Gurus on E-Business (Gurus on... Series)

242 Pages·2006·0.71 MB·English

by  John Middleton

A GUIDE TO THE WORLD’S
THOUGHT-LEADERS IN E-BUSINESS
Gurus include:Sergey Brin• Manuel Castells• Michael Dell
Peter Drucker• Esther Dyson• Bill Gates• Steve Jobs• Kevin Kelly
Gerry McGovern• Robert Metcalfe• John Naisbitt• Nicholas Negroponte
Larry Page• Linus Torvalds• Michael Porter• Thomas Stewart
Alvin Toffler• Niklas Zennström
John Middleton
IFC
GURUS ON
E-BUSINESS
JOHN MIDDLETON
Published in 2006 by
Thorogood Publishing Ltd
10-12 Rivington Street
London EC2A 3DU
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.thorogood.ws
© John Middleton 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic,
photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of
the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the
publisher’s prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than in which it is
published and without a similar
condition including this condition being
imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
No responsibility for loss occasioned to
any person acting or refraining from
action as a result of any material in this
publication can be accepted by the
author or publisher.
Special discounts for bulk
quantities of Thorogood books
A CIP catalogue record for this book is are available to corporations,
available from the British Library. institutions, associations and
other organizations. For more
PB: ISBN 1 85418 386 9 information contact Thorogood
by telephone on 020 7749 4748, by
Cover and book designed and typeset in
fax on 020 7729 6110, or e-mail us:
the UK by Driftdesign
[email protected]
Printed in India by Replika Press
The author
John Middletonis Co-Director of the Centre for Strategic Thinking,
a membership-based organization that exists to promote better
quality thinking and planning practices within UK companies. Recog-
nized as a leading expert in decision-making tools and processes, he
specializes in working with individuals and organizations that are deter-
mined to make best use of the future.
From 1996 until 2004, he was Director of the Bristol Management
Research Centre, before which he spent 18 years working for BAA
(formerly the British Airports Authority) and AXA Sun Life in various
senior HR roles, covering recruitment, training, management devel-
opment, information systems and HR strategy.
John is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Devel-
opment, as well as a member of the Institute of Directors.
He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Bristol, where he
has been an Associate Lecturer since 1994. He has taught IT Manage-
ment on Manchester Business School’s International MBA programme
since 2001.
He has written 11 books to date, including Writing the New Economy
(Capstone, 2000), The Ultimate Strategy Library (Capstone, 2003),
Culture(Capstone, 2002), and Upgrade Your Brain(Infinite Ideas, 2006)
From 1996 to 2002, he published and edited Future Filter, a bi-monthly
business digest covering trends and developments in the new
economy.
His email address is [email protected]
THEAUTHOR iii
Blank
Contents
Acknowledgements 1
The scope of this book 2
Introduction 3
The influence of technology 4
Summary 6
ONE E-business – the strategic dimension 7
The internet offers huge scope for cost-cutting 9
The hare, the tortoise and the internet 9
Internet only companies carry less
organizational baggage 10
He who pays the piper… 10
The rise and fall of the middleman 11
Internet-based alliances 11
The simple conclusion – strategy has an e-dimension 13
TWO E-business – the global dimension 15
Let’s stick together: the importance of clusters 19
THREE E-business – the organizational dimension 23
The internet and organizations 24
The rise of the cyber cottage industry 29
CONTENTS v
FOUR The e-business gurus 31
1 Tim Berners-Lee 33
2 Jeff Bezos 37
3 Frances Cairncross 40
4 Manuel Castells 44
5 Jim Clark 48
6 Michael Dell 51
7 Larry Downes & Chunka Mui 54
8 Peter Drucker 58
9 Esther Dyson 63
10 Philip Evans & Thomas Wurster 66
11 Carly Fiorina 69
12 Bill Gates 72
13 William Gibson 75
14 Andy Grove 78
15 Michael Hammer 82
16 Jonathan Ive 86
17 Steve Jobs 89
18 Kevin Kelly 92
19 Ray Kurzweil 97
20 Charles Leadbeater 101
21 James Martin 104
22 Gerry McGovern 106
23 Regis McKenna 110
24 Robert Metcalfe 113
25 Paul Mockapetris 116
26 Geoffrey A. Moore 118
27 Gordon Moore 122
28 John Naisbitt 125
vi GURUSONE-BUSINESS
29 Nicholas Negroponte 128
30 Larry Page & Sergey Brin 130
31 Jeff Papows 133
32 Don Peppers & Martha Rogers 136
33 Michael Porter 141
34 David S. Pottruck and Terry Pearce 144
35 Thomas Stewart 148
36 Alvin Toffler 152
37 Linus Torvalds 155
38 Meg Whitman 158
39 Niklas Zennström 161
40 Shoshana Zuboff 164
FIVE Case studies 167
e-Bay 172
Encyclopaedia Britannica 173
Seven-Eleven Japan 175
Vermeer Technologies 177
Best practice: pulling it all together 181
SIX Annotated bibliography 183
SEVEN Tracking e-business trends 209
EIGHT An e-business glossary 215
CONTENTS vii
Blank