Hypercompetition

by Richard A. D'Aveni

Book Overview

General Motors and IBM have been battered to their cores. Jack Welch, the chairman of General Electric, called the frenzied competition of the 1980's "a white knuckle decade" and said the 1990s would be worse. In this pathbreaking book that will define this new age of "hypercompetition," Richard D'Aveni reveals how competitive moves and countermoves escalate with such ferocity today that the traditional sources of competitive advantage can no longer...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029069386
• ISBN13: 9780029069387
• Release Date: March 1994
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

First clear definition of modern competition

D'Aveni manages to convey and explain the current competitive environment. Why nobody has defined it so easily before, I don't understand (everything is simple after you've had it explained to you). The great thing about D'Aveni, is that he in principle challenges the Porter's and Ansoff's of this world, and explains that competition today is intense, not very well-ordered and competitive advantages is fleeting and has to be constantly renewed. In short, this is the first book in Strategy that I've read and immediately felt at home with. You can't loose, buy it, read it and contemplate it. If you don't agree with its main theme, you're probably of a dying breed of managers, otherwise you need this book to make sense of the competitive landscape of today.

Must have.

The strategy challenge is "to know all gurus, but to follow none". You need to resolve your own strategy paradoxes by creatively combining aspects from different approches. There is no one best way to make strategy. However, D'Aveni offers training manual for managers to formulate the desired strategy. Excellent. MUST HAVE.

Hypercompetition has proven to be a highly useful text.

Contrary to some of the more pedantic opionions noted here, Richard D'Aveni's book on Hypercometition has proven to be highly useful in our strategic planning process. While it is true that one may adapt Porter's traditional approaches, Hypercompetition stimulates more focused thought on the competition - who they are, how you can take them out, etc. Deliberately planning to confront, outwit, and defeat your opponent has been decidedly lacking in modern business lore as of late - the current Microsoft case not withstanding. Hypercompetition may not be the sole game in town, but it gives everyone else a run for their money.

Excellent, gets to the heart of true competitive advantage.

D'Aveni's view of competition in our global era is right on. Few competitive advantages are truly sustainable, and long-term strategic planning is ineffective. The only long-term sustainable competitive advantage comes from a firm's ability to create short-term advantages that span across numerous competitive arenas - from cost/quality, to know-how, to various types of stronghold positions, to financial muscle. How is that accomplished? By continually disrupting the status quo, changing the rules of the game, by taking an industry in new directions in which competitors' strengths become irrelevant. Strong recommend: lengthy book but "executive summary" is in the 35 page Introduction. Short form paperback version coming out?

A new way of thinking

I had read Hypercompetiton recently and I realized changing our way of thinking about business is one of the biggest challenges of the end of the centuri. D'Avenis model is a breaktrough description about how the market realy works, and how the managers must become more agressive in order to survive to the atack of foreign new game players. The idea of the unsustainability of the advantages - the core idea of the book- directly destroys Porter's traditional, builded arround researches made inthe 50's. I strongly recomend this book to be readed by all the executives from a company that wants to become -or remain- a market leader. This is and all-new approach that can make the difference. It is maybe the most remarkable book the 90's has been produced. Read it