The Essential Advantage How to Win With a Capabilities-Driven Strategy

By Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi
Harvard Business Review Press, $29.95, 212 pages

In The Essential Advantage , Booz & Company's Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi argue that the conventional wisdom around strategy may be leading companies astray. The two authors say success depends on a "coherence premium," that is, a match between a company's strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique.

Achieving this coherence, however, is easier said than done and the authors lay out a framework—based on extensive research and case studies from Amazon, Walmart, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble—to construct what they call a "strategically coherent company."

By looking internally and identifying the exceptional capabilities they already have, most companies could find the answers to their most pressing strategy-driven questions. Few companies achieve a capabilities-driven "right to win" in their markets. This book will help your firm be among them.

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