Books by "Peter S. Cohan"
3 books found
Accelerate your company's growth in a disciplined fashion. This book provides leaders of large and small companies a proven comprehensive framework to think systematically about growth options and to yield practical strategies that produce faster growth. Drawing insights from case studies of successful and unsuccessful companies, strategy teacher and venture capitalist Peter Cohan models his systematic approach to brainstorming, evaluating, and implementing growth strategies across five dimensions: Customers, Geography, Products, Capabilities, Culture. He examines each of these five growth dimensions in turn, selecting and organizing his cases to compare the growth strategies deployed successfully and unsuccessfully by large and small companies along the given dimension. In each of his five dimensional chapters, the author derives from his case analyses the key principles and processes for creating and achieving faster growth. Professor Cohan draws on a network of hundreds of founders, CEOs, and investors developed through his decades of consulting, authorship of 11 books, and over five years as a Forbes columnist. He shows through many compelling stories how leaders craft effective growth strategies. Business leaders will learn the following lessons from this book: Achieving rapid but sustainable growth is a business leader’s most important responsibility – and leaders must approach this challenge with a mixture of vision, intellectual humility, and a willingness to experiment and learn from failure. The growth challenges facing companies that are currently growing quickly differ from the ones that stagnating or shrinking companies must overcome. Companies can achieve growth along one or more of the dimensions simultaneously – and they often expand geographically to customers in the same segments. Usefulinsights can emerge from comparing case studies of successful and unsuccessful companies pursuing similar growth strategies. Companies should select a growth strategy based on three factors: the attractiveness of the growth opportunity, the company’s capabilities to provide superior value to customers in the selected market, and the expected return on investment in the growth vector. Companies should select a growth strategy that best fits their capabilities and culture and they must enhance both to adapt to new growth opportunities. Who This Book Is For The people in companies who are responsible for growth: chief executive officers, chief marketing officers, chief product officers, heads of business development, product managers, sales people, and human resources managers
Entrepreneurs are hungry. But it’s not just because they’re living on ramen and adrenaline while they pour their all into their business. Peter Cohan has found it’s something deeper: a hunger to create the kind of world they want to work in. To leave a legacy, they build carefully with limited resources and maintain control of the venture’s direction. For years, students have told Cohan that the seminal business strategy guide, Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy, was too big-company focused. So Cohan—who once worked with Porter—has written the first business strategy book to address start-ups’ very different challenges. Cohan focuses on six key start-up choices—setting goals, picking markets, raising capital, building teams, gaining market share, and adapting to change—explaining the unique rules start-ups must follow. For example, when setting goals, large corporations try to maximize their long-term return on equity, but resource-poor start-ups have to plan by setting a series of short-term goals—and how they do this will mean the difference between blazing a trail or flaming out. When entering a new market, well-fed companies can invest substantial time and capital before ever launching a product, but hungry start-ups must get an adequate prototype in front of customers fast, get feedback, and quickly develop a viable business model or they’ll starve to death. For each of these six areas, Cohan provides a decision-making approach and lively case studies of what actual entrepreneurs have done. He extracts hard-hitting lessons not only for start-ups but also for investors and even established companies. Hungry Start-up Strategy offers a full menu of vital information for anyone seeking to cook up a thriving business from scratch.
Know how your company can accelerate growth by not only tapping into new growth vectors, but also by adapting its organization, culture, and processes. To oversee growth from an idea to a company with billions in revenue, CEOs must reinvent many aspects of their company in anticipation of it reaching ever-higher revenues. Author Peter Cohan takes you through the four stages of scaling: winning the first customers, building a scalable business model, sprinting to liquidity, and running the marathon. What You'll Learn Discover how founders keep their CEO positions by managing the organizational change needed to reach the next stage of scaling Read case studies that illustrate how CEOs craft growth strategies, raise capital, create culture, build their organizations, set goals, and manage processes to achieve them Discover principles of successful scaling through comparisons of successfuland less successful companies Use the Scaling Quotient to assess your startup's readiness to grow Follow a road map for turning your idea into a company that can change the world Who This Book Is For Entrepreneurs, aspiring CEOs, capital providers, and all other key stakeholders