I'm doing my MBA and the marketing prof. wanted us to read this book. The only claim I can make about the book is, it is a little out-dated. Some of the companies given as examples are either not existing anymore, or are far from where there were in terms of what it is and what it is all about! The book came in exactly the same condition as it was said to be. Thank you Amazon as being the rescue team of our family :)

Helps provide a clear model for analyzing companies and developing corporate strategies. In many ways, it is a more accessible take on Porter's Competitive Strategy.

Treacy and Wiersema make the case that the value of a product or service to a customer can be categorized in terms of efficiency (eg. low cost, on-time delivery), innovation (eg. latest technology or fashion) and/or customer intimacy (eg. customized solutions). They go on to argue that delivering each kind of value requires a different organization and culture, and hence the most successful companies are those whose business strategy is focused on delivering a particular kind of value to the customers that appreciate it the most, while remaining competitive in other areas. The analysis is accompanied by case studies of AT&T Universal Card, Intel and Airborne Express. The core idea of the book is valuable and 200 pages is plenty to explore it in detail.

ALthough this book has been in print for over a decade, it is one I constantly come back to when helping clients organize their thinking about how they can compete.

I have been a Michael Porter fan for decades. However, when he describes competing by being a differentiated producer, it often left folks scratching their heads about what that meant. Treacy and Wiersema defing "customer intimacy" in a way that was effective in helping companies define how they could pursue differentiation. I have found that this particular strategy has applied all the way down to 1 to 1 marketing.

So the definitions and examples for three competitive strategies are clearly articulated, but also frameworks for implementing these strategies are provided as well.

All-in-all, a clear, compelling and implementable framework for competitive strategy.

Best Marketing book I have ever read, I will keep this book forever. This is a must read for anyone in the marketing field. This book provides great examples along with real life examples.

The book reemphasizes the importance of product or service leadership, customer intimacy, and operational excellence. Organizations willing to be "anything for a buck" will find they loose touch with their customers quickly as they thinly apply talent and resources to serve everyone averagely.

Unity of purpose is also essential; a successful firm must act together to consistently and successfully compete. The book is good reading for managers and marketing professionals that need to review their business focus and the alignment of tasks, processes and competencies supporting that focus. The book offers materials to be used in team exercises.

This book helped give me focus and realize why my customers/prospective customers should buy from me. It made me identify my strengths and use them to secure business. I read theis book when I was starting my business. This was invaluable, it forced me to understand the strengths I brought to the table. I feel it's a must read for any business having trouble creating an identity.

This book helped give me focus and realize why my customers/prospective customers should buy from me. It made me identify my strengths and use them to secure business. I read theis book when I was starting my business. This was invaluable, it forced me to understand the strengths I brought to the table. I feel it's a must read for any business having trouble creating an identity.

Though written over a decade ago, the concept--that a company must choose one "value discipline" to hone its competitive advantage--is elusive in many executive suites today. Consulting to industries across the USA, my associates and I are often astonished at how many strategies are based on an assumption that attempting to be "all things to all people" is a recipe for success. Treacy and Wiersema present a very useful model for strengthening fundamental strategic choice-making. By clearly linking the different organizational requirements for each of the three possible value disciplines, (similar to Michael Porter's generic strategy options of low-cost vs. differentiation), the authors make a compelling case for the benefits of choosing one "discipline" to focus resources on. The concepts still ring true--though it would be useful if there was an updated edition--since some of the organizational implications (i.e., Process, IT, Organizational Skills, Management Skills and Culture) are outdated due to ubiquitous technology adoption at the heart of many companies' operations.

In order to become a market leader you must choose what kind of customers you want to serve, and design your operating model to fulfill the chosen customer value, while maintaining appropriate standards in the other two customer values.

According to the authors, there are three kinds of customers, each with its own unique idea of what constitutes value.
� For the first kind of customer, high performance is the most important value of a product or service.
� For the second kind of customer, personalized service is the most important value.
� For the third kind of customer, the overall cost of the product is the most important value.

