News & Opinion

Blueprint to a Billion Revised

Aaron Schleicher

July 29, 2009

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It is rare that a management book is revised. David Thomson's Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth is an exception. Thomson's original work, which achieved top 10 positions on our 2006 and 2007 Best Seller list, presented a case that teams can learn from best practices.

532959_cover.inddIt is rare that a management book is revised. David Thomson's Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth is an exception. Thomson's original work, which achieved top 10 positions on our 2006 and 2007 Best Seller list, presented a case that teams can learn from best practices. Unlike many other books, his platform for insights and the actions that propel companies to achieve exceptional growth was quantitative. Besides the insightful financial pattern unique to companies that grow from a million to a billion in revenue, his presentation of the 7 Essentials present a case for the management practices required to achieve exponential growth. Times have changed since 2007. Clearly, we hear that management teams are redefining their business plans to navigate turbulent markets, high uncertainty and potentially reduced customer demand.

In the new edition, Thomson presents the case that America continues to generate 34 companies per year through this down economic cycle: which is surprisingly quite consistent with his original findings. What seems aligned with today's economic times is the failure rate of IPO companies has increased from 25% to 60%. The year the original Blueprint book was published, HCL Technologies, --now one of the top 20 Most Influential Companies in the World according to BusinessWeek-- independently launched a Blue Print strategy session to mobilize their company to achieve continued growth. Thomson presents HCL and its 7 Essentials as an interesting and real world case study.

Thomson's choice to keep the original 7 Essentials chapters intact as a comparison to HCL's 7 Essentials case study, which occurred after the book was originally released, is another proof point that this success pattern is prescriptive and can be applied by management teams going forward to achieve growth in a turbulent economy. To inquire about ordering copies of the Revised Edition of Blueprint to a Billion, contact Aaron at aaron at 800ceoread dot com or call 414-274-4459.

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