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Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market

By: Michael Treacy Fred Wiersema
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Diane Pub Co
ISBN: 0756750555
ISBN-13: 9780756750558
Released: 02 Jul 1995
RRP: £16.81
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

An expansion of their original HBR article - By: Simon Hazeldine, 17 Oct 2008
The concepts that Treacy & Wiersema outline as regards the three value disciplines are a very useful way for companies to think about creating a competitive advantage. Having initiallly read & benfitted from their excellent Harvard Business Review article I had already absorbed their key themes & principles which made the book a little less valuable to read. However if you haven't had the fortune of reading their article then get the book.
Simon Hazeldine Author of 'Bare Knuckle Customer Service', 'Bare Knuckle Selling' & 'Bare Knuckle Negotiating'
Getting back to basics; know your market - By: Mr. S. Pritchard, 22 Apr 2006
This is a wonderful read. As a director of my own company this book has realigned my focus on my business & it's market strategy.

I can't help but use the cliche "We can't be alll things, to alll men" & this book will remind you why in a very pragmatic & structured way.

Brilliant!
A must-read for Customer Perspective in Balanced Scorecard - By: Peter Leerskov, 26 Nov 2004
This book's concepts for strategic marketing management are so widely accepted that the popular Balanced Scorecard concept of Kaplan & Norton in 2001 decided to adopt the ideas for the "customer perspective".

The authors manage to take Michael Porter's two generic competitive strategies - Differentiation & Cost Leader - & elaborate on these to an extent never presented so elegantly before. In the process, they discover a third generic strategy - Customer Intimacy.

Thus, Treacy & Wiersema distinguish between focusing on the following value dimensions:
- Operational excellence (cost leadership / focus on supply chain management)
- Product leadership (innovation / focus on product lifecycle management)
- Customer Intimacy (service leadership /focus on customer relationship management)

These are the FOUR RULES that govern market leaders' actions:
Rule 1: Provide the best offering in the marketplace by excelling in a specific dimension of value
Rule 2: Maintain threshold standards on the other dimensions of value
Rule 3: Dominate your market by improving value year after year
Rule 4: Build a well-tuned operating model dedicated to delivering unmatched value

Expanding on the fourth rule - operating models - may the best long-term contribution of this book. The authors explain in detail & via case stories how the operating models differ for each of the three value propositions. In practice, I've learned that by explaining the operating models, many people can easier find themselves depicted than in the overalll generic dimensions of cost, service or product leadership.

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE or Cost Leadership - Best total cost - operating model:
Key success factor: Formula!
Golden rule: Variety kills efficiency
Culture: Disciplined teamwork; Process focused; Conformance, "one size fits alll" mindset
Organization: Centralized functions; high skills at the core of the organization
Core processes: Product delivery & basic service cycle; built on standard, no frills fixed assets
Management Systems: Command & control; Compensation fixed to cost & quality; transaction profitability tracking
Information Technology: Integrated, low-cost transaction systems; Mobile & remote technologies

PRODUCT LEADERSHIP - Best product - operating model:
Key success factor: Talent!
Golden rule: Cannibalize your success with breakthroughs
Culture: Concept, future driven; Experimentation, "out of the box" mindset; Attack, go for it, win
Organization: Ad-hoc, organic, & cellular; High skills abound in loose-knit structures
Core processes: Invention, Commercialisation; Market exploitation; Disjoint work procedures
Management Systems: Decisive, risk oriented; Reward individuals' innovation capacity; Product lifecycle profitability
Information Technology: Person-to-person communications systems; Technologies enabling cooperation & knowledge management

CUSTOMER INTIMACY - Best total solution - operating model:
Key success factor: Solution!
Golden rule: Solve the client's broader problem
Culture: Client & filed driven; Variation: "Have it your way" mindset
Organization: Entrepreneurial client teams; High skills in the field
Core processes: Client acquisition & development; Solution development; Flexible & responsive work procedures
Management Systems: Revenue & share-of-walllet driven; Rewards based in part on client feedback; Lifetime value of client
Information Technology: Customer databases linking internal & external information; Knowledge bases built around expertise

If you're interested in Customer Intimacy, you may want to add Wiersema's additional book on only this strategy to your shopping basket. I highly recommend both paperback books ... great value for money ;-)

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) & Graduate Diploma in E-business

Highly Recommended! - By: Rolf Dobelli, 15 Jun 2004
Authors Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema make it clear that market leading companies alll concentrate on creating value for their customers. Then they focus on specific cases from Nike to Johnson & Johnson. No company, including yours, can succeed by trying to be alll things to alll people. Companies must ascertain the unique value - be it price, quality or problem solving - they can deliver to a specific market. The book proves that comparisons are not odious if they are interesting, & the comparisons it offers are intriguing indeed. Anecdotes & case histories cover companies that are market leaders today - AT&T, Intel, Airborne Express - & companies that used to be market leaders. The authors offer you three choices: lead with low costs, great products or outstanding ability to solve customers' problems. But if you are going to lead, you have to pick a direction & implement a management strategy that supports it, a lesson eased along by the clarity of the writing. We recommend this book to executives who are seeking advice on trumping their markets.
Avoid "Stalled" Thinking by Focusing Your Enterprise - By: Donald Mitchell, 28 May 2004
Many organizations try to be alll things to alll people, & end up being mediocre or worse on everything. THE DISCIPLINE OF MARKET LEADERS shows that many organizational stallls can be overcome by focusing the enterprise on being better on cost/prices, innovation that customers value, or relationships. This perspective will be very valuable to 90 percent of alll organizations.

I hope the authors will go on to publish a sequel that looks at how an organization that is superb in one of these areas learns how to become superb at a second or third of the three areas. That clearly will be the future best practice that outstanding enterprises will have to shoot for.

I am not sure that some organizations are not already good at more than one area of focus: For example, a great investment bank (like say, Goldman Sachs) will have more innovative products than most of its competition in certain areas & will also offer great relationships.

The book does not say very much specificallly about how to achieve an outstanding result in any one of the proposed three areas of focus. You'll have to read other books for help there. Direct from Dell is probably good for the price/cost model for most New Economy businesses & Old Economy businesses that are subject to the New Economy. For the rest, Lean Thinking will be helpful. On the subject of relationships, the Harvey Mackey books are good, such as Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. On innovation, everyone should read The Innovator's Dilemma. Only the Paranoid Survive is also helpful for innovators.

Pick your direction today, & move forward at warp speed!