20 Best Books on Strategy Analysis to read in 2022

Today, we will share with you - the "20 Must-Reads best books on strategy analysis to read in 2022". Don't make excuses for your ignorance. If you do not have the basic knowledge of corporate strategic management, then start by reading well!

Because this article only discusses rare best books on corporate strategic analysis, many times you cannot look at issues in isolation, including "the difference between strategy and tactics"

Strategy, as the name suggests, is the strategy of war, which was later extended to the business world. There are many theories related to strategic management, such as the classic competition strategy of Professor Michael Porter, and Trout's positioning theory.

Later, the more popular blue ocean strategy, Christensen's innovation dilemma theory is not strictly speaking. The theory of strategic management, but closely related to strategy, is also studied together.

When you read books on these theories, you will find that war strategies can be different from different perspectives. In comparison, you will find that they have different emphases. If they are incorporated into war strategies.

A brief summary is as follows:

Competitive strategy theory: a strategy of fighting head-on with the aim of destroying the enemy directly;

Blue ocean strategy theory: simply avoid fighting and go to explore to see if there is a new continent;

Innovative dilemma theory: it is to seek the upgrading of weapons of war, the purpose is to directly kill the enemy.

Positioning theory: It is to set a unique name for the army, such as the wizard army, tiger and leopard cavalry, etc., to attack the enemy with momentum, make the enemy fearful, and win.

I recommend the following best books on strategy analysis here. Personally, I like the knowledge of strategic management very much. It is very interesting and challenging to learn.

As far as the strategy analysis textbooks for beginners are concerned, I actually have a dazzling array of strategy analysis textbooks, and many books only refer to reference textbooks.

Therefore, everything is the same. It depends on whether the party's resonance between you and the author is at one point.

The 20 best classic strategic analysis books recommended in this article are designed to help corporate managers shape a complete strategic knowledge system, get through strategic thinking, and truly play the role of strategic managers.

Table Of Contents

1. Contemporary Strategy Analysis
2. Blue Ocean Strategy
3. Good Strategy Bad Strategy
4. Playing to Win
5. The Art of Strategy
6. Competitive Strategy
7. The Balanced Scorecard
8. The Strategy Book
9. Strategy Maps
10. Corporate Strategy
11. The Hard Thing About Hard Things
12. Value Proposition Design
13. Competing On Analytics
14. Strategy Mapping For Learning Organizations
15. The New Hr Analytics
16. Making Strategy
17. Beyond Performance Management
18. Strategic Performance Management
19. The Intelligent Company
20. The Innovator's Dilemma

20 Best Books on Strategy Analysis to read in 2022

1. Contemporary Strategy Analysis

Contemporary Strategy Analysis by Robert M. Grant

Last year, I read a copy of "Contemporary Strategy Analysis", which literally opened a new door for me.

From there I learned about Porter's Five Forces, Barriers to Entry, Vertical Integration, and later expanded into some game theory.

This knowledge has given me a different dimension in looking at some things.

For example, why some industries look extremely profitable, but there are no potential entrants.

Why did Nokia develop well, but suddenly Apple fell to the ground.

This time, reading "Contemporary Strategy Analysis" obviously requires less effort.

There is a lot of duplication with Contemporary Strategy Analysis.

After all, when it comes to strategy, you cannot fail to mention competition, and you cannot fail to mention the Five Forces Model and Game Theory.

The author's purpose in writing this book is to enable managers and students to acquire management concepts, skills, and skills so that they can make better strategic decisions.

In terms of content, it is mainly described from the basic framework of strategic analysis.

What is a strategy?

Strategy is the method to achieve the goal, mainly divided into two elements: the company and the industrial environment.

It can also be understood as both internal and external.

In order to facilitate understanding, we take "people" as an example to make a brief summary and explanation.

In order for a person to develop well, in addition to his own cultivation, it is also very important to utilize the external environment.

Part of itself Goals and Values

You need to be clear about your development goals, whether you want to make a lot of money or family happiness, or something else.

Goals and values ​​are consistent and mutually supportive. Because your values ​​are money first, your goal is to get more money.

Resources and Capabilities

Take stock of the resources you have, both tangible and intangible. Tangible resources may include houses, money, cars, and looks.

There are more intangible resources, your connections, your knowledge, your cultivation, your sense of humor.

And resources are not the same as capabilities.

Ability is what you have, such as communication ability, and professional ability.

These abilities may allow you to have more resources, and some of your resources can be converted into your abilities.

External environment

The analysis of the external environment is mainly carried out using the five forces model.

Competitor

There will be various competitors on your way to your goal.

Do you have a competitive advantage that will set you apart?

I think that competitive advantage actually mainly comes from its own part, whether your resources and capabilities are scarce, difficult to replicate, different, and so on.

Although the cost advantage maybe another. And I see cost advantage as a part of your resource.

