Author: Philip J. Romero

About the book: Businesspersons need to learn accounting, finance, and marketing: skills that allow you to make better business decisions. But success requires both control of these things that you can control, and smart responses to what you can’t control. You can’t control what your competitors do, or your customers. You can’t control the national and international economies. But understanding these equips you to leverage them—protecting yourself from threats, and exploiting opportunities.

The Winner's Toolkit is a guide to the external forces that can affect your business’s future. In academic terms, it is an introductory economics text. But it differs in two key ways:

• It applies economics to corporate strategy, making connections that most business coursesignore.
• It is selective, emphasizing ideas that you really can use—as a business decision-maker, and in your own retirement investing. It is far briefer than traditional textbooks.

This book stresses two key perspectives:

• Economists and public policymakers want industries to be as competitive as possible, since that protects consumers and limits the necessary size of government.
• But business leaders and investors seek to create “moats” that shield their firms from vigorous competition.

Where you will stand on these issues will depend on where you sit. How Competition Works can help you in any of these roles, and help you understand those with whom you must negotiate.

About the author: 

Philip J. Romero is professor of business administration at the University of Oregon’s business school, where he has served as dean. His earlier career includes periods in government economic policymaking as chief economist to the governor of California, in corporate strategy for the chairman of United Technologies Corp., and in national security at the RAND Corp. Romero is a consultant on the economic and competitiveness impacts of proposed policies, a frequent guest on international news programs, and a columnist.