Always a Winner : Finding Your Competitive Advantage in an Up and Down Economy »

Always A Winner

Finding Your Competitive Advantage in an Up and Down Economy

"If you learn how to become your own economic forecaster as Always a Winnerteaches, you will ensure that a recession will never again catch you or your organization by surprise."

—Peter Navarro, from Always a Winner: Finding Your Competitive Advantage in an Up and Down Economy

A recession can do far more damage to your organization than any of your ten toughest competitors. Without question, this is the most important lesson that business executives have all too painfully learned in the carnage of the 2007–2009 economic crash.

Internationally recognized as an authority on managing the business cycle for competitive advantage, author Peter Navarro shows you how your organization can be a winner over the course of its entire cycle—not just when economic times are good. Always a Winner: Finding Your Competitive Advantage in an Up and Down Economy arms you with all the strategies, tactics, and forecasting tools you will need to profitably manage your organization through every business cycle season—from the best of boom times to the worst economic slumps.

Practical and insightful, Always a Winner offers immediately useful guidance to help your company survive and thrive in the increasingly risky conditions of the twenty-first century, revealing how you can:

• Forecast movements and key recessionary turning points in the business cycle
• Implement a set of "battle-tested" strategies over the course of the business cycle
• Rebuild your organization with a broader strategic business cycle orientation
• Make your organization more recession-resistant and resilient over the longer term

Peter Navarro's call to action is simple: if you really care about your organization, you will learn to strategically manage the business cycle to create a powerfully competitive and sustainable advantage over your rivals. In the end, you will attain the superior financial performance sought by every executive team in the world.

Peter Navarro, PhD, is the accomplished author of the bestselling The Coming China Wars, the path-breaking The Well-Timed Strategy, and the investment classic If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks. He is a Professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, and a regular CNBC contributor. Professor Navarro has been featured on 60 Minutes, and his articles have appeared in a wide range of publications, from BusinessWeek, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal to the Harvard Business Review, the MIT Sloan Management Review, and the Journal of Business. His free weekly investment newsletter is published at www.peternavarro.com.

Jacket Design: Andrew Liefer

Jacket Image: © Getty Images

About the Author.

Preface.

A Big-Picture View of the Always a Winner Organization.

Chapter 1 Why Recessions Are More Dangerous than Any 10 Competitors.

Chapter 2 What Good to Great and Always a Winner Organizations Have in Common.

Chapter 3 What Are the Three Steps to Becoming an Always a Winner Organization?

Chapter 4 How to Strategically Manage Through the Business Cycle Seasons.

Step I: Becoming Your Own Economic Forecaster.

Chapter 5 How (and Why) the Business Cycle Cycles.

Chapter 6 How to Forecast the Business Cycle in Four Easy Pieces.

Chapter 7 Why the GDP Equation Is Your Most Important Forecasting Tool.

Chapter 8 Why Tracking the Consumer Is the Ultimate Confidence Game.

Chapter 9 Why Taking the Pulse of Business Investment Is as Simple as ISM.

Chapter 10 How Falling Exports Can Flatten an Economy in a Flat World.

Chapter 11 Why Uncle Sam Is the Spender of Last Resort.

Chapter 12 How Do I Fear Thee, Inflation? Let Me Count the Ways.

Chapter 13 Why the Bond Market Is Not a Casino.

Chapter 14 Why Forecasting a Recession Is No Bull (Market).

Chapter 15 How the Corporate Earnings Calendar Literally “Guides” Your Strategy.

Step II: Always a Winner Strategies through the Business Cycle Seasons.

Chapter 16 How to Recession-Proof Your Supply Chain.

Chapter 17 Why Cherry Picking the Talent Pool During Recessions Is Your Quality Key.

Chapter 18 Why Countercyclical Advertising Is the Best Way to Build Brand and Market Share.

Chapter 19 Why Companies Often Price Their Products and Manage Credit Exactly Wrong.

Chapter 20 How To Not Get Run Over by the Capital Expenditures Bandwagon.

Chapter 21 Why You Should Buy Low and Sell High over the Stock Market Cycle.

Chapter 22 How to Minimize Your Capital Financing Costs over the Interest Rate Cycle.

Step III: Building the Always a Winner Organization.

Chapter 23 Why Always a Winner Organizations Always Begin with a Strong Business Cycle Management Orientation.

Chapter 24 How Every Executive Team Can Boost Its Economic and Financial Market Literacy.

Chapter 25 Why a Facilitative Structure Must Follow Your Business Cycle Management Strategy.

Chapter 26 Why a Supportive Organizational Culture Is Essential to Always Being a Winner.

Chapter 27 How to Protect Your 401(k) in an Up-and-Down Stock Market.

Concluding Thoughts.

Notes.

Acknowledgements.

Index.