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Summary: Bravo!
Review: Kudos to Mitchell and Coles for this fascinating, valuable, and paradigm-shifting how-to. If you are even remotely concerned about (1) successfully meeting continual market changes, (2) expanding the scope and effectiveness of your business, and/or (3) building value for all your stakeholders (from investors to employees to society), you must not only read this book but also make it your business bible. Filled with well-written stories of inspiring individuals (such as barber Michael Cogliandro) and progressive organizations (such as Habitat for Humanity, Dell Computer, and Disneyland), it provides the reader with a step-by-step method to adoitly leverage what's available and accomplish the five ultimate principles of business model innovation. The book's format is as excellent as its content. Each chapter represents a sequential step in the innovation change process and flows seamlessly to the next. Each chapter contains a fully-fleshed out real-life example of the point being made. Boxes highlight salient points which are also summarized. Furthermore, each chapter has a set of heavy-duty key questions for readers to think about at length and apply to their own businesses. Dynamic, practical, insightful, and inspirational, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage is an absolute necessity for today's savvy business owner!
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Summary: How to effectively manage business model improvement(s)
Review: Donald W. Mitchell is Chairman and CEO of Mitchell & Co., a Boston-based management consulting firm. Carol Bruckner Coles is cofounder, president and COO of the same company. They are the authors of 'The 2,000 Percent Solution' (1999) and 'The Irresistible Growth Enterprise' (2000). This book on is split up in four parts, whereby each part consists of 2-to-3 chapters, plus an useful introduction, prologue, and epilogue. In this book the authors aim to answer one of the ultimate business' questions of all time: "What one thing can most improve a company's growth and profitability?" The authors believe that the answer is: "having the best process in your industry for continuing business model innovation." The improvement tips in book are based on research into 100 CEOs and their companies, who (1) had been publicly held for several years and above a certain market capitalization size; (2) fastest growing stock prices during the previous three years; and (3) the same CEO was in place throughout the three years. Some additional examples were taken from the 'Value Line Investment Survey' between 1989 and fall 2000. The 'Introduction' discusses business model innovation and the race for leadership and prosperity. "It is that business model obsolescence is THE major unperceived opportunity for and threat to all businesses now." In the 'Prologue' they introduce some great examples of business model innovators, ranging from gold-mining Goldcorp to entertainment giant Disney(land). In Part I - 'The Most Productive Areas for Business Model Innovation' the pleasure of this book really starts. Mitchell and Coles start discussing the areas where companies can improve their operations. They split these areas up in three. The first is increasing value without raising prices and costs; the second is to adjust pricing to increase sales profitably; and third, reduction of costs that reduce customers benefits. The authors use a wide range of examples to explain their points. Part II - 'Provide Sustained Benefits for All Stakeholders' discusses the difficult stage after the initial success of a business model innovation: The view that one success can threaten to dismantle the foundation of that success. The authors discuss methods for building a buffer for lean times and establishing a good ethical base for the company. They also discuss how leading business model innovators reward all stakeholders fairly in ways the stakeholders prefer. In Part III - 'Expand Business Model Innovation', Mitchell and Coles explain that companies should never be satisfied with their current business model and should keep innovating. "Start first and stay focused on adding business model innovations to gain and keep a profitable competitive advantage." There is also advise how to create a culture for nurturing ongoing business model innovation within organizations. These two issues should be seen as one of the highest priority on an executive's agenda. The final part, 'Pursue Higher-Potential Business Model Improvement', discusses how you can improve a business model innovation. This sounds strange, but by looking closely at areas of high growth and profitability can lead to exceptional results. Another method is by closely looking at the benefits you can provide and share. Especially this last method is overlooked very often by successful companies and can ultimately lead to disastrous times. Finally, the 'Epilogue' provides the five principles which can guide companies to a positive future. Yes, yes, yes, this is a great book. It is not just about innovation and idea creation, it also discusses the difficult second and further stages which are often overlooked. It fills you up with an enormous amounts of tips and ideas on how to improve your current or future business model. And I do believe that that is probably the strongest point of this book, you can feel the ideas and energy flowing into your body and mind and cannot wait to start implementing them into your organization. The authors have provided a short list of key questions at the of each chapter which you should ask yourself. I have just one minor comment: The term 'business model' could have been discussed in some greater detail - I refer to Joan Magretta's Harvard Business Article 'Why Business Models Matter?' (May 2002). Highly recommended to executives, managers, and, especially, entrepreneurs. The book is written in simple business US-English.
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Summary: Innovative thinking backed up with a coherent approach
Review: This book does two things - (1) it describes how to achieve and sustain competitive advantage by examining your current business model and refactoring it to take advantage of emergent opportunities or changing business climates, and (2) it teaches you how to think out of the box. Thinking out of the box is a prerequisite for refactoring your business model, and unlike the plethora of books on this seemingly ineffable topic, this book will provide you with the knowledge and skills to do just that. Excellent example of thinking out of the box are immediately given in the introduction - each mini study set in text boxes is anchored to one of more factors in business model innovation, and illustrate how thinking out of the box by individuals led to radically new ways of viewing their business, and the successes that came from acting on these insights. Everyone will find at least one inspiring case study in this book that elicits an Eureka! Mine was the GoldCorp case. However, case studies--no matter how inspiring--are nothing more than interesting reading without knowing the common critical success factors in detail. This is where the book shines, because these details are exposed, analyzed and the reasons why they are important are given in a compelling way. Part One, which addresses value, cost and price is by far the most influential 114 pages I have read in any book. Most of the techniques can be found in any college-level text book, but the manner in which it's presented, and especially the chapter on eliminating costs that reduce customer and end user benefits, will inspire you to think broadly and deeply about these issues. Part Two covers how to provide sustained benefits to all stakeholders. In theory this seems easy, but too many organizations acknowledge the benefits without acting. The authors show you how to transform the theory into action and results. They also tackle the messages in Parts Three (Expand Business Model Innovation) and Four (Pursue Higher-Potential Business Model Improvement) with the same painstaking detail as in the first two parts. This book has clear, lively writing that will hold your interest from the first page. In fact, it is so well written that you may easily overlook the experience, knowledge and skill that is woven into this excellent book through carefully chosen case studies, key questions that cause you to think, and copious use of text boxes to highlight key points or impart quick pieces of essential information. In that respect not only is this book a valuable addition to any executive's reading list, but it's a masterpiece. It deserves a place alongside the works of Michael Porter, Kaplan & Norton, and Drucker.
