Profit from the Core: Growth Strategy in an Era of Turbulence.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Review

By Chris Zook, with James Allen. Harvard Business School Press, 186 pages. $27.50.

Well-crafted and lucidly written, Profit from the Core is evidence that a book doesn't have to be a tome to carry weight. The authors, both from consulting experts Bain & Co. (though Allen has since left to head a venture capital firm), argue that fully 90 percent of companies around the world failed to deliver sustained, profitable growth during the 1990s. The chief problem, they argue, was that companies diversified from their core businesses.

Drawing from hundreds of interviews, the authors key in on three factors that they say distinguish successful growth...