Customer Reviews

From .Com to .Profit: Inventing Business Models That Deliver Value and Profit

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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The authors tell us that the purpose of the book is to answer this question: "What can business do -- and do now -- to set priorities and competitive direction for being on the Web so as to provide value to customers and generate profits at the same time?" In answering this question, they have a point of view. "It's not transactions or price that create the value that gets customers coming back to a seller. It's relationships, collaboration, and community."

This book is for people who have not thought about what elements must be present in a an e-business model in order to ensure profitability, sustainability, and success. If you company is starting its first e-business initiative, this book could save you some lost time and money.

If you have done this thinking, chances are that you will not learn much from this book. I found no concepts that I had not read in at least 5 other books about e-business success. The microeconomic analysis of creating a profitable business over time was also incomplete in that it did not pay enough attention to the role of speeding up progress, reducing start-up losses, and creating permanent advantages. I graded the book down one star for these missing elements.

The book focuses on six areas for progress (value drivers, in the parlance of the book), and provides an imperative for each:

1. Relationships (cultivate your long-term customer relationships)

2. Logistics (perfect your logistics)

3. Branding (build a power brand)

4. Channels (harmonize your channels on behalf of the customer)

5. Intermediaries (become a value-adding intermediary or use one)

6. Financial Dynamics (transform your capital and cost situations)

Each value driver and imperative is detailed with check lists to consider and useful, contemporary examples that you can check on on the Web for yourself.

A weakness of the book is that it pushes a bit too hard on the idea of building relationships as the primary way to create profit. Certainly, relationships will always be important, but I suspect that most successes in the future will be built on superior, trustworthy service rather than on relationships per se. The book is also too quick to abandon being the low-cost provider of superior products and services as a valid, broadly-available business model. With specialization, many will be able to achieve that. Further, the book is not imaginative enough in thinking of new ways to add value to customers that cannot be done except on-line.

On the other hand, it is the best book I have read for explaining the importance of having a carefully considered e-business model, and providing a structure for examining the options.

In the final chapter, the authors look at new trends in technology (especially wireless applications) that will affect how you help customers.

The authors have excellent credentials. Nick Earle is the head of HP's E-Services.Solutions group, and Peter Keen has written widely on business and the Internet. The final chapter also draws on the thinking of Rajiv Gupta, general manager of HP's E-Speech operation. The quality of their backgrounds show in the clear articulation of their points of view and the examples they choose.

After you finish this book, ask yourself the question of how you can create advantages for your business that customers feel are very important and can never be overcome by competitors. And don't limit yourself to on-line solutions to get there. When you come up with a solution, you'll be off to a good start in creating a superior business model.

Dot-profit provides a good review of the economics and fundamentals of electronic commmerce. This is particularly needed given the state of the market. While the book is good for understanding the sources of value and benefit found in eCommerce.

The book while strong on rational does not provide enough detail to implement. I like Peter's books so I read his other books on eCommerce. I found the eProcess Edge out at about the same time as a good refernece for building what it takes to move from dot-com to dot-profit. Reading both has given me the high level business strategy and the business operations requirements needed to act on the advice.

This solidly researched and written guide shows you how to move into the next phase of e-business operations: actually making them profitable. The authors call this era .profit (dot profit), and aside from that little gimmick, the book is refreshingly free of space-filling babble. Instead, it concentrates on the elements needed to make a profit on the Internet, and gives plenty of examples from cyberspace so you can learn from those who are already in .profit world. We from getAbstract recommend this book to anyone charged with developing business strategy.

First off, the authors' credentials are amazing. Nick Earl has been profiled by Fortune Magazine as "HPs New E-vangelist." Peter Keen was named by Information Week as one of the top 10 consultants in the world!
That said, this book delivers. If you are looking for small profits, this book is not for you. It cuts straight to the chase and delivers the goods on becoming an intermediary or using one effectively.
They treat this huge subject with practical advice and business philosophy. This is the best book I have found that seems to truly identify the direction the Web is going.

Five Stars