Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal [Tapa dura]

Not much gets written about business models. I don't know if it isn't sexy enough or it somehow gets bucketed into the sleepfest of most strategy books. The only book I can think of, in recent years, to broach the subject was the self-published Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation For Growth and Renewal is a fine exception. Author Mark Johnson co-founded Innosight with author and HBR professor Clay Christensen, and while Christensen has been publishing niche extensions on disrupting education and health care, this book is a wonderful addition to the broader ideas of Innovator's Dilemma and Innovator's Solution. Both of the latter books were incredibly important in explaining how companies lose edge in the marketplace and are often blindsided by innovation, but there were some barriers to understanding exactly how to apply the concepts. Johnson does a great job of taking that next step in Seizing The White Space.

The book is squarely focused on showing companies how to build new businesses in area that are outside their current business models. This could be through replacing an existing business, building new models where there are barriers to consumption, or by filling gaps in the market. The final section delivers roadmap on how to go about the redesign and implementation of your new business model. Cases include Tata Motors and Hindustan Levr (India), Xiameter that grew out of Dow Corning, and Better Place, the Israeli start-up trying to change the automotive business model with electric cars.

Seizing The White Space is surprisingly short at 150 pages which makes the book very accessible. The language and concepts also match that accessibility. The book is worth a quick look, a reminder of the unconscious parts of strategy that you too often take for granted.

This is one of the most enjoyable business boks I have ever read. I am a devout student of strategy & innovation and hence have read quite extensively on those subjects. But when it comes to the question of business models, even Adrian Slywotzky, who may be considered as the real father of the concept of business models, is not as clear in handling the concept as Mark Johnson. Johnson's definition of the concept, and especially his breaking it down to four elements (he calls them boxes) is brilliant. Sure, Slywotzky's business model definition also has four elements but here the boxes make the handling of the concept terribly simple and managable. In short, the definition of this rather hard-to-grab concept is excellent.

Johnson's next move in the book is to show how a new business model can be designed on the basis of his four-box formula. He starts with the first step of defining a new customer value proposition (CVP). After this, he moves backwards to work out the 'processes' that need to be created or improved so as to fulfill this new CVP as well as singling out the `resource requirements' in the organization. From there onwards he shows how to work out the `profit model' for the newly generated business model. Hence, once all those four boxes have been filled `democratically' (with participation from managers at all levels of the company) and carefully, the company is now ready to implement the new strategy.

At this point comes the other strength of the book whereby it does not leave the subject at the point of strategy formulation. Instead, it moves to explain even the knittty gritty details of implementation/execution. Here also Johnson is very good and drives on deep experience.

The book is full of enlightening case examples. Some are known stuff (like iPod, iPhone, Hitli etc.) but you find a lot of new examples which are really good.

When you