Customer Reviews

Biznets: The "Webopoly" Future of Business--Winning Strategies from the Online Big Six

5 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
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Frank Feather has done it again! BIZNETS truly represents breakthrough business thinking.

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Feather thoroughly analyzes the six most-successful e-commerce companies to reveal the secrets of their success. Then he draws out the common threads of their strategies to present to-the-point mission-critical business strategies that every business needs to apply in the Internet era - whether or not they operate online. Yet he achieves all this in a succinct 140 pages.

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The book starts out with a compellingly-simple overview or premise of what constitutes a "webopoly" biznet, based on the four main "laws" of the Internet revolution (what Feather calls the "webolution"). He explains why companies which exploit these laws can achieve monopoly power - or, in the Internet age, "webopoly" power - by operating as a "biznet." He shows how six best-of-breed biznet pioneers exploit the Web and employ a new "6-P" model of biznet marketing strategy.

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The author then devotes 15-20 pages to each of his selected six cases: Amazon, eBay, Dell, Quixtar, Sears, and Tesco. Each case study stands alone and can be read separately from the rest. Each concludes with bullet-point strategy lessons, based on that case, that any business can learn from.

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The book concludes with a punchy 12-page chapter on the common-element biznet strategies of the case studies. Feather explains why biznet strategy must drive overall corporate strategy, and he reveals six common design and operational features of successful biznets. These features, along with the marketing strategy used by the case study companies, are then tabulated in a cross-comparison two-page spread. This tabulation alone (which Feather also summarizes verbally) is worth the price of the book. The final value-added take-away is a list of 60+ questions for you to brainstorm and consider. Again, this list alone is worth the price tag.

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All in all, BIZNETS is a fabulous business book. It should be of value to any organization, from the largest global corporation to the one-person home entrepreneur, from large government departments to not-for-profit organizations.

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Indeed, I suggest we all need to read BIZNETS to truly understand how the Internet is changing life and commerce. For sure, business strategy and marketing will never be the same. And BIZNETS is a grand-slam home run for those who "get it."

I bought this book after hearing Frank Feather speak at a major Quixtar function. And I could not put it down, and I have re-read it twice since.

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Unlike the previous reviewer, I find the book is packed with research, on all 6 case studies, including the one I am most interested in, Quixtar. Best of all, they don't read like dry academic case studies; they are lively, fast-paced, and to the point.

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How anyone can say this book has no research and is not solidly based is beyond me. And I say that as an MBA grad and a PhD candidate who has read almost every significant English-language business strategy book there is available.

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If you are a business executive or manager, you will gain many unique insights from reading this book. Yes, many of the facts about these 6 cases have been written about in magazines. But who has the time for all that?! BIZNETS pulls the essence of all that stuff together in one place, and then -- the main point of the book -- draws out common threads on why they are successful, and the strategy lessons we can learn from those common threads of success. You will never find those common threads and lessons in any magazine article, nor in a University lecture hall or text book.

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In terms of the Quixtar franchise, which I am using to generate tuition fees and hopefully later build into a major business for myself, Feather offers unique outsider insights which cannot be found elsewhere, and which are an invaluable validation of the business. The world of business is changing dramatically, and those who catch the cusp of this "webolution" (as Feather calls it) will surely benefit.

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I rate BIZNETS a sure 5 stars. It is jam-packed with ideas that can only come from a successful strategy consultant who understands and explains where the Internet is taking us.

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Frank Feather, that amazing futurist who brought us G-Forces, The Future Consumer, and The Future Consumer.Com, is back with his most thoughtful work to date, Biznets. While many authors and business people focus on "selling" on-line, this book looks further into how to make money selling on-line. It's a small, seemingly unimportant distinction, but it makes all the difference.

Consider Tesco. While many have assumed that on-line groceries featuring home delivery can't make money (since so many have failed in this endeavor), Tesco has shown that there's a perfectly valid strategy that leads to good profits and high growth.

Chances are that you are familiar with Amazon.com, Dell and EBay as successful on-line enterprises. Those are three of the six case histories. I found that the material on Quixtar, Sears in Canada and Tesco expanded my knowledge how to create an on-line business that coordinates the needs of many people.

Mr. Feather uses his six case histories well to establish the key elements of strategic choices that can make you a huge winner on-line. The book culminates in an extremely valuable appendix that outlines strategic questions to use for brainstorming what your on-line strategy should be. I cannot imagine a better set of questions! It's like having a top consultant quizzing you for days on important issues you should be focused on.

While many are aware of some aspects of each company's success in the book, it's very helpful to have all six cases developed side-by-side. That permits additional insights to sink in.

There are few who are pursuing on-line selling in such strategically effective ways. Millions of companies (of all sizes) could learn much from this brief and easy-to-follow book.

Like many futurists, Mr. Feather is good at coining terms that encapsulate complex ideas. He carefully defines each of those terms, and you'll soon feel your thinking moving along at a new level of conceptualization as you absorb those new terms. You'll like the feeling.

No doubt that online retail will gain importance in the coming years and that is useful to reflect on the business strategies of large online players like Amazon.
However, the case studies in this book do not really describe new insights. No new research, just a collection of facts that we have read about in business magazines for years now.
Also the language is not helping. It is just as fuzzy as some of the business plans of the early internet start-ups. For example, from eBay we have to learn the strategic lesson "to rapidly scale up a meta-mediary Biznet of solo Webpreneurs (nano-business) to create a global growth phenomenon and ultimately a Webopoly." These kind of pseudo-strategic lessons are numerous, the other strategic lessons are simplistic and presented without much thought.
This book could be useful for someone who never reads business magazines, never visits the web or hasn't read about internet recently. All other persons can skip this book and buy a book that really deals with strategy (have you read Blue Ocean Strategy already?). And if you specifically want to know how to build an online presence, an academic textbook would be a better investment. There are some excellent titles that in clear language demonstrate all necessary steps.