Cover -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- PART I: Introduction and History -- Chapter One: Strategy for the Corporate Level: Summary of the Main Messages -- Blacklock -- Portfolio strategy -- Business logic -- Added value logic -- Capital markets logic -- Management (or parenting) strategy -- Chapter Two: Some History: From Boston Box to Three Logics that Drive Corporate Action -- The professional management school -- General management skills -- The concept of strategy -- Problems with resource allocation -- The portfolio planning school -- The growth share matrix -- The GE or McKinsey matrix -- Problems with portfolio management -- 1980s: Back to basics -- Value-based planning -- The synergy school -- Stick to the knitting -- Problems with synergy -- The return of synergy -- Core competences -- The capital markets school -- Towards a synthesis -- Dominant logic and management style -- Resource theory -- Parenting advantage and adding value -- Practitioners -- International strategy -- Conclusions -- PART II: Portfolio Strategy: Where to Invest and What to Avoid -- Chapter Three: How to Find Good Businesses and Avoid Bad Businesses -- Market profitability -- Competitive advantage -- Weak businesses in attractive markets -- Strong businesses in unattractive markets -- Growth -- Size -- What to plot in the matrix -- Chapter Four: How to Make Businesses More Successful -- What is value? -- The cost of corporate headquarters -- The heartland matrix -- Using the heartland matrix to guide strategy -- Combining the heartland and business attractiveness matrices -- Chapter Five: How to Buy Low and Sell High -- Are there good reasons why capital markets might misprice this business? -- The number of buyers and sellers -- The characteristics of buyers and sellers.

Differences in the information available to buyers -- Deal process -- Do you have the superior insight and capabilities required to take advantage of any mispricing? -- Does the financial analysis suggest that the level of mispricing is significant? -- Fair value matrix -- Using capital markets logic proactively -- Chapter Six: Making Decisions about Where to Invest and What to Avoid -- Decision making when logics conflict -- You can add value but the business is unattractive -- Attractive business where you do not add value -- Attractive, heartland businesses which are overpriced -- Unattractive businesses you own, where you are subtracting value, but which can only be sold at below NPV -- Running the numbers -- PART III: Ways of Adding and Subtracting Value from Corporate Headquarters -- Chapter Seven: Ten Sources of Value from Direct Influence -- People decisions -- Strategies -- Targets -- Performance management -- Policies and standards -- Relationships -- Technology or products -- Expertise -- Brand -- Financial engineering -- Vertical value mirages -- When added value is real -- Chapter Eight: Nine Sources of Value from Coordinating across Business Divisions -- One face to the customer -- Cross-selling -- Economies of scale -- Shared resources -- Multipoint competition -- Vertical integration -- Sharing knowledge and good practice -- New business development -- Risk management -- Horizontal added value mirages -- Chapter Nine: Eight Ways Headquarters can Destroy Value -- How much value can be subtracted? -- First do no harm -- Sources of subtracted value -- Misleading strategic guidance -- Inappropriate performance targets -- Inappropriate capital constraints -- Inappropriate policies and constraints -- Poor quality people decisions -- Misguided synergy projects -- Inefficient central services -- Delays and time wasting.

Reducing the risk of subtracted value -- Size the prize -- Encourage pushback -- Focus -- Chapter Ten: How to Identify Sources of Added Value for Your Company -- Opportunity-to-add-value analysis - bottom up -- Do the managers need help? -- What are typical mistakes? -- What are rival parent companies doing? -- Opportunity-to-add-value analysis - top down -- Sorting and challenging opportunities-to-add-value -- Summarising opportunities in a value staircase -- Summarising opportunities in a value added table -- PART IV: Management Strategy: How to Structure, How Much to Centralise and How to Grow the Business Divisions -- Chapter Eleven: Structuring the Organisation into Businesses and Divisions -- What is a business unit or business division? -- Strategic business units -- Strategic Groups -- Three ways to structure -- Choosing the right structure -- Customising the divisional structure -- Matrix structures -- Distinguishing headquarters from divisions -- Chapter Twelve: Corporate-level Strategy in Integrated Companies - The Apple Example -- Integrated organisations -- Apple -- Apple as a single business -- Apple as a corporate group -- Does corporate-level strategy analysis contribute any insights that would be unlikely to surface from business strategy analysis? -- Chapter Thirteen: How Much to Centralise: Designing Corporate Headquarters -- Step 1 - Governance and compliance -- Step 2 - Added value -- Step 3 - Clarifying relationships -- Step 4 - Document and communicate the design -- Chapter Fourteen: Developing New Capabilities at Corporate Headquarters -- Why headquarters capabilities can be misaligned -- Why is it so difficult? -- But some companies do develop new headquarters skills -- How should companies develop new headquarters skills? -- When it is best to sell rather than develop new skills.

Chapter Fifteen: Encouraging Synergy and Cooperation across Business Divisions -- Why is synergy so difficult? -- How to be sensible about synergy -- PART V: Retrospective -- Chapter Sixteen: Lessons from 20 Years of Consulting Experience -- Thoughts that get in the way -- Corporate strategy is about investing in attractive businesses -- Portfolio balance is critical -- "Best practices" should drive the design of headquarters -- Lean is best -- "What can they do for us?" -- Tricky situations -- Mature or declining heartland -- Bad parents of attractive businesses -- Multilevel parents -- Parents that do not add major value -- Simple tips -- Set up a corporate-level strategy process -- Make corporate functions develop strategic plans -- Agree the strategic logic before doing the cash flows -- Do rival parent analysis -- Be more willing to sell businesses -- Be more willing to change people -- Appendix: The Links between International Strategy and Corporate-level Strategy -- International strategy and corporate-level strategy -- Six issues in international strategy -- Drivers of international business activity -- Drivers of internationalisation in specific industries -- Choice of suitable international locations: markets -- Choice of suitable international locations: internal activities -- Choice of suitable ownership structures -- Overall management of international operations -- International (low pressure for integration - low pressure for differentiation) -- Multidomestic (low pressure for integration - high pressure for differentiation) -- Global (high pressure for integration - low pressure for differentiation) -- Transnational (high pressure for integration - high pressure for differentiation) -- Index.