The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology [Hardcover]

Vivek Ranadive (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology.

Meet the future head-on with this incisive book that details emerging trends that will affect all businesses as they progress through the 21st century. Today's technology has become vital to the speed and performance of business. The fast-paced, high-stakes world of technology is infiltrating business everywhere, through the extensive use of high-speed networks, powerful desktop computers, the Internet, and integrated information across many systems. Customers are also demanding that everything be done faster, at lower cost without sacrificing quality.

How will your company compete and prosper in the new millennium? How can you raise your company above the ravages of creeping commoditization and gain that crucial, elusive competitive advantage? The answers lie in becoming event-driven. Event-driven companies (those that acquire, deploy, and wisely exploit real-time information) are the most successful at sensing and responding to the events that drive their businesses. They use the power of real-time information to drive the development and delivery of new products and services.

The winning approach presented in this book will benefit any company competing in this age of globalization, emerging technologies, and ever-increasing competition. After reading this book, you will be able to employ the technology to create real-time operations, and you will have the tools, mindset, and organizational structure that enable you to do the right thing at the right time. And the right time is now.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Until recently, push technology was supposed to be the "next big thing." It enables customized information like news or stock quotes to be delivered directly to desktop computers, but critics now claim it is intrusive and often trivial and limits individual choice and creativity. Tibco Software, Ranadive's company, is often described as a "push technology" firm, and Ranadivehimself freely uses the term, but his technology goes way beyond "push." He has developed software that allows various applications within a network to share information efficiently and in real time. He heralds the "publish/subscribe revolution," whereby information about business events is delivered as they occur to the persons who need the information to make decisions. Changing stock prices are transmitted directly to spreadsheets; changing inventory levels are tracked by financial accounting programs. As a result, companies will become "event driven," and Ranadivegoes on to extol the qualities and tout the advantages held by event-driven companies. David Rouse

Review

"Using a wealth of experience derived from interacting with over 500 companies, the author clearly and convincingly transports you..." -- Karen van Slambrouck, TechWeek

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 214 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071356843
• ISBN-13: 978-0071356848
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,260,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vivek Ranadivé is an entrepreneur, technology visionary, author, philanthropist, and sports team owner recognized for his outside-the-box thinking. He has led the advancement and use of real-time technology in business operations and decision making, earning him the nickname "Mr. Real Time" in technology circles. Mr. Ranadivé is dedicated to the vision that if you get the right information to the right place at the right time, you can make the world a better place.

In 1986 Mr. Ranadivé founded Teknekron Software Systems, which focused on creating the stock trading floor of the future. Teknekron went on to automate Wall Street, and its technology became the engine for most of the world's capital markets. In 1997 he founded his present company, TIBCO Software Inc., with the mission of bringing real-time computing into the mainstream. Today TIBCO technology helps more than 4,000 customers thrive by powering everything from the web to airlines, utilities, communications providers, manufacturers, and governments. With nearly a billion dollar revenue run rate, TIBCO is one of the fastest-growing software companies in its peer group.

Mr. Ranadivé has authored two books that are New York Times and global best sellers, both widely read in business and academia. The Power of Now covered how winning companies sense and respond to change using real-time technology, and his subsequent book, The Power to Predict, explored how companies can break new ground in their quest to anticipate customers' needs, capture new opportunities, and predict and avoid problems. A native of Bombay, India, Mr. Ranadivé watched a documentary on MIT and was inspired at the age of 16 to leave India for Cambridge, Massachusetts, arriving with only $50 in his pocket. After earning both a Master's and Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he obtained an MBA at Harvard where he was a Baker Scholar.

Mr. Ranadivé is a big basketball fan, which started when he coached his daughter's middle school team. Mr. Ranadivé's coaching success was highlighted in a New Yorker magazine article by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Outliers) as an example of innovators who win big by doing the unexpected and breaking the rules. He is now the co-owner and vice chairman of the Golden State Warriors NBA franchise and dreams of taking the sport of basketball to India.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars interesting but shallow, May 11, 2000

By 

David Bridgeland (Sterling, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology (Hardcover)

I was eager to read this book, to understand how publish/subscribe in general and TIBCO middleware in particular change system architecture and business strategy. What is now possible that is not supported well by traditional client/server systems? And who would know more about this topic than Ranadive, the founder and CEO of TIBCO?

Unfortunately this book does not deliver. The examples are shallow, explaining a little but not to a deep enough level to communicate more than superficialities. And the text between the example is repetitive: too much breathless ad copy and not enough content.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Concrete steps to reorganising to win, December 14, 1999

By 

A Tan - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology (Hardcover)

Should be made compulsory reading for all chief executives who intend to stay on top of their organisations in the next few years. Ranadive not only explains how infomation will drive the economy (from yesterday), he gave concrete steps on how an organisation may move towards using info as a tool to maximise competitve advantage. Knowledge management, making the org live for the moment, being event-driven (and proactive to the latest drip of info)...etc... Ranadive outlines to great detail how one could set up a system to achieve it. The methodologies described are not singularly his own opinion: the book is well referenced and many top companies and gurus are already on to the new economy. Only negative is: a little bit too "techy" for the general CEO audience.

Do you want to join those who "Get it."? Or do you "get it" at all?

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A peek into a billionaire's mind..., September 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology (Hardcover)

I was intrigued by the fact that Mr. Ranadive has managed to build one of the largest (market cap) software companies in the United States, and was pleased to find that a good section of his book concentrated on his philosophies when starting TIBCO. On the other hand, a good part of this book is spent hyping TIBCO's software...which you can't really blame the guy for, can you? This book is at least as much sales promotional material as anything else, but for those who are interested in TIBCO's software, it's quite informative; it's like getting a sales pitch from *the* sales guy himself.

Most of the philosophies Ranadive discusses seem more applicable to small companies than large, and I found the book lacking on discussions of the transition from small private company to 20 Billion dollar public company. On the other hand, to those of us who are still trying to form a successful small private company, this gap won't be important for a little while yet. And since successful people rarely want company, maybe it's not coincidence he didn't include that last missing link!