Collaborative Advantage: Winning through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks [Hardcover]

Jeffrey H. Dyer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195130685 | ISBN-13: 978-0195130683 | Publication Date: November 16, 2000

Why has Chrysler been twice as profitable as GM and Ford during the 1990s even though it is a much smaller company with plants that are less efficient than Ford's? Why does Toyota continue to have substantial productivity and quality advantages long after knowledge of the Toyota Production System has diffused to competitors? The answer, according to Jeff Dyer, is that Toyota and Chrysler have been the first in their industry to recognize that the fundamental unit of competition has changed--from the individual firm to the extended enterprise.
In this book Dyer demonstrates the power of collaborative advantage, arguing that, in the future, competitive advantage will increasingly be created by teams of companies, rather than by the single firm. Managers who do not recognize this development--regardless of their industry--are in danger of adopting the wrong strategies for their firms. Dyer draws on eight years of study of the automotive industry, including a wealth of data from interviews with over 200 executives and surveys of over 500 suppliers, as he offers detailed case studies of Toyota and Chrysler to show managers how to create collaborative advantage with their supplier networks. Dyer demonstrates how to build trust in the extended enterprise, how to exploit and manage knowledge (describing how Toyota manages knowledge across organizational boundaries), and how to create advantages through dedicated asset investments. In turn, these processes generate stunning performance advantages and an identity for the extended enterprise.
To be successful in future years, executives will have to convert their corporations into fully integrated, extended enterprises. In Collaborative Advantage, Jeff Dyer shows them how.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Collaborative Advantage is built upon solid scholarship and practical experience. It is not a one-size-fits-all missionary treatise for a managerial technique. Rather, its solid theoretical framework helps us understand what types of supplier relationships are best in various situations, and then frames a practical process for building them. This is a very good book that every manager concerned about competitive advantage should read." --Clayton Christiansen, Professor at Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator's Dilemma

"Jeff Dyer has done a great job of defining the process and rationale behind Chrysler's Extended Enterprise concept. Hopefully, it will continue to be a template for others to follow to implement Supply Chain Management in their companies."--Thomas Stallkamp, Vice Chairman and CEO, MSX International; formerly Vice Chairman of DaimlerChrysler Corporation

About the Author

Jeffrey H. Dyer holds the Donald Staheli Chair in International Strategy at the Marriott School, Brigham Young University. Before joining the faculty at BYU, he was a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. As a private, and former Bain & Company, consultant, he worked with companies such as Motorola, Ford, Baxter International, Navistar, and Bang & Olufsen. He lives in Highland, Utah.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195130685
• ISBN-13: 978-0195130683
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeff Dyer is the recent author (along with Hal Gregersen and Clayton Christensen) of The Innovator's DNA, a culmination of years of academic research. Dr. Dyer (Ph.D., UCLA, 1993) is a Professor of Strategy at the Marriott School, BYU where he serves as Chair of the Department of Organizational Leadership and Strategy. Before joining BYU, Dr. Dyer was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School where he maintains an adjunct professor position and continues to teach Executive MBAs and in Executive Programs. Dr. Dyer's experience includes five years as a consultant and manager at Bain & Company, where he consulted with such clients as Baxter International, Kraft, Maryland National Bank, Kraft, and First National Stores.

Dr. Dyer's research and consulting has focused on innovation, change, alliances, and effective collaboration, both within and across organizations. He is the only strategy scholar in the world to have published five times in Strategic Management Journal (the top academic journal in strategy) and Harvard Business Review (the top practitioner journal). His research has been very impactful, as evidenced by the fact that Dr. Dyer was recognized by Essential Science Indicators as the17th most cited scientist (1996-2006) in the combined fields of management, finance, marketing, operations, and economics. He was ranked as the 4th most cited management scholar. His research has won awards from the Academy of Management, Institute of Management Science, Strategic Management Society, and McKinsey & Company. His Oxford book, Collaborative Advantage, was awarded the Shingo Prize Research Award.

