Overview

Are you battle-ready? Can you stay battle-ready? In today’s dynamic business world, the external environment critically impacts your ability to win the competitive battle. From spotting and sizing up rivals to deciphering their game plans, to predicting competitor behaviour and understanding the dynamic interplay between the Davids and Goliaths in the arena, Battle-ready: Crafting Strategy to Beat Competition covers it all.  The book presents concepts and tools to get battle-ready for the present and for the future. It is a must- read for corporate warriors, from managers to CEOs, to improve their chances of winning the competitive battle. 

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9789354790812

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Reviews

Battle-ready is a well-articulated account of how managers and companies should think about their businesses. It provides both the tools and critical thinking which is crucial to survive in today's hyper-competitive, complex and disruptive marketplace. It urges you to be paranoid, rigorous and watchful about the competition. This is a classic book for 'all' managers, line and otherwise. -- Ajit Sivadasan * President and Global Head of eCommerce, Lenovo, USA * For people in high-velocity industries such as mine (aviation), Battle-ready is an instructive read. It's a compelling text for strategy executives to seek a humbling reflection, and then question and revisit their plans, especially with an eye on the external world. There are lessons for both the Davids and the Goliaths here. Replete with real-world strategy examples, Battle-ready is a breezy affair! -- Dr Anurag Jain * Chief Strategy and Planning Officer, Flynas, Saudi Arabia * The book is ambitious in scope, insightful and well researched. Competitive strategy is a fascinating topic, and adopting a lens of 'battle' is a very apt view but not emphasized enough, especially in industries with high intensity or rapidly evolving dynamics. Just like how a general must consider numerous factors, Sai has developed a comprehensive framework for CEOs to assess their competitive landscape. It is a must-read for competitive strategy and response! -- Chris Yeo * Managing Director, Head of GrabPay and Grab Ventures, Singapore * The book is ambitious in scope, insightful and well researched. Competitive strategy is a fascinating topic, and adopting a lens of 'battle' is a very apt view but not emphasized enough, especially in industries with high intensity or rapidly evolving dynamics. Just like how a general must consider numerous factors, Sai has developed a comprehensive framework for CEOs to assess their competitive landscape. It is a must-read for competitive strategy and response! -- Chris Yeo * Managing Director, Head of GrabPay and Grab Ventures, Singapore * Battle-ready has deftly navigated an intricate balance between theory and business practicality. It is an enjoyable read, where fierce business competitors square off in the game to appropriate higher business values. Business practitioners must pay heed to the writer's thesis, to focus systematically and consistently on the external drivers of performance as a critical lever to secure a long-term win in the business arena. -- Eugene Teh * Chief Business Officer, Digi Telecommunications, Malaysia * This book focuses on building immunity in businesses through superior resources and relevant capabilities so that they can be battleready to face competition in all its avatars. It uniquely shows how business competitors can measure their battle-readiness and transform themselves to higher levels of battle-readiness. It is an essential reading for business students and managers seeking to be battle-ready at the highest level for a challenging career in leading businesses. -- Professor Ganesh Prabhu * Professor of Strategy, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India * It is a well-written book by an author who understands business. It acknowledges the diversity of competitive situations and invites the reader to define their own relevant arena, players and moves. It stresses the importance of using know-how and innovation in a smart and strategic way and provides a lot of examples which make the reader think. Last but not least, it highlights the effective habits of several famous leaders and companies. If you are a business leader, you will get some good ideas out of this book! -- Dr Jaap Kalkman * Chief Transformation Officer, ADQ, Abu Dhabi, UAE * Simply great! When I read Dr Iyer's masterpiece, I discovered a passionate storyteller that I consider an amalgamation of Jim Collins and Malcolm Gladwell. I loved the creative metaphors and anecdotes from different times, countries and professions-from Hindustan Machine Tools to Intel to Archilochus to Mike Tyson to Hans Rosling. Are you a David or a Goliath, a Level 0, 1 or 2, a fox or a hedgehog? Get your external trigger, read it and get battleready! -- Petter Kilefors * Managing Partner, Arthur D. Little, Sweden * Battle-ready encapsulates Sai's deep insights into business strategy, market and competition analysis and business history. He has brought all these together in a very readable and useful book. It effortlessly takes the reader through difficult aspects and provides them with case studies and concepts which are easy to comprehend and use. -- Rajesh Duneja * Partner, Arthur D. Little, Dubai, UAE * Sai has nailed it! Battle-ready is the 'boot camp' managers and practitioners have been looking for to stay ahead and on course to win wars, not just battles! The narrative provides tremendous insights to practising managers on how to systematically minimize the blind spots while they go about their daily grind to achieve targets! -- Rajiv Sivaraman * Vice President-Global Alliances, Siemens Digital Industry Software, USA * Battle-ready is a must-read for anyone looking to keep their business nimble, agile and competitive-which is all of us business leaders, really. Oftentimes, in our quest to keep our businesses competitive and ahead of the curve, we tend to look inwards. We pay little or no attention to what the author calls 'the competitive arena'. This book is a comprehensive toolkit on how to take cognizance of the competitive arena and the players therein in order to stay 'battle-ready'. -- S. V. Ramanan * CEO-India and South Asia, Intellect Design Arena, India * This is an eye-opener which gives us a comprehensive need to know how in a fast changing disruptive business era an outside approach can outsmart competition, leading to sustainable growth of businesses while defining strategy in both creating value and capturing value. Battle-ready-a must-read book-aptly captures the fine prints of strategizing, executing and creating value in businesses. It captures the fine prints of where to play, what to adapt and how to win in an easy, enjoyable way. -- Ravichandran Purushothaman * President, Danfoss India, and President, Madras Management Association India * It came as no surprise to see Sai's most structured, rigorous and analytical framework to address the subject with very pragmatic approaches and solutions. This book is a must-read for business managers across all levels to systematically develop, validate and implement a sound strategy based on a comprehensive understanding and prediction of the overall ecosystem, ensuring the best value captured from the 'job to be done' for potential customers. -- Thomas Kuruvilla * Managing Partner and Member of Global Board, Arthur D. Little, Dubai, UAE * Battle-ready is perhaps the most focused and comprehensive work on competitive strategy. Starting with defining the competitive arena and all the way to a battle-ready mindset, Sai has hit at the heart of critical gaps in strategic thinking facing most organizations. A must read for Board members and CxOs. -- Piyush Jain * Head of Strategy, Minda Industries Limited, Gurgaon, India *

Author Information

Sai Prakash R. Iyer is a strategy advisor to C-level executives and a passionate teacher, who brings more than 25 years of experience spanning management consulting, industry and academics with a bias towards actionable insights as the touchstone for meaningful discussions. He earned his doctorate from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore in corporate strategy and policy. An engineer by training, he spent the first decade of his professional life marketing industrial products and systems and later as a profit centre head with Siemens, India. He was a principal with the management consulting firm, Arthur D. Little. His client assignments took him to Southeast Asia, Middle East and West Asia, working on a wide range of topics such as competitive strategy, corporate strategy, public-sector strategy, governance, strategy implementation, capability building and transformation. With his functional expertise in strategy and organization, he advises clients in several industries and sectors. Currently, he is Adjunct Professor of Strategy at the Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, where he teaches advanced electives on competitive strategy and multi-sided platforms.

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