| | |  | Home Business Electronics | Home » » Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal | | | | | | | Description: | | 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. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9781422124819
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Mark W. Johnson | | Hardcover:
| 288 pages | | Publisher:
| Harvard Business Press | | Publication Date:
| February 22, 2010 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1422124819 | | Package Length:
| 9.21 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.14 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.97 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 16 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
How to "navigate" turbulent waters in "a simple four-box business model"May 31, 2010
Mark W. Johnson poses an especially important question: What underlying forces prevent great companies from embracing transformational opportunities? Marshall Goldsmith wrote a book whose title reveals what he thinks: "What got you here won't get you there." The "white space" referred to in the title of Johnson's book "is the range of potential activities not defined or addressed by the company's current business model, that is, the opportunities outside its core and beyond its adjacencies that require a different business model to exploit." Paraphrasing Goldsmith, the business model that got you to your core won't achieve success for you in your "white space," whatever and wherever it may be. Throughout military history, there are countless examples of leaders who fought the last war. Perhaps the most famous (infamous?) is the Maginot Line in France over which German planes and gliders flew (many filled with paratroopers) and around which German tanks sped. The French forces surrendered within a few days, without a fight.
As Johnson explains in Chapter 2, the business model he proposes has four key elements:
"First, every thriving enterprise is propelled by a strong [begin italics] customer value proposition [end italics] (CVP) - a product, service, or combination thereof that helps customers do more effectively, conveniently, or affordably a job they have been trying to do.
"Second, a [begin italics] product formula [end italics] defines the way a company will capture value for itself and its shareholders in the form of profit.
"The third and fourth elements of the model, [begin italics] key resources [and] key processes [end italics] are the means by which the company delivers the value to the customer and itself. They are the critical assets, skills, activities, routines, and ways of working that enable the enterprise to fulfill the CVP and profit formula in a repeatable, scalable fashion."
Obviously, those who read this book will need to make certain modifications of the four-box business model framework to accommodate the needs, resources, limitations, and objectives of their own organization. To assist that process Johnson devotes much of Chapter 6 to explaining how to use a proactive, outside-in approach. Keep in mind that Johnson is recommending a framework that enables an organization to be flexible and resilient. The business model framework he describes "brings the discipline of architecture to business model innovation. With the blueprint it provides, you can diagram your existing core business model and design new models to help you seize your white space. The framework is the structure on which manageable and more predictable innovation process can be built - a structure than can unlock your creativity as you pursue transformational growth and renewal.
Near the end of this book, Johnson focuses on Jeff Bezos and notes (as does Bezos) several major as well as minor modifications that Amazon made while seizing its own "white space," before finally selecting the single-detail-page model for its third-party business. The lesson to be learned is this: "As assumptions are tested, success or failure increases the knowledge in the system [as it did at Amazon]. As the enterprise gains traction and turns the corner toward viability, demonstrably knowledge takes over. At that point, clearly defining the metrics of success gives you a clear path toward achieving it, better enabling the nascent initiative to absorb the inevitable early failures along the way."
I presume to suggest that those now planning organizational transformation initiatives or have only recently embarked on them are strongly encouraged to read and then re-read this book in combination with three others: the Updated Edition of Chris Zook's Profit from the Core: A Return to Turbulent Times written with James Allen, Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, and Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Excellent ToolkitMay 16, 2010
The book begins with a good example of a new aircraft from Lockheed Martin, the P-791, a cross between a lighter than air dirigible and an airplane, called a hybrid airship. It is a partially buoyant craft like the blimp, yet combines the aerostatic lift and propulsion of an aircraft.
This new craft is ideally suited for new applications, like moving equipment to construction sites in remote areas since it does not need a conventional runway and has higher load bearing capacity.
Paradoxically, this machine perhaps serves transportation needs of customer segments that are totally new for Lockheed Martin. Lockheed specializes in designing and building aircraft for the Defense forces, with its intimate knowledge of this sector. Serving a new customer base with a new product is perhaps a huge challenge for Lockheed Martin, since it has to completely reinvent its business model. What Lockheed Martin is just confronting is a White Space opportunity.
The author then introduces the concept of White Space. Incumbents serve existing customers very well, having defined their Core Operating Space and business model. There is also a possibility of moving into "adjacencies" using the same organization, but perhaps with a new offering for existing and new customers.
However, there is a huge opportunity outside the company's core, an opportunity to serve wholly new customers or existing customers in radically new ways. The author defines this as White Space, and explains it as "a range of potential activities not defined or addressed by the company's current business model, that is, the opportunities outside its core and beyond its adjacencies that require a different business model to exploit."
The most important element here is the business model that the company has mastered over a period, and its inability to adopt new models outside its core to seize new opportunities. There are several case studies to point out failures due to this inflexibility, while there are also stunning examples of constant renewal and success.
The discussion then shifts to the concept of what the author defines as business model and a very simple, yet powerful four box model to conceptualize and internalize it. The four boxes are Customer Value Proposition, Profit Formula, Key Processes and Key Resources.
