Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Insight into the New Economics of Information
Review: Richness or reach? The trade-off used to be simple but absolute: your business strategy either could be focus on "rich" information-customized products and services tailored to a niche audience-or could reach out to a larger market, but with watered-down information that sacrificed richness in favour of a broad, general appeal. Much of business strategy as we know it today rests on this fundamental dilemma.Now, say Evans and Wurster, the new economics of information is eliminating the trade off between richness and reach, blowing apart the foundations of traditional business strategy. Blown to Bits reveals how the spread of connectivity and common standards is redefining the information channels that link businesses with their customers, suppliers, and employees. Increasingly, your customers will have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers, and your competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain. Your competitive advantage is up for grabs. To prepare corporate executives and entrepreneurs alike for a fundamental change in business competition, Evans and Wurster expand and illuminate groundbreaking concepts first explored in their award-winning Harvard Business Review article "Strategy and the New Economics of Information", and present a practical guide for applying them. Examples span the spectrum of industries-from financial services to health care, from consumer to industrial goods, and from media to retailing. Blown to Bits shows how to build new strategies that reflect a world in which richness and reach go hand in hand and how to make the most of the new forces shaping competitive advantage. Philip Evans is a Senior Vice President of The Boston Consulting Group. Thomas S. Wurster is a Vice President of The Boston Consulting Group in Los Angeles. The authors are co-leaders of The Boston Consulting Group's Media and Convergence Practice. Reviewed by Azlan Adnan. Formerly Business Development Manager with KPMG, Azlan is currently Managing Partner of Azlan & Koh Knowledge and Professional Management Group, an education and management consulting practice based in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo. He holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the Westminster Business School in London.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting concepts, not well worked out
Review: I bought this book with the expectation that the authors would do what no-one else has done yet: apply the principles of market economics to the market that is the WWW. They suggest in the introduction that they will do this (with a caveat--see preface p. xii). And their use of 'tradeoff' diagrammatics hints at a use of bona fide theory. Nevertheless, one never learns in the book what is really rationally (scientifically, theoretically, any of the above) compelling about their models. The Richness-Reach tradeoff has some intuitive appeal. (One wonders if the consumer choice model of microeconomics underlies this tradeoff. If so, work it out. If not, what then?) And their anecdotal instances of this and other models are consistent with it (with important limitations-see next paragraph). But all of this elevates the book's lessons to consultant-speak, and no more. I wish it were otherwise. Examples of specific limitations: first, the insight that value can be released by separating the physical value chain from the information flow (ch. 2) is intuitively appealing. But the authors are not clear on just what the former is, referring it to 'things' as if salespeople carrying information are things in the same way that advertising on or accompanying the product are. This is too vague to be useful. But worse than that: it pretends that this separation is made possible by the electronic revolution. Of course, mail order catalog companies achieved this separation a long time ago. This point should be made here, but it is left as an afterthought for a subsequent chapter (p. 91). Perhaps it is not raised here in chapter 2, because if it were, it would make their claims about the pervasiveness of 'unbundling' opportunities less than they suggest it is ('majority of businesses', p. 21). Secondly, the Richness-Reach tradeoff example of direct marketers who up to now have sacrificed reach to achieve richness, ignores the fact that direct marketing has no interest in achieving total reach. Of course it's true that greater reach is possible with the WWW. But marketers will still not want to reach everyone, they will want to reach the potential purchasers who constitute their specific market. To put it in the authors' terms, the reach axis is not homogeneous from the seller's perspective. In short, for each concept, for each bit of counsel, I never got an answer to the question: how do they know? Lacking that, the book is closer to gospel than to science. I am not in general persuaded by the former, rather preferring the latter. This is not intellectual snobbery. For only the latter prove useful in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful but long-winded
Review: This seeks to give a conceptual overview for what we are experiencing in the digital revolution. The authors are brave in laying out their hypotheses. They could have put more effort into trimming the fat off. It's not as crisp as the original article. But still worth a read.
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Summary: A couple good ideas, that are said over and over
Review: I bought this book because I read the authors' excellent article in Harvard Business Review. But the book simply repeats the same ideas, over and over again. This book has fewer ideas per page than any management book I can recall reading in years. Save your money and read what they wrote in HBR.
Rating:
Summary: Great analysis but ...
Review: If you read "information rules" and "unleashing the killer app" and liked both, this one is just in the middle : both analytical and manifesto ! The only problem is that "every one can do every think or almost" and only the smart guys survive (I am overstating). Even though, that may be right, there is a lack of orientation about truly superior strenght of actors.
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Summary: Good discussion of eCommerce Dynamics
Review: Blown to bits provides a good review of the fundamental issue in eCommerce, what are you going to be when you go virtual. The premise, that you compete on reach or richeness, provides a way of distinguishing the various paths through eC as well as the impact of eCommerce on business models and market structures. Overall, the book is worth the read, however, the authors rely too heavily on the richness/reach framework so it shows some wear-n-tear latter on in the book. This is a strategy/economics type work, so if you are looking for implementation guidance this is not the book for you. If you are looking for something that will help explain what eCommerce may be doing to your company and markets its as good as anything out there and better than most.
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Summary: Ignore the forces outlined in this book at your peril!
Review: If you are looking for a discussion of the new vs old economy, this is the book for you. It outlines the forces not in terms of technology which so many e-business books are doing now but instead in a richness-reach framework which talks about customers. It explores the forces which are at work affecting established mature companies and how they must change and newer dot com companies which must evolve. This would be a good read over the holiday period to mull over and incorporate into your strategic thinking for next year.
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Summary: A Collision of Irresistible Forces Creates Opportunity!
Review: Unlike most e-commerce books that focus on the best practices of the last 2-5 years, Blown to Bits is a book about corporate strategy as it relates to the implications of e-commerce. Although I have read many e-commerce books, this is the first one that I have found that addresses strategy questions in their broadest implications. Other books on the subject tend to focus more narrowly. I had heard the term "deconstruction" before reading this book, but was not quite sure what it meant. Now I know that this is the process of taking vertical value chains apart. To me, the most important insight in the book related to navigation as a value-added activity for e-commerce customers. The Web is obviously going to keep growing very rapidly, and we will all need more and more help to get to the right places on it. The navigators will be very powerful, as that problem increases. For those who want how-to information for starting up an e-commerce business, this is not the book for you. Instead, you should read Customers.com and keep up with Patricia Seybold's Web site. If you want to know what is working well now, surfing the Web is a good alternative. Those who are most likely to get benefit from this book are larger companies who are doing little with e-commerce now, and start-ups who are thinking through their strategies of which markets to pursue. In either case, the book is well-written and easy-to-read.
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Summary: Save the time and read their Harvard Business Review pieces!
Review: A nice book with some really interesting material. Most of their examples are quite fascinating. Has a fast paced tone to it. Was a disappointment in substantive terms since their Harvard Business review pieces covered the same ground a lot more succinctly. Save yourself the time and read those pieces instead. The central concept of the reach v. richness tradeoff is quite appealing however. You will find some useful tips on actionable ideas originating from the key concepts. I know there is a lot of hype about this book but don't expect too much because you will be let down.
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Summary: Goes well beyond E-Commerce, to whats ripping up industries
Review: This is not just another e-commerce book. Instead, it talks about the fundamental forces ripping apart industries, and why no industry is immune. I found this book very insightful, and a pleasure to read. If you're in business, you ignore the forces in this book at your peril!
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