Register your product to gain access to bonus material or receive a coupon.
Let Go To Grow: Escaping the Commodity Trap
- By Linda S. Sanford, Dave Taylor
- Published Dec 12, 2005 by Pearson.
Book
- Sorry, this book is no longer in print.
About
Features
-
Makes extensive use of case studies including GE, eBay, Dell, Southwest, UPS, and IBM to help readers gain insight from what these innovators have recognized and created
- Demonstrates how to expand growth space, liberate cost structures, and build profits—not just revenues
-
From business luminaries that have made On Demand a reality, including IBM senior executive Linda Sanford
-
Readers learn how to go from a defensive, cost-dominated struggle, that is unpredictable and uncontrollable to a NEW environment where speed, flexibility, and adaptability are the possible.
Description
- Copyright 2006
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-13-148208-4
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-148208-1
This is a business book that shows the reader how to look at their businessissues and gain an advantage over their competitors by embracing IBM's OnDemand strategy. On Demand is really just a new way of looking at what ishappening in today's markets due to computer technology and fasterinformation delivery. Companies are leaping over competition by embracingthe technology changes and dealing with their customers and suppliers not in alinear fashion but as a "value space". It is no longer a supply chain. Chainimplies linearity. Instaneous need fulfillment is the answer. Those supplierswho can deliver will gain share and this book talks about the internal personnelissues, management issues and business culture issues necessary to make ithappen.On Demand is now gaining strength and acceptance in the market. You can seeit in the amazing push to grid computing that we are seeing now, theoutsourcing phenomenon, and other issues. It is IBM's theme for theforeseeable future.
Sample Content
Table of Contents
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
About the Authors.
1. Grow To Build Profits, Not Just Revenues.
2. Commodity Markets Defined.
3. It’s ALL About Components.
4. Creating Business Components.
5. Integrate Your Business Components End-to-End.
6. Expand Your Growth Space.
7. Liberate Your Cost Structures.
8. From Vision to Results: The Leadership Agenda.
9. Achieving Measurable Productivity Improvements.
10. Practical Implementation of the Component Business Model.
11. Gaining the Collaboration Edge: Building the Creative Company for the Creative Economy.
Endnotes.
Index.
Preface
Sustained revenue growth is hard. The odds of a company maintaining a growth
rate above the Gross National Product are worse than one in ten. Markets are
in such a state of flux that responding to the challenges of the marketplace
with traditional business strategies does little more than let a firm survive.
This difficult business environment has been fueled by technological advances
that enable suppliers and customers to work hand-in-hand, globally and in real
time, remaking the way companies need to operate.
There are big winners in this economy, though. These winners are creating new
opportunities by driving productivity, collaboration, and innovation in concert-through
their businesses and relationships-to create a cycle of growth liberated from
the vagaries of economic cycles and commoditization.
Productivity is a driver of top-line growth, and its benefits are unmistakable.
For countries, gains in productivity spur economic growth and job creation
and raise the overall standard of living. For companies, productivity drives
competitiveness, offers performance bonuses and raises, and fuels long-term
sustainability through acquisitions and investments in high-growth areas and
new markets. Productivity is also a major factor in earnings per share growth,
a key measure of performance. Slower productivity growth or product stagnation
means companies must accept lower profit margins or raise prices, making them
less competitive.
By enhancing organizational productivity with new technological and cultural
advancements, time is freed up for employees, enabling them to achieve greater
collaboration across the organization. This new, deep collaboration allows the
organization to build teams dynamically, sparking breakthrough innovation to
solve client problems.
In the 21st-century economy, innovation is a core value. Companies need to value
big discoveries that open new paths for exploration and new ways to meet the
ever-changing needs of the marketplace. It's not about technology (which enables
all of these concepts) but about business transformation, pioneering progressive
workplace policies and making a difference in the world.
Companies drive revenue growth by delivering innovation, both for their clients
and for themselves. They can do this because they have built-or are building-a
business based on a set of configurable components and a technology platform
that gives them the ability to respond to the unpredictable and uncontrollable
with speed, flexibility, and adaptability. Such leaders build value through
opportunistic collaboration with customers, partners, and suppliers, choosing
how to source and integrate components across their value web. They focus on
profitable growth, enabled by on demand technology-available as needed, when
needed, where needed; immediately integrated, open, and financially productive,
not just technically efficient.
They have "Let Go to Grow."
This is a handbook for transforming your business, whether you're in the Fortune
500 or you're determined to make the list.
We didn't choose the title of our book lightly, either. Let Go To Grow is all
about our vision of the future of business, its implications, and our best practices.
It's about the future of your business too.
We begin the book with some sobering marketplace realities and offer a set
of management principles to guide you through the new, fluid marketplace. Chapters
3 through 8 describe the process, people, technology shifts, governance and
leadership vision, qualities, and characteristics needed to succeed in this
new commoditized business climate.
Chapter 9, "Achieving Measurable Productivity Improvements," explains
how to measure success by driving both efficiency and growth in concert through
a balanced focus on productivity, collaboration, and innovation.
The final two chapters of this book offer practical implementation details
for some of our most critical ideas about componentizing your business. Chapter
11, "Gaining the Collaborative Edge: Building the Creative Company for
the Creative Economy," also explains where, why, and how you can start
building a Let Go to Grow business.
Let Go to Grow is not something happening in the future. It's happening right
now!
We make extensive use of case studies, including GE, eBay, TAL, Dell, Toyota,
Southwest, UPS, Federal Express, and IBM to illustrate our themes and gain insight
from what these innovators have recognized and created.
By understanding the principles of this book, you will gain insight into the
new marketplace reality and learn how to utilize the principles collected here
to drive sustained growth. Your goal? To escape the commodity trap.
Index
Download the Index
file related to this title.