Customer Reviews

The Seven Steps to Nirvana: Strategic Insights into eBusiness Transformation

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book came out at a difficult time, when NASDAQ fell and people realized that buying shares of firms that don't turn a profit isn't a good idea after all. So, this book tries to start off by saying that "Ah, we knew that all along!" and then trying to sell the existing industries the IT gospel.

That's a hard position to maintain, and I think the book suffers from it. It resorts to saying that use of IT is crucial for existing firms, but the thing it offers is almost exactly the type of things that were touted in the pre-Internet days, where Toyoda excelled with JIT systems, Kao used their IT advantage, 7-11 improved logistics by streamlining their suppliers... in short, what people used to call "strategic use of information systems" in those days.

So, after all these Internet things, we're back to where we were 10 years ago, and the authors try to make it sound new, but it isn't.

Another problem is their style. The authors says that in order to prevent the book from becoming outdated within a month, they have avoided placing case studies, and focused on the philosophy. But, this makes the whole book into a collection of general ideas, things that anyone can say, things you already read in Harvard Business Review or Businessweek a hundred times. They resort to a lot of quotes from zen or Buddha, or some folk story to make themselves sound profound. I don't know how it reads to an American, but for a Japanese like me, they stink. Since they don't site actual cases, they use only tiny newsbits to illustrate the point, and you really don't get the whole picture. They say things like, "When firm A uses US $3 billion for purchases, if IT can reduce that cost by only 1%, that's significant!" but they never show whether that 1% saving is likely to happen!!

I also have to question their competence in judging technology, They claim that Sega dropped out of the game console business, because their Dreamcast console didn't adopt DVD. I seriously doubt that. Show me a game that uses the full capacity of DVD effectively. I don't think the authors understand the game console market, or the relation between technology and the market acceptance.

Nice try, and there are some interesting points in the book. Also, my general disapproval of these management guides probably have a lot to do with this not-so-good review. But I can't say I'm very happy with this book.

I'm an American and I too confirm Mr. Yamagata's review: the "quotes from zen or Buddha, or some folk story to make themselves sound profound" is highly irritating (straight talk will do just fine)... and, "Ah,we knew that all along!" borders on arrogance. The book seems to have come from the -publish or perish- world of academe. Need solid information to do the real work ahead, don't look for Nirvana. Sorry, but I could find no new insights from this book, just a contrived rehash of information clearly written elsewhere --in business language, backed by well defended assertions ... my $2 mantra is just fine, thank you.

The Seven Steps to Nirvana: Strategic Insights Into e-Business Transformation

by Mohan Sawhney and Jeff Zabin

Review by Madanmohan Rao...

With a foreword by Dan Tapscott (author of “Digital Capital” and “Growing Up Digital”), this concise e-business guidebook is just what serious readers need in the “post-dotcom era” to sift through the confusing views and assessments of e-business out there.

Mohan Sawhney, e-commerce professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Northwestern University, is a prolific writer and speaker and serves on the boards of several startups; he was a keynote speaker at the India Internet World 2000 conference... Jeff Zabin is a writer and research fellow with strategy firm Diamond Cluster International in Evanston, Illinois.

The book also has an online companion... Referenced books include Leading the Revolution (by Gary Hamel), Intellectual Capital (Thomas Stewart), MetaCapitalism (Grady Means), ValueNets (David Bovet), and Enterprise E-Commerce (Peter Fingar).

The focus of the book by Sawhney and Zabin is more on the traditional old-economy “smokestack” industries than established technology players like Cisco and Dell. It is chock-full of case studies and anecdotes of successes as well as failures in e-business ventures of corporate America.

One chapter each is devoted to the seven steps which businesses must take in order to maximize e-business potential: broaden company and industry vision, chart incremental moves down the e-business evolution path, devise clever e-strategy, synchronise channels and internal departments, gear up e-infrastructure platforms, judiciously allocate financial resources and investments, and rally employees and partners around the e-business banner.

