MIT Press The Future of Competitive Strategy: Unleashing the Power of Data and Digital Ecosystems

Several business books have been written since the emergence of the internet in the 1990s, on how it would transform the way we live. However the dot coms boom went bust, since many of them lacked a robust business model, or were not supported by an ecosystem needed for digital platforms. Meanwhile, with the rapid fall in costs of bandwidth, exponential increase in the power of computing and mobile phones, emergence of social media and aggregation of value chains, the entire business ecosystem has been mutated in unprecedented ways in the last two decades. If the railways took about a century and half to transform humans from agricultural to the industrial age, the internet has proven to be a far more profound and powerful in less than two decades. Companies like P&G, Colgate Palmolive, Coca Cola and Nestle are household names in our consumption basket that have been in business for more than a century. We have similar examples like Caterpillar, Ford Motors and General Electric who have a global presence in the equipment space. Yet, these are now ‘legacy industrial titans’. Whereas, companies in the digital age, the ‘Digital Titans’ like Facebook, Google and Apple operate exclusively in the digital ecosystem, with data as their key lifeline. It was once said that in the digital age, Land, Labor and Capital, once considered ‘factors of economic production’ would be replaced by Connectivity, Speed and Intangibles. This book is about connecting the gap, powering the industrial titans with digital technologies, to gain significant competitive advantage in the new paradigm. Digitization by itself has its limitations despite all the hype. No one can develop an app that can be eaten for breakfast or to brush our teeth. However, it is possible to build a ‘smart’ toothbrush that can do wonders and help us improve dental care. Imagine the tooth brush with a sensor that tracks the brushing effectiveness, gives feedback periodically through an app that is connected through blue tooth (not our white ones!) to our smart phones, sends data to the dentist before a scheduled visit, and perhaps prompt the medical insurance company to reduce our premium based on oral hygiene. The possibilities are immense. This book is the ability to unleash this limitless potential, of legacy products when coupled with digital capabilities, create a new source of differentiation and customer engagement, and hence a clear competitive advantage. The structure of the book is awesome and the frameworks are simply amazing. It starts with the concept of Enterprise Resource Planning that binds the enterprise processes. The extended enterprise connects to the suppliers and dealers, and this infrastructure at best improves operational efficiencies of ‘Production Ecosystems’. This needs to be extended to the ‘Consumption Ecosystem’ to develop Deep Customer Insights, Enrich Digital Experience and Amenable for Sharing with other complementors. Interactive data in real time is the key, in comparison with episodical data of conventional systems. The next step is the ability to create ‘Digital Platforms’ to unlock the power of data. Platforms create networking effects, scaling and the effective use of ‘long tail’ where the limitation of physical space and presence is eliminated in the digital world. Platforms are self-enriching with ‘network effects’ acting as the aggregator of potential customers and other value providers. Hence the key to creating a sustainable and winning digital strategy lies in getting control of the crucial intersections of data sharing ecosystems. The book is full of insightful frameworks that are necessary to build and execute a digital competitive strategy for legacy firms. In summary, ‘first, a new understanding of how digital technologies have transformed prevailing ways of utilizing data; second, a fresh comprehension of business environments as digital ecosystems; and third, adopting a new mindset for a strategy that builds a data-driven advantage when competing in digital ecosystems.’ Brushing our teeth will soon be an online digital interactive experience of connecting into a comprehensive health care platform designed to enrich lives and optimize costs. Smile! The digital age has been made possible in significant measure due to the path breaking contribution of ‘Moore’s law’ published in 1965 by Dr Gordon Earle Moore. Sad to hear the demise of this great scientist on 24 th March 2023. RIP Dr Moore. We are eternally grateful. This review is dedicated in your honour.

Not finished reading it but so far a great piece of work and helps us get inside ecosystem thinking without losing the industry side of things. A few more examples would add to the book but I am only in chapter three.

Good read for general knowledge but nothing else. In addition to that there is lots of repetition throughout the book.

One of the first books that I have seen that offers frameworks for digital ecosystems with traditional legacy firms in mind and not just digital platforms. The production-consumption ecosystems framework is novel and very useful.