- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Harvard Business Press (Jun 15 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1422126730
- ISBN-13: 978-1422126738
- Product Dimensions: 25.7 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #88,946 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
In the business world, imitation gets a bad rap. We see imitating firms as ?me too? players, forced to copy because they have nothing original to offer. We pity their fate: a life of picking up crumbs discarded by innovators striding a path paved with fame and profit.
In Copycats, Oded Shenkar challenges this viewpoint. He reveals how imitation?the exact or broad-brushed copying of an innovation?is as critical to prosperity as innovation.
Shenkar shows how savvy imitators generate huge profits. They save not only on R&D costs but also on marketing and advertising investments made by first movers. And they avoid costly errors by observing and learning from others? trials.
Copycats presents suggestions for making imitation a core element in your competitive strategy and pairing it powerfully with innovation, including:
· How to select the right model to imitate
· How to avoid oversimplification of a model
· Which imitation strategy to use
· How to prepare and execute an implementation plan
Engaging, practical, and rich in company examples, Copycats unveils how to add imitation to your competitive arsenal.
In Copycats, Oded Shenkar challenges this viewpoint. He reveals how imitation?the exact or broad-brushed copying of an innovation?is as critical to prosperity as innovation.
Shenkar shows how savvy imitators generate huge profits. They save not only on R&D costs but also on marketing and advertising investments made by first movers. And they avoid costly errors by observing and learning from others? trials.
Copycats presents suggestions for making imitation a core element in your competitive strategy and pairing it powerfully with innovation, including:
· How to select the right model to imitate
· How to avoid oversimplification of a model
· Which imitation strategy to use
· How to prepare and execute an implementation plan
Engaging, practical, and rich in company examples, Copycats unveils how to add imitation to your competitive arsenal.
About the Author
Oded Shenkar is the Ford Motor Company Chair in Global Business Management and Professor of Management at the Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, where he heads the international business area. A top scholar in international strategy, he is also a prolific author, and his work has been cited in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and The Economist.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
innovators capture only 2.2% of the present value of their innovations, aouch,
By
This review is from: Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge (Hardcover)
From 1948 to 2001 innovators captured only 2.2% of the present value of their innovations, the rest went to no other than the smart copycats or what the author calls imovators. The book exposes how companies and countries big and small claiming to be innovators use more imitation than they're proud of. But it should not be a despicable act as business scholarship has been labeling it so far. It is time to accept it as a necessary faculty. This is a great read for entrepreneurs who think that they need to reinvent the wheel to be praised and profitable.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book,
By D. Gjorgjievski - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge (Hardcover)
This is my first review. I felt that I needed to give my opinion on this book because it's REALLY good.The author describes many examples of a companies that we think are innovators, when in fact they're imitators. Examples include: - Apple - Microsoft - Visa - Master - Walmart - McDonalds They weren't imitating 100% but took the main concepts and improved on them. The author calls them imovators, companies that imitate + innovate. I was frustrated with the business community overall because it focused so much on innovation and so little on imitation, when in fact, some research shows that as much as 97.8% of the value of innovation goes to imitators! (source: [...]). Ouch! Personally, I own a very small business and been lured into thinking I need to 'innovate' and that imitation is bad. Now, when I've learned that imitation is OKAY (within legal boundaries, the author says upfront he speaks about legal, not illegal imitation) I found many profitable opportunities around me. I started to look at various trends and realize how big of a potential there is out there. This book made me see a world I never dared to see before. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insightful volume on why imitation often proves less costly and more effective than innovation,
By Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge (Hardcover)
Oded Shenkar, a professor who teaches global business management, offers a basic, far-reaching, somewhat surprising proposition: Imitation is faster, cheaper, easier to implement, less risky and more profitable than innovation ¬- and you can imitate legally and profitably. Still, most firms kowtow to the mythical power of innovation, striving to invent the next big thing. What if all that struggle is a waste of resources? What if it makes more sense to spend your firm's money, time and energy studying other companies' goods, services and markets, and then selecting targets to imitate? What if you can use creative copying to achieve more profit for less effort? Shenkar lays out the benefits and pitfalls of this approach with clarity and only a soupçon of academic theorizing. Unlike most business authors, he saves the best for last, and the book's final quarter offers revelatory reading and sound strategy. getAbstract recommends this book to those looking to maximize effort, insight and profit. Read this today, before some aggressive entrepreneur takes Shenkar's lessons to heart and publishes a knockoff.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Original and insightful,
By Moshe Farjoun - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge (Hardcover)
Professor Shenkar's book is an original and insightful contribution to strategy practitioners and scholars. Well grounded in recent research in a variety of fields ranging from history to neuroscience, this book challenges conventional wisdom about innovation and imitation. Based on rich business examples the author shows the benefits of imitation and its complementarity with innovation as drivers of success. Managers will greatly benefit from Shenkar's research as it uncovers new ways of thinking about how to succeed in a global and turbulent environment and identifies the ingredients underlying effective imovators (imitator and innovator). Highly recommended.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Management
- Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Systems & Planning
- Books > Professional & Technical > Business Management > Management & Leadership > Management
- Books > Professional & Technical > Business Management > Management & Leadership > Systems & Planning
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
