Quotes About Business

Strategy can be viewed as building defenses against the competitive forces or finding a position in the industry where the forces are weakest. P.35

El valor es la capacidad de satisfacer o rebasar las necesidades de los clientes, y también de hacerlo eficientemente.

quality differentials have a tendency to erode as an industry matures

Competition in the current system is at the same time too broad, too narrow, and too local.

I think historically where we [venture capitalists] fail is when we back technology. Where we succeed is when we back new business models.

Cash Cows: Businesses with high relative share in low-growth markets will produce healthy cash flow, which can be used to fund other, developing businesses.

It is the "threat of entry", not whether "entry" actually occurs, that holds down profitability. p.26

Rivalry is especially destructive to profitability if it gravitates solely to price because price competition transfers profits directly from an industry to its customers. P.32

In essence, the job of the strategist is to understand and cope with competition. P. 25

It is rare to find a business partner who is selfless. If you are lucky it happens once in a lifetime.

The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation, and communication

Theology, not morality, is the first business on the church's agenda of reform, and the church, not society, is the first target of divine criticism.

Modern creditors avert public cancellation of debts (and making banks a public utility) by pretending that lending provides mutual benefit in which the borrower gains – consumer goods now rather than later, or money to run a business or buy an asset that earns enough to pay back the creditor with interest and still leave a profit for the debtor.

Commercial "silver" debts among traders and other entrepreneurs were not subject to these debt jubilees. Rulers recognized that productive business loans provide resources for the borrower to pay back with interest, in contrast to consumer debt. This was the contrast that medieval Schoolmen later would draw between interest and usury.

Innovation is the creation and delivery of new customer value in the marketplace.

Honesty is the best policy. It's also the most profitable.

Trump had this urge to be a really big name, so he cultivated celebrity. But his lifestyle was surprisingly unglamorous. He's quite disciplined in some ways. Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, lives above the store. He was not a big New York socialite, never was. He basically enjoyed going upstairs and watching the tube. What he was interested in was celebrity and his businesses—construction, real estate, gambling, wrestling, boxing." •

People were always asking him who the real Donald Trump was—was the bombastic, boastful billionaire he played in the media merely a character designed to enhance his business? They didn't get it, he insisted. He was exactly what he presented to the public: a man of business, in it for himself, in it to win. He

A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

Those who need leaders are not qualified to choose them. In a sense, asking people to make political decisions is like asking them to forecast the weather. They're not in a position to do so, and it is silly to expect them to. Democracy entails people who run their businesses well being forced to run their businesses poorly by people who can't run businesses at all.

One of the sanitarium's earliest guests was a marketing whiz named C. W. Post, who took the baths, ate the meals, and, inspired by what he experienced there, eventually went into business for himself.

Well, that's what the consumer wants, and we're not putting a gun to their head to eat it. That's what they want. If we give them less, they'll buy less, and the competitor will get our market. So you're sort of trapped.

Certainly the advent of technology and electronic commerce has had an immense impact on the real estate industry.

In business, words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.