A definitive text on business strategy to help established companies create next-generation growth, Escape Velocity addresses the “make or break” challenge facing all successful high-tech companies: how to gain market share in emerging categories and serve their existing mainstream businesses at the same time.
Escape Velocity focuses the strategy discussion around a framework called “The Hierarchy of Power”
organized in descending order of impact, with category power being the most strategic, execution power the least:
Category Power – based on the overall demand for the kind of products and services you produce.
Company Power – based on how powerful your company is within the categories it participates in.
Market Power – based on how well-performing your top market segments are compared to others.
Offer Power – based on the win-rates of your current offerings.
Execution Power – based on your track record of meeting or exceeding guidance.
Strategy reviews start with analyzing the current portfolio in terms of these five powers, followed by a survey of the potential investments one could make to increase each one, priority being given to powers higher in the stack. The goal is to improve portfolio power every year one way or another.