Smart Rivals

A new, researched-based look at how traditional or smaller companies can better compete with Big Tech on their own terms-from a Harvard Business School professor and a former Bloomberg journalist. Companies are fighting the wrong battle. The consensus has been to learn the best practices from Big Tech and imitate them. But new paths for growth aren't created by imitation; they're forged by radical differentiation. In Smart Rivals, Harvard Business School professor Feng Zhu and former Bloomberg journalist Bonnie Cao show business leaders how to create new competitive advantages by offering product features and benefits that tech giants and other competitors cannot match. Zhu and Cao bring readers across the globe, revealing how big conglomerates-Coca-Cola, Ping An, and AB InBev-and scrappy upstarts-an Italian toll payment platform, a Chinese footwear retailer, a Nigerian media company, and scores of others-have managed to thrive by tapping into their unique capabilities. Based on original research and insights gleaned from leaders in a wide-range of industries, Smart Rivals will help you find new capabilities that mere imitation could never provide and lead to new products, services, strategies, and advantages.

A new, researched-based look at how traditional or smaller companies can better compete with Big Tech on their own terms-from a Harvard Business School professor and a former Bloomberg journalist. Companies are fighting the wrong battle. The consensus has been to learn the best practices from Big Tech and imitate them. But new paths for growth aren't created by imitation; they're forged by radical differentiation. In Smart Rivals, Harvard Business School professor Feng Zhu and former Bloomberg journalist Bonnie Cao show business leaders how to create new competitive advantages by offering product features and benefits that tech giants and other competitors cannot match. Zhu and Cao bring readers across the globe, revealing how big conglomerates-Coca-Cola, Ping An, and AB InBev-and scrappy upstarts-an Italian toll payment platform, a Chinese footwear retailer, a Nigerian media company, and scores of others-have managed to thrive by tapping into their unique capabilities. Based on original research and insights gleaned from leaders in a wide-range of industries, Smart Rivals will help you find new capabilities that mere imitation could never provide and lead to new products, services, strategies, and advantages.