Market leaders beat out their competition, say the authors, by focusing on one kind of customer and fulfilling their expectations. This means that you should choose one of three operating models:
� Product Leadership: Focused on innovation and performance, product leaders strive to turn invention into breakthrough products.
� Customer Intimacy: Focused on specialized, personal service, these companies become partners with their customers.
� Operational Excellence: Companies with the operational excellence model offer customers the lowest possible cost of a product. These companies focus on their supply and distribution systems, in order to reduce costs to the customer.

There are three steps to choosing which operating model is best for you.
1. Determine how well you are currently delivering the three kinds of value to customers. Use market research to find out which kind of value your customers care about, and how well you compare to your competitors.
2. Make a list of possible options of ways you could change your organization to meet the needs of each kind of customers.
3. Use teams to evaluate what operating systems would need to be put in place to implement these options, and whether you would be able to compete with market leaders once this was done.

In order to become a market leader you must choose what kind of customers you want to serve, and design your operating model to fulfill the chosen customer value, while maintaining appropriate standards in the other two customer values.

According to the authors, there are three kinds of customers, each with its own unique idea of what constitutes value.
ý For the first kind of customer, high performance is the most important value of a product or service.
ý For the second kind of customer, personalized service is the most important value.
ý For the third kind of customer, the overall cost of the product is the most important value.

Market leaders beat out their competition, say the authors, by focusing on one kind of customer and fulfilling their expectations. This means that you should choose one of three operating models:
ý Product Leadership: Focused on innovation and performance, product leaders strive to turn invention into breakthrough products.
ý Customer Intimacy: Focused on specialized, personal service, these companies become partners with their customers.
ý Operational Excellence: Companies with the operational excellence model offer customers the lowest possible cost of a product. These companies focus on their supply and distribution systems, in order to reduce costs to the customer.

There are three steps to choosing which operating model is best for you.
1. Determine how well you are currently delivering the three kinds of value to customers. Use market research to find out which kind of value your customers care about, and how well you compare to your competitors.
2. Make a list of possible options of ways you could change your organization to meet the needs of each kind of customers.
3. Use teams to evaluate what operating systems would need to be put in place to implement these options, and whether you would be able to compete with market leaders once this was done.

A Marketing professional and graduate of an MBA program, I have read numerous marketing and strategy books. This is the most important strategy book that I've read. Although David Aaker has written a more detailed strategy book, "Developing Business Strategies," this book is simpler, allowing even businesspeople who are not particularly "bookish" to immediately make greater sense of the strategic environment of the marketplace.

The book categorizes all successful businesses as one of three types: product leaders, those specializing in customer intimacy, or those concentrating on operational excellence. Any business that falls short of excelling in one of these three areas, and achieving reasonable satisfaction levels in the other two areas, is doomed to failure, reports the book. The book supports its arguments with numereous case studies.

The strategy that the book addresses is partly business strategy, partly marketing strategy, and hence both general strategists and marketers will find it interesting. But it should be a must-read for any businessperson.

This book's concepts for strategic marketing management are so widely accepted that the popular Balanced Scorecard concept of Kaplan and Norton in 2001 decided to adopt the ideas for the "customer perspective".

The authors manage to take Michael Porter's two generic competitive strategies - Differentiation and Cost Leader - and elaborate on these to an extent never presented so elegantly before. In the process, they discover a third generic strategy - Customer Intimacy.

Thus, Treacy and Wiersema distinguish between focusing on the following value dimensions:
- Operational excellence (cost leadership / focus on supply chain management)
- Product leadership (innovation / focus on product lifecycle management)
- Customer Intimacy (service leadership /focus on customer relationship management)

These are the FOUR RULES that govern market leaders' actions:
Rule 1: Provide the best offering in the marketplace by excelling in a specific dimension of value
Rule 2: Maintain threshold standards on the other dimensions of value
Rule 3: Dominate your market by improving value year after year
Rule 4: Build a well-tuned operating model dedicated to delivering unmatched value

Expanding on the fourth rule - operating models - may the best long-term contribution of this book. The authors explain in detail and via case stories how the operating models differ for each of the three value propositions. In practice, I've learned that by explaining the operating models, many people can easier find themselves depicted than in the overall generic dimensions of cost, service or product leadership.

