Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal [Hardcover]

A. G. Lafley (Foreword), Mark W. Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 2010

This title presents a practical approach to fuel game changing growth through business model innovation. Transformational new growth remains the Holy Grail for many organizations. But a deep understanding of how great business models are made can provide the key to unlocking that growth. This landmark book describes how companies can achieve transformational growth in new markets Or, simply put, how they can seize the white space. To step out into the unknown and seize the white space requires a new language - and a framework with which to understand an existing enterprise and the white space it hopes to conquer. This book - from Clay Christensen's firm Innosight - is devoted to making game-changing business model innovation a possibility. Leaving the rhetoric to others, it provides the building blocks for creating business model innovation: first, by showing executives how to discover new business models and then by showing them how to bring these innovations to market. With road-tested frameworks, analytics, and diagnostics, this book gives executives everything they need to reshape their business and achieve fantastic growth. Mark Johnson is cofounder and Chairman of Innosight, an innovation-based consulting and executive-training firm focused on helping companies and institutions innovate for new growth and transformation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Seizing the White Space provides top executives and innovation leaders with a comprehensive but user-friendly approach to making new-value creation a consistent, repeatable process." – A.G. Lafley, former Chairman and CEO, P&G (added by author)

"Can a young company make the Fortune 500 list? Business model innovation is now the most proven route, and Seizing the White Space is the bible on how your firm can do it." – Scott Cook, Founder & Chairman, Intuit (added by author)

“It’s not enough to create new products or services—your organization must be ready to imagine and implement new business models to fully exploit many of them. Johnson has come up with a truly practical process for doing just that—taking the fear out of venturing into the unknown and opening up new territories of opportunity.” – J.W. Marriott, Jr. , Chairman and CEO, Marriott International

About the Author

Mark Johnson is co-founder and Chairman of Innosight, an innovation-based consulting, research, and executive training firm focused on helping companies and institutions innovate for new growth and transformation. He co-founded the firm with Harvard Business School professor and best selling author on innovation Clayton M. Christensen. His consulting experience covers a broad range of Fortune 500 companies in industries such as consumer packaged goods, healthcare, commercial enterprise IT, energy, automotive, and aerospace/defense. Mark's international resume includes leadership in advising Singapore's government on innovation and entrepreneurship. Mark has co-authored The Innovator's Guide to Growth (Harvard Business Press July 2008) with Innosight colleagues Scott Anthony. His most recent work has focused on business model innovation, helping companies create and manage distinct new business models for new market growth.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press; 1 edition (February 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422124819
• ISBN-13: 978-1422124819
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Production & Operations
  • #39 in Books > Business & Investing > Organizational Behavior > Organizational Change
  • #59 in Books > Business & Investing > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > New Business Enterprises

More About the Author

Mark Johnson is chairman of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore, and India, which he cofounded with Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen. He has consulted to Global 1000 and start-up companies in a wide range of industries--including health care, aerospace/defense, enterprise IT, energy, automotive, and consumer packaged goods--and has advised Singapore's government on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mark's most recent work has focused on helping companies envision and create new growth, manage transformation, and achieve renewal through business model innovation. This work is the subject of the McKinsey award-winning Harvard Business Review article, "Reinventing Your Business Model," coauthored by Clayton Christensen and Henning Kagermann. Mark also coauthored The Innovator's Guide to Growth (Harvard Business Press, 2008), recently coauthored "How to Jump-Start the Clean-Tech Economy" (Harvard Business Review, 2009), and has published articles in the Sloan Management Review, Forbes.com, BusinessWeek Online, Advertising Age, and National Defense.

Prior to cofounding Innosight, Mark was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he advised clients on managing innovation and implementing comprehensive change programs. Before that, he served as a nuclear power-trained surface warfare officer in the U. S. Navy.

Mark received an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master's degree in civil engineering and engineering mechanics from Columbia University, and a bachelor's degree with distinction in aerospace engineering from the United States Naval Academy. He currently serves on the board of the U.S. Naval Institute.

