Outsmart!
How to do what your competitors can’t

Jim Champy
Pearson Publishing, 2008

“…business has never been more complex, volatile, and demanding, yet so full of opportunity.”

The author of former best-seller Reengineering the Organization (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993) takes us through 8 case studies in how organizations of all sizes and shapes can form, or reshape, their viewpoint in order to achieve success.

From stalwart businesses like Smith & Wesson, and their once flagging business who finally realized that they needed to look beyond their own industry in order to achieve a new perspective to fledgling garage businesses like Jibbitz, who saw an emerging new product line in the footwear fashion industry and, rather than competing, built their business around accessorizing – literally building a trend around a trend.

Champy explains that although there is not much new in management. But that there is a lot new in business, and it is incumbent upon the visionaries to lead the way.

Each of the eight chapters features a new organization, the leaders that moved them, the secrets and not-so-secrets to their success, and a list of questions for the reader to ponder and take back to their own business.

Outsmart! is about more than being intellectually superior to your competitors. It’s also a book about flexibility, innovation, recognition of talent, and corporate culture. Written in plain, highly readable language the book achieves it’s own goal of inspiring action in asking the reader to step to a different angle and look at things anew.