach the strategic goal, is interesting. Here, Chatterjee details three different "migration paths" a company could adopt. The first, "become the Kingmaker", is about how companies that aren't yet market leaders can embed themselves with the dominant player in such a way that they become the driving force in the leader's success. The second, "frontal assault", is about taking on the incumbent head on with a better product. And the third, interestingly called "hide your weakness", urges companies to keep working on their weakness till the time is opportune to take on the market leader. So should you read this book? Yes, if your business is getting increasingly complex and risky. After all, as Chatterjee says, risk is fundamental to doing business. But you needn't let it overwhelm you.

Failsafe Strategies: Profit and Grow from Risks that Others

Is anything truly "failsafe" these days? No, but giving Chatterjee some poetic license, at least in terms of expounding on theories, strategies can certainly be made safer. That's the author's goal, and he brings in 15 years of research in his capacity as a professor of management policy at the Weatherhead School of Management at case Western Reserve University. A basic theme in this direct and readable book (for an academic, the author's' prose is remarkably free of cant or jargon) is that to reduce risk, you need clarity about where the risks are, and create choices or options in tackling those risks. These can be present in the design of the strategy - which can predispose it to failure - or during execution, Chatterjee notes, adding that during design, companies often miss out on strategies that can avoid or minimize capability risks. Chatterjee sagely notes that too often, "after the fact" academic analysis of successful business strategies don't adequately convey the reality of how they were developed. He presents a host of short, accessible examples, tied to his points, involving such companies as Bank One, Sony, JetBlue and Continental Airlines, Cisco Systems, FedEx Corp., and many more. Failsafe Strategies is a thoughtful and useful addition to the growing literature on risk.

Essential Reading

This is a great book on strategy and innovation... of products, services, and your entire company. Bottom line: Buy this book. Not only can you immediately implement the tools described, but it will also serve as an excellent reference tool. It is well worth the time invested to read it. Consider it a[n]... option on your career with limitless upside. There are many actionable checklists, as well as excellent case studies and comments. Lots of footnotes and a well-developed bibliography. Minutes after you buy this book you could use their checklists to improve your product and service offerings. Most highly recommended.