Customer Reviews

Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control In The Age Of Temporary Advantage

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It would be a mistake to be employed in some supply chain capacity and *not* read this book. I believe that it offers an intriguing set of solid examples of how incorporating supply chain management into strategy discussions has helped some companies profit at the expense of others.

Some commenters have noted that examples seem anecdotal. I tend to think that Fine's approach here, in going into depth with just a few examples, is a richer basis upon which to draw conclusions. You don't necessarily need a statistically significant sample set in order to gain insights into how to conduct strategy.

I would also take issue with one reviewer's note that it is overly geared towards manufacturing, rather than services. Managing supply chains and conducting make-buy decisions are clearly the province of operations. But shouldn't consulting services develop precisely those areas of expertise in order to assist their biggest clients?

A note of disclosure: I took Fine's course on this subject while at MIT. While I wouldn't trade having been in that graduate seminar for 100 books, if you can't take the course, at least read the book! Doing so brought back the pleasure for me of being in his class.

I enjoyed this book and found it useful. The concepts in this book are widely applicable to a variety of situations. The book addresses many cases in large institutions; however, many of the concepts also can be applied at the project or start-up level. Several concepts in the book are applicable to common situations: 1) Virtual Company: This framework allows one to assess whether a company has enough capability to remain a virtual company or eventually become a "hollow" company. By using the 3-d and the key characteristics frameworks, Prof. Fine provides a good understanding of which areas of the value chain to keep under control. Of course, to retain a very small asset base initially, one could potentially outsource areas where the company does not have the capacity or capability, but should be looking to bring in-house those functions that have been outsourced for capability. 2) Combining the clockspeed concept and the double helix with the "innovator's dilemma" and marketspace concepts generates some useful insights. When the helix starts turning, from a integral solution to a modular form, that is an optimum time to be forming an entrepreneurial company. When the helix is switching back to vertically integrated industry structure, that implies a mature market with consolidation that is not as inducive to entrepreneurship. At the switch from integral to modular, you will see many growing markets. Though the entire market may not grow, the actual marketspaces will grow tremendously and create new value propositions. This is the middle of the classic "S" curve where the venture capitalists tend to invest, and it is the time where "clunky" upstarts begin their innovations - similar to the electric cars in the innovator's dilemma.

This morning I was listening to a lecture from Brad Geagley of Disney Imagineering describing their new retail theme parks "DisneyQuest." Just as Disney always does, they are applying the latest technology to entertainment. Mr. Geagley described how Disney has to keep certain elements of its attractions upgradeable because the technology is changing at different rates. The mechanical aspects (head-mounted displays, etc.) are designed in-house with lengthy half-lives. Other parts, like the software and animation technology, are changing every few months. Some technologies are outsourced (Silicon Graphics), while other aspects such as the animation are proprietary and done in-house. All of these made me immediately think that these guys should get a copy of this book. They would feel much more in control of the process.

Thanks Prof. Fine.

This book has some really interesting threads around supply chain design competency, clockspeed, and learning from industry fruit flies, but the real value of the book is in between all of that. For years, there have been wonderful insights into technology strategy, product architecture, manufacturing strategy, etc. etc. roaming around the halls of MIT and throughout journal articles. The only way to really tap this depth of knowledge is by being there. Charlie has woven these thoughts, ideas, and concepts throughout the book rather seemlessly. If you read the book carefully, and think very hard about some of the nuggets throughout the book, I'm sure it will be worth your time.

Clockspeed is a good example of the thirst for books on eCommerce. The premise of the book is largely based around a cute concept "clockspeed" with a call to concurrently engineer process, product, and supply chains. All good premises, however, the author does little to tell you how those should fit together in pragmatic terms. The book is most helpful for people in manufacturing where all of the examples are from and not people working in the services markets, where clockspeed has some real meaning. A visit to the authors web site is futher demoralizing as Fine has decided to set up a consulting practice around the concept and book. Overall this is not the best book I've read on working in the electronic economy.

Which of the following is the most important competence of an organization?

A. Leadership

B. Customer service

C. Market dominance

D. Innovation

E. Supply chain design

If you chose E, then you and Charles Fine would get along famously. Fine believes that everything can be explained and even controlled by optimizing the supply chain. Industry evolution, competitive advantage, vertical integration, you name it: all are grist to the mill of supply chain dynamics. And as you trek through increasingly dense thickets of his book, studying such exotic flora as design structure matrices and 3-D concurrent engineering, Fine accompanies you in the role of pith-helmeted guide, discoursing upon the ineluctable primacy of his favorite subject.

