This book combines the perspectives of many different books into one. As a result of spanning so much material, the book operates at about 100,000 feet above sea level. Although the view is breathtaking, you can't see most of the details. For managers and executives, that means being left with concepts that they may have trouble implementing. The way to overcome that weakness is to go on to read other books that do address these issues in more detail like Built to Last and The Innovator's Dilemma.
The first part is familiar material about how the Internet is changing business. It goes on to focus on the IT department of a traditional company as the weak link in responding to Internet opportunities and challenges.
The second part repeats Moore's shareholder value perspectives from The Gorilla Game (a book I liked much better than this one). Basically, he feels that management and the board should look at the level and direction of stock price as a litmus test on the company's strategy and implementation.
Part three hits the high points of relating well in the middle of creating a competitive advantage while technology is changing.
Part four discusses how top performance changes at times during a technological wave. This is probably the most interesting part of the book. It is quite well done.
Part five examines the key concept of focusing on what creates competitive advantage internally, and getting rid of everything else by outsourcing and partnering. I thought this was a little too simple. In many cases, your internal perspective may be the worst place to try to do key activities. For example, Wal-Mart reportedly began to do better with Internet development after it did more outsourcing in this core area. Keep in mind though that apparently Wal-Mart is still struggling with the Internet. This section was really addressing The Innovator's Dilemma material and concepts.
Finally, how do you institutionalize the way your company will attack the Internet and future technologies? This is routine material from a variety of books, and you can skip it if you are well read in business.
If you like your business books highly condensed and simplified, you'll rate this book a 5 star. If you like more detail, you'll rate it lower. If you have to have lots of detail, skip this book. It is resistible for you.
After you read this book, I suggest you think about when you may communicate at too high a level of generalization. People need it simple. See the excellent book, Simplicity, more more ideas!
The significance of it is, i think, on page 96, where the author states the several levels of competition:
1. Competition of New paradigms versus old paradigm (e.g. PC vs. MiniComputers and MainFrames2. Competition between the new paradigms - Apple value chain vs. PC value chain, for example.3. Competition for a spot on the value chain - Dell vs. Compaq; MS DOS vs. C/PM vs. Pascal; etc.4. Competition for a bigger piece of the pie - Intel vs. Microsoft vs. Dell vs. CompUSA etc.
AS you can see, the two first stages involve "collaboration" whereas the 2 latter are concerned with Competition (Michael Porter Style).
There are other significant issues discussed in this book - i just thought i highlight this one as the one that stroke me as most important.
Good Hunting!
In "Living..." he continues this tradition. This book extends the concepts of the "Chasm" and "Tornado" books and uses these new concepts to address real world questions in large companies. He clearly answers questions like "Should this task be outsourced?", and "How should I align my line functions to bring a new product to market?"
An essential read to a high tech marketer or leader.
The fault line--that dangerous, unstable seam in the economy where the Internet and other powerful innovations meet and create market-shattering tremors. Every company lives on it; no manager can control it. Everyone must learn to deal with it.
Now, Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, two bestselling works that helped guide the high-tech revolution, explores the new management paradigms that will guide businesses in the twenty-first century, showing them how to survive and thrive on the fault line.
In this long-awaited new book, Moore turns his attention to the most important question for businesses: How can companies that rose to prominence prior to the age of the Internet manage for shareholder value now that the Internet is upon us?
The old management truths are dead. Business models that worked admirably until the last decade of the twentieth century must be replaced. The dotcoms are invading every sector of commerce, overturning established relationships, reengineering markets, attacking long-established price points, and disintermediating longstanding institutions.
What should management do when it is under direct assault from companies no one ever heard of even a few years ago?
In a book that will reset the management agenda in the age of the Internet, Moore shows why sensitivity to stock price is the single most important lever for managing in the future, both as a leading indicator of shifts in competitive advantage and as an employee motivator for making necessary changes in organizations heretofore impervious to change. He prescribes a new agenda for management teams that includesNew strategies for achieving and sustaining competitive advantageNew metrics to keep management teams on course with these strategiesA specific blueprint for how the blue-chip companies can meet the challenge of the dotcomsModels of organizational change for each stage of market developmentThe crucial role of declaring a culture inenabling swift response to global change
Today practically every company, whether inside the high-tech sector or not, is living on the fault line. By synthesizing his groundbreaking earlier work on the dynamics of technology-based markets with a new focus on managing publicly held corporations for shareholder value, Geoffrey Moore provides a highly prescriptive guide for any company struggling to manage the disruptive forces of the new economy.
In Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, Moore created a new language for navigating the technology adoption life cycle. In Living on the Fault Line, he once again offers a brilliant set of navigational tools to help meet today's defining management challenge-managing for shareholder value in the age of the Internet.