Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share: A Guide to Greater Profits in Highly Contested Markets

by Frank Luby, Hermann Simon, Frank F. Bilstein

Book Overview

How do companies in mature markets--where savings from cost-cutting have been exhausted and breakthrough innovations are hard to come by--achieve sustainable increases in profits? For decades, managers have been told the answer lies in pursuing high market share. But Hermann Simon, Frank F. Bilstein, and Frank Luby argue that this misguided advice has destroyed, rather than created, an additional profit potential. In Manage for Profit, Not for Share,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591395267
• ISBN13: 9781591395263
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Making a winning case for profit

Many executives, especially those running large companies, get easily pulled away from increasing profits to an almost ego-driven pursuit of market share. This book explores nicely the origins of how market share became king, why it is a problem, and how companies could and should become profit-focused. The authors have presented a large set of case studies to support their argument and to help others bring about change in their companies. There are powerful yet simple examples of successes from grass roots efforts within companies that chose the path of profit and also of colossal mistakes that must be avoided. Manage for Profit Not for Market Share could help conscientious executives to reflect upon how to right the wrongs by changing company practices and provides managers the material to build their roadmap for profit leadership. MBA students should also read the book not to just unlearn something that was perhaps perpetuated by B-schools but also to chart their careers. For a pricing professional like me, this book is a great ally in making and reiterating the case for profit.

Setting the record straight

More profit obviously means more money for a company's stakeholders, so why do companies continue to insist that market share is the top organizational priority? The case for changing minds over to a profit-centralized viewpoint is clear. This is the mission authors Simon, Bilstein, and Luby undertake in this book and succeed gracefully at. Such ideas as understanding your company's comparative advantages, improving salesperson performance by removing the emphasis on sales volume, raising prices and optimizing marketing are all covered. Such topics as decreasing costs are not considered, as this book takes a very customer-centric view of profit and leaves the topic of cost alone as it is covered quite extensively in many other publications. The range of tools the authors provide is excellent and not overwrought with dense explanations. Experienced managers can effectively improve their companies' bottom lines by reading the ideas and example applications and then customizing the information to fit their organizations. Companies and their shareholders all stand to profit from the information in this book, so I cannot recommend it highly enough to managers at all levels of all organizations.

An important and timely study of the issues concerning adoptive profit versus market share in today'

Expertly co-authored by Hermann Simon (Founder and Chariman of Simon-Kucher and Partners Strategy and Marketing Consultants, Germany), and SKP partners of Boston's division, Frank F. Bilstein and Frank Luby, Manage For Profit Not For Market Share: A Guide To Greater Profits In Highly Contested Markets is an important and timely study of the issues concerning adoptive profit versus market share in today's volatile stock market. Introducing readers to investment management, marketing, and providing a clearly presented and accessible explanation a complex monetary subject, Manage For Profit Not For Market Share provides a clear and applicable guide for understanding the differentiation between mature products, as well as addressing such issues as effective price increases, new orders to segmenting customers, proper timing to various activities, and the effect of consumer preferences. Manage For Profit Not For Market Share is very strongly recommended and profitable reading for investors, account managers, brokerage executives, and consultants for all formats of corporate or business sales as an exclusive and expansive interpretation of competitive profit sales, marketing, and innovative, practical guidance through modern business progress.

Excellent Pricing Best Practices Book

This is a six figure pricing consulting engagement in the palm of your hands. The book covers key pricing concepts that all managers should know such as: profit/volume tradeoffs, natural spaces, public messaging, price contamination, customer differences in willingness to pay...and more. It is a very readable book with several real world customer examples. If only we could get our competition to read it...

If you really want to make an impact on your business, read this book.

This book gives powerful insight into how using tools and analysis can direct you to make small pricing changes that result in significant bottom line impact. The most powerful aspect of the book is the real world examples describing what previous companies did and the resulting impact. These examples build confidence for the reader so that they can make similar changes to their business while everyone else continues to say "we can't do that" with their opinions based solely on past practices.