Strategic risk is today’s biggest management challenge. There are more risks with the potential to destroy your business design today than ever before.

For instance, your big project fails, your customers change their preferences and leave you for competitors, the margins compress in your industry, or a technology shift makes your product obsolete.

The Upside shows that through astute anticipation and management of these risks, you can turn the threats on their head and create enormous upside potential. In earthquake-prone regions, prepared architects design shock-proof buildings. In today’s risk-intensive business world, the smartest leaders are designing shock-proof companies.

The more you know—about customers, markets, and the competition—the greater your mastery of risk. Risk is just an expensive substitute for information.

The Upside contains fresh case studies, based on primary research, about the Toyota Prius, Apple iPod, Coach, Tsutaya, Target, Netflix, Continental AG, and others. There are photographs, anecdotes, and analogies from the fields of sports, war, architecture, politics, and space exploration.

Opportunities abound in every business arena. The Upside shows how to identify and exploit them. Find out for yourself.

Praise for The Upside

"The Upside offers a persuasive case that managers must own up to an honest appraisal of strategic risks - both downside and upside. It's the difference between betting smart and just betting."

—Business Week, May 28, 2007

This "important new book" shows how "you can systematically 'de-risk' your enterprise by paying closer attention to how your customers are changing, and by thinking harder about how your market is developing."

—Financial Times, May 10, 2007

“The Upside is all upside—quintessential clear thinking, Slywotzky at his best. Whether you are on the attack or worried about being attacked, this book shows you how to anticipate and capitalize on opportunities and threats others fail to see.”

—Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School, author of The Innovator's Dilemma

“Converting risks into giant opportunities differentiates the leaders of the future. Adrian Slywotzky provides breakthrough thinking in this must-read book.”

—Ram Charan, author of Know-How and coauthor of Execution

“The Upside shows ways to create growth breakthroughs from threats that are both practical and inspiring. This is a must-read book.”

—Philip E. Rowley, CEO of AOL Europe

“One of the key characteristics of successful companies and entrepreneurs is that they are exceptionally skilled in managing risk. The publication of The Upside is very timely indeed. It will help you recognize – and act to take advantage of – the growth opportunities concealed behind the major threats your business will face in the next several years.”

—Dr. Clemens Boersig, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, formerly Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer, Deutsche Bank AG