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The discipline of market leaders

by Michael Treacy

Why is it that Casio can sell a calculator more cheaply than Kellogg's can sell a box of corn flakes? Why can FedEx "absolutely, positively" deliver your package overnight but airlines have trouble keeping track of your bags? Why does Lands' End remember your last order and even your family's clothing sizes but after ten years of membership American Express still solicits you to join? How is it that some companies are reinventing competition in their markets while others are seemingly oblivious to the changing world around them? These are the questions that authors Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema explore in their groundbreaking book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, from the same consulting firm that brought you business reengineering. The answers provide a revolutionary way of thinking about customers, competition, markets, and the fundamental structure of your organization.^ The authors' thesis is deceptively simple: that successful organizations - the market leaders - excel at delivering one type of value to their chosen customers. The key is focus. Market leaders choose a single "value discipline"--Best total cost, best product, or best total solution - and then build their organization around it. They sustain their leadership position not by resting on their laurels, but by offering better value year after year. Choosing one discipline to master does not mean abandoning the other two, only that a company must stake its reputation - and focus its energy and assets - on a single one to achieve success over the long term. No company can reliably succeed today by trying to be all things to all customers.^ Through detailed case studies of some of the world's best-known companies, The Discipline of Market Leaders examines the implications of each discipline from an operating standpoint, offering step-by-step guidance on choosing and implementing the right one. Each discipline demands a distinct organizational model with its own structure, processes, information systems, management systems, and culture. Treacy and Wiersema also show how to involve every member of a company's work force in the "cult of the customer," a new way of looking at work in the context of customer value. What does your company do better than anyone else? What unique value do you provide to your customers? How will you increase that value next year? If you can't easily answer these questions, then The Discipline of Market Leaders is required reading.^ Because the companies that can answer these questions are raising the value bar in their industries, creating new customer expectations, and staking their claim to market leadership.