The Digital Enterprise: How to Reshape Your Business for a Connected World
Edited by Nicholas G. Carr
Harvard Business School Press, 2001
ISBN 1-57851-558-0

Breadth of Audience: 3.50 (Outstanding)
Topical Utility: 3.50 (Outstanding)
Content Applicable: 3.50 (Outstanding)
Writing Quality: 3.75 (Outstanding)
Overall: 3.56 (Outstanding)

COMMENTS FROM THE REVIEWERS:

1. I soon found myself reading with a sense of urgency as I realized changes are taking place right now, although many Harvard Business Review articles go back one, two, and even three years. There's a continuous focus on reasons for big company failures, with nonstop examples of small companies showing speed and agility in product innovation. New definitions make you think: If transaction costs relate to a formal exchange of goods and services between companies/customers, where do costs for exchanging ideas/information get picked up? Aha! Now we have Interaction Costs. Three core business organization themes resonate: Customer relationship management (CRM), product innovation, and infrastructure. Traditional companies rarely map onto these three. They can't, with different economics and different types of people for each. Big companies neither attract nor nurture people to create a new business. Oracle, Sun, and Apple started over passion, vision, and a deep-seated desire to create something new that would have a lasting impact on people and the economy. This book offers much practical advice on issues and changes to the marketplace, which affect us all, in every industry.

2. The author's chart on "Rethinking the Traditional Organization" is very good. The unique role played by customer relations, innovation, and infrastructure businesses is highlighted by the author effectively under the "One Company, Three Business" concept. The author has done well in highlighting "Flaws in the exchange model." The chart "Emerging B2B Landscape" is very illustrative. Every professional and MBA student should read this book.

3. The global Internet puts multicultural customers within rapid reach of all types of enterprises. Anyone can develop a Web presence and promote their brand of "blue light" specials. In this compilation of HBR reprints, knowledgeable strategists and ecommerce insiders wow readers with the real lowdown on the evolution of e-business across an ever-changing cyberlandscape. Together, these articles provide a snapshot of an emerging new digital infrastructure for business, which is viewed as a technology- driven catalyst for positive change. Readers can profit by focusing more on historical perspectives presented rather than on narratives about individual corporate success stories, owing to recent bursting of so many dot-com bubbles. This book is recommended reading for understanding the emerging psychographics of online consumers, new roles identified for infomediaries, cogent suggestions for cyber-savvy business syndication models, and ideas for transitioning core competencies from stewardship to electronic entrepreneurship.