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Summary: A Roadmap for a Sure Winner
Review: "The Ultimate Competitive Advantage" provides business leaders with real-life examples and the rudder necessary to shift the course in a stormy, ever changing environment and find the most direct way to new opportunities. This is a useful toolset necessary to develop a winning business model in a globally competitive environment. The authors of this foremost book understand business models and how to make them a source of adequate competitive advantage. The primary idea of Don Mitchell and Carol Coles is simple and rather practical at the same time: improve the effectiveness of everything you do. The authors show how strategic innovation can emphasize your business from the stack and deliver stronger.
The book is well organized and the writing is clear and concise, all making for an informative and enjoyable read. It is an excellent book for a strategic planning point of view. It is an absolute necessity for the 21st century business owners and CEOs. The book is teaching you about Business Model Innovation and the ideas might become useful as your business direction changes. The book offers help to anyone looking to improve theirs chances for success. And it is quite readable. I highly recommend it for senior and mid-level managers, entrepreneurs, consultants, and business students. Alexander Petrochenkov
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Summary: This is the ultimate business book
Review: I consider The Ultimate Competitive Advantage the ultimate business book. Bookstores offer an abundance of books urging professional people to change or become obsolete-yet most of them fall short of providing a game plan. Donald Mitchell and Carol Coles fill that void with this book, which earns its subtitle: Secrets of Continually Developing a More Profitable Business Model. Although the authors base their recommendations on massive research, I commend them for presenting a highly readable book. From the outset, they make their case using intriguing analogies, some hypothetical and others from case studies. This is the only business book I've read that entertains and educates. Readers will learn how to change their business models without wading through professional jargon. My favorite stories revolved around a caddie who expanded his services to include vacation bookings for golfers, what happens when children want to develop their neighborhood lemonade stand into a franchise, and how a barber near Harvard University became a treasured resource for his clients. As an entrepreneur who left management after twenty-three years to start his own business, I will refer to The Ultimate Competitive Advantage repeatedly. Now I go beyond accepting that somebody "moved my cheese." Mitchell and Coles tell me how to produce my own cheese, in an ever-evolving assortment of flavors. Whether your business resembles mine, starting seven years ago, or has lasted seventy years, you'll benefit from this well-organized, colorfully written how-to-excel book. You will acquire a tremendous competitive advantage over your competition when you apply Mitchell and Coles' clearly stated guidelines.
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Summary: A Terrific Book that Reveals Success Beyond the Basics
Review: Mitchell and Coles' book title, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage is an understatement. The book hits the competitive target dead center. A must read for all CEOs and business executives.
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Summary: A Must Read for Business Leaders
Review: The most important information provided by the authors in this book is the result of their research on companies that shows that companies that do not adapt their business models regularly DO NOT SUCCEED. It is incredibly hard to enforce such adaptation in an organization, but this book, in addition to the authors' previous book, The 2000 Percent Solution: Free Your Organization from "Stalled" Thinking to Achieve Exponential Success, provides great tools to help you do it. The authors provide a step-by-step methodology to understand what you've got and to exploit that through business model innovation. The examples help the reader see how these techniques can be done.
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Summary: 10 star winner
Review: You do NOT have to be in business to glean wisdom from this awesome book. Chapter 9 Expand The Benefits Your Provide And Share is worth the price of the book, simply because it gets to the heart of what makes a company survive and thrive thru good as well as bad times. This chapter also touches on one of our hands on as well as financial causes, namely Habitat For Humanity. In this chapter the authors give numerous examples of the positives that come when a business no matter how small or big, gives back, rather than simply take take take. I also call your attention to the subtitle of the book which is "Secrets of Continually Developing a More Profitable Business Model". As the authors show throughout the book, businesses that fear change, become stagnant and die. Whereas the successes are those who never lose their vision and wonder of what could be and then take goals and dreams and make them a reality. Buy a copy of this book for your local library!
Rating: 
Summary: Doubts
Review: On an attentive reading of this book I must say it does not live to its rich promise as far as I am concerned. And it promises a lot which even transpires from its elaborate and frankly immodest format of introductions to introductions and forewords to forewords. No assurances of authors that the reader is dealing with a break-through knowledge can - though - replace the hard earned content. And the content shows surprisingly little home work done on the promised in-depth analysis of a hundred successful business entities. Instead one gets a series of real life business stories related. Not a very creative thing to write if you read business press today. Comparing this book to those of Mr.Collins who so meticuosly presents results of his research of the best companies or to such a thorough job on business models as that done by Mr. Slywotzky in his rich and clear "The Profit Zone : How Strategic Business Design Will Lead You to Tomorrow's Profits" leaves one truly unsatisfied.
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Summary: How to lead from the edge with a better business model!
Review: Stand still and your business will die! This eye opening book will show you how and where to find the hidden potential in your business. Packed with real world examples, Mitchell shows how any business can realize greater success through a continually innovative approach to business. If you want to create an unfair advantage against your competition, read this book!
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