Pankaj Ghemawat

O crescimento, como todo executivo sabe, é cíclico. É lógico, portanto, que o mercado de livros sobre crescimento seguiria um padrão semelhante. Os gerentes estão mais propensos a querer livros sobre o assunto quando suas empresas estão pensando em fazer investimentos voltados para o crescimento. Em períodos de baixo crescimento, a demanda por literatura sobre o tema também deve ser baixa. E pode-se prever que os investimentos na disseminação de novas literaturas sobre crescimento cairiam ainda mais acentuadamente.

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Reprint: R0407A 

Hundreds of books on business growth are published each year, but which ones are really worth reading? Harvard Business School professor Pankaj Ghemawat takes a close look at three recent offerings: Chris Zook&#8217;s Beyond the Core, Ram Charan&#8217;s Profitable Growth Is Everyone&#8217;s Business, and Adrian Slywotzky and Richard Wise&#8217;s How to Grow When Markets Don&#8217;t.
He finds that all three are likely to succeed at prompting readers to take action. Zook defines the various adjacencies along which a business might extend its scope. Charan presents ten tools that can be put to use immediately. And Slywotzky and Wise advise executives to inventory their companies&#8217; &#8220;hidden assets&#8221; and conduct an analysis of ways to solve customer problems. But Ghemawat wonders if the current crop of books harbors a subtle pro-growth bias.
Ghemawat makes a sobering case for the dangers of setting growth targets too high. Ryanair and Coca-Cola, for instance, stumbled badly when they set unreachable growth targets. Even companies that are considered efficient growth machines run into constraints related to their size. Wal-Mart, for example, has had to accept declining growth rates as it has grown ever larger. Yet none of the three books discusses this dynamic.
According to Ghemawat, readers interested in growth would be well advised to revisit a classic: Alfred Chandler&#8217;s The Visible Hand. Chandler&#8217;s propositions about growth and the managerial enterprise have withstood years of scrutiny, and his central idea&#8212;that technological changes, broadly defined, can affect the relative efficiency of different modes of organizing economic activity&#8212;still provides a frame for rich debate.

The Growth Boosters

Reimpressão: R0407A 
 Centenas de livros sobre crescimento de negócios são publicados a cada ano, mas quais realmente valem a pena ler? Pankaj Ghemawat, professor da Harvard Business School, analisa de perto três ofertas recentes: Chris Zook Além do núcleo, de Ram Charan O crescimento lucrativo é da conta de todos, e de Adrian Slywotzky e Richard Wise Como crescer quando os mercados não crescem. 
 Ele descobriu que todos os três provavelmente conseguirão estimular os leitores a agir. O Zook define as várias adjacências ao longo das quais uma empresa pode ampliar seu escopo. Charan apresenta dez ferramentas que podem ser usadas imediatamente. E Slywotzky e Wise aconselham os executivos a inventariar os “ativos ocultos” de suas empresas e realizar uma análise das formas de resolver os problemas dos clientes. Mas Ghemawat se pergunta se a safra atual de livros abriga um viés sutil a favor do crescimento. 
 Ghemawat argumenta seriamente sobre os perigos de estabelecer metas de crescimento muito altas. A Ryanair e a Coca-Cola, por exemplo, tropeçaram mal quando estabeleceram metas de crescimento inalcançáveis. Mesmo empresas consideradas máquinas de crescimento eficientes enfrentam restrições relacionadas ao seu tamanho. O Wal-Mart, por exemplo, teve que aceitar taxas de crescimento decrescentes à medida que crescia cada vez mais. No entanto, nenhum dos três livros discute essa dinâmica. 
 De acordo com Ghemawat, os leitores interessados em crescimento fariam bem em revisitar um clássico: o de Alfred Chandler A mão visível. As propostas de Chandler sobre o crescimento e a empresa gerencial resistiram a anos de escrutínio, e sua ideia central — de que as mudanças tecnológicas, amplamente definidas, podem afetar a eficiência relativa de diferentes modos de organização da atividade econômica — ainda fornece uma estrutura para um rico debate.

Os impulsionadores do crescimento

Reprint: R0407A Hundreds of books on business growth are published each year, but which ones are really worth reading? Harvard Business School professor Pankaj Ghemawat takes a close look at three recent offerings: Chris Zook’s Beyond the Core , Ram Charan’s Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business , and Adrian Slywotzky and Richard Wise’s How to Grow When Markets Don’t . He finds that all three are likely to succeed at prompting readers to take action. Zook defines the various adjacencies along which a business might extend its scope. Charan presents ten tools that can be put to use immediately. And Slywotzky and Wise advise executives to inventory their companies’ “hidden assets” and conduct an analysis of ways to solve customer problems. But Ghemawat wonders if the current crop of books harbors a subtle pro-growth bias. Ghemawat makes a sobering case for the dangers of setting growth targets too high. Ryanair and Coca-Cola, for instance, stumbled badly when they set unreachable growth targets. Even companies that are considered efficient growth machines run into constraints related to their size. Wal-Mart, for example, has had to accept declining growth rates as it has grown ever larger. Yet none of the three books discusses this dynamic. According to Ghemawat, readers interested in growth would be well advised to revisit a classic: Alfred Chandler’s The Visible Hand . Chandler’s propositions about growth and the managerial enterprise have withstood years of scrutiny, and his central idea—that technological changes, broadly defined, can affect the relative efficiency of different modes of organizing economic activity—still provides a frame for rich debate.

Os impulsionadores do crescimento

Resumo.

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