There is further detailing on each of these four boxes and the business rules, norms and metrics that connect these and help maintain the system balance.
To summarize, there is a strong tendency for companies to discard opportunities that do not belong to the current core. It is important to understand that it is business and not business model that is more important. In a humorous hypothetical example DogCorp, a company that specializes in dogs and adjacencies as its offerings, finds it hard to accept market research inputs that suggest a new cat opportunity for pet lovers. The immediate tendency is to either reject this opportunity ("non dog dilemma") or to "dog the cat". Sometimes the strategy is to attack the cat! But the proverbial cat has nine lives and some other company exploits this cute opportunity. (Personally, I am equally fond of dogs and cats, of all breeds, colors and sizes.))
The book cites several case studies and emphasizes the need for constant business renewal and growth. In fact, companies need to be flexible to be able to adopt multiple business models simultaneously and it this capability that would ensure capture of market opportunities and closing the growth gap.
Here are some other good books that I thought would add substantial synergies in seizing the White Space.
1."Blue Oceans" can create new uncontested markets through value innovation. (Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by Chan Kim and Mauborgne)
2.The concept of the "business model" that "shows you how to tie together the financial targets you must meet, the external realities of your business and internal activities such as strategy development, operating tactics, and selection and development of people." (Confronting Reality : Doing What Matters to Get Things Right by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan)
3.The great framework where the concept of how radically new (disruptive) technologies can dislodge existing well-established (sustaining) technologies and in the process beat market leaders at their own game was brought out in the path breaking classic "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" by Clayton Christenson.
4.A new business that can borrow from the parent, what it should forget and what it should learn that is completely new.("Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators" by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Timble). Vijay's 3-Box Model is a powerful tool that I would describe as the simplest and yet the most powerful framework to shape our strategy and thinking.
While business strategy will continue to evolve as a discipline as long as business exists, concepts like these will certainly influence and shape the thinking of business leaders to constantly innovate and lead courageously.
This is precisely the need of the hour in the current global economic scenario: The ability to Innovate boldly and Lead courageously.
Highly recommended.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Applying Business Model Innovation to Existing (and new) CompaniesMay 11, 2010
Mark Johnson, chairman of Innosight, wrote Seizing the White Space to help companies understand whether they have the opportunity (or the necessity) to innovate their business model. Johnson defines white space as "the range of potential activities not defined or addressed by the company's current business model." In Johnson's model, white space resides beyond product extensions, lateral growth in the customer base, or incremental product innovation. Instead, he focuses on innovations that really change the way a company does business.
Johnson begins with a framework for analyzing and creating business models. The framework is composed of four boxes: the customer value proposition, the profit model, the processes, and resources of the business.
1) The customer value proposition delineates why the customer values the product.
2) The profit model encompasses all the crucial financial dimensions that determine viability, including the revenue model, cost structure, target margins, and velocity (i.e., cycle times).
3,4) The resources and processes boxes consist of what the business needs (people, technology, information, partnerships, etc.) and how the business delivers the CVP within the bounds of financial viability. Johnson uses this four-box definition of business models throughout the book to analyze different case examples and to illustrate a repeatable process of building new business models.
Next, Johnson presents a three-chapter section on three conditions that call for new business models. The conditions occur when 1) a company wants to transform an existing market, often due to changing competition 2) a company wishes to create new markets, such as in emerging market countries 3) industry or economic discontinuities appear. Johnson refers to these three situations as white space within, white space beyond, and whites pace between, respectively.
Finally, Johnson devotes a three-chapter section on the process of creating and implementing new business models. First, he delves into the process of designing a new business, emphasizing the customer value proposition. Second, he covers the implementation of a new business model and the process of incubation, acceleration, and reintegration of the new model back into the organization (if there is one). Third, Johnson addresses a crucial issue of business model innovation within existing organizations -- the challenge of innovation in the face of a dominant incumbent.
Johnson's overall point is that business models aren't arcane or serendipitous magic -- they can be intentionally developed and implemented as a repeatable process.
Throughout the book, Johnson uses dozens of interwoven case studies of varying lengths to illustrate his points. These examples include well-known management-book favorites (Amazon, iPod/iTunes, Dell, Southwest Airlines) as well as less-known examples (Lockheed-Martin, Better World, Hindustan Lever, Tata Motors, Hilti). His point in using these examples isn't to provide new business histories or reveal previously-untold best practices but to show how a wide range of businesses fit into his framework of the four-box business model and illustrate his process of seizing the white space.
Figures in the book also provide quick brainstorming fodder: 19 business model analogies, 14 levers on the customer value proposition, and 19 common dimensions of interference between incumbent and new business models.
Overall, the book will be most useful for executives thinking about changing their company's business model or expanding in radical new directions The in-depth discussions of business models can also aid entrepreneurs looking to build a business model. Finally, product innovators should consider this book if they think their innovations involve significant changes in customer value proposition, the profit formula, key resource, key processes. These changes, by definition, call for a new business model and the potential that the innovative product may need to be treated differently than the company's previous products.
