Unstoppable: Finding the Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf - Brief article - Book review

Unstoppable: Finding the Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth. By Chris Zook. Harvard Business School Press, 190 pages. $29.95.

Chris Zook is starting to sound like a personal trainer fixated on "the core." His two previous books were Profit from the Core and Beyond the Core, so he hasn't strayed far from his, er, core message.

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But Zook, the head of Bain & Co.'s Global Strategy practice, has clearly limned a vital business concept: companies have a central, or core, franchise that they need to protect, expand if possible and--as he posits in this new book--renew.

Here, Zook argues that executives need to focus on organic growth and look deep within the recesses of their company to find undervalued, unrecognized or underutilized assets. These may be in the form of business platforms, customer insights or new capabilities that can serve as the building blocks for new and sustainable growth.

Unstoppable features more than 30 in-depth interviews with CEOs...