Webs of Innovation: The Networked Economy Demands New Ways to Innovate

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Summary: Motivating Big and Small Businesses to Innovate
Review: The book discusses how businesses must find new ways to innovate while maintaining the core business that is already successful. For established companies to get involved in the new technologies, they must either acquire start ups, introduce cooperatives efforts either partnering or investing in internal new departments, or uses corporate venture capital to invest in start ups.

Established companies are striving to become dotcorps via networked innovation. Loudon explains how each method works, the advantages and drawbacks, and the many reasons for doing this.

The book is well organized, easy to read and follow. Key points are emphasized with questions at the end of each chapter, which provide a guide for companies dealing with innovation with its use of shades of gray and statements of key points. Case studies from Europe and the US provide examples of the different strategies and how they work. It focuses more on problem solving than on the problems offering detailed methods for companies to organize for innovation.

While VC (venture capital) was the catch phrase of the late '90s, the authors explores the different types and ways of using VC. What companies did right. What companies did wrong.

The index lists all of the companies covered in the book to help the reader immediately find those that interest her. Boo.com's failure is mentioned, of course, as a first mover that did not become a prover. There are examples of everything including partnerships, buy-outs, corporate venture capital, B2C, B2B, and more.

While this book is aimed at companies and purports to be a road map to follow in pursuit of innovation and in preparation for what's next on the Internet, it's good reading for individuals interested in business tactics, in plotting change that keeps coming, and in investing in the companies that show the most creativity and openness to deal with the future.

Loudon reminds the reader that everything doesn't happen overnight. While the Internet has become the wave of the future, its present is no yet what it was hoped for. Sound business practices, profitability, ability to attract and keep good employees still remain watchwords for success along with creativity and innovation.

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Summary: Global Perspectives on the Online Marketplace
Review: There are dozens of excellent books on this subject and Loudon has written one of the best. At a time when global initiatives continue to increase and expand as well as accelerate, it is especially significant that Loudon does not limit himself to national perspectives (such as those from the USA) which tend to exclude or subordinate all others. He carefully organizes his material within seven chapters, following an Introduction in which he observes: "There seem to be three strategies currently pursued by large companies. First, some are trying to enter webs of innovation by starting a separate -- often competitive division [e.g. Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart]....The second strategy is mergers and acquisitions [e.g. Healtheon merged with WebMD and Ahold acquired Peapod]....The third way is venture capital." Loudon goes on to acknowledge that each of the three approaches can work "but it is critical to know which suits your company. This book will tell you." And it does.

These brief remarks correctly suggest that Loudon's book will be of greatest value to decision-makers in larger organizations; however, it can also be of substantial value to those who do business with those organizations (especially on an outsource basis) or who provide professional services to them such as financial and legal. Change remains the only constant in the contemporary marketplace. This is especially true of the technical environment within which webs of innovation are established and developed. Years ago, former president of Harvard University Derek Bok suggested that "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." This is especially true of organizations (including the larger non-profits) now struggling to leverage their assets in the online world.

At some point during his tenure as CEO of GE, Jack Welch explained why he admires small, entrepreneurial companies:

"For one, they communicate better. Without the din and prattle of bureaucracy, people listen as well as talk; and since there are fewer of them they generally know and understand each other. Second, small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace. Third, in small companies, with fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen. Their performance and its impact are clear to everyone. And, finally, smaller companies waste less. They spend less time in endless reviews and approvals and politics and paper drills. They have fewer people; therefore they can only do the important things. Their people are free to direct their energy and attention toward the marketplace rather than fighting bureaucracy."

I include Welch's remarks for two reasons. First, they articulate the spirit of entrepreneurial innovation which Loudon insists is now absolutely essential to business success in the networked economy. Moreover, because in such a economy there are constant demands for newer and better innovations, there are simultaneously constant demands for newer and better ways to produce them. If I understand Loudon's book, these are among his most important points. They offer great encouragement to precisely the same companies which Welch admires so much and which the most innovative of larger organizations now work so hard to emulate.

Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to read Borgmann's Holding On to Reality, Nielsen's Designing Web Usability, Cairncross' recently published The Company of the Future, and Markides' All the Right Moves.

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Summary: Anecdotes and examples pepper this exciting and useful guide
Review: Webs Of Innovation by Internet expert and global business consultant Alexander Loudon is a clearly forward-looking and progressive book about the future of business in the age of the Internet. A practical-minded approach to taking advantage of globalization and changing technology is the hallmark of this adventurous tour through the evolution of the Internet, the process of acquiring corporate venture capital, and generally gearing one's enterprise to make the most of today's changing and highly interdependent markets. Anecdotes and examples pepper this exciting and useful guide to taking charge of one's entrepreneurial destiny. Webs Of Innovation is highly recommended reading for entrepreneurs wanting to utilize the Internet and the World Wide Web in their mercantile and corporate ventures.