Profit from the Core: A Return to Growth in Turbulent Times

In a new economic environment, where should executives look for the next wave of profitable growth? How can executives make the right choices for their businesses, even when faced with a new and different set of opportunities and challenges today? Achieving sustained and profitable growth is extremely difficult in any economy. But as the economy recovers and returns to a path of growth, building from a strong and differentiated core is even more critical now than ever. In this updated edition of "Profit from the Core", strategy expert Chris Zook shows that the most enduring growth pattern builds from a strong or dominant core business that benefits from continual reinvestment, constant adaptation to circumstances or business environment and persistent leveraging into new markets or geographies, applications or channels. In particular, Zook shows senior executives and their management teams how to rebuild the core business by following these four crucial steps: define the core business; identify the sources of differentiation that will continue to create market power and influence over customers, competitors and the industry profit pool; assess whether the core is operating at or near its full potential; and, use a strong core as a platform for expanding into adjacencies. Based on over ten years of Bain & Company research and analysis and fully updated with new research data and examples reflecting today's unique challenges, "Profit from the Core" is the bible for achieving profitable growth.