Simplify: How the Best Businesses in the World Succeed

Description

For the past forty years, Richard Koch has worked to uncover simple and elegant principles which govern business success. To qualify, a principle must be so overwhelmingly powerful that anyone can reliably apply it to generate extraordinary results. Working with venture capitalist Greg Lockwood and supported by specially commissioned research from OC&C Strategy Consultants, Koch has now found one elemental principle that unites extraordinarily valuable companies: simplifying. Some firms simplify on price - consider budget flights stripped of all extras that still take you from A to B - creating new, huge mass markets for their wares. Others, such as Apple, simplify their proposition, bringing a beautifully easy-to-use product or service to a large premium market. How can your business become a simplifier? With case studies of some of the most famous firms of the last hundred years, from finance to fast food, this enlightening book shows how to analyse any company's potential to simplify, and enrich the world.

Richard Koch (Author) Richard Koch is a millionaire entrepreneur who has started or turned round a number of successful companies, including Belgo Restaurants, Filofax, Zoffany Hotels and Betfair. He is also the author of 13 highly acclaimed non-fiction books. Greg Lockwood (Author) Greg Lockwood is a partner at venture capital firm Piton Capital. He has a Masters of Management degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, and is the co-author of SUPERCONNECT with Richard Koch.

It's a devastating insight. The key to global business success is to simplify a company's offering. To make it easier, more useful, more appealing. Koch and Lockwood make a compelling case, in this must-have book. - Lord Chris Smith, Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge University A remarkable job - not only in explaining the principle, but in walking the talk: the book is simple too. Great stories, great ideas, and lots of practical advice for managers and entrepreneurs - Ashridge Strategic Management Center Koch practises what he preaches. He simplifies the essence of Bruce Henderson and Michael Porter for a much wider audience.