Rating: 
Summary: The book presents a simple yet powerful concept.
Review: "The Alchemy of Growth" is an easy read, full of examples involving companies and products every consumer knows about. The fundamental theory presented by the book - that business managers need to devote energy and resources today toward cultivating business on each of the "three horizons of growth" - is simple enough to understand easily, but is also extremely powerful. While the book seems targeted at the CEO of a large company, the concept can as easily apply to a small company or even an individual's plan for his or her own future. The book is surprisingly free of business school mumbo jumbo and can be read quickly by a busy person. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: The book presents a simple yet powerful concept.
Review: "The Alchemy of Growth" is an easy read, full of examples involving companies and products every consumer knows about. The fundamental theory presented by the book - that business managers need to devote energy and resources today toward cultivating business on each of the "three horizons of growth" - is simple enough to understand easily, but is also extremely powerful. While the book seems targeted at the CEO of a large company, the concept can as easily apply to a small company or even an individual's plan for his or her own future. The book is surprisingly free of business school mumbo jumbo and can be read quickly by a busy person. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A strategic stairway to business success
Review: A perspective on corporate growth and change which works through the need to maintain a simultaneous focus on three 'horizons' - today's business, emerging businesses and longer term options and the implications for strategy, management and structures.As you would expect of a book out of the McKinsey stable, this is on an issue of importance to business, is well researched and analysed and very readable and well presented. As you would also expect, it is focused on large corporates, and on strategies for their business success, as measured by exceptional growth and returns to stockholders. It provides one important perspective on the issue of corporate growth and development, to be compared with other perspectives. There are obvious comparisons with Collins & Porras: 'Built to Last' both in the concern with continuing exceptional performance over an extended period and in the care taken to explain the research base from which the findings are derived. However, whereas Collins & Porras are concerned primarily with values and culture, Baghai et al are primarily interested in strategies for the selection, development and management of a portfolio of businesses and the implications of those strategies for structuring, staffing and operations. The fundamental thesis is simple and can be stated in a few propositions: The companies that have been successful in maintaining high rates of growth with superior profitability are those that have learnt to manage well to three different time horizons at the same time - today's business, the next generation of emerging businesses, and the longer term options out of which the next generation of businesses will arise. In order to develop longer term options into 'core profit engines', a series of measured steps (concerned with finding ways of profitably building core capabilities and markets) are required, which the authors call 'stairways'. In the nature of things, not all stairways will lead to future core businesses, so a variety of initiatives need to be carried forward together. Management of the 'stairways' should receive significant senior management attention. The skills and temperaments required to manage current business, to develop new business and to search out viable future options are widely different one from the other. The key to maximising the profitability of today's business is excellence of execution. Emerging businesses require business builders - the typical entrepreneurial temperament, while the identification of future options requires lateral thinkers and visionaries. In consequence, the style of organisation and internal culture most appropriate to each of these foci are also different. Large corporates tend to find difficulty in encompassing these very different cultures. The authors discuss in some depth the resulting issues of internal culture, recruitment, structuring and transition, and their strategic management. The strength of the book is that the authors identify a key issue in business success - the development and maintenance of a vigorous portfolio of businesses over the longer term - and work through the implications with clarity and thoroughness. The cost of that approach is that other equally significant issues are assumed or left in the background. It is necessary to balance the valuable perspective offered with others that are also important. It is also necessary to be aware of the underpinning tacit assumptions - for example, the underlying metaphor of organisation adopted by the authors appears to me to be much nearer that of the organisation as a (money) machine, than that of the organisation as an organism. There is a marked contrast with the emphasis in, for example de Geus: 'The Living Company'. This is not to say that either is wrong, only that neither is complete.
Rating: 
Summary: My Dead Tree Award - Big Print and HUGE appendix
Review: Although one should always be skeptical of consultant-authored business books, on occasion they combine academic thought with practical experience to generate real insight. This is one such book. In addition to striking a chord with big company CEO's frightened of startups (by strange coincidence a lucrative market for McKinsey), the authors discuss a variation of corporate portfolio theory that emphasizes timing as a critical dimension. This provides for a useful mental exercise, although the discussion gets a bit light at times. Think of it as the BCG matrix for the late 90's. A simple concept that can be powerful if applied correctly, or destructive if blindly followed.
Rating:
Summary: The BCG growth-share matrix for the late 90's
Review: Although one should always be skeptical of consultant-authored business books, on occasion they combine academic thought with practical experience to generate real insight. This is one such book. In addition to striking a chord with big company CEO's frightened of startups (by strange coincidence a lucrative market for McKinsey), the authors discuss a variation of corporate portfolio theory that emphasizes timing as a critical dimension. This provides for a useful mental exercise, although the discussion gets a bit light at times. Think of it as the BCG matrix for the late 90's. A simple concept that can be powerful if applied correctly, or destructive if blindly followed.
Rating:
Summary: Good book to think about the future of your company
Review: An useful book ! Surviving in the future requests perspectives and actions. Companies have a life cicle and gaining right to survive for a long time is not simple. So entrepreuners, directors and managers should think and act carefully for ensuryng the future of their companies, because there's not certitude of existing for decades.
Rating:
Summary: Business Book of the Year
Review: From the management consulting firm that brought us In Search of Excellence here its latest contribution to the literature on business growth. Based on an worldwide Mckinsey research project, the book provides CEO's with a simple framework of understanding how businesses grow sustainably and easily applied metrics for understanding growths in different horizons. Another strength of the book lies in its emphasis on a differientated approach towards talent management in different horizons of growth. The challenge lies in maintaining growth in a company's core businesses while launching new ventures. As the book demonstrated, planning for growth is not formulaic but requires the nurturing of a pipeline of business opportunities
Rating:
Summary: My Dead Tree Award - Big Print and HUGE appendix
Review: How to turn a booklet into a book --> use big print and add a huge appendix (about half the book). It took four authors to write this book? Make a nice short read in the bookstore cafe but it won't last more than a cup or two. Here's a chapter's worth - manage three growth time-horizons simultaneously. I just saved you a cup. However, the content IS important and useful.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful models and abstractions
Review: It seems like a no-brainer that companies need to grow in order to survive or compete, and this book isn't interesting because it tells us what we already know. What's interesting about this book is that the authors do a wonderful job of taking substantial research, abstracting the trends, and rendering their findings into very clear and usable models and messages that can help most managers who are thinking about growth. It was particularly interesting for me, as I work as an ebusiness consultant for a large IT integrator and many of my customers are trying to start new staircases (as described in the book) via Internet channels and I can immediately see the applicability of Alchemy to what they're trying to do. The book is a quick read (almost comically quick, given the price) and mercifully low on buzz words. Right now, I don't see the appendix as being particularly useful, but I may find it more so later. Annotating the bibliography would have added a lot of value.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Insights about Growth Options
Review: The authors have focused on one type of real options - growth options - and written a useful book on the topic. They take a high-level strategy view of the topic and do not cover the actual pricing of growth options. However, such options represent the majority of the value of most technology and startup companies. As a result, focusing on growth options can provide useful insights for managers and break through some of the short-sighted management fads (such as Stern Stewart & Company's Economic Value Added (EVA) metric) which focus on short-term profits at the expense of long-term value creation.
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