Rating: 
Summary: Historical Perspective makes Strategic Renaissance a winner!
Review: Strategic Renaissance was quite an unexpected treat! As a manager in charge of developing and launching a successful high-tech medical product, I found two of Strategic Renaissance's sections particularly helpful. First, the author's refreshing take on competitive strategy where the key issue is determining the unexpected weak link in the competitor's position. In my field this can be regulatory, product development or simply how best to approach our medical doctor constituency. This goes far and beyond the usual axioms of features, benefits, costs and pricing. The second area that was really helpful was Dudik's discussion of strategic team-building. From my experience in larger companies, I was impressed to find that Dudik not only analyzes the eternal struggle between culture and strategy, but he actually comes up with some tools for getting culture to work within corporate strategy in a symbiotic fashion. As my company moves from development stage to product introduction, this will be massively important. Finally I found Strategic Renaissance fun and easy to read. Unlike most business books which have one or two ideas that get beaten to death, Strategic Renaissance has lots of "insights per square page." Those of us who like history will really enjoy this book. I recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in business. The historical perspective simply makes the book that much more enjoyable to read!
Rating: 
Summary: A strategic approach to philosophy, history and business
Review: Strategic Renaissance, by Evan M. Dudik, gives us a new understanding of how to characterize effective strategy. Mr. Dudik has a great blend of philosophical, historical, business, strategic experience and insight. His practical applications based on his career are very interesting to me and should also be to many other readers. Strategic Renaissance takes a look at many strategic characteristics of war, business, science and other fields of human endeavor ring the past one the last millennium No CEO will dispute the traditional strategic factors of geography, transportation, cost, price, culture and people. These factors will remain increasingly dynamic as a result of technology. Therefore, no strategy, regardless of its current success, can sustain itself indefinitely. Dudik helps the reader define a agenda for identifying the continuing process of creating and re-creating successful business strategies. Strategic Renaissance is very easy to pick up and read. Mr. Dudik's humor and real life experiences make it a refreshing book to read. I found it hard to put it down. It prepares it readers to consider strategic adaptation not as failure but as necessary for continued survival and success.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST-READ/MUST-DO book for your Strategic Thinking Library
Review: Strategic thinking (or exploration) is one of my pet subjects. So, when I first browsed this book in a local bookstore, I was intrigued by several terms found in the Index page: strategic hypotheses, opportunity creation & exploitation (OCE), business strategy as falsifiable hypothesis, falsification vs verification, asymmetries (natural, created), web of belief. I was even more surprised when I found terms like astrology and guided imagery in a mainstream book intended for general managers. I bought the book and I have not been disappointed after reading it. It took me quite a while to appreciate the author's intellectually provocative ideas about strategy formulation. I find it quite informative to read the author's masterfully intertwining of contemporary models of breakthrough corporate strategies (real-life cases) with revolutionary concepts drawn from science, philosophy, military, political history as well as business history. However, I still think he was a little bit too long-winded in the process. The author's artful usage of the "Hammer and Pivot" metaphor (drawn from a successful historical military battle formation) in the Strategic Anatomy chapter (3) as a tool for internal capability assessment was quite a gem. This will definitely help to enhance the traditional SWOT Analysis in a company strategy formulation exercise. Overall, I find his insights refreshing. In a nutshell, his brilliant arguments in the context of strategy formulation, can be summarised as follows: 1. A strategy is a hypothesis. 2. A strategy is a testable and falsifiable hypothesis. 3. Goals and mission statements are only the starting points for strategic hypotheses. 4. A falsifiable strategy has two basic elements for testing and verification: Conditions and Outcomes/Consequences. (The author puts a lot of emphasis here, and also shows how to use IF and THEN statements.) 5. To craft a successful strategic hypothesis, begin by asking questions. (The author provides some penetrating questions. They will help to spell out the conditions and consequences.) 6. When experience or experimentation falsifies a theory, learning naturally takes place, by doing, of course. 7. Strategy formulation is a work of constant refinement. I enjoyed very much perusing the four chapters (5,6,7, & 8) covering opportunity creation and exploitation (OCE), the two chapters (9,10) on corporate cultures and the web of belief, and the last chapter (11), which summarised the book in the form of Do's and Don'ts. At the end of each chapter, the author provides many points to ponder (P2P), several questions to ask (Q2A) and some things to do (T2D) in the form of "Consequences, Implications and Checklists." I find these summariser/activator features to be very useful for readers, especially for me. They make the book so much easier to read and digest. Summing up, this is a MUST-READ and MUST-DO book to be included in your Strategic Thinking Library. Highly recommended for entrepeneurs.
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