Dr. Dyer regularly consults and conducts training programs in the areas of innovation, change, and strategy. His past clients include Bang & Olufsen, Boeing, Ford, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and MEMC. He teaches in executive programs at the Wharton School, Northwestern University, and UCLA. He has won numerous teaching awards, including the University of Pennsylvania's top award, the "Excellence in Teaching Award."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, April 6, 2001

By 

Amrit Tiwana "www.bus.iastate.edu/tiwana" (Decatur, Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collaborative Advantage: Winning through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks (Hardcover)

Having followed Dyer's other research, I think that this is a theoretically elegant piece of work. He builds further on his pieces in SMJ (with Singh from Wharton) and AMR and illustrates the concepts of relationship-based assets in firm networks. The running exemplar has he uses (Toyota) illustrates his theoretical arguments quite elonquently. The book also highlights the limitations of his concept of collaborative advantage, and his closing chapter illustrates how cultural differences (here with Benz) can keep this strategy from becoming reality. This book is not for folks looking for cut-out recipies. This book is a MUST for researchers and managers who like to think instead of searching for cookbooks! The concluding chapter is a gem because it highlights our gaps in knowledge. This is an excellent book, and having read Dyer's other works, it's high quality comes as very little surprise. Buy, own, read, reread, and profusely highlight your own copy! VERY highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recomended!, March 22, 2001

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collaborative Advantage: Winning through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks (Hardcover)

Jeffrey Dyer, an accomplished scholar and management teacher, has developed a cogent and sophisticated theory of extended enterprise management based on a wealth of empirical data from the history of Toyota in Japan and from his six-year study of Chrysler Corp. before its merger with Daimler-Benz. Beyond being a detailed and rigorous case study of the automobile manufacturing industry, Dyer's book presents an extremely valuable model for vertical integration. His model can be applied to other complex product industries, though he is honest about the limits of its applicability. This book provides a clear, effective blueprint for achieving value-chain collaboration. We [...] recommend it to consultants, executives in complex product industries and leaders in firms that supply components or materials. If you always suspected you were part of a greater whole, now you can be sure.

5.0 out of 5 stars Success through suppliers, January 17, 2003

By 

B.Sudhakar Shenoy (India) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collaborative Advantage: Winning through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks (Hardcover)

The pursuit of knowledge that gives us an understanding of factors that determine success in the market place has always considered "the firm" as the unit of analysis. This has been the case with microeconomics, game theory, competitive strategy and many such specialized areas of research. Cartels that manipulate supply and prices are perhaps an exception to this rule. If, instead of considering the firm as the unit, we consider a group of firms teaming together to collectively provide value to the customer and succeed as a unique identity as a unit of analysis, the methodology to understand competition would undergo a paradigm shift. This book is precisely about this concept as applicable to the automobile industry.

In the early half of the last century it was possible to go to the countryside for a picnic in a Ford Model T car, disassemble and reassemble it with a simple wrench and drive back home in the evening. Today we need computers to diagnose even a simple problem under the hood of cars tailor made to suit individual needs. Given the increase in complexity, explosion of technology and customer preferences, it is impossible for a single firm to ever think of manufacturing even half the components. (River Rouge will be remembered in history as the most ambitious plan of an automotive giant to make all parts of the automobile - including steel and timber from within the company. At best a fairy tale for kids of the twenty first century!).

This book is the summary of an excellent research study of the automobile industry in the 1990's with focus on Toyota and Chrysler. These companies have significantly different "governance structure" (the proportion of parts made in-house, procured from partner firms, and from arms'-length suppliers) from their competitors- GM and Ford. The firms that have a higher proportion of parts that are bought from partner suppliers have a clear edge over competitors that use arm's-length suppliers for the same parts. Extensive data has been collected, analyzed and tested to substantiate the statements made in the text.

Three characteristics that distinguish between partner suppliers from arm's length suppliers- Dedicated asset investments, Knowledge sharing routines and Inter-firm trust form the virtuous triangle that make these partnerships succeed. The results of such partnerships show clearly in tangible terms - Higher profitability per vehicle, better quality, faster time to market, and more new models for customers; the key parameters that enable Toyota and Chrysler to drive at top speed. "It 's not the big that eat the small but it's the fast that eat the slow".

Taking lessons from Toyota, Chrysler adopts concrete programs to consolidate its suppliers, integrate and partner with them to deliver higher value at lower cost to the customer.

Though this research is restricted to the automobile industry, the fundamental principles of "extended enterprise" can be extended across industries.

Highly recommended for all managers and a must read for those working in procurement processes. Next time your supplier drops in, think of this book and start a new relationship.