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE or Cost Leadership - Best total cost - operating model:
Key success factor: Formula!
Golden rule: Variety kills efficiency
Culture: Disciplined teamwork; Process focused; Conformance, "one size fits all" mindset
Organization: Centralized functions; high skills at the core of the organization
Core processes: Product delivery and basic service cycle; built on standard, no frills fixed assets
Management Systems: Command and control; Compensation fixed to cost and quality; transaction profitability tracking
Information Technology: Integrated, low-cost transaction systems; Mobile and remote technologies

PRODUCT LEADERSHIP - Best product - operating model:
Key success factor: Talent!
Golden rule: Cannibalize your success with breakthroughs
Culture: Concept, future driven; Experimentation, "out of the box" mindset; Attack, go for it, win
Organization: Ad-hoc, organic, and cellular; High skills abound in loose-knit structures
Core processes: Invention, Commercialisation; Market exploitation; Disjoint work procedures
Management Systems: Decisive, risk oriented; Reward individuals' innovation capacity; Product lifecycle profitability
Information Technology: Person-to-person communications systems; Technologies enabling cooperation and knowledge management

CUSTOMER INTIMACY - Best total solution - operating model:
Key success factor: Solution!
Golden rule: Solve the client's broader problem
Culture: Client and filed driven; Variation: "Have it your way" mindset
Organization: Entrepreneurial client teams; High skills in the field
Core processes: Client acquisition and development; Solution development; Flexible and responsive work procedures
Management Systems: Revenue and share-of-wallet driven; Rewards based in part on client feedback; Lifetime value of client
Information Technology: Customer databases linking internal and external information; Knowledge bases built around expertise

If you're interested in Customer Intimacy, you may want to add Wiersema's additional book on only this strategy to your shopping basket. I highly recommend both paperback books ... great value for money ;-)

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

This business book should be in EVERY marketing and sales professional's library. In one reading of less than four hours you can understand the distinct value disciplines that define your company. And, just as important, you can recognize the value disciplines of your customers and competition. But, you don't have to be strictly a sales person. I'm my company's Chief Technology Officer and I felt the book was very valuable - after my CEO made me read it!
The message of The Discipline Of Market Leaders is that no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the unique value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. Why and how this is done are the two key questions the book addresses,
Three concepts are introduced that every business finds essential:
1. the value proposition - implicit promise to deliver a particular combination of values - price, quality, performance, etc.
2. value-driven operating model - combination of operating processes, manage-ment systems, business structure, and culture that allows a company to deliver on its value proposition.
3. value disciplines - three desirable ways in which a company combines operating models and value propositions to be the best in their markets. THIS is the key take away from this book.
Three distinct value disciplines:
1. operational excellence - provide middle-of-the-market products at the best price with the least inconvenience - value proposition is low price and hassle-free service.
2. product leadership - offering products that push performance boundaries - value proposition is offering the best product, period.
3. customer intimacy - delivering NOT what the market wants but what specific customers want - value proposition the best solution for the customer with all the support needed to get the maximum value from our products.
The selection of a value discipline is a central act that shapes every subsequent plan and decision a company makes, coloring the entire organization, from its competencies to its culture.
If a company is going to achieve and sustain dominance, it must decide where it will stake its claim in the marketplace and what kind of value it will offer to its customers.
markets, the only established way to improve value to customers is to cut process. If you haven't started thinking about cutting your way to leanness, it's going to cost you later.
High quality is the cost of admission to the market. Without it, you're not even in the ballpark.
Four new premises underlie successful business practice today:
1. companies can no longer raise process in lockstep with higher costs
2. companies can no longer aim for less than hassle-free service
3. companies can no longer assume that good basic service is enough
4. companies can no longer compromise on quality and product capabilities
These four points are critical to the book and to how you must think about value. It is true - we can no longer charge for high quality - it IS expected. By delivering superior value, companies change their customers' expectations. In effect, these companies became market leaders NOT by fulfilling old-fashioned ideas of value, but by getting their business to master one band in the value spectrum. They believed in three important truths that characterize the new world of competition:
1. Different customers buy different kinds of value. You can't hope to be the best in all dimensions, so you choose your customers and narrow your value focus.
2. As value standards rise, so do customer expectations; so you can stay ahead only by moving ahead.
3. Producing an unmatched level of a particular value requires a superior operating model - "a machine" - dedicated to just that kind of value.
Four rules that govern market leaders' actions:
1. Provide the best offering in the marketplace by excelling in a specific value disci-pline.
2. Maintain threshold standards on other dimensions of value.
3. Dominate your market by improving value year after year,
4. Build a well-tuned operating model dedicated to delivering unmatched value.
The operating model is the market leader's ultimate weapon in its quest for market domination. Value comes from choosing customers and narrowing the operations focus to best serve those customers. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are simply the by-product of delivering on a compelling value proposition - not the drivers behind it. When a company selects and pursues one of the value disciplines, it ceases to resemble its competitors.
Customer-intimate companies demonstrate superior aptitude in advisory services and relationship management. This is an incredibly difficult concept for sales and marketing professionals to grasp. They want the largest market possible. If you are customer-intimate, your market is one company at a time. This calls for hard work. Customer-intimate companies don't deliver what the market wants, but what a spe-cific customer wants. The customer-intimate company makes a business of knowing the people it sells to and the products and services they need. It continually tailors its products and services, and does so at reasonable prices. The customer-intimate company's greatest asset is, not surprisingly, its customers' loyalty.
Customer-intimate companies don't pursue transactions; they cultivate relationships.
They tailor their mix of services or customize the products, even if it means acting as a broker to obtain these services and products from third parties or co-providers.
Where to begin? Start with the last chapter and take a close look at Figure 11. From that point I realized my company's value discipline. The rest fell neatly into place.