You don't have to be a convert to the cult of the supply chain to see value in this book. But you do have to love metaphors. Fearing lest the reader find the subject a trifle dry, the author has chosen to frame his arguments in terms of genetics. In industries with faster clockspeeds - the rapid supply chain evolutions experienced by makers of personal computers, semiconductors, and even running shoes - companies are fruit flies, whose evolution we can observe from egg to carcass. Only the fittest and most adaptable survive, largely by applying the power of the double helix of business. The DNA can be mapped, the molecules engineered, the genes enriched and cloned, and so on.

Illustration by analogy has its place, but over the long haul it palls and wearies. What should have been a straightforward book on supply chains ends up distracting with a glib vocabulary. Can a Mobius-strip cycle between the integrated and the modular be termed a "double helix" if it doesn't establish a genetic code or look like a corkscrew ladder? Should we learn from fruit fly companies because their clockspeed is conveniently short, or because every company's clockspeed is accelerating? If real-life fruit flies are studied because their genetic structure resembles that of humans, are we wise to assume that Intel has the same genetic structure as Boeing? What is a corporate genetic structure, anyway?

Clockspeed would tick along more convincingly if it lost the first sixty-eight pages. There'd still be plenty of arguments - whether Fine's observations apply to non-manufacturing organizations, whether the laws of the supply chain are truly predictive - but they would at least be the right arguments, the sort of thoughts a stimulating work provokes. Unfortunately, the siren call of metaphor has lured an otherwise seaworthy vessel onto rocky shores. By the time the ship is put to sea again, you may have lost your taste for the voyage.

I find the book is divided in two books:
1. analysis of supply chains, understanding an industry, and how you can draw conclusions and foresee the future,
2. how to work with supply chains; what to build or buy and how to treat your suppliers, etc.
I am interested in the analysis and not supply chain so the first part of the book was pleasing.

I will tell you why I liked the first part of the book:
a) Fine describes how fast an industry is "updated". From the slowest (ex: military and civic flight) to the fastest (ex: mobile telephony, internet, etc). This made me understand why mobile operators have lost the war against the Nokias of the world, and why all are afraid when Google and Yahoo! enters the mobile space.

b) He then tells you why an industry is VERTICAL with
integral/integrated parts or HORIZONTAL with modular parts and what drives an industry to change, and why the change goes back and forth over time. This was absolutely fantastic for me because it really explained the rationale behind internal development, niches and outsourcing.

The rest of the book describes ethics and philosophy within supply chain dynamics, how to control sourcing, and simple rules of why to build or buy.

Fine writes in a simple language, but the toolbox he gives you is complex and made me understand the industry I work in with new eyes!

Charley Fine's contribution in Clockspeed is his unique combination of an analysis of the development speed of different industries with his "double helix" description of the industry trends toward vertical integration or its opposite. Understanding these trends and the pace of the evolution of your "ecological habitat" and gaining value chain advantage in your chosen niche is vitally important to high tech startups whose very lives depend on operating at maximum clockspeed. I am recommending the book to my venture partners and to every startup we are considering for investment.

Clockspeed succeeds at both providing deeper insights than a typical business book and in being very interesting to read. Fine explores the fascinating dynamics of competition and competitive advantage, and explains puzzles like why the computer industry has gone from being highly vertically integrated to being a disintegrated network of competing and cooperating firms. Going beyond description and explanation, Clockspeed provides concrete steps managers can take to ensure that their companies survive industry turbulence.

Fine's book creates clear connection among Supply Chain, Product Development and Manufacturing activities. MIT's Professor Fine establishes an operational and strategic link among those company's environment. The book put in a plain text how to analyze you supply chain and how to design it accordly a strategy view. Finally, Supply Chain Design is proclaimed as being essential to assure competitive advantage and to sustain the company's progress. If you want to really understand supply chain, it is a book that you must read!

Professor Fine makes a tremendously strong and lucid case for utilizing supply chain design as a functional catalyst in optimizing business strategy and evolution.

In a world of chronic oversupply and fear, Professor Fine sheds light on how managers and corporations can take control of their destiny instead of destiny and fate taking control of the managers and corporations.