Competitive Strategy Dynamics

Competitive Strategy Dynamics by Kim Warren, published by Wiley,2002, was the original text on the strategy dynamics approach to strategy for business and not-for-profit organisations. With the publication of Strategic Management Dynamics, Kim Warren, Wiley, 2008 this is unlikely to be reprinted. However we are still able to provide PDFs of the book if you are unable to locate a hard copy.

This book provides clear and usable frameworks to explain and deliver the key concern of senior managers and investors - business performance through time. To tackle this over-riding issue, the book offers rigorous, fact-based approaches to dealing with both the tangible factors such as customers, capacity and staff, as well as the unavoidable influence of 'soft' factors such as morale, quality, reputation and capabilities. The Strategy Dynamics approach is relevant and applicable to all contexts - new venture development, rapid growth, maturity, decline, rivalry, market entry and so on. The book has been written for MBA and Executive Education courses in strategic management, business policy and international management, but the concepts are relevant, too, in other subjects, such as marketing, organisational behaviour and new venture development. It is an important tool for strategy consultants and practising managers, whether in large or small firms, manufacturing or service sectors, public service or not-for-profit organizations.

Synopsis
This text offers a practical, fact-based, and rigorous approach for helping managers understand how their organizations function and deliver performance over time. By combining resource-based and competence-based approaches to strategy with the fundamentals of system dynamics, the book provides a practical approach to strategy development and management by answering three key questions: why has the business performed as it has? how will the business perform in the future? and how can management alter the future of the business?

Professionals and students of strategy need reliable, fact-based approaches to analysing business performance and developing strategy. They especially need to understand what drives performance through time, not only to communicate and persuade others of desirable initiatives, but also to provide a sound basis for investors to value firms and their plans. Common approaches to Strategy are often derived from statistical methods, and are inadequate for responding to this need for time-based understanding. In contrast, the notion that business resources accumulate and deplete as time passes is readily understood by management, and is also amenable to rigorous analysis.

Kim Warren explains these underlying principles in terms that managers and students can understand, and through frameworks that educators can teach. The book is built around a wide range of illustrative examples, and supported by short descriptions of real cases. The approach is as applicable to non-profit and governmental cases as to commercial firms. 

Competitive Strategy Dynamics has been written for MBA and Executive Education courses in strategic management, business policy and international management, but the concepts are relevant, too, in other subjects, such as marketing, organizational behavior and new venture development. It is also an important tool for strategy consultants and practising managers, whether in large or small firms, manufacturing or service sectors, public service or not-for-profit organizations.