In retrospect, it might be said that the new economy was the best thing to have happened to the old economy, according to the authors, especially the shining examples they set for speed, innovation and pure adrenaline flow. “Unlike anything before it, the massive wave of entrepreneurial startups energized Corporate America to change,” they observe.

E-business can play a key role in four ways: cost reduction, revenue expansion, time reduction, and relationship enhancement. E-business plays not just to the bottom line but also to the top line, where it can lead to the transformation and reinvention of entire industries.

Companies like United Technologies and Eastman streamline purchasing via e-procurement. Citibank leverages CRM for online initiatives, and Proctor&Gamble uses Web sites to improve information services quality for its products like Tide, Crest and Vick’s. Xerox harnesses the Web to lubricate its relationships with its numerous resellers. Consultancy firms and Fortune 500 innovators like GE use Intranet-based knowledge management systems to capture, codify and recycle the learnings gleaned from every project and every employee.

One of the key impacts of the Internet, Intranet and Extranet is to break down traditional barriers within the company between its departments, geographical units and employees, and on the outside to connect the company seamlessly with its customers, suppliers, distributors and business partners.

Companies have taken different approaches to achieve this synchronous state: for instance, Wal-Mart has named its online venture WalMart.com and opted for deep synchronization and integration, whereas K-Mart has called its online venture BlueLight.com which is synchronized at a selective level and is aimed at new customers with new offerings.

The Net has multiple effects on channels and brands: channel augmentation (eg. direct selling by Cisco and Dell), brand augmentation (eg. Web sites of Ragu sauce and Crest toothpaste), channel proliferation (eg. book sales), and channel deconstruction (eg. Travelocity and Expedia).

The vendor landscape – which is experiencing rapid convergence -- includes players in MRO procurement (Ariba, CommerceOne), SCM (i2, Manugistics), collaborative design (Agile, NexPrise), content and catalogue management (Vignette), configurators (Trilogy), integrated marketplaces (Ariba, CommerceOne, Oracle, VerticalNet), direct sales (BroadVision, Intershop, OpenMarket), logistics (i2, Yantra, GoCargo), payment (Verisign, iEscrow), CRM (Siebel, Kana) and customer analytics (E.piphany, Cognos).

“Despite the unbridled enthusiasm for the Net as a channel for direct selling to customers that besets many companies, the fact remains that most selling still takes place through partners,” according to Sawhney and Zabin.

The future, according to the authors, lies in collaborative commerce via component-based architectures (as with HP’s e-Speak and Microsoft’s BizTalk) – eventually creating ‘business operating systems’ for entire industries, such as Covisint in the automobile industry, Exostar for aerospace, Transora for consumer packaged goods, and Elemica for chemicals.

Due to a combination of fear and greed, many established players may have swung off course for some time on the investment front: such as Starbucks (which invested in Living.com, Kozmo.com, Cooking.com and TalkCity – but has re-focused now) and Nordstrom (which took a $20 million loss on Streamline.com).

By investing in other start-ups, companies can gain access to “windows into the future, borrowing eyes and ideas from innovative entrepreneurs.” Examples include Kraft Foods, which gained valuable learnings (if not earnings) about online impacts on grocery shopping via tie-ups with Webvan, NetGrocer, Peapod, Food.com and EthnicGrocer.com. Accenture Technology Ventures has invested in Asera, Jamcracker, Rivio and MarketSwitch.

CEOs, CIOs and heads of operating units within a company have a key role to play in catalyzing, motivating, skilling and externalizing of e-business vision and capability. Notable leaders in this regard have included GE CEO Jack Welch, Boeing CEO Phil Condit, Eastman CEO Ernest Davenport, and McDonald’s CEO Jack Greenberg.

The ultimate compass in the e-business journey, the authors conclude, has to be nothing other than the customer value proposition...

