How Companies Win: Profiting from Demand-Driven Business Models No Matter What Business You’re In

In a world of contracting markets and diminished consumer demand, The Cambridge Group founder Rick Kash and Nielsen Company CEO David Calhoun show companies how to find new customers and bigger profits. How Companies Win makes The Cambridge Group’s proprietary demand model—a strategy which multi-million dollar corporations pay premium rates to access—available to the general public for the first time. Taking the reigns from Larry Bossidy’s Execution, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy, and Kash’s own The New Law of Demand and Supply, this is a must-have for succeeding in business in the twenty-first century.

For the past twenty years, the growth formula for business has been to increase revenues by expanding product offerings and streamlining supply. But with the recent global recession, the world economy has changed forever. Now the old tools—most notably supply-chain management—are no longer enough. In a new digital age characterized by over-supply and too many product types in almost every market, the new challenge is to locate and capture the elusive pools of high-profit demand.

Rick Kash and David Calhoun have the answer: a revolutionary, demand-driven model that has already proved successful for some of the world's most admired companies, including Best Buy, Anheuser-Busch, Hershey's, and Allstate. At the heart of this powerful new business model is an achievable vision for a new kind of winning company, one that uses sophisticated new tools and techniques to discover, characterize, and then serve these pools of high-profit demand—and in the process gain pricing power in that market. Kash and Calhoun show how to use everything from social networks to more revealing and effective consumer-research techniques and then introduce the demand chain, the logical new partner to your supply chain. The authors' principles, case histories, and insights will help your business run faster, cut costs, and become better able to deliver high-quality products and services, even in the tightest economic climate.

How Companies Win is a compelling call to action to engage every level within a company, small or large, local or global.

“A persuasive case that winning in today’s market requires an understanding that supply-driven business models of the past will not keep pace with fundamental changes in our global economy and its digitally enabled consumer.” - —Jack Welch, bestselling author of Winning

“The rise of social networks has amplified the individual’s voice and this has sparked a revolution in demand. How Companies Win offers real-world solutions that you can implement right now to take advantage of these changes.” - —Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

“How Companies Win is a book about learning to understand demand. If you are relying on your customers to tell you what they want it’s too late.” - LeadershipNow.com

“With all of the options shoppers have today, it’s critically important to understand demand. It’s how you satisfy your customers better than your competitors. It’s the way companies will win.” - —Brian Cornell, President & CEO, Sam's Clubs

“How Companies Win shows how to successfully manage in the future. Its fresh look at data and the case histories will stimulate the imagination of every business leader.” - —Mary Dillon, President & CEO, US Cellular

“The authors’ discussion of Precision as the 5th P adds a powerful new tool for marketers. It aligns exactly with our strategy of precision marketing.” - —Joseph Tripodi, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, Coca-Cola Corporation

“Calhoun and Kash have taken on the biggest business question of all: what it will take for companies to win in this new era of growing oversupply and heightened global competition. The conclusions they reach are eye-opening. And they serve as a warning that every executive —and every investor—should shift their focus to the Demand Chain right now or risk losing their competitive edge.” - —Henry R. Kravis, Cofounder, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts

“Calhoun and Kash have taken on the biggest business question of all: what it will take for companies to win in this new era of growing oversupply and heightened global competition. The conclusions they reach are eye-opening. ” - —Henry R. Kravis, Cofounder, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts

“Recommended reading for executives facing the need to grow revenues in a sluggish economy.... Kash and Calhoun provide executives with the ideas they need to answer the question, where do we go from here.” - —Mark McDonald, Gartner