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Corporate counsellor Ram Charan redefines competitive advantage for the digital-first era, offering a set of new rules to get ahead.

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How do you gain an edge in the digital world order? In this new book, Ram Charan – a bestselling author and adviser to some of the world’s top CEOS and boards – explains how emphasising on the end-toend, individual-consumer experience will separate winners from losers in the new digital age.

The old ways of creating competitive advantage for businesses – such as building moats to ward off competitors – have become dangerous. Giants like Amazon and Alibaba are creating vast, new, market spaces through a deft combination of tools like machine learning and business savvy that re-imagines customers’ experiences while generating immense shareholder value.

A handful of traditional companies, including Fidelity Investments, Walmart and B2W, have adopted these new approaches to reinvigorate their businesses. Most, however, are stalled, and the time is running out.

In this lively, accessible guide, Mr Charan redefines competitive advantage for the digital-first era, offering a set of new rules to get ahead. He advises companies to create an ecosystem with third-party partners to revolutionise and personalise the customers’ experience. He recommends companies to empower teams to focus on a single task, build a social engine that drives constant innovation. There is also the added advantage for fast execution and customer satisfaction. The author counsels companies to attract funders who understand the big picture and realise that beyond a certain scale, major upfront spending will turn into a cashgeneration machine.

The author outlines six principles which are very insightful, though they sound simple enough. The first one is to focus on consumer experience. The second principle is to keep looking at artificial intelligence and machine learning and design algorithms to drive business and get that advantage. His third principle is quite singular where he shows that companies that can take the ecosystem along and enable it to grow with the company tend to do better. The fourth principle is to create value for the shareholder. His last two principles are more on the human resources side, where he talks of the importance of teams and leadership, which are quite inter-related.

The book hand-holds the reader through lucid explanations of digital tools, such as algorithms, without going into their virtual nuts and bolts. A wise move – most business leaders are not going to code their own algorithms, but will hire coding talent or buy algorithms. They need just about enough information to communicate their needs to domain experts.

The book is studded with plenty of case studies that enliven unfamiliar concepts and drive them home. All are engrossing and easy to follow. While some of the case studies are from other markets, some are from India, which is a busy theatre of competition between digital companies.

Filled with stories that peek behind the curtain of digital behemoths as well as traditional companies that have transformed their organisations, this book offers concrete advice and methods to help companies draw up new market spaces and money-making models.

Competing against digital giants might seem daunting, if not impossible. The necessary computing power is within any company’s reach. By borrowing from these digital winners’ playbooks, traditional companies and upstarts alike can gain an upper hand. Whether one is in the Csuite or brainstorming the next big idea from one’s garage, this book is an engaging guide to creating competitive advantage today.

About the author

Ram Charan is a highly-acclaimed business adviser, speaker and author, well known for his practical, real-world perspective. He was a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School where he earned his MBA degree with distinction as well as his DBA. Mr Charan is the author of What the CEO Wants You to Know, Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business, The Leadership Pipeline and Boards at Work.