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The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Sepcialization: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization (Hardcover)

by John Hagel III (Author), John Seely Brown (Author) "We live in challenging times, and our challenges are neither new nor temporary ..." (more)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

Hardcover: 218 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (1 May 2005)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1591397200
ISBN-13: 978-1591397205
Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 424,493 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Financial Times

Hagel and Seely Brown are among the most insightful analysts of trends in management...Compelling ideas.

Review

'John Hagel and John Seely Brown are among the most insightful analysts of trends in management. [The Only Sustainable Edge] contains some compelling ideas about the challenge facing a lot of businesses: the growth in competition caused by lowered trade barriers and technological change…Some thoughtful analysis of probably the biggest business challenge of the age.' (Financial Times )

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
We live in challenging times, and our challenges are neither new nor temporary. Read the first page

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4.0 out of 5 stars Analyses and Prescriptions for Bringing More Actionable Knowledge into Your Organization, 18 Oct 2007

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Around 1990, business reached one of those tipping points that change everything: You could now add knowledge, expertise, and capability better and more cheaply by involving those outside your organization than you could by building up your organization internally.

Authors John Hagel III and John Seely Brown focus on a few elements of this change as it had developed into management practices by 1995, outline the benefits of going in this direction, and describe what to do in broad outlines.

They build the book around five big themes:

1. Process outsourcing and offshoring provide access to specialization that you cannot otherwise match.

2. Flexible connections with suppliers, customers, and distributors allow you to make the most of these relationships.

3. Letting outsiders help establish the plan and agenda allows you to go in more productive directions than if your organization calls all of the shots.

4. Strategy development has to shift towards building capabilities from these dimensions. Prior approaches to strategy development are largely obsolete.

5. Shifting IT architecture and software to permit rapid flexibility in adding connections to other organizations.

The book will remind you of a shorter version of Michael Porter's books on competitive advantage and competitive strategy, except with a changed focus on developing capabilities. The book also shares Porter's affinity for using abstractions and general language that makes it hard to follow the arguments in the book. Also like Porter, you won't find very many examples.

What I found most inexplicable about the book is the authors that ignored the broader topic of continuing business model innovation (the issues presented here are just a subset of those opportunities) and the newer ways that companies are accessing new knowledge and capabilities (such as through the worldwide contests conducted by Goldcorp and Procter & Gamble). Indeed, I was shocked to see none of the most successful business model innovators cited in the book. Instead, there are lots of references to narrow studies that describe obsolete practices for strategy and implementation.

But if you want to learn how to rapidly throw together a global sourcing and distribution network for a large company that can be flexibly changed as the needs arise, this book is an excellent resource.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction to some important global trends, 6 Jul 2007

By	James Taylor "Enterprise Decision Management ... (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I recently heard John Hagel present on this book. In the book John and his co-author John Seely Brown discuss how recent changes in the world will force, indeed are forcing, companies to change how they think about offshoring and outsourcing, innovation and even their core business processes. They describe how a combination of "Converging forces generate margin squeeze" where those forces are digital technology (driving down interaction costs) and public policy (deregulation, trade and market liberalization and globalization). These trends are certainly real and visibly changing our world as we watch. Not only can "Customers can access more information about more vendors, negotiate more effectively with still more vendors, and switch from one vendor to another whenever they find greater value" but companies have more options for how to piece together the resources they need to do business. These new conditions and options, though, require companies to change the way they plan, operate and turn a profit and it is these changes that the book mostly discusses. The authors argue that these trends and opportunities are actually changing what it means to be a company. Redefining the role of the firm from economizing on market transactions, the original raison d'etre of most companies, to one of accelerating knowledge and capability growth.

The book does a good job of showing how some companies are competing in ways that would be unimaginable just a few years ago and the authors lay out a compelling case that companies who do not respond to these new threats and opportunities are taking an enormous risk. Whether or not you believe the change will be as widespread as the book implies, the changes are real and will impact your business to at least some degree and this makes the book worth reading.

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