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The argument in the room is about whether to launch. The argument that decides it is about something else: whether the substitution is going to happen whatever you do. That is a question about your customers with an answer outside your building, and it is cheap to get. This pack separates it from the arithmetic question, names which of four positions you are actually in — two of which are not launch decisions at all — models both paths with the stranded cost treated honestly, and returns the capture share the launch needs, to be read beside the highest your company has ever achieved.
What is the Cannibalization Strategy Pack
The Cannibalization Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: should you launch the thing that takes revenue from your best business? It is built around one organizing claim: the decision contains two questions, and merging them is the error. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a cannibalization model blank and worked, the moves available in each of the four positions, nine sourced decisions, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
Which of the four positions this is, and what capture share the launch actually needs. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The capture share — how much of the switching demand you have to win. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why the cannibalization argument in the room is not the one that decides it
Whether the substitution is going to happen is a question about your customers, and it has an answer outside your building. Whether you should be the one supplying it is a question about your arithmetic. Companies answer the second and assume the first is theirs to decide, which is what makes the conversation feel like a test of courage rather than a calculation.
This pack separates them, prices the second, and puts the answer beside a number your company already has — the highest capture share it has ever achieved in a comparable launch.
The four positions, and only two are cannibalization decisions
| The position | What is true | What the decision actually is |
|---|---|---|
| The substitution is not happening | Customers are not switching; the demand is a hypothesis held internally. | A product launch, judged on its own return. Pricing it as cannibalization kills a good product to protect revenue nothing is threatening. |
| It is happening, and you can supply it | Customers are switching and you have or can build the capability. | Arithmetic: the capture share you need against the one you have ever achieved, and what your launch accelerates. |
| It is happening, and somebody else will | Customers are switching and you cannot serve them at a defensible cost. | Not a launch decision. Harvest deliberately, sell early, buy the capability, or supply the substitute as somebody else's channel. |
| No one can supply it profitably yet | The substitute exists and the economics work for no one, including entrants. | A timing decision. Name what would have to change, instrument it, and hold the review date. |
What is in the Cannibalization Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: the two questions, the four positions, the four things that transfer, the capture share and the two halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a leadership session, with the sourced decisions and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the position, the band, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Cannibalization model. Both paths over ten years, the stranded cost modeled honestly, and the capture share at which launching beats not launching.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves available in each position, including the two positions that are not launch decisions and are usually left with no plan.
- Case studies. Nine sourced decisions read through the four positions, including one launch that was argued as cannibalization and was not one.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the position, the two halts, the required share against the record, the stranded cost, who signed.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, and a trigger agreed in both directions.
- Practitioner manual. Where the new business sits, the stranded cost, measuring the capture share honestly, six failure modes and their indicators.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Cannibalization Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive holding an argument that has become about nerve rather than about numbers; a chief financial officer asked to approve a launch case whose base case is flat; a division head being asked to fund the thing that takes their revenue; a strategy team that can describe the substitution and cannot price it; a board deciding whether a plan is an ambition or a plan; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a course. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter, and the worked case is deliberately uncomfortable: the launch clears on the share in the paper, by $7.2m over ten years, and the share it actually needs is 43.3% against a company record of 30%. Nothing in that says do not launch. It says the plan rests on producing a result the company has never produced, and that belief belongs in the paper as an assumption rather than inside a share number.
Two limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The pack does not tell you whether your substitution is real — that is a question about your customers, answered outside it, and it decides everything else. And this is the decision most damaged by hindsight: every documented case is told afterward as though the substitution was obvious at the time, and the companies that correctly declined to cannibalize a business nothing was threatening leave no record at all. That absence biases every published account toward launching, which is why one of the nine cases is there to correct for it.
This decision, in two minutes
Short videos on companies that faced it, built from the casebooks this pack draws on.
The free guide to this decision
How companies ran this decision, case by case, and the method the pack is built on. Read the guide →
Questions about the Cannibalization Strategy Pack
- What do I need before the model is worth opening?
- Three things, all of which you already hold. The substitution rate: what share of your installed base switched last year, to anybody, from service records, lost-deal data and competitors' published volumes — about four days of one analyst. The removable share of the old business's fixed cost and the period, from whoever would have to run the closure. And the highest capture share this company has ever achieved in a comparable launch, which takes an afternoon. None of the three requires a study or a data provider.
- What number does the model produce?
- The capture share you need: the proportion of switching customers who must buy the substitute from you for launching to be worth more than not launching. It falls out as a division rather than a search, because the launch path is linear in that share. Alongside it, the value of each path, the acceleration your launch can afford before it stops being worth it, and the old fixed cost still being carried in year ten — which is the figure that appears in almost no launch case.
- Our launch case already shows a positive return. What does this add?
- Two checks that most cases fail. First, whether the base case declines: a launch measured against the business held flat is being compared against something that is not on offer, since the switching happens whether or not you launch. Second, whether the old fixed cost is assumed to follow volume — it does not, and in most manufacturing and network businesses under half of it can be removed, over years. In the worked example those two corrections moved the required capture share by eleven points.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced decisions: Netflix, Adobe, Amazon, Kodak, Sony, Snap, Walmart, Porsche, and Philip Morris International. Each is dated, mapped to the position each company was actually in, and each states what its evidence does not establish. One of the nine is a launch that was argued as cannibalization and was not one, and it is in the set deliberately. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- What if the answer is that we should not launch?
- Then the pack has more to say, not less. Two of the four positions are not launch decisions at all, and they have their own move sets: buy the capability, harvest deliberately with dates on it, sell while the decline is visible to you and not yet to a buyer, or supply the substitute as somebody else's channel. A company that concludes it should not launch usually records that conclusion and nothing else, after which the declining business is managed by neglect for several years.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. It is a one-time purchase of a single-organization license, with no seat limit inside your organization and nothing to cancel.
- What is the Cannibalization Strategy Pack?
- The Cannibalization Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: Should you launch the thing that takes revenue from your best business? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, cannibalization model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: which of the four positions this is, and what capture share the launch actually needs. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Cannibalization Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Cannibalization Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: the two questions, the four positions, the four things that transfer, the capture share and the two halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a leadership session, with the sourced decisions and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the position, the band, and either of the two halt conditions. Cannibalization model (Excel, blank and worked) — Both paths over ten years, the stranded cost modeled honestly, and the capture share at which launching beats not launching. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves available in each position, including the two positions that are not launch decisions and are usually left with no plan. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced decisions read through the four positions, including one launch that was argued as cannibalization and was not one. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the position, the two halts, the required share against the record, the stranded cost, who signed. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, and a trigger agreed in both directions. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — Where the new business sits, the stranded cost, measuring the capture share honestly, six failure modes and their indicators. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Cannibalization Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.