'Winners Take All - The 9 Fundamental Rules of High Tech Strategy' is a book about how to build a winner in a high-change, fast-growth market environment. It uncovers the secrets that 21st century winners like Google, Apple, Netflix, Symantec, Craigslist, Skype, Salesforce.com, StarMine, Clickability, and others used to gain market leadership and beat tough competition.
Whether you're a small, medium or large company. Whether you have a product or service. Whether you sell to consumers, enterprise, or governments. If you work in high tech, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
Here's a summary from the Table of Contents.
Rule 1: Feel The Pain. Then Develop Your Product - Business Case: How Craigslist Built a Winner - Business Case: How Alphasmart Built a Winner - Are you listening to the customer or your own echo? - Developing a radical product
Rule 2: Focus, Win, Grow, Repeat - Business Case: How Symantec Built a Winner - How to Focus to Win and Grow - Business Case: Google vs. Yahoo! - How Texas Instruments won again
Rule 3: Add Value Not Features - Swatch: Success through simplicity - Craigslist: Value is simple - Business Case: How Starmine Built a Winner - The Way to beat Microsoft
Rule 4: Have a Story. Communicate Clearly - Entrepreneurial Communication Challenges - Telling Stories - Business Case: Netflix vs. Blockbuster - Positioning, Branding, Word of Mouse
Rule 5: It's a Risky World. Sell Confidence! - Innovation adoption is Risky - Business Case: How Clickability Wins Customer Confidence
Rule 6: Convert Champions Not Deals - Adoption of Innovations as a Social Process - Technology as Magic - Critical Mass and Network Effects - Business Case: How LinkedIn Built a Winner - Finding Your Champions
Rule 7: Choose The Right Partners. Manage Them with Clarity - Business Case: How F5 Network Partnered to Win - What is a Partnership? - Partnering for the Right Reasons - Successfully Managing Partnerships
Rule 8: Design Products and Services That Are Easy to Adopt - Business Case: Skype vs. Vonage - How Skype designed a winner - Apple's iPod and The Birth of Cool - Business Case: How the Apple iPod was Designed to Win - How to Accelerate The Adoption of Your Product
Rule 9: You're Doing Well. Congratulations. Now Change or Die. - Business Case: Apple from Macintosh to iPod - From Great to Naught - High Flyers Dropping Like Flies - Business Case: IBM Changes to Win Again - Why Smart Media Executives Sue Little Girls