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Record-breaking economic growth. Rapid global
expansion. Dizzying technological innovation. As we speed
into the new millennium, there are more opportunities than
ever for your company to create new value, satisfy customers,
and make money. But given today's bewildering array of knowledge
management methods, how do you determine which path to follow
-- and how do you transform your capabilities for the journey?
With Invented Here, authors Victor
and Boynton argue that companies cannot rely on any one
way for any length of time to succeed in a market where
consumers want their goods and services individually customized
through craft work, yet expect the speed and low cost of
mass production. To ensure growth and profitability, say
the authors, managers must evoke, develop, and deliver the
distinctive capabilities that reside within their own firms.
They must invent success right there.
Invented Here exposes the distinct
patterns by which successful companies manage their internal
growth -- patterns of continually evaluating and applying
organizational knowledge. The authors provide a workable
strategy for emulating these patterns, arguing that any
company can develop the capabilities necessary to evolve
from craft work through mass production, process enhancement,
mass customization, and beyond.
With lively, original examples from companies
like Beretta, Taco Bell, Dell Computer, Xerox, and Merrill
Lynch, Invented Here reveals how managers can determine
the best path of change for their companies by regularly
assessing their existing knowledge base. Invented Here
is a guidebook for building on the advantages you already
have in order to create more value. It illustrates how to
identify what customers really want, determine which distinctive
competencies the company needs, and then drive the transformation
to build those capabilities. Finally, the book explores
organizational forms beyond mass customization, offering
an intriguing view of the future of work and corporate design.
Invented Here represents the hard-won
experience and inspired creativity of managers who have
traveled the right path before. It's a pioneering guide
to systematically extracting the knowledge that exists right
now within your company in the actual transformation of
work: the nature of what you do, the value that you can
create with your customers, and the organizational knowledge
to be cultivated along the way.
Bart Victor is a professor of management
and the director of the Program for Executive Development
at the International Institute for Management Development
(IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland, and a professor of management
in the Kenan-Flager Business School at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Andrew C. Boynton is a professor of management
at IMD and director of IMD's Executive MBA Program. He is
also on the faculty at the Kenan-Flager Business School
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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