The Mind Of The Strategist: The Art of Japanese Business Paperback – August 22, 1991

Great book !

Good read, despite the age of this book the info is relevant.

In 1975, Kenichi Ohmae, a director at the management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company, published `The Mind of the Strategist: The Art of Japanese Business.' While it is now considered a somewhat dated classic on Japanese corporate strategy, its core premise is very relevant to marketing: The purpose of strategy is to maximize competitive advantage, strategy begins with analysis, and the `strategic triangle' of customers, competitors, and company is an effective analysis framework for identifying competitive advantage.I initially read the book in 1985, recently reread it, and I've used the `strategic triangle' as the starting point of every marketing plan I've developed and written. Simply put, I analyze customer needs by market segment, examine how competitors meet those needs, and determine my company's competitive advantages and disadvantages. This method of analysis yields two critical insights:1. The market segments to target now based on present competitive advantage.2. The market segments that offer the best future opportunities based on size, projected growth rate, and a company's ability to quickly and economically gain a competitive advantage.

I'm not currently a strategy consultant but I'm preparing for interviews. Mentors have told me this is their "bible" in strategy consulting. Do yourself a favor and buy it, read it, and implement it into whatever you're doing now. It will increase your performance.

'The Mind of The Strategist' provides a refreshing perspective on strategy; it focuses on the way a good strategist would think, rather than the model or methodology that he/she would use. The discussion about strategy is carried out by Ohmae in a humane manner, which makes the book both an inspiring & enjoyable read.

Provides much food for thought

Excelente

This was my first foray into the business strategy literature, but I'm afraid I found this "modern day Adam Smith" to be a bit windy and wandering. Ohmae presents the problem of developing a business strategy as a balancing act of three primary forces: Company, Customer, and Competition. These 3 Cs provide the structure for any business strategy.Insofar as Ohmae adheres to talking about these topics, the book is very well done. With plenty of examples he explains exactly what he means. However I felt that once the introductory paragraphs were done, the author started to toss out any old story that he felt interesting without regard to its applicability to the topic at hand. Likewise, he provides plenty of graphs which are barely labeled, barely related, and barely meaningful. Each chapter starts off really well but soon devolves into handwaving.Though it is hard to fault him for his reliance on anecdotes about Japanese companies, a broader global pool of companies would have driven home the points better, I think. Especially since the Japanese economic bubble burst, Japanese companies have shed a lot of the stereotypical structure that he thinks so vital to their success. An updated version of this book with post-bubble analysis would be a great value, I think, but this book does not provide that.In all, if you can come away from this book with a solid understanding of how to manage the 3 Cs and put it all together into a cohesive strategy for yourself, then the book has done its job. I'm not sure there is enough meat provided to do that, though. It's not a total loss and you won't be worse off for reading it. I give it a solid 3 stars for its good content.