The Power of Unfair Advantage

How to Create It, Build it, and Use It to Maximum Effect

John L. Nesheim

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2005
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9780743286619
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A Silicon Valley veteran and author of the bestseller High Tech Start Up reveals the nature of unfair advantage -- that holy grail for every company, the mysterious quality that separates successful businesses from the nine out of ten that fail -- and then shows how to create an unfair advantage, build it into a business plan, and use it to maximum effect.
Nesheim's first book, originally self-published during Silicon Valley's wild west days in the 1990s, quickly moved from underground hit to business bestseller. He witnessed the incredible highs and lows of the Internet bubble, and he got an intimate look at why some companies weathered the storm while others went under. Now, in The Power of Unfair Advantage, Nesheim shows you how to bring the pioneer spirit to your new enterprise -- whether you are starting a new company or trying to breathe new life into an old dog. Unfair advantage is an enduring but often overlooked dynamic and a crucial aspect of any successful business endeavor.
To show you how to attain unfair advantage over your competitors, he begins with a clear model: Outsource everything you are not good at, concentrate on those things that can be differentiated, and strive for a unique, consistent difference that cannot be copied. Integrating these maxims with other essential elements, he demonstrates, with dozens of case studies, how to orchestrate unfair advantage through marketing, sales, engineering, and operations.
Unfair advantage can take many forms. Pager maker RIM rocketed to the top of the mobile wireless email market with Blackberry by employing an unfair advantage that it alone possessed -- pager technology and pager infrastructure. Alternately, an unfair advantage can come from a unique relationship with a strategic alliance partner, as when Flextronics pulled Handspring out of a life-threatening crisis.
The Power of Unfair Advantage is an essential handbook for every manager who is responsible for introducing a new product or service and every entrepreneur and would-be who plans to start a company. Unfair advantage is here to stay -- learn how to lasso its power, rise above the competition, and build a flourishing, long-lasting business.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Colophon
• Also by John L. Nesheim
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: What Unfair Advantage Is
• 1 What Is an Unfair Advantage?
• 2 What Are the Parts of an Unfair Advantage?
• Part II Creating Unfair Advantage
• 3 Building Business Plans with Unfair Advantages
• 4 How to Assemble an Unfair Advantage
• 5 The Beginning: The Executive Summary
• 6 Customer Need and Business Opportunity
• 7 The New Enterprise Strategic Mind
• 8 Focus: Concentration of Resources
• 9 Types of Strategies
• 10 Marketing
• 11 Sales
• 12 Business Development
• 13 Strategic Partners
• 14 Customer Support
• 15 Engineering and Technology
• 16 Legal and Intellectual Property
• 17 Manufacturing, Outsourcing, and Internet Operations
• 18 Information Services
• 19 Management and Key Personnel
• 20 Facilities and Administration
• 21 Financial Plan
• 22 Valuation and Ownership
• Part III Applying Unfair Advantage
• 23 Surfing Disruptive Technology Waves
• 24 Going World-Class
• 25 Why Giants Fail to Crush New Enterprises
• 26 Venture Capital Firms Apply Unfair Advantage
• 27 Giant Corporations Apply Unfair Advantage
• 28 MBA Schools Apply Unfair Advantage
• 29 How Countries Apply Unfair Advantage
• 30 Spotting Weaknesses and Adding Strengths
• 31 Concluding Remarks and Challenges
• Appendixes
• Appendix A Business Plan Outline
• Appendix BScoring Sheet for Written Business Plan
• Appendix CScoring Sheet forPresentation of Business Plan
• Appendix DValuation Tables and Graphics
• Appendixes
• Appendix FNeed and Opportunityof Datamed
• Appendix GFamous Marketing Wars: Strategic Examples
• Appendix HMarketing Comparedwith Selling
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• Examples
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author