For example, your family's economic conditions are relatively good, you don't need to rent a house, and you can take advantage of the cost advantage when competing for a job.

Customer

You can treat your business as your customer, and it pays you to provide professional service.

How much money is given to you depends on your competitiveness.

If the customer has a lot of candidates, it will bargain, which means it has the right to bargain.

When your competitiveness is strong enough, the bargaining power of customers will be weakened.

Write at the end:

This book is very thick, and I feel very tired after reading it.

Because there is a lot of content, I want to pick some commonly used knowledge points to summarize.

After all, many things are my imagination and understanding, and I have never really participated in the strategy formulation and evaluation of a company.

The main purpose of reading this kind of book is to expand my horizons and knowledge.

In this book, I also saw some content related to the business I am doing, such as enterprise knowledge management, the meaning of inertial processes, and so on.

2. Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne

Blue Ocean Strategy was co-authored by two INSEAD professors of strategic management, Kim and Mauborgne. It is one of the most popular management bestsellers at the moment.

"Blue Ocean Strategy" is a book I read on the subway. Since I have had to take the subway to different places all day recently, I have a lot of time to read a book. Now I read the travel magazine "Blog".

Reading books on the subway is more casual, but it is also very interesting because you can be like no one else, you don't have to worry about what others think of you, you don't have to look at others, you don't have to think about whether you have a chance to jump off the track, the only bad thing is that you occasionally sit pass the stop.

In fact, many of the sayings about the blue ocean strategy can be applied in many places. For example, who knows that creating a blue ocean is much better than being in a red ocean, and who does not know the strategic significance of creating a blue ocean.

However, the book uses a large number of cases to explain The strategic height of the blue ocean, in fact, in the book, there is no systematic explanation of how to create a blue ocean for an enterprise.

Most of the meaning of this book, I think, is to change your mind about how to get the most possible profit in the most unlikely places, and occupy the market that no one wants to occupy. This is also the case.

This book does not teach you how to create a blue ocean. Most of it is about how to change people's concepts, the thinking of superiors and subordinates, and even the "interpersonal" that people are good at. relationship” is also described at length.

The deepest impression on the book is the analysis of competitors and the estimation of its own strength, and then to find out the blue ocean, those charts, to see their strengths and weaknesses at a glance.

Most of the time, you can't get the sword of Shangfang just by reading a book. Most of the good books are just to trigger your thinking, especially management books. It is enough to trigger your thinking.

You can't expect to pass a book. The book can guide the enterprise, or take the case in the book to change the working state that you have always been in.

A book that can bring you systematic thinking and straighten out the previously cluttered thoughts is enough. This is a good book.

3. Good Strategy Bad Strategy

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rumelt

The book was recommended in class, but to be honest I don't think it's a good book. . . A large part of the reason should be attributed to the fact that the teacher has made a wonderful summary of the first chapter of this well-written book in class, which caused me to be very disappointed after reading the content after reading with full expectations.

The biggest problem is the case. There are relatively few business cases, and many cases come from war and history. I once wondered if I was reading a book on the study of success. The author Rumelt was also called a "strategist among strategists". Thinking like this is more like success learned. . .

In addition to the small number of cases, more importantly, the descriptions of the cases in this book are too sloppy compared to those used in class. It is obvious that the information has been deliberately filtered, and the author often only states part of the facts of the case in order to prove his point.

Without being able to see the full picture of the case, it is difficult for readers to experience the real confusion as a decision-maker, let alone think about the causes and consequences behind various business decisions.

For example, in the case of Global Crossing Corporation, in my opinion, the industrial structure is not the core of the problem, because according to the author's description, the growth expectation of downstream demand is the key basis for supporting the stock price to rise.

If the author really predicted at that time that the growth of submarine cable data transmission will be much lower than that of land transmission, and the price drop of servers will cause most Internet companies to place servers around the world without the need for submarine cables,

then I must say It is impossible to make such a conclusion that is diametrically opposed to the consensus of the market as he said, at least it cannot be obtained by doing some bullshit five forces analysis, which requires a very deep understanding of the industry and insight.

The discussion of the financial crisis broke me even more. The view that the financial crisis was only attributed to herd mentality left me scratching my head. If I refer to Dalio's explanation of the economic cycle, I would feel that the author's discussion is too thin and ignores it.

Most of the other reasons are more important. This way of interpreting the financial crisis is very similar to the documentary "Steal Yourself" made by the leftist virgins. In order to speak from the standpoint of the masses, only part of the facts are told. Unscrupulously looking for evidence, why do I get angrier the more I say it. . Forget it. . .

In general, the positioning of this book should be a public reading. As a business school student, reading this book will not be enjoyable, and the inspiration is really limited.

Of course, it may also be that I have too little experience to realize the real wisdom behind this book. If this is the case, I hope that I can grow up quickly, find out how naive I am at this time, and find that the content in the book is so useful, and I will be slapped in the face earlier.

Continue Reading..,.