Mark, his wife, Jane Clayson Johnson, and their children live in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book About Building New Business Models, April 26, 2010

By 

Todd Sattersten "The 100 Best Business Books ... (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal (Hardcover)

Not much gets written about business models. I don't know if it isn't sexy enough or it somehow gets bucketed into the sleepfest of most strategy books. The only book I can think of, in recent years, to broach the subject was the self-published Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation For Growth and Renewal is a fine exception. Author Mark Johnson co-founded Innosight with author and HBR professor Clay Christensen, and while Christensen has been publishing niche extensions on disrupting education and health care, this book is a wonderful addition to the broader ideas of Innovator's Dilemma and Innovator's Solution. Both of the latter books were incredibly important in explaining how companies lose edge in the marketplace and are often blindsided by innovation, but there were some barriers to understanding exactly how to apply the concepts. Johnson does a great job of taking that next step in Seizing The White Space.

The book is squarely focused on showing companies how to build new businesses in area that are outside their current business models. This could be through replacing an existing business, building new models where there are barriers to consumption, or by filling gaps in the market. The final section delivers roadmap on how to go about the redesign and implementation of your new business model. Cases include Tata Motors and Hindustan Levr (India), Xiameter that grew out of Dow Corning, and Better Place, the Israeli start-up trying to change the automotive business model with electric cars.

Seizing The White Space is surprisingly short at 150 pages which makes the book very accessible. The language and concepts also match that accessibility. The book is worth a quick look, a reminder of the unconscious parts of strategy that you too often take for granted.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful. Just beautiful., April 23, 2010

By 

ARMAN KIRIM, PhD (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal (Hardcover)

This is one of the most enjoyable business boks I have ever read. I am a devout student of strategy & innovation and hence have read quite extensively on those subjects. But when it comes to the question of business models, even Adrian Slywotzky, who may be considered as the real father of the concept of business models, is not as clear in handling the concept as Mark Johnson. Johnson's definition of the concept, and especially his breaking it down to four elements (he calls them boxes) is brilliant. Sure, Slywotzky's business model definition also has four elements but here the boxes make the handling of the concept terribly simple and managable. In short, the definition of this rather hard-to-grab concept is excellent.

Johnson's next move in the book is to show how a new business model can be designed on the basis of his four-box formula. He starts with the first step of defining a new customer value proposition (CVP). After this, he moves backwards to work out the 'processes' that need to be created or improved so as to fulfill this new CVP as well as singling out the `resource requirements' in the organization. From there onwards he shows how to work out the `profit model' for the newly generated business model. Hence, once all those four boxes have been filled `democratically' (with participation from managers at all levels of the company) and carefully, the company is now ready to implement the new strategy.

At this point comes the other strength of the book whereby it does not leave the subject at the point of strategy formulation. Instead, it moves to explain even the knittty gritty details of implementation/execution. Here also Johnson is very good and drives on deep experience.

The book is full of enlightening case examples. Some are known stuff (like iPod, iPhone, Hitli etc.) but you find a lot of new examples which are really good.

When you reach the end of the book -which I assure you it will be very very swift (I finished it in only three sittings)- you feel relieved because you feel like you finally have a workable model in your hands which you can start toying with tomorrow morning.

This is a very very good book on strategy. There may be other good business model books around as one reviewer suggested. But this book should certainly be included in that list of excellent books on business model generation and implementation. I personally thank the author for giving me such a great pleasure in reading this wonderful work.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must read, must own book, April 9, 2010

By 

Reg Nordman "(K)nights on the Road" (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal (Hardcover)

The author is co-founder with Clay Christensen of Innosight. This book is distilled from many years of applying The Innovators Dilemma. For that alone it is an important book. However the author has stepped even further down the path of applicability by forcing you the reader to consider your business as solving the question, " what job does the customer want done?" From there one can see applying the ideas of Blue Ocean Strategy (Johnson alls it "white space" . But the growth in your learning continues as you realize just how powerful these ideas are for reinventing your company business model. The author could have stopped then and it would have been a fine book. But he is thorough and so he proceeds to show you all the things that interfere with new business model innovation, how many different approaches worked (or failed) for different companies and the structural thinking behind it. This is not a huge book , nor a heavy read . It is theory into practice with a heavy emphasis on practical. This is a must read, must own book if you are or aspire to be a business leader.