Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs [Hardcover]

God forbid that doing business and making money on the Internet should bear any resemblance whatsoever to the past millennium of capitalism before our clunky bricks-and-mortar marketplace started going virtual--that would be too easy. Nope, it's a whole different ballgame now, and the new rule is: adapt or die. At least that's the message behind Digital Capital.

From the three principles at cyber consultant Alliance for Converging Technologies (one of whom, Tapscott, authored the bestsellers The Digital Economy and Growing up Digital), the book's pet paradigm for global takeover is what they call the business web, or "b-web" for short--in their words, "strategically aligned, multi-enterprise partner networks of producers, suppliers, service providers, infrastructure companies and customers that conduct business communication and transactions via digital channels." In our words, that's more like an eBay, a Cisco, a Dell, an MP3.com, a Linux ...in short, any enterprise that a) knows how to form lateral partnerships with other goods- or service-providers, and b) eliminates the role of planes, trains and automobiles--not to mention lots of time, money and human energy--by doing almost everything over the 'Net. Not only do the authors provide a wealth of b-web case studies (including Schwab, Priceline, Webvan, AT&T Solutions and OptiMark in addition to those mentioned above), they outline in the latter part of the book a step by-step process for "weaving" a b-web of one's own.

Too often,Digital Capital's smart, sound ideas come marinated in think tank jargon so alienated from plain English as to be near-impenetrable. Consider: "Disaggregation leads to 'disintermediation' and 'reintermediation'", which, believe it or not, isn't a line French film theorists use in pick-up bars, but the simple fact that business webs manage to cut out a lot of the traditional intermediary steps between producers and customers--now why couldn't they just have said that? After you nibble through the self-important MBA-ese, you'll find a smart look at how online shops are rewiring early-21st century capitalism.--Timothy Murphy, Amazon.com

'An impressive read...'

'Many Internet books are little more than get-rich-quick manuals updated with on-line jargon. Digital Capital is different. It is thoughtful and well-researched, and it puts the Internet firmly in the context of what has gone before. By comparing the effects of the Internet to other business movements it produces some genuinely useful insights into how firms and markets ar likely to be shaken up. ...it will make you think again.'

'An impressive guide to creating value for customers and wealth for shareholders: make it your e-reading this autumn.'

'Where Digital Capital excels (and many other business books fail) is in recognising that all e-businesses are not the same, and that the business model that creates success and prosperity for one business may not be appropriate for another. The book's strength lies in the way it dissects the concept of the b-web, breaking it down into five basic subtypes: agoras, aggregations, value chains, alliances and distributive networks... Clearly this information is potentially valuable to entrepreneurs seeking to formulate new business strategies. But Digital Capital also has much to offer business leaders in established organizations.'

New relationships - both business-to-business and business-to-consumer, not possible before the Net - enable firms to co-evolve in online business communities. These communities are the most powerful weath-creation engine in the digital economy. A new form of commercial organization, enabled by digital technology, they are the emerging model for wealth creation and successful commerce. In this book, Don Tapscott explores the phenomenon of e-commerce and e-business and sets out to crack the code of success within these fields. It also shows how to create new Internet-enabled customer value propositions.

Don Tapscott is an internationally renowned speaker and the bestselling author of The Digital Economy and co-author of Blueprint to the digital Economy, Paradigm Shift, and Who Knows. He is chairman of the Alliance for converging Technologies which represents the collaborative effort of ca. 40 of the world's leading technology, manufacturing, and retail organizations. He is also the president of the New Paradigm Learning Corporation. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.