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| The Ultimate Competitive Advantage: Secrets of Continuously Developing a More Profitable Business Model | 
 enlarge | Authors: Donald Mitchell, Carol Coles, B. Thomas Golisano, Robert B. Knutson
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $36.95
Buy New: $11.24
You Save: $25.71 (70%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $10.55
Avg. Customer Rating:  (137 reviews)
Sales Rank: 41365
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 334
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 1576751678
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4012
EAN: 9781576751671
ASIN: 1576751678
Publication Date: March 12, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Authors Donald Mitchell and Carol Coles conducted a ten-year study of companies that had grown the fastest over a three-year period. Their research reveals that while unsuccessful companies doggedly apply outdated business models, the successful ones improve their models every two to four years.The Ultimate Competitive Advantage provides a straightforward, systematic method any company can use to review and improve its business model and each of its key components: pricing, costs of doing business, and benefits added. Dozens of concrete examples from companies of all sizes and types are provided.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 132 more reviews...
...the perennial gale of creative destruction July 22, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Mitchell and Coles have done businesses a tremendous service in writing this excellent book. They have done so by providing a practical toolbox of ideas with which to stimulate entrepreneurs, business leaders and managers to enhance and improve their business prospects in today's very competitive marketplaces.
I must admit to having struggled with this book for a long time. Not because of difficulty in reading and understanding. To be sure this is a very lucid and comprehensible book and is accessible to all levels from a twelve year old bringing out his lemonade stall for the third year in a row and adding iced tea to his product range to the CEO of a major corporation.
My struggle was with trying to make overarching sense of what lessons the authors were trying to encourage readers to learn. It became clear to me after several periods of reflection upon completion of the text. The crucial significance of this book in a practical way lies in understanding how deep into national economic systems the process of globalisation has seeped. We see the reults in our everyday lives, how quickly new or improved products come into the marketplace. We see how quickly established businesses change or die, we see cheaper and better products come from remote parts of the world leaving us a greater part of our disposable income to spend on the things we would prefer to spend on them.
It is clear that in life and not just in business the process of change has quickened and that as individuals we must be more adaptable and more attune to the world around us to the opportunities that exist. It is as if we need to become our own business in ourselves.
Mitchell and Coles focus on but one part of this continuous change and that is on the business model. Their strong focus on this area has great strength but we must also learn the broader lesson from their well researched work. To survive in today's world we must not only accept change but we must embrace it as people, as workers, as entrepreneurs. It is as Schumpeter pointed out inherent in the nature of capitalism. But, to be sure it is inherent in the nature of all life, as Hayek observed. We must change or die.
I would heartily recommend this book to everyone, for there is much to be gained from within it's pages. Mitchell and Coles have produced an excellent book which far and away exceeds it's remit as a business book.
 opened my mind February 3, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book will open your mind on how to launch a bew business or innovative product or server. However the authors could write this book in a more simple way and not with a hard to read english text.
Business Model Innovation Workbook December 15, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Ultimate Competitive Advantage is a gold mine with a rich vein of unusual ideas from Mitchell and Coles' nimble minds. Its stated purpose is to help readers develop and implement a superior management process for continuous business model improvement. The book goes ahead to do just that.
The authors' approach make deliberate what used to be an accidental, hapazard, uncertain and hard to repeat process.
This book, like Mitchell and Coles' others, is best used as a workbook. After each chapter, several questions are posed to stimulate your thinking, and 95% of the value of the book will be unlocked for you when you take the time to think through them rigorously. Serious entrepreneurs looking for fresh ideas for getting out of the rut and improving their businesses will.
THIS I S A PRACTICAL BOOK December 8, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a practical book, but it is not a "how-to-book" instead, it deals with the what, when and why; with such tangibles as pricing, cost of doing business and benefits to stakeholders. The authors- Donald Mitchell and Carol Coles researched and found out that unsuccessful companies doggedly apply outdated business models while the successful ones improve their models every 2 to 4 years. The book provides a straightforwad and a systematic method which any company can use to review and improve its business model basing on its key components: pricing, cost of doing business and benefits to its shareholders.
Pragmatic and functional! November 2, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Before reading the book, “The Ultimate Competitive Advantage” it seemed to me that most management books were written for “big” business problems. Most authors quote one case after the other to make their own case. A collection of postmortem reports of different companies to tell you how they failed.
This is the first book that has taught me however small a business may be, its success depends on competitive edge it creates with its own resources. There are numerous ways that even limited resources can create an added benefit for the customers and increase my business. The example of “free cold water” on an off beat road is one such method in the book to remember as a simple but brilliant solution to attract customers and add value for the customers. The authors give a set of tools to help one think in a different manner. I recommend this book especially to young person trying to get their business started and also those seeking to break out of dead end situations. A great work!
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