If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat!

Strategies for Long-Term Growth

by Leonard Sherman

Number of pages: 360

Publisher: Columbia Business School

BBB Library: Corporate Success, Operations Management

ISBN: 978-0231174824



About the Author

Leonard Sherman is an Executive in Residence and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School and Forbes contributor, with over forty years of experience in business, teaching and research on business strategy and entrepreneurship. He currently teaches courses in the MBA and EMBA programs, where he received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013. Prior to his academic pursuits, Sherman was a Senior Partner at Accenture, where he provided management counsel to CEO’s in a variety of industries, served as the president of two business units, and helped launch the firm’s corporate venture group as a General Partner, serving as a board member for five technology-based startups.

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Editorial Review

Conventional wisdom suggests that dogfights are to be expected as marketplaces mature, giving rise to the notion that there are bad industries where it is unlikely that any company can succeed. However, there are notable exceptions in which enlightened executives have changed the rules to grasp the holy grail of business: long-term profitable growth. Rather than joining the dogfights raging within their industry, companies such as Apple, FedEx, and Starbucks have chosen to become metaphorical cats, continuously renewing their distinctive strategies to compete on their terms.   In If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat, Leonard Sherman draws on four decades of experience in management consulting, venture capital, and teaching business strategy at Columbia Business School to share practical advice on two of the most vexing issues facing business executives: why is it so hard to achieve long-term profitable growth, and what can companies do to break away from the pack?

Book Reviews

“Among the better strategy books of recent years, Dogfight, by a professor at Columbia University, argues that costly battles in mature marketplaces are not inevitable. Rather, smart companies that compete on their terms instead of locking horns can sustain profitable growth over time.” Inc.

“The title of his book, published earlier this month, is If You're In A Dogfight, Become A Cat (Columbia Business School Publishing), a metaphor designed to illustrate the predicament of many businesses and their leaders in this highly competitive age.” Forbes

“In the business world, conventional wisdom holds that market leaders eventually succumb to the law of large numbers, the law of competition, and the law of competitive advantage. But in the most compelling business book on strategy this year, If You’re in a Dogfight, Become a Cat: Strategies for Long-Term Growth, Leonard Sherman assembles a convincing brief that the slowdowns companies face as they become successful and attract imitators are not inevitable.” Strategy + Business

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Wisdom to Share

Effective business strategy is inherently dynamic and context-sensitive. No one universal framework or management prescription fits all business circumstances. What works well for one company may be quite harmful if applied by another company operating in a different market and competitive environment

Corporate executives often struggle with strategy formulation and communication. In such cases, the problem often starts with an inability to define genuine North Star corporate goals that can be translated into specific, measurable, achievable, and time-dependent objectives. This leads to strategy inertia, undermining the ability to effectively respond to the accelerating pace of marketplace shift.

The starting point for an effective strategy is the development of appealing, differentiated products with compelling value propositions, for which targeted consumers are willing to pay considerably more than the company’s unit costs.

Strategic inertia, the tendency for organizations to remain mired in the status quo and to resist strategic renewal outside the frame of current business operations, is still prevalent in corporate strategy processes. Companies like Kodak, Nokia, and Sears certainly were aware of disruptive technologies threatening their industries and had the resources to reposition their businesses, but each pursued a tepid strategic response, which ultimately contributed to their severe decline.

Successful strategy requires decisive action in both concept and execution. The CEO must ensure that the entire organization is motivated to support the company’s strategic direction.

Strong brands are the physical and emotional embodiments of successful business strategy. For many consumers, the purchase or ownership of a brand signals membership in a desired social grouping. Brand managers recognize the importance of symbolic identity and often focus advertising themes on lifestyle images rather than tangible product attributes.

Strong brands convey a clear promise of what a company and its products stand for, often built over decades of consistent brand positioning. If a company suddenly reverses course and launches products that break its brand promise, it risks alienating customers and damaging the brand for years.

A company can dilute its brand value by allowing its product lineup to become too complex over time. Not only does excessive product complexity increase costs, reduce quality, and harm profitability, but it can also weaken the foundation of a company’s brand image.

Believing that innovators operate in their creative bubble without the need to interact with prospective customers is far from the truth. An entrepreneur’s inspiration for an innovative new product reflects nothing more than an initial hypothesis and hunch, borne out of personal experience and observation.

Consumer input is pivotal in identifying new business opportunities, provided that the right type of research is conducted at the right time. This approach identifies pain points that may be hidden in plain sight from consumers who have simply accepted current product shortcomings as unavoidable inconveniences. Thus, it is a more effective diagnostic tool than asking them directly.