Part I. Companies at risk. Surprise! Surprise attacks -- The supremacy of internal convictions -- Blind executives? -- Can companies do better? -- Manager's checklist -- What do you know about strategic risks? The various types of risk -- The most neglected risk -- Top teams and top problems -- The case of Yahoo! -- Manager's checklist -- The internal dynamics of early warning failures. Technology "golden boys" -- Polaroid -- Lucent -- The "old economy" and the "light brigade" -- The old economy-Procter & Gamble -- The light brigade-Levi Strauss -- On early warning failure and the big consultants -- Manager's checklist -- The analytical, the tactical, the couch potato, and the blind. Manager's checklist -- Part 2. The competitive early warning system. Step 1: Identifying risk (and opportunities). Thinking systematically about risk -- Industry change drivers -- Scenarios -- Industry changes and the elusive "strategy" -- Prioritizing risk -- Summary: Identifying the highest risks -- Step 1, continued: War gaming. Consultants out, discipline in -- Choosing the right type of war game -- The curse of the SWOT -- The blindspots identification methodology (BIM) -- What does it take to uncover competitors' blinders? -- War gaming and risk prioritizing -- A sample war game agenda -- Step 2: Intelligence monitoring. From risk identification to risk monitoring -- The monitoring network: who watches what? -- So who is a good monitor? -- An internal or an external network? -- The disaster of executives' networks -- The high reliability organization (HRO) -- Step 3: Management action. Management action failures -- A test case -- Handling SPMS and MLMS -- Maximizing the effect of CEW's deliverables -- Management alerts -- Needs to know, wants to know, what's the difference? -- Executive briefings -- Should the BOD be briefed too? -- Alerts I would have written if I were ... -- Alerts that should have been written ... -- Options and recommendations -- Never, but never, give them data -- What MBAs don't know but a Biblical tribe knew -- Evaluation committees -- Tripwires -- Brief conclusion regarding the CEW -- Manager's checklist-chapters 5-8 -- Part three. Early warning at work. Case studies of CEW in action. Model 1. Very large global company, complex operations: Citibank-clean windows -- Activities on the three steps of the CEW model -- Weaknesses (and a note on silly benchmarking) strengths -- Model 2. Large company, several related businesses, long product cycle : DASA-early warning German style -- Activities on the three steps of the CEW model --Weaknesses -- Strengths -- Model 3. Small size, domestic company, single product : Pergo North America-the little engine that could -- Activities on the three steps of the CEW model -- Weaknesses -- Strengths -- Model 4. Very large division, multicultural company: AstraZeneca-a Cerberus SEWS -- Activities on the three steps of the CEW model -- Model 5. Global company in high-risk environments : strategic early warning-the Shell example -- What are we looking for? -- Who does what? -- How are we organized? -- How do we communicate? -- How do we identify and manage risk? -- Cultural predeterminants of EW -- Manager's checklist-case studies -- If you start from scratch ... Culture and the CEW -- CEOs and CEW -- Other organizational considerations -- Who makes the best strategic risk analyst? -- The best practice for raising first-rate strategic risk analysts -- Manager's checklist -- Top teams and top problems -- The case of Yahoo! -- Manager's checklist.
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"The competitive early warning process is a minimum insurance against strategic surprises. It allows managers to control risks--those risks that are controllable"--Preface.