In Business studies, we were taught that to succeed with our business we should be able to provide best product/service, best prices and superb customer service. The results are mainly unsatisfactory because while we try to master all three aspects, we fail in all of them.

This book will teach you for the first time how to succeed with "imperfection" along with customers blessings.

You dont have to provide your customer with the best product AND best price AND best service, just choose one of those values (depending on your target market and long term objectives) and focus all your resources on developing this value. The book is backed with real life stories from some of the leading firms and the values they have chosen to focus on.

This book is a must for every business owner.

Authors Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema make it clear that market leading companies all concentrate on creating value for their customers. Then they focus on specific cases from Nike to Johnson & Johnson. No company, including yours, can succeed by trying to be all things to all people. Companies must ascertain the unique value - be it price, quality or problem solving - they can deliver to a specific market. The book proves that comparisons are not odious if they are interesting, and the comparisons it offers are intriguing indeed. Anecdotes and case histories cover companies that are market leaders today - AT&T, Intel, Airborne Express - and companies that used to be market leaders. The authors offer you three choices: lead with low costs, great products or outstanding ability to solve customers' problems. But if you are going to lead, you have to pick a direction and implement a management strategy that supports it, a lesson eased along by the clarity of the writing. We from getAbstract recommend this book to executives who are seeking advice on trumping their markets.

You can't make money trying to be all things to all people.

Such a simple idea and so hard to live up to. Treacy argues that companies compete on three dimensions: Product Innovation, Low Cost Provision (aka Operational Excellence) or Customer Intimacy. He further argues that the way to make money is by being best in one (and only one) dimension. Trying to be "world-class" in more than one dimension diffuses your efforts, sets up contradictions in your organization and confuses your customers. Pick how you want to compete and be disciplined about sticking to it.

This book offers a classic model for thinking about business and how you serve your customers More than just high-level strategy setting, this book gives you a lens through which to prioritize projects and make decisions at every level of management. It brings clarity to confused business cultures (or at least gives leaders a way to talk about why they have different visions of the future of the company).

Incidentally, there has been a fair amount of quantitative research since this book was first published confirming the correlation between strategic alignment and financial performance. As long as you've maintained a minimum (parity) on the other dimensions, companies that stick to one agenda really do perform better financially.

I was taught the basic model years ago and have used it more times than I can count since. This book is on my very short list of "must-read". The examples are getting a little out-of-date now, but the core lesson is timeless.

Notwithstanding the allegations about "book-buying" to get this book up the business charts (which I have no idea about whether they are true or not), the real disappointment here is the book's content.

