The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market

Using data from CSC Index, a management consulting firm whose work spawned the bestseller Reengineering the Corporation, Treacy and Wiersema present their case on how corporations can become number one in their market. Their central thesis is that companies can't be all things to all people and therefore must concentrate on one of three areas--operational excellence (low prices), product leadership (the newest products) or customer intimacy (providing complete solutions to meet customers' business needs). Once a company chooses the area it wants to focus on, all systems in the company must serve that primary goal, although the authors stress that companies must remain at least adequate in the areas that they are downplaying. Treacy and Wiersema, both of whom are management consultants, provide short case studies on how three companies--AT&T Universal Card, Intel and Airborne Express--used this focusing technique to carve themselves a major share of business in their respective markets. Written with a minimum of management jargon, the work seems aimed primarily for executives at large companies, although small businesspeople could find relevant ideas here. $500,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Feb.)