Daniel Deneffe is the Managing Director of Deneffe Consulting and a former Partner at Arthur D. Little. He is also a Professor of Strategy and Managerial Economics at Hult International Business School and teaches Business Strategy in the Real World at Harvard University's Division of Continuing Education.

Herman Vantrappen is the Managing Director of Akordeon, a strategic advisory firm. A former partner at Arthur D. Little, he has published numerous articles in a variety of journals, including Long Range Planning, MIT Sloan Management Review, Strategy & Leadership and Harvard Business Review.

List of figures, List of tables, List of boxes, Acknowledgments, About the authors, PART ONE: FROM GRAND STRATEGY TO OPERATIONAL STRATEGY, Chapter 1: The promises of a categorically different book on real-world business strategy, Promise #1: A practical action-oriented approach, based upon doing rather than observing, Promise #2: A generalizable rather than an anecdotal hero-based approach, Promise #3: A totally customerS-centric approach, Promise #4: An evidence-based realistic managerial economics approach, Promise #5: A focus on common principles rather than common truths, Promise #6: A totally open and transparent posture, Structure of the book, Notes, Chapter 2: Grand Strategy as a lead-in to Operational Strategy, The meaning of Grand Strategy, Grand Strategy and Operational Strategy as an end-to-end process, Good practice for the Grand Strategy design process, The merits of Grand Strategy, The payroll services case example, Conclusions, Notes, Chapter 3: The foundations of Operational Strategy, Types of Grand Strategy outcomes to be tested in Operational Strategy, Behavioral assumptions when testing Grand Strategy outcomes, The core concepts of willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-buy, The industrial pump case example, Conclusions, Notes, PART TWO: APPLICATIONS OF OPERATIONAL STRATEGY, Chapter 4: Operationalizing a new market entry strategy, Step 1. Define objectives sensibly and constraints exhaustively, Step 2. Estimate the size of the potential market, Step 3. Estimate the size of the accessible market, Step 4. Define the strategic positioning options, Step 5. Estimate the impact of the options on individual customer choices, Step 6. Derive the impact of the options on aggregate customer choices, Step 7. Derive the impact of competitor responses, Step 8. Select the option with the highest impact on company objectives, Conclusions, Notes, Chapter 5: Operationalizing a defense strategy against a new entrant, The limits of the traditional defense strategy logic, A defense strategy framework based on behavioral logic, The telecommunications case as an example of a "differentiation" defense strategy, The cement case as an example of a "fighting brand" defense strategy, Conclusions, Notes, Chapter 6: Operationalizing a strategy when having zero competitive advantage, Cost cutting and value pricing, A framework for margin improvement in B2B markets, A framework for margin improvement in B2C markets, Conclusions, Notes, Chapter 7: The real-world way forward, No walk-in-the-park, Ideology is of little practical use, Rethink market segments, The end of the average, It's all in the product, Deal value is the single most important notion, Operational Strategy and Grand Strategy go hand-in-hand, Notes, Index