For some additional ideas on how to implement the ideas in Johnson's book, see: [...]
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Book Review and Innovation SummaryMay 10, 2010
A few weeks ago I received "Seizing the White Space" by Mark W. Johnson in the mail. "Seizing the White Space" is an approachable 200 pages, and is an easy, and pleasant read.
Mark W. Johnson is chairman of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company.
The book is focused on business model innovation and introducing a simple framework for thinking about potential business model innovations and evaluating the positives and negatives of a potential business model. The book first defines `white space' with the following two-by-two matrix:
After reading the book I was left with two questions that I would love your feedback on. If business is about margin and profit maximization:
1.Are companies typically better served by moving into white space areas or by licensing their IP to someone for whom the activity is core (or pursuing some other type of external collaboration)?
2.Why do many organizations think that they have to develop an opportunity or otherwise hide it away?
One of Mark Johnson's initial points is that we lack a shared vocabulary for discussing and comparing business models. As a solution Mark offers up his four-box business model framework:
...
For the missing images and the rest of the book review and innovation summary - please visit [...]
Braden Kelley
Editor, Blogging Innovation
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Business Model InnovationApr 29, 2010
What I like most about this book is that it focuses innovation not on product, service, or even process, but on the engine of any company big or small: the business model. Mark offers a great framework for how to think about the "white space," which he admits is not a new term or concept, but which he redefines within the context of strategy as "the place where a company needs to operate with a different business model that it's currently using."
The conceptual framework, a continuum really, has three major elements:
The white space within. The white space within contains opportunities to fulfill important, unsatisfied, and what Mark calls "jobs-to-be-done" for existing or new customers within your existing markets.
Mark cites the case of Whole Foods Market. Reaching out from its "crunchy granola" core, Whole Foods defined a new customer value proposition that embodied a focused, complementary set of jobs to serve its high-end customers. To deliver that value profitably, the company inverted the establish supermarket model and fundamentally shifted the economics of the grocery business.
The new model relied not on volume but on higher prices and margins on the customer's desirable perishables--produce, meats, baked goods, and prepared foods. To sell customers on the higher prices it required to deliver the customer value proposition it made the shopping experience more pleasurable. By considering customer experience an integral part of its customer value proposition and then devising a profit formula to satisfy it, Whole Foods found a way to serve important jobs-to-be-done at the high end.
The white space beyond. The white space beyond involves opportunities to create new markets by making products and services available to individuals for whom existing offerings are blocked from being used or consumed, because they are too expensive, too complicated, or too inaccessible.
Tata Motors is a case in point. Ratan Tata, president and chairman of Indian carmaker Tata Motors, saw the danger in entire families riding atop a single motor scooter to travel the crowded streets of New Delhi. He saw a national problem and recognized a critical job-to-be-done. Knowing that many families could not afford a safer alternative, he saw the need for a lower cost offering: an automobile that could be profitably sold for the price of a scooter.
Tata had to sell the Nano for one lakh (about US $2,000) in order to deliver its customer value proposition to scooter families. Anything higher would be price-prohibitive. The challenge to create a less expensive car forced Tata's engineers to fundamentally rethink how they designed, manufactured, and distributed cars. They built it out of fewer parts, outsourced production, and reconsidered their distribution strategy.
Within a month of the Tata Nano becoming available for pre-sale, Tata's website garnered 30 million hits, showrooms welcomed 1.4 million visitors, and buyers put down deposits of as much as 80% on more than 200,000 cars--roughly 17% of the annual new car market in India.
The white space between. Opportunities (and very often imperatives) in the white space between are those created by seismic shifts in markets, technologies, or government policies, where, as Mark writes, "tectonic forces...have created the highest states of uncertainty, there are also opportunities for transformative growth through new business models uniquely suited to the radically altered terrain."
Here Mark uses the case of Apple, whose core personal computer market potential was tapped out at the end of the last millennium. Apple introduced the iPod in 2001. But it wasn't about the gizmo. It was about the business model, the system: iTunes. Music lovers had discovered a radically new way to obtain and share music--over the internet. They wanted to download single songs for free, or nearly free. Artists, record companies, and performing rights organizations all fought the trend tooth and nail on the regulatory battlefield. (Remember the Napster wars?)
Apple realized that digital rights were blocking what consumers really wanted. It created iTunes, to deliver songs the way people were wanting them delivered, designed to allow the iPod and its user to fit seamlessly into the whole mechanism. Apple cut deals to make everyone gain. Result: complete turnaround. In just three years, the iPod/iTunes combination became a $10 billion product accounting for nearly 50% of the company's revenue.
Mark notes that Amazon is following suit with its Kindle e-book strategy.
Whether you're a company of ten or ten thousand, a startup or Fortune-listed, there are some great takeaways in Seizing the White Space on how to reinvigorate, grow, or even entirely change the game and transform your company through business model innovation.
| | |
|
![Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416xWi5zTvL._SL75_.jpg "Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium [OLD VERSION]")
