[1][2] In previous books in the trilogy, Zook explained how to expand, exploit, and support the current core of a company's business model.

Finally, companies exhaust these opportunities and have to redefine their cores, making hard decisions and launching a necessary transformation.

When a company tries to redefine its core, often managers follow one of three paths—they commit ever more deeply to what they currently do, they move into segments where they have no experience, or they merge with some other group to create a new megacompany.

[3][4] In this volume, Zook draws upon an even wider and deeper wealth of research sources that include about fifty interviews, mostly of CEOs.

No company is forever “unstoppable” but most (if not all) companies can take full advantage of the information and counsel Zook provides in this book to find correct answers to all three of these questions achieve core renewal without “leaps to distant and hot new markets, …being the first adopter of a pioneering new strategy,..[or making] a ‘big bang’ acquisition.” In fact, unless a given organization has “beaten the odds” by sustaining profitable growth, it should first define or redefine its core assets and then grow or renew them, before committing any resources to organizational and/or territorial expansion.—Review by First Friday Book Synopsis[5]