It falls victim to two of the most dangerous pitfalls of management books
(1) excessive post-rationalisation (e.g. "I've got a nice, simple model and by god I'm going to make these examples fit it"), and
(2) picking winners (e.g. "here some companies that are successful ... here's some things that they do ... if you do them then you'll be successful too")
meaning that the result is evangelical ("you will believe") rather than a detached, objective view of what makes some companies successful and others not. Either that - or it's just a very long way of saying (again) "stick to the knitting" ! To say that the book oversimplifies the integrated nature of the modern corporation is a massive understatement.

Treat the recommendations with extreme caution ...

This is a book with substance and professional insite. I read it as a text book of sorts and as a reference for inspiration in business communications and dialogue. When I purchased this book, I was in the insurance field. Now I manage a trade association and find this a work of wisdom in any business setting.

When I started in retail, I was a believer in being all things to all people. Fortunately I found this book and learned there is a better way to be a success in business. Learning to focus on what you do and who you are will allow you the opportunity to succeed. Lack of focus on who you are causes you to be inefficient whereas discipline of focus will cause you to focus on the needs of your customer and your strengths to meet their needs.

It is intrinsic to people to produce long wish lists. This book proves that reducing these lists and focusing one a few is a key discipline. You get more with less. Rather focus on ONE value rather than 10 etc. Then the authors give reasons why it is necessary to be very focussed.These are 1. Your brand will be recognised if the message is crisp. That means that usually your company can only be remembered for one core value.In the case of this book the authors propose that the choice is between three options, namely: the customer, the product or operations. 2. Competition prevents your company from investing in more than one core value. It is simply too expensive NOT to focus. Related to the latter is the excellent work on "Value Innovaton" by Reneý Mauborgne and Chan Kim. The latter take it one step further and suggest to desinvest in most values and superinvest in one. An example of this strategy is Formula 1 hotels in Europe. Low value in atmosphere, local service, bedroom quality but high value in convenience and hygiene. Excellent value for money. As a marketing consultant, I use this book all the time.

The message of this important book is that "no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the unique value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. Why and how this is done are the two key questions the book addresses." The authors focus with rigor and precision on three different "disciplines": operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy. It remains for any company (for any organization, for that matter) to determine which of the three should be its primary discipline but all are obviously important...indeed interdependent. Nonetheless, one discipline should be pre-eminent. The authors examine dozens of companies which have concentrated primarily on one of the three "disciplines" so that they can select their customers and then narrow their focus inorder to gain and sustain dominance within their respective marketplaces. I think this book will be of substantial value to executives in any organization but of greatest value to those in organizations which are small-to-midsize. Unless they have dysfunctional management and/or defective products, their mastery of that discipline will enable them to compete more effectively against larger organizations which (obviously) have greater resources available. My own view is that as B2B and B2B2C continue to increase at exponentially greater velocity, leadership of ANY market will require mastery of customer intimacy and at least one (but preferably both) of the other two disciplines. In that event, the insights which Treacy and Wiersema share will be even more valuable.

Many organizations try to be all things to all people, and end up being mediocre or worse on everything. THE DISCIPLINE OF MARKET LEADERS shows that many organizational stalls can be overcome by focusing the enterprise on being better on cost/prices, innovation that customers value, or relationships. This perspective will be very valuable to 90 percent of all organizations.

I hope the authors will go on to publish a sequel that looks at how an organization that is superb in one of these areas learns how to become superb at a second or third of the three areas. That clearly will be the future best practice that outstanding enterprises will have to shoot for.

I am not sure that some organizations are not already good at more than one area of focus: For example, a great investment bank (like say, Goldman Sachs) will have more innovative products than most of its competition in certain areas and will also offer great relationships.

The book does not say very much specifically about how to achieve an outstanding result in any one of the proposed three areas of focus. You'll have to read other books for help there. Direct from Dell is probably good for the price/cost model for most New Economy businesses and Old Economy businesses that are subject to the New Economy. For the rest, Lean Thinking will be helpful. On the subject of relationships, the Harvey Mackey books are good, such as Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. On innovation, everyone should read The Innovator's Dilemma. Only the Paranoid Survive is also helpful for innovators.

Pick your direction today, and move forward at warp speed!

