With the booming new e-economy, the rules in the business world have changed. Now, it is not just about the quality of a company's goods or services, but rather, it is how fast it reacts to the ever-changing financial playgrounds filled with new-spawned ideas and technologies. If a company is slow to improve itself, it'll play a hard game of catch up.
In the midst of these changes and the myriad of business-advice books emerges the insightful "Leading the Revolution" by Gary Hamel, a professor at London Business School.
Embracing the power of business concept innovations in this fast-paced world of technologies and uncertainties, Hamel pushes the commonly used mantra in business - change with the changing economy - to the next level. He motivates the reader to realize that change can come from the bottom up.
He draws on the example of the computer games industry, where the Sony PlayStation is one of the leading products. Sony is a well-regarded company that has made everything from the first transistor radio to the 8mm camcorder. But hardly anyone knows that Sony Computer Entertainment, a division of Sony that produces PlayStation, originates from the restless efforts of a midlevel engineer at Sony, Ken Kutagari. He was convinced that computer entertainment would be vitally important to the future of Sony, and that Sony must be a digital company.
In his book, Hamel argues that limiting employees to the confines of their jobs kills potential ideas, leaving no room for innovation and that "top management must give up its monopoly on strategy creation."
He continues this thought by saying, "It's not enough to have an ideology; you have to be able to pass it on, to infect others with your ideas."
His words can truly motivate anyone - ranging from the entry-level analyst to the CEO - to think big, to do different and to succeed.
Hamel effectively explains that most startups and big corporations travel in a linear direction until they bump into obstacles. In response, Hamel calls for the re-creations of the initial strategies if they don't seem to fit in the new economy.
Take Amazon.com for example. It started as an online book retailer, but now it sells a variety of things, from toys to DVDs to software. This expansion has made it hard for any dot-com contenders to compete in this arena. Amazon.com has capitalized on the fact that it offers customers many products on one site. When they buy software, it's likely that they want books to teach them how to use the products.
Hamel does a good job of motivating the reader through examples of successful companies, not just telling them of the triumphs of business revolutionaries.
Alert to the danger that Wal-Mart and Target might be siphoning off budget-conscious customers, Gap launched Old Navy and started to build warehouse superstores worldwide. No one sees Gap as just another chain retailer anymore; chain retailers simply are not in the same league.
Among other innovations that make Wall Street go mad is Sephora, a French cosmetics chain recently acquired by a giant cosmetics company, LVMH. Walk in a Sephora store, and you'll see its unique displays of face and body products arranged into categories and customers freely sampling each product. According to Hamel, it's these different and new ideas that makes Sephora a success. It now accounts for 20 percent of the French retail cosmetics market and continues to expand across the U.S.
In support of these cases, Hamel splendidly provides detailed analyses of almost any business success or failure. Though sometimes his writing leans toward high-end intellectual comments, Hamel subtly turns them into relatively jargon-free prose with vivid graphic images to illustrate his points.
Take Schwab as an example. To Hamel, its pursuit of better solutions for customers carries the company "round and round the spiral staircase" as Schwab advances towards higher levels of customer satisfaction..."
Hamel devotes an entire chapter to the core components of new business innovation he believes is necessary for re-creation to work. Some of these concepts are hard to grasp, like value network and customer interface, but fortunately, Hamel has an example to support each of them. This in-depth analysis helps to make better sense of what he says, and allow the reader to apply them to real-life situations.
This book might be the Holy Scriptures for any business savvy or anyone who cares to make a difference. Read it, embrace it and let it wake you up. It's time to take on the world!
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