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Business War Games: How Large, Small, and New Companies Can Vastly Improve Their Strategies and Outmaneuver the Competition | 
 enlarge | Author: Benjamin Gilad
Creator: Todd Stitzer
Publisher: Career Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $6.11
You Save: $13.88 (69%)
New (35) Used (8) from $6.11
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 82501
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 223
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 1601630301
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4012
EAN: 9781601630308
ASIN: 1601630301
Publication Date: September 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In a global, complex, and competitive world, developing a plan without testing it against market reaction is like walking blind into a minefield.
War gaming is a metal detector for a company. Yet war games run by the large consulting firms are kept secret and cost millions. For the first time, this book makes them accessible to every product and brand manager, every project leader, every marketing professional, and every planner, no matter how small or large the company.
Business War Games will show you in steps and practical detail:
* How to decide if war gaming is right for you
* Which decisions call for war gaming
* How to prepare, organize, and run a realistic and inexpensive war game
* How to predict competitor moves with accuracy and little information
* Why you do not need computers, consultants, software, or a PhD in math to do it well
This book is your bible of how to stay one step ahead of your competitors. Do not leave home without it.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Business War Games by Dr. Benjamin Gilad / A review October 21, 2008
Thomas W. Oglesby (Houston TX)
Dr Gilad's "Business War Games" is the only comprehensive "how-to" book on the market today (that I am aware of). Using the Gilad approach to "realistic" Business War Games that links key elements of business principles and human psychology results in an intense and focused event that gives the host company the best chance of seeing its strategic challenges, opportunities and options clearly. Caution: What you learn may make you uncomfortable! Tom Oglesby, Competitive Intelligence , ExxonMobil
A must have for CI professionals September 25, 2008
dr*morry
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Instead of hiring external facilitators to prepare, facilitate, and sum up a war game, this time I decided running the game myself using the framework of this book. I followed the suggested time schedule (adapted to an overnight setting) and the result was a definitive success! All participants gained a deeper understanding of the competitive arena, and walked out with the urge to put their knew knowledge and insights to work. Another difference from previous war games we did was that instead of focusing on senior executives and decision makers, a majority of participants were sales people and their managers, with the rest being from several other areas including finance and marketing. We all had a great time and loads of fun - the nerf balls contributing significantly in the second round :-)
 Business War Games September 24, 2008
Arthur G. Grant (Mission Viejo, CA United States)
Business War Games, a catchy title, one almost expects the books author Ben Gilad to thrust the reader into one of those office supply store commercials with employees battling for promotion, or an attempt at framing business strategy with gratuitous quotes from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", rest assured that neither is the case. I am as impressed by what Business War Games isn't. The book isn't about war, it isn't an academic dissertation, and it certainly isn't boring or ethereal. What it is is eminently practical. Unless your in big pharma or the defense industry your competitors likely are not using this incredibly valuable tool on a consistent or realistic basis.
I need to be frank, if you make your living in one of the big consulting firms, promoting six and seven figure war games dependent on hoards of consultants, senior executives of the hiring firm, algorithm laden simulations and expensive computers, you won't like this book. If on the other hand, you want to be able to pressure test your strategies, and tactics, anticipate your competitor's responses and develop counters, model the effectiveness of the competitive environment, anticipate government regulation and industry movements than this book is for you. It will help if you have an understanding of competitive intelligence and how to analyze competitive blind spots. Ben discusses both, however only in sufficient detail to make you realize there may be more books you need to read.
Business War Games, is a practical guide to defining what is to be tested, selecting and compiling the intelligence necessary to pressure test the strategy along with the tools to accomplish the task. He covers the pitfalls, provides tips on keeping individuals off the team that will not add value, even if they are senior execs. He provides checklists and techniques that render them dynamic even kinetic rather than static boxes to be checked. As mentioned above this is not an academic work, Ben doesn't lecture the reader, but rather through experience in hundreds of war games successful and not, imparts his experience to the reader.
Ben Gilad is a leading practitioner in the field of competitive intelligence and leading business war games for Fortune 100 companies. I preordered this book and was excited to receive my copy on the release date. I was just as excited upon completion of the book two days later. The book itself is perfectly sized to be comfortably held in the hand well stuck in an airport or in that coach seat in the middle, fits nicely in your brief case. A very readable book at 205 pages. My only wish is that everyone who reads this book would have had the chance to meet Ben in person and study and practice the art with him in person. He is a rich, motivational and unique resource. This book represents an excellent investment; my hope is that you will enjoy, and that you are not a competitor in my industry.
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