Book review: "Co-opetion"
I took Co-opetition by Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff with me to a coast-to-coast flight hoping to start practicing a fast reading method. Brad explained on his blog how he succeeds to read 8(!) books a week: "(a) no TV, (b) no kids, (c) four to six hours a night of reading, and
(d) the willingness / ability to skim when things are dull". So I thought to try the method with Co-opetition and to complete it on my way from Atlanta to Palo Alto. From all the requirements only the willingness/ability to skim wasn't provided upfront. After the first dozen of pages I understood that that's not a skim-through book.
Adam and Barry made a book sharing principles of strategy, tactics, and planning carrying away your attention by clear reasoning, crystal logic, plain English, and bright examples. The book can takes it place on one's shelf next to "Good to great", "Marketing warfare", and the books of Jeoffrey Moore but unlike the latter doesn't goo too far in the academic direction. Quite the contrary, it oozes real, top brand examples, spending 90% of the text describing the stories of failure and success and only 10% devoting to formulating principles and recapping the arguments.
The book consists of two parts: the game of business and the PARTS of strategy.
The first part (about 1/3 of the book) introduces the concept of the value net reminding in a certain way Porter's five forces. The authors present a square graph with the business placed in the crossing of the diagonals and customers/suppliers and competitors/complementers taking the opposite corners of the square. The book explains the theory of balanced forces and promotes principles and approaches symmetrically applicable to the corners of the net.
The war/piece preamble breaks the concept of known in advance friends and foes. Introducing multiple perspectives the authors claim that in the modern business world everything should be view through the prism of the net and simple definitions don't work anymore.
The PARTS (Players, Added value, Rules, Tactics, and Scope) are the components describing the game and depending on particular circumstances and targets the components have to be re-evaluated and re-mapped.
After introducing the concept the authors in the rest of the book religiously describe each of the components bringing tens of examples following and breaking the principles (and leading to success or failure correspondingly. Bright and bold marketing strategies of great companies leading to win-win situations with competitors, customers, suppliers, and complementers captivate you and don't let skim over. For every case of success the book brings a counter-example of failure as well cementing the principle and equally teaching and convincing the reader.
Among many other topics particular attention is devoted to such as how to manage negotiations, how to deal with perceptions, how to plan prices and avoid wars, how to establish and change rules, which tactics to apply, and how to analyze scopes.
Many new ideas flooded by almost detective business examples preclude me from skimming a paragraph in the book. A great pace with which the book expounding the matter, vivid examples, clear language, and strong (at times shocking) ideas make this book a solid must for everybody who deals with building, positioning, and rolling out products or services. Highly recommended!
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