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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed fan, May 25, 2011
This review is from: The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business (Hardcover)
Much as it pains me to say it, as a long-time reader and fan of Umair Haque's excellent HBR blog, I was left slightly disappointed by this book.
For all its good content (including a great foreword by Gary Hamel), it fell short of what I was expecting and hoping for - namely, Umair using the extended medium of a book to take his basic thesis to the next level and tackle some of the (IMNSHO deeply misguided) critics of his blog, who prefer to spend their time demanding 'linear' proof of causality, rather than appreciating the complex system of changing frame conditions in which business is now operating.
Umair's cause isn't helped by some extraordinarily poor editing, which sees not only key ideas and concepts, but occasionally entire paragraphs of text repeated verbatim on facing pages. As a result (rightly or wrongly), you're left with the impression of a book that achieves its 200-odd page count with unnecessary padding, rather than with the further development of his argument.
Ultimately, I have to agree with the essence of Philip Loden's review. If you want the benefit of Umair's thought-provoking perspectives, go visit his blog. If you want to get to grips with the why, the what and the how of creating "thick" (sustainable, shared) value in more detail, then I feel there are other, better books for the job - Jonathon Porritt's "Capitalism As If The World Matters" and the magnificent Ray C. Anderson's "Business Lessons From A Radical Industrialist" to name but two.
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36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Frustratingly superficial, March 24, 2011
This review is from: The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business (Hardcover)
If you need to be told that our current corporate system is broken, that the world can afford less and less to ignore negative externalities, that radical innovation can disrupt an industry, that feedback loops based on customer input can dramatically improve the way you do business, and that taking pride in who you are and what you do can produce better outcomes than making quarterly earnings the measure of all things, then read this book. If you already believe these things, have actually heard of the Innovator's Dilemma, and instead are looking for ways to implement these principles or detailed case studies of companies that already have, then keep looking.
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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A radical overhaul of business strategy, December 16, 2010
Growth in developed countries has been steadily slowing for the last half-century, and this is a lasting, historic shift more significant than a crisis, correction or crash, according to Umair Haque in this book. The global poor have been subsidizing the rich to fuel overconsumption, and the natural world, communities and society have been marginalized.
The problem is that under industrial-era practices, businesses have been able to extract what the author calls "thin value" profits by shifting costs onto someone else. The new types of enterprises which will thrive in the 21st century will be "constructive capitalists", which will do some or all of the following:
* Renew resources instead of exploiting them
* Be more responsive to supply and demand by allocating resources democratically
* Use "philosophies" that create value rather than "strategies" that extract value
* Creating new arenas of competition rather than dominating existing ones
* Seeking payoffs that are meaningful in human terms, not just financial ones
The book goes on to describe ways in which some companies are already making the shift. Walmart has taken on challenging new sustainability goals. Nike has adopted new design principles to reduce waste and maximize recycling. Lego has opened up the design of its products to users. Google aims to stay competitive by liberating data instead of trying to lock users in. Tata has created an entirely new category of car with its Nano, and Apple has done similar things with its products. Nintendo's Wii is turning video games into a focal point for social interaction.
The book is written in a bold, provocative style similar to that of Gary Hamel (who has written the Foreword). The author aims more to challenge you out of your complacency than to get you to agree with him. He challenges you to use the book not as a blueprint but as inspiration for creating your own blueprint for the future of your business.
I found the author's ideas quite stimulating, although I am not sure that it is possible to build a business using all of the features of "constructive capitalism". For example, most people did not see the need for an iPad before Apple created one, so I do not think that "allocating resources democratically" is entirely consistent with "creating new arenas of competition". In the Kindle version of the book, some of the figures are almost illegible, although this does not detract from the value of the book as a whole. I disagreed with much of what the book says in its predictions for the future, but I believe that it is partly right; the problem is, I do not know which parts.
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