The ACS Blog

Succeeding Without Competing By Mark Chussil Look at your life. What’s the sweetest success you have experienced? Bring up the memory of that event or feat. Savor it. Think of what you did to achieve it; think of how you worked, struggled, and risked; think of how you felt when your goal was finally in […]

The Holy Grail of Competing By Mark Chussil Disruption and blue ocean are the holy grails of competing. With them, you don’t even have to compete. Blue ocean is pacific. It’s gentle, as grails go; it doesn’t bother anyone; it’s just wonderful and new. Disruption is the bad boy of holy grails. It sees the […]

Celebrity and Strategy By Mark Chussil Here’s a true story. A friend of mine won the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) champion­ship some years ago. He laments that his skill is in bowling and not in golf. His prize was nice but the Professional Golf Association (PGA) championship paid seven times as much in that year. […]

One-Trial Learning By Mark Chussil I love data. I spent 15 years working with the PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategy) database alongside academic luminaries. (I was in the room but I was not in their league.) Many years later, I think it’s fun to run and analyze a few billion simulations before breakfast. I […]

Between You and Glory by Mark Chussil Good news! There are only two obstacles between you and glory for your startup. Bad news. The first obstacle is your competitors. Worse news. The second obstacle is your investors, who don’t want to hear about the first ob­stacle. Good news! There’s hope despite your competitors and investors. […]

Can You Out-strategize a Couple Thousand People? The Top Pricer Tournament™ is a state-of-the-art business simulation that pits your pricing strategies against those from 1,900 (as of November 2019) other people from around the world. With all those entrants, the Tournament runs more than 17 billion simulations (17 gigasims!) to see whose strategies work best. […]

Some of these essays are about competitive strategy and strategic thinking; some are not. “Are Capitalists Copping Out?” “We Will Play Soothing, Uninterrupted Music While You Wait.” “The Formerly United States of America.” And more.

Harvard Business Review (HBR.org) has posted essays by ACS’ Mark Chussil. Here are links.

Two takes on Uber and its high-profile, highly controversial tactics. Who’s the bad guy, Uber, Lyft, or the media?

Would you invest in a business with good fundamentals but (currently) bad performance, or a business with bad fundamentals but (currently) good performance? In other words, are you a gambler?