Growth Gamble When Business Leaders Should Bet Big on New Businesses-and How They Can Avoid Expensive Failures

Too many companies kiss a lot of frogs in search of a prince. The Growth Gamble shows you how to spot princes at a distance.

More and more corporations are experiencing a "growth gap" when the natural growth of their core businesses is not enough. Nearly every company tries to create new legs for its mature portfolio, yet as many as 99 percent of companies fail to create successful new growth platforms.

Based on extensive new research The Growth Gamble is a major new book on the toughest challenge in management - finding, getting into and growing new businesses. Its startling conclusions will help you to "Stop Kissing Frogs!" and enter only the most promising and profitable sectors for you company's strengths. Most importantly, the book will arm you with practical tools to help your company make the right decision based on a Traffic Lights Toolkit - a powerful screening and strategic thinking tool that helps managers identify real opportunities and learn to "Only Go On Green."

With some startling "red light" conclusions, this exciting new book gives alternatives, equipping practitioners with the tools which help them to make the right decisions and identify good prospects without the trial and error.

Andrew Campbell is a Director of Ashridge Strategic Management Centre and an active consultant for major corporate clients. He is also a Visiting Professor at City University and previously a Fellow in the Centre for Business Strategy at the London Business School. Before that he was a consultant for six years with McKinsey & Co, working on strategy and organization problems in London and Los Angeles. Andrew Campbell holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was a Harkness Fellow and a Baker Scholar. He has published numerous articles, including six with the Harvard Business Review, and his previous books include Designing Effective Organisations, Synergy, Core Competency-Based Strategy, Breakup!, Corporate-Level Strategy, and Strategic Synergy. Website: www ashridge.com/andrewcampbell

Robert Park has 25 years experience in the UK banking sector, the last 12 with the NatWest Group as Head of Group Strategy. He is now an independent consultant and an Associate of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre.