MAIN IDEA
Must-win battles (MWBs) are the three to five key battles which your organization must win in the marketplace in order to achieve your revenue and profit targets and other key business objectives. In contrast to the numerous battles which would be nice-to-win, these must-win battles are the key to maintaining and regularly refreshing your organization’s competitive advantage.
It will usually be difficult for an organization to identify and agree on its list of MWBs. People will have different priorities, even among the members of the senior management team. Furthermore, over a period of time, new corporate battles will emerge and come to the fore as a result of changes in the marketplace. For this reason deciding on and then organizing to win your organization’s MWBs will be an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. MWBs always have an intellectual element – selecting the right MWBs and then focusing on them – and an emotional element – creating an effective team and then allowing that team to focus on winning MWBs.
Nothing is more frustrating for an organization than when its management team has a “flavor-of-the-month” approach – where one new management theory is adopted for a short time and then abandoned for the next management theory which comes to the management’s attention ad infinitum. Focusing instead on must-win battles will provide continuity and much needed focus, and will avoid the dissipation of energy and resources on management fads.
“Most MWBs focus on market-related activities: developing and introducing new products, reviving a brand, and so on. By definition, these battles are important. But competitors will respond to your moves – doing their best to copy or exceed your efforts. It is very difficult, in short, to create a sustainable competitive advantage. A better market objective in today’s world is often to create a renewable competitive advantage. But we believe you can use your MWB journey to create a real sustainable competitive advantage. This is the creation of a management team that truly functions as a team. If you can build your key players into a real team, you will have a competitive advantage that will be very difficult for competitors to match. Your top team, operating as a team, should be able to implement new initiatives more quickly and with more force than competitors. Having a sustainable competitive advantage in the way people work together at the top of your organization should allow you to create a series of renewable competitive advantages in the marketplace.”
– Peter Killing, Thomas Malnight and Tracey Keys
PETER KILLING is a professor of strategy at the Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Dr. Killing (a graduate of Harvard Business School) runs company-specific programs which IMD develops for companies such as Nestle, BMW and PepsiCo International. Prior to joining the IMD faculty, Dr. Killing taught at The Wharton School and worked for Mitsubishi International Corporation for ten years.
THOMAS MALNIGHT is also a professor of strategy at IMD. He directs IMD’s Booster Program which includes work with companies such as Unilever, Masterfoods, Carlsberg and Adecco. Dr. Malnight is a graduate of the Ivey Business School in Canada where he also taught for more than 20 years. He is a co-author of Strategic Analysis and Action.
TRACEY KEYS has more than 20-years experience as a consultant and business manager. She has worked with companies in the media, consumer goods, finance and new media sectors. Ms. Keys is a graduate of The Wharton School and has held senior roles at the British Broadcasting Corporation, Booz Allen Hamilton and Deloitte & Touche/Braxton Associates.
The Web site for this book is at www.mustwinbattles.com.
This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book. This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, viewpoints and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.