Five Future Strategies You Need
Right Now (Memo to the Ceo) by
George Stalk
From "Faint Signals" To Competitive Advantages
Its easy to miss many innovations in strategy until they appear on the front
page of a major business publication. But by then everyone--including all
your competitors--is using them.
As a CEO or senior executive, your job is to detect these strategies?and
implement them--before your competitors.
Thats where this book comes in.
Author George Stalk has often been called a guru of business strategy. In
the 1980s, before anyone else saw its importance, he and his colleagues
at The Boston Consulting Group developed the concept of time-based
competition: how meeting the needs of your customers faster than your
competitors can give you an unassailable advantage.
In this Memo to the CEO, Stalk discusses five strategies that have not yet
become widely practiced but are nonetheless worthy of your attention now.
He offers advice on how to identify and manage them while they still
present opportunities to jump ahead of the competition. They are:

Addressing supply chain deficiencies
One example of a supply chain crisis is the growing lack of West Coast
port capacity. Stalk reviews the strategic implications of this problem,
reveals its impact, and recommends specific courses of action.
Sidestepping economies of scale
Many business leaders are reexamining their assumptions about the
benefits of scale. Scaling down, not up, and building disposable factories
and even disposable strategies are becoming new keys to lowering costs
and boosting performance.
Profiting from dynamic pricing
Today, using real-time data, it is increasingly possible to match the price of
your product or service with the immediate, second-by-second needs of
the customer.
Embracing complexity
Simplicity is the mantra of the day. But with examples from a few leading-
edge companies, Stalk shows that embracing complexity can achieve
competitive advantage.
Utilizing infinite bandwidth
In a world of infinite bandwidth, companies that know how to take
advantage of it become more productive, efficient, and profitable, and
create entirely new businesses along the way.

Written in a refreshingly clear, concise format, Five Future Strategies You
Need Right Now is filled with actionable ideas for seizing these emerging
strategic opportunities.
Personal Review: Five Future Strategies You Need Right Now
(Memo to the Ceo) by George Stalk
This is one of the titles in the "Memo to the CEO" series published by
Harvard Business Press, each less than 200 pages in length and superbly
produced. In fact, none is a "memo" or written solely for a CEO. In this
volume, George Stalk explains how to become alert to "faint signals" of
what could prove to be early indicators of possible opportunities to gain
competitive advantages. Once those opportunities have been verified
(Stalk suggests how to do that), appropriate strategies to exploit them will
be needed. He focuses on five examples of strategies whose "sources of
advantage are not only abundantly clear, but undeniable": supply-chain
gymnastics (i.e. adroitly managing a global supply chain), sidestepping
economics of scale (i.e. a "disposability" business model), embracing
complexity (i.e. four ways to attract customers who are looking for a higher
level of complexity), and infinite bandwidth (i.e. effortless receipt of any
amount of information whenever and wherever desired and at no cost).
Stalk offers "a high-level introduction to each of these emerging issues,
along with suggestions for how to turn them into competitive advantage."
He devotes a separate chapter to each of the five categories, then in the
final chapter shifts his attention to examples of potential strategies that are
"no more than faint signals today," identifies two emerging strategies on
his "Watch List" awaiting further evidence of their potential to create
competitive advantage, and then briefly discusses various "hallucinations"
for which there are currently no corporate examples but are "worth
pondering" nonetheless.
But Stalk doesn't limit the narrative to what he has observed and tracked.
He reassures his reader that other faint signals "are likely to be found in
the world around you," in the reader's own competitive environment as well
as beyond it to other industries and competitors to spot insights of others
"who may have found a new way of operating and competing that can be
transplanted into [her or his] industry to the great confusion of others...and
then `plagiarize' the idea." Or when coming across an anomaly, to
"understand its implications and use the insight to drive the business to
new levels of performance."
Comment: Over the years, I have worked with the owner/CEOs of
countless small companies and have urged each of them to form an
unofficial "advisory board" consisting of their banker, attorney, accountant,
insurance agent, and at least one C-level executive of a large corporation if
at all possible. I suggest that they meet as a group at least quarterly,

perhaps for breakfast or lunch. After a brief update, the owner/CEO
identifies one (and only one) especially important issue his or her company
now faces and then chairs a brainstorm session in which advisory board
members participate. Invariably, comments and suggestions from a wide
variety of perspectives help the owner/CEO gain a better understanding of
the issue and then to address it effectively. Having now read Stahl's latest
book, I think providing a copy of it to each advisory board member would
be a good idea.
While reading Stalk's comments about aggressive but principled
competition, I recalled Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win?
that Stalk co-authored with Rob Lachenauer. The focus of that book is on
winners in business who "use every legitimate resource and strategy
available to them to gain advantage over their competitors...[and by doing
so] attract more customers, gain market share, boost profits, reward their
employees, and weaken their competitors' positions." Hardballers are
wholly committed to winning "the game" and do so, key point, by always
playing by its "rules." Their goal is always decisive victory so as to sustain
dominance. With regard to social responsibility, it is noteworthy that Stalk
and Lachenauer quote Milton Friedman's observation that there is "one
and only one" in business: "...to use its resources and engage in activities
designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the
game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without
deception or fraud."
Stalk has prepared those who read his brilliant book to be alert for "faint
signals" of other anomalies, unmet consumer needs, nascent trends, etc.
that they can add to their own "watch list" until their potential for
competitive advantage have been evaluated. At least a few candidates for
future strategies will emerge from this rigorous process, separated from
other provocative but ephemeral issues that Stalk calls "hallucinations." Of
course, meanwhile, it would also be beneficial if those within an
organization who possess especially inquiring minds were to get together
on a regular basis and discuss what I call "What ifs..., "Why nots...," and
"Have you ever thought abouts..." as well as other discussion primers such
as "Why hasn't someone invented...," "What really upsets me is....,"and "I
really wish I had..." or better yet "I'd give anything for...."Mental calisthenics
(isometrics?) such as these eventually led to the development of a built-in
handle for containers of liquid detergent and a built-in funnel for containers
of motor oil; also locating the striking area of a book of matches to the
reverse side, making postage stamps adhesive, Post-its, ATMs, frequent
flyer mileage programs, and ergonomic kitchenware.
Those who share my high regard for Stalk's insights and eloquence in this
book are urged to check out his other works, notably Competing Against
Time: How Time-Based Competition Is Reshaping Global Markets co-
authored with Thomas Hout and the aforementioned Hardball as well as
his various articles that appeared Harvard Business Review. Most can be
purchased online and easily be downloaded.

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