Defining the Business [antikvár]

Preface This book is about a subject which every manager, strategic planner, business educator, and industrial organization economist has confronted at one time or another, namely, how to define a business and the market in which it competes. The book draws its justification from the fact that existing conceptual theory for dealing with these problems falls far short of the need. The purpose of the book is to provide a set of organizing concepts for thinking about business and market definition which can be used by managers, planners, educators, and economists to resolve their respective problems in this field. Its theoretical concepts contrast sharply with all previous work in a very distinct way. The familiar two dimensional concept of "product/market" strategy is demonstrated to be inadequate for thinking about business definition, and is replaced with a three dimensional concept of customer groups, customer functions, and technologies. The book draws on studies of four industries as the basis for the development of a theoretical framework, and for drawing a wide variety of implications for strategy formulation, organization, and planning. Although it is a book based on academic field research, it carries conclusions and implications of interest to both academic and non-academic audiences-particularly practicing managers and planners. Publications about strategic planning are likely to fall into one of four general categories. The first of these categories is concerned with the process of planning. The other three are concerned with different classes of strategic decision making, namely: 1) decisions about specific functional strategies, i.e., the vu