|
When technologies, products, and services
converge in radical, creative new ways, a "killer app"
can emerge -- a new application so powerful that it transforms
industries, redefines markets, and annihilates the competition.
The compass, the steam engine, the cotton gin, and the Model
T were all killer apps that sent shock waves through the
social, political, and economic systems of their time. Today's
killer apps spring from the digital realm: the personal
computer, e-mail, and the World Wide Web have profoundly
influenced and even altered society far beyond their intended
use.
Tempted by the promise of such devastating
power, companies large and small, from vast multinationals
to lean entrepreneurial start-ups, are remaking themselves
into organizations that nurture killer apps rather than
succumb to them.
How is it done? In this groundbreaking new
book, strategists Downes and Mui argue that managers must
abandon many of their most revered planning and control
processes. The most commonly used tools for setting and
executing strategy, artifacts of the Industrial Age, make
for inadequate weapons in today's digital arena. Leaders
must replace control and consistency, content Downes and
Mui, with chaos and creativity, and old strategies must
be jettisoned in favor of digital ones. Unleashing the
Killer App demonstrates how managers are rewriting the
rules of business to face this digital ultimatum.
Organizations with the healthiest environment
for identifying and fostering killer apps will translate
their digital strategy into market dominance. With Unleashing
the Killer App, Downes and Mui offer a progressive guide
to transforming your company into a place where killer apps
are born. Drawing from their experience and research with
leading global businesses, the authors:
- Identify the twelve fundamental design
principles for building killer apps
- Illustrate these principles with classic
stories from history and examples from a wide range of
industries that have successfully developed killer apps
- Examine the economic consequences of
the diminishing transaction costs in cyberspace
- Describe how to integrate digital strategy
into an organization's planning process to create new
markets, form new customer relationships, and change the
product line
Digital strategy, say Downes and Mui, is
more than a vision statement. It is an attitude that thoroughly
permeates winning businesses. Managed effectively, it becomes
a potent operating model for the business itself. Unleashing
the Killer App provides the tools, the techniques, and
the proof that you need to incubate -- perhaps even release
-- the killer app within your organization. Are you ready
to compete?
Larry Downes is a consultant with nearly
twenty years of experience working with global businesses.
He teaches law and technology at Northwestern University.
Chunka Mui is a partner with Diamond
Technology Partners and executive editor of the business
magazine Context.
He also directs the Diamond Exchange, an executive forum
that brings together senior executives with leading strategy,
technology, and learning experts to explore issues in digital
strategy.
|
