by Adrian J. Slywotzky & David J. Morrison
How Digital is Your Business? is not just another book about ebusiness. There aren't any instructions on how to set up website or descriptions of the latest ecommerce solutions. What this book describes is how to take a good business and make it better by utilizing technology in the right way.
Michal Dell, of Dell Computers, said "If you take a business that is a bad business and put it on-line, it's still a bad business. It's just become an on-line bad business."
A business must have a good model before any digital technology will improve it. The point of How Digital Is Your Business? is to identify areas in the business model that would be improved by technology and apply those solutions.
According to the authors, a good business design includes:
High relevance to customers
An internally consistent set of decisions about scope (the products offered and the value-chain activities performed)
A terrific profit model
A powerful source of differentiation and strategic control that gives investors greater confidence in future cash flows
An organizational system that supports the business design and leverages your talent effectively
A powerful digital system for managing and distributing information within and outside the company
A business owner can look at this model and determine if there is a weak spot. Just any solution won't work, though. Technology must be selectively applied to produce results.
Implementing a digital business design positions your business to compete in the new economy, no matter how traditional your business might be. The author's include in their descriptions how a cement company improved performance by implementing digital strategies. The key is to pin-point the exact areas in your business model that would improve by use of technology and the worksheets provided in this book will help you do just that.
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