Peter
“After Gates and Slim comes Amancio Ortega, who built the world’s largest fashion empire, Zara. He’s difficult to know, impossible to interview, and incredibly secretive. An exclusive portrait.”
Fortune just published a look at the world’s third richest man, Amancio Ortega, who runs the fashion empire Zara. He achieved his spot near the top of the list by trailblazing an entirely new growth strategy for the company. I’ll cover it in detail in a few days.
For now, read the article.
Buying the N.Y.S.E., in One Shot
I just found an interesting piece in the NYT on the man who’s attempting to buy the NYSE.
With a lead in like this you can’t stop reading till you hit the end:
Growth Strategies: Product Acquisitions
In the theater business there are people who specialize in finding off-Broadway productions with potential. They then tweak them for the big time by reworking the script, recruiting better actors, improving overall production values, providing better promotions, and then relaunching them on Broadway where they will rake in the money.
Back in 2002, Inc. magazine had a brief yet memorable article about a man with a very interesting system for doing basically the same with natural food brands. He finds small regional brands with potential for broader success, acquires them, makes a few production and branding improvements, and then turns them into national brands by running them through his distribution system.
Growth Strategies: Marketing or Acquisitions?
Under some circumstances it makes far more sense to build a company through the acquisition of competitors than it does by attempting to grow organically with more marketing. Take, for example, most businesses which have a subscriber revenue model. Think of ISPs, cable system operators, cell-phone service providers. If an ISP, for example, wishes to start growing at a more aggressive rate it has two basic choices. It can ramp up its marketing efforts and budgets or it can explore a growth through acquisitions strategy.
Robert Greene talks about the lessons from his latest book Mastery.
You are probably familiar with his other titles The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War.
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