J. Kay, former professor of Business Strategy at the London Business School and former director of the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, would likely be skeptical about the attempted merger of National Bank with Alpha Bank and probably would have predicted its eventual cancellation.

As he thoroughly analyses in this excellent book, mergers and acquisitions often fail because their proponents are driven by the fantasy of growth (the bigger, the better) rather than by the criterion of adding value to their businesses.

As simple as the secret of corporate success is, Kay says, applying it in practice is equally challenging: the sustained competitive advantage of a company arises from creating a few distinct capabilities in the way it operates in specific markets.

Distinct capabilities are formed through the development of a distinct architecture: they are built on a web of stable and continuous relationships that are established within the company by the various parts that compose it, as well as on a web of relationships that the company establishes and nurtures with those it interacts with in its environment.

Successful companies, such as BMW, Glaxo, Honda, and IBM, have managed to create, in their historical journey, a distinct identity that provides them with coherence, helps in the development of intellectual capital, encourages the dense exchange of information and experiences internally, and supports continuous adaptability.

In this book, we see all the characteristics that made Kay's biweekly column in the Financial Times so popular: analytical strength, frequent reference to real company examples, high accessibility, and ongoing interest for the reader thanks to the friendly and easily understandable language.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]