The so-called "mysterious" world of e-business is covered very well. Categorization into seven steps and further classification of them makes this book very interesting and easy to follow. The case studies and examples are excellent, however it seems that most of them move around some 10-15 companies. Although, this book is targeted to top executives but the language is so easy that any one can comprehend and get benefited. I found the E-volution and E-strategy topics very useful. They provide very good insight on how a company should view and plan e-business initiative. Recommended to any one who is involved in any kind of e-business initiative, this book can take the efforts to much more deep and meaningful level.

This is the best book I've read on (e)business transformation. It will most certainly be understood and put into action by its mainstream readers. The authors' unique and engaging style is what sets this book apart. They focus on customer-centric as opposed to tech-centric analysis, using metaphors and stories brilliantly to bring the information to life. As a result, what could have become a slow and difficult read became an easy and enjoyable one. Anyone who wishes to stay ahead of the pack in (e)business should read this book. The future of any business is certainly between its covers.

Given the state of the dotcom meltdown, it is easy to see why many more people should have read this before leaving established companies and jumping on the bandwagon. Sawhney pretty astutely makes the point about how to actually transform a business by integrating the internet deeply within the operation rather than viewing it as some kind of stand alone panacea. The metaphors and stories add a pithy touch that make this an entertaining read. I think this is a must read for anyone who is trying to ascertain what happened in the ebusiness boom that went bust and where we go from here. The principles are widely applicable across businesses new and old. I loved it!

Finally a practical book that is not just a fluff but substantive in guiding the "old economy" players into what they must evolve into. Once all the dust and hoopla has settled, people need to get down to serious business. This is a great "how to" book for this. The anecdotes are classic in being humorous yet instructive. I disagree with Hiroo, who may be japanese and seems to "know it all" but more likely is one of those that got burnt in the NASDAQ fall and seems bitter about it!! Trust me this is a keeper!

Those companies preparing for future this is one of the best source to begin with. Clear cut strategy is here.Must read for all and every managers and CEOs.

At its heart, this book is about just how much impact the Internet is having - and will continue to have - on *all* companies, and how to plan and manage your e-business strategies. Sawhney and Zabin make a strong point that all organizations, whether consciously or not, are becoming "e-"organizations". They write that they consider this book to be more of a 'compass' than anything else - and it really is. (After all, surely it's better to go into this new e-world, walk down this new path, with some understanding - not just randomly like seeds blown in the wind, or like the random rantings of some who write *cough* book reviews *cough* on Amazon...) And to me, the best part is that their compass unfailingly points in the direction of how to use the Internet to drive new revenues into a company's core business.

This is a book for real-world managers - for executives and companies who want to use the power of "e" to not only cut costs but, even better, to accelerate top-line revenue growth. There are lots of specifics about strategic initiatives and choices executives can make to e-nergize all functions -- marketing, distribution, financial, IT, strategic, HR, and etc.

The seven areas, 'or steps,' of transformation that they cover are a company's vision, evolution, strategy, synchronization, infrastructure, capitalization, and organization. While the infrastructure re-visioning step was a bit technical for me (a non-geek KM exec), the organizational re-visioning step was engaging and full of good ideas - I came away very inspired from that chapter in particular.

And personally, the sprinkling of folkloric metaphors and stories throughout delighted me, and kept me focused on the 'big picture.' (But then, I'm a long-time subscriber to Parabola! And in a connected world, "wisdom" can be pulled and linked in many different ways. Their wisdom thinking is a unique, valuable aspect of this book - it's a tone too rarely encountered in other serious business books, IMO.)

After all the craziness of the last 18 months, stepping back and taking a 'big picture' look at how the Internet is changing all businesses (especially such a smart and thoughtful look) was to me really refreshing.

I really appreciated this book which clarifies the reasons why many "E businesses" have failed.

It also offers a very good framework for any firm which would like to enter E business.

The examples given make the concepts easier to comprehend.

This book should become one of the "bibles" of new business.