Martin Christopher is Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Logistics at Cranfield University's School of Management. He is the author of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (FT Press) and Marketing Logistics (Routledge) as well as the Founding Editor of The International Journal of Logistics Management.

Offers a framework for achieving super performance

Preface and acknowledgements01 What we mean by business operations models - and why are they important?
The business operations model framework
Case study: the Southwest Airlines success story02 The characteristics of super-performing businesses
The FT Global 500 rankings
The Gartner top 25
The five levers and the business operations model
Financial engineering through the business operations model
Super-performers can be disruptors03 The customer lens - understanding compelling value
The 'time-sensitive' customer
Performance rather than products
Case study: Irish Fertilizers
Case study: e-commerce delivery models04 The strategy operations gap
What is strategy?
The gap between strategy and operations
Reinventing your business model
Value disciplines
The power of process
Business process redesign for strategic transformation
The balanced scorecard
Conclusion05 Unpacking the business operations model framework
Scenarios for transformation or disruption06 The technology dimension to being a disruptorDisruptive evolutions in freight
Digitization - the 21st-century 'steam engine'
The business operations model: Maxims for exploiting technological innovation
Case study: Uber Technologies
Case study: Apple
Case study: Amazon07 Market-changing models - driving transformation
Go-to-market choices - a key to overall economic performance and customer access
Channels-to-market - effective intermediation or disintermediation
Service-dominant logic - transforming the proposition
Commercial focus - driving and leveraging scale through buying and pricing
Case study: Dell
Case study: Kingfisher/B&Q
Emerging maxims for using channels as a disruptive competitive capability08 Competing through the basics
Internal transformation and the 'power of 1 per cent'
Obliterating waste
The cost of complexity
Lean and Six Sigma - a transformation concept
Case studies - introduction
Case study: Aldi
Case study: WH Smith
Case study: Toyota and the ascendency of the Japanese auto industry09 Optimization of the business operations model
The new optimization - busting the paradigm or redefining the algorithms
Fulfilment networks
Service and support
Sourcing and manufacturing
Demand and supply planning
End-to-end cost of service and supply and commercial control
Case studies - introduction
Case study: Addis Housewares
Case study: health-care consumables manufacturing and distribution
In conclusion - optimizing is about finding a new model10 Making it happen - becoming a disruptor
Actions for realization - the 'crystal of change'
Overcoming disbelief
Don't underestimate serendipity
It should never be too late - but sometimes it is
Case study: Southwest Airlines
Case study: Christie-Tyler
Case study: John Lewis Partnership
Case study: Woolworths11 Guiding principles to building a competitive edge through business operations models
Building a new business operations model by selecting from the elements
The importance of analytics in design
Driving change through the crystal, building road maps for the journey
Symbols for change
Challenges and risks for innovation and change
In conclusionReferences
Index