Fewer, Bigger, Bolder

Book excerpt: Fewer, Bigger, Bolder will teach you how to make billions by scaling back, expanding less and betting bigger. It's a game-changing book that couldn't be more timely. Or more needed. In company after company that Sanjay Khosla and Mohanbir Sawhney worked for or researched, they saw businesses taking on more products, more markets, more people, more acquisitions. Every quarter became a mad dash to find yet another short-term revenue boost, but failed to deliver what was really needed: sustainable and profitable growth. There had to be a better way - an alternative to the scramble for mindless expansion. The answer lies in Fewer, Bigger, Bolder, a market-proven, step-by-step program to achieve sustained growth with rising profits and lower costs. No matter how big the company or how difficult the economic environment, managers who use this seven-step program (Focus7) will learn how to make fewer but bigger bets and to create a virtuous cycle of growth. Given the right incentives, they will be able to produce astonishing results in amazingly short time frames. Fewer, Bigger Bolder crosses the usual boundaries of strategy, execution, people, and organization. Its framework shows how you can drive growth by targeting resources against priorities, simplifying your operations, and unleashing the potential of your people. That's exactly what Khosla accomplished for Kraft's developing markets, which enjoyed profitability increases of 50 percent. Sawhney discovered a similar formula for stellar results when advising a portfolio of businesses from Fortune 500 giants to technology start-ups. Together they challenge the conventional wisdom about growth, and prove that going Fewer, Bigger, Bolder can transform businesses of any size. As president of Kraft Foods' developing markets, Sanjay Khosla oversaw revenue growth from $5 billion to $16 billion in six years across over sixty countries. Since 2013, he has been serving as a management consultant, a senior fellow at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, and a senior adviser at BCG. Professor Mohanbir Sawhney is a globally recognized scholar, teacher, speaker, and consultant in business innovation, technology marketing, and digital marketing. He directs the Center for Research in Technology & Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management. Richard Babcock is a writer and teacher in Chicago. He was the longtime editor of Chicago magazine.