Creating Value Through E-Commerce Business Models

As businesses strive to implement innovative web-based initiatives, they increasingly will have to pay attention to e-commerce business models. What exactly is a business model, how does it differ from a revenue model, and why is it so important? Raffi Amit and Christoph Zott answer these questions and more in a new paper called “Value Drivers of E-Commerce Business Models.” They also develop a framework … [ Read more ]

The Art of War

Creating Internet Strategies for Competitive Advantage

For companies that want to approach entrepreneurial opportunities on the Internet seriously-and with a view to turning profits-a new research paper by Sendil Ethiraj, Isin Guler and Harbir Singh offers useful insights. The researchers provide a conceptual framework to analyze Internet strategies, and they also look at business models and examine their components. In addition, Ethiraj, Guler and Singh explore what makes some business models … [ Read more ]

The Trillion-Dollar Race to “E”

The valuation of New Economy players represents a bet by the world’s financial markets that a few companies will leverage the Internet to fundamentally change the competitive game in their industries. It is a gamble that powerful, low-cost business models will emerge; that new businesses will rise from disintermediated value chains, and that some companies will exert such influence that they will generate extraordinary long-term … [ Read more ]

Peter Drucker

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.

Fighting Fire with Water – from Channel Conflict to Confluence

Some retailers are paralyzed into inaction by fear of cannibalizing their existing business; others have been tempted by potential market valuations into creating a spin-off without a coherent channel strategy; and most have been mesmerized by pure plays into thinking there is only one way to compete – on price.

McKinsey Quarterly

an online library of brilliant essays from one of the pre-eminent consulting firms in a host of specific industry areas, as well as broad strategic subjects and new areas like strategy, organization and marketing.

Keeping Fit: The Liz Claiborne Story

Success depends on ‘internal fit’ – the integration of strategy, org structure & other internal systems; A Wharton prof suggests that ‘external fit’ – how well these systems integrate w/ the environment – is equally important

Creating Customer Value Through Industrialized Intimacy

Too many service enterprises are mired in one of two extreme paradigms of service: the skilled servitude model or the service factory model. Your customers demand the best of both approaches — high-quality, intimate service at low service-factory costs. Can you possibly satisfy them?

Increasingly, the answer today is yes. Service companies that are able to integrate information technology effectively into their delivery processes are … [ Read more ]

Rethinking ROI

Some projects have become so important that companies are looking for new ways to measure their return on investment–or are dispensing with ROI studies completely

The Jenga Phenomenon: How eCommerce Is Reassembling Industry

challenges each player to remove as many blocks as possible from a cross-hatched tower of wooden beams and to use them to build additional stories, all without causing the tower to crash.Although the name connotes “building,” the game is about both disassembly and reassembly, and as such forms a fitting analogy for the way eCommerce is plucking out key blocks or leveling and rebuilding towers … [ Read more ]

Competing in Constellations: The Case of Fuji Xerox

The relationship between Xerox and Fuji Xerox, its joint venture in Japan, is the centerpiece of this commentary on how alliances among companies are forging new units of economic power known as “constellations.” Internal rivalry can put constellations at a disadvantage against single-company rivals, and the ability to manage the balance of competition and cooperation is critical to success.