ESCAPE VELOCITY

A Silicon Valley–based technology consultant and venture capitalist helps companies propel into the future—but only if they’re fluent in BusinessSpeak.

Globalization has changed the way we do business, and Moore (Dealing With Darwin, 2008, etc.) knows that last year’s plan, while standard-operating procedure, can often cause companies to miss out on future growth. The author presents a clearly defined five-point model, or “Hierarchy of Powers,” to free businesses from stagnation: category, company, market, offer and execution. “Category power” gauges demand for products or services and changes with trends, while “Company power” utilizes bargaining and knowledge of genuine competition. Capitalizing on transitory markets is the key to “market power,” where regional market niches reign. For example, Google might be top dog in search engines, but in China, the market leader is Baidu. Competition can be dealt with accordingly through Moore’s nine-point strategy framework for creating market power in transitional markets. Return on innovation is the goal of “offer power,” and the author succinctly describes the snare in which many businesses fall prey: wasting time on insignificant transactions. Moore cites Wikipedia as one successful model of offer power, as it created tenfold improvement in encyclopedia access and currency in less than a decade. He ends by charting “execution power” and ways to achieve continued efficiency and growth. Integrating all five powers, argues Moore, can launch both new and existing companies into the changing landscape of the 21st century. If readers can get past the author’s excessive use of jargon, this is a title worth reading for its smart corporate strategies.