There are three disciplines discussed in this book: operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy. The most important is customer intimacy. "For customer-intimate companies, the toughest challenge is to let go of current solutions and to move themselves and their clients to the next paradigm."

Winning firms focus on one of three customer value disciplines: product leadership, customer intimacy, or operational excellence. Trying to be all things to everybody is tantamount to being nothing for anyone. If your firm can't get its act together, you'll find this an inspiring book that makes a compelling case that success is only possible by having the courage to focus on specific tasks & disciplines. This seems very elementary, but I've observed many firms that refused to choose what they wanted to be, ensuring that they became nothing. This book is helpful in positioning exercises.

I have two concerns about the book. 1, it doesn't need to be this long in order to get the central idea across. 2, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this model is counterproductive in a Geoff Moore tornado period. If you're in a high-tech tornado, wait until Main Street before applying discipline.

Aside from these caveats, I still find the simple model presented in this book as being useful in analyzing market approaches. You have to understand the model in order to know when it isn't appropriate. Product Managers, sales, marketing and product development staff need to be aware of this book and its ideas.

The authors are masters of the obvious. If you don't agree with the premise presented in the introduction, then a read is worth your time. The premise is simply that to become market leaders, a business must choose between operational, customer or product focus then make this focus central to their mission and value proposition. This book would be good for the reading list of an intro business strategy course.

Excellent strategy framework for planning new product/service introductions. Three value disciplines are described with good examples. Highly relevant as product/service life cycles get shorter and shorter. Great material for providing focus to those with a broken helm.

This book urges you to adopt one style of competition: low costs and prices, innovation, or relationships. Once you adopt that style, you must outdo all of the competition. That's where most people fall short. Falling short can be a disaster, because someone else will always be beating you at your own game. If you want some good ideas for how to be sure you are years ahead of the competition in whichever style you choose, you should take a look at the 8 step process in The 2,000 Percent Solution. It gives you a good process for making those important changes. The Discipline of Market Leaders is a good read, and you'll enjoy it.

Excellent content; just not a book's worth. The authors say virtually nothing more than they did in their superb HBR article of the same name a few years back. Another case of a fine 10-page idea gratuitously expanded into a book.

The premise of the book is that successful companies direct all of their efforts towards operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy. For each "discipline" (and it does take discipline), the authors present examples, generally well known, of companies that succeed because of this focus. This book manages to present a usable model for managers and a unique perspective to explain the success of many top performing companies. Most business books either present too much unrelated theory or repeat a single assertion that should be a magazine article. Every chapter of this book explains something new, and supports its main contention. The model seems to have withstood the test of time (unlike many of the companies in "In Search of Excellence" several years ago), because most of the companies profiled are still market leaders, even though the book was originally published in 1995. The model is appealing to business observers, because it is intuitive but not obvious, and it enables the reader to imagine other companies that are not profiled and fit them into the model easily. The structure of the book (one chapter about one discipline, then a chapter in-depth about an example) makes the book easy to follow, and convenient to read during a commute.

For what it does and the way it does it this book deserves a 10. It directly and enjoyably addresses the point it sets out to make, and gets there. The basic point is this, companies that excell in the marketplace deliver on their customer's 'value expectation' with regard to themselves. The authors describe three areas where firms can and do excell in delivering on 'value expectation', operational excellence (best value), customer intimacy (service), and product leadership (innovation). They then describe in detail each of these positions. For each of the three basic positions presented the authors offer real examples of companies using the approach their describing, as well as how they succeed using it. This is the background to the idea of product positioning - instead of a product focus, the idea here is a market sector focus. The emphasis in "Discipline of Market Leaders" is on the customer's expectation for that particular market niche. Then, with sufficient details and examples to make it understandable and applicable, the mind set and process is developed and described. You'll see some familiar and not so familiar names like Wal-Mart, Sony, and Airborne Express used as examples throughout the book. Rather than using these names as an exercise in self-promotion the authors actually make interesting and applicable points through these examples and illustrations. I found the book an eye opening and memorable business read. I probably read between 75-100 business books a year and this is one I've remembered, and I've applied the material repeatedly with success. Most of my collegues agree that in business, time is a precious commodity and wasting it is not suffered gladly. Read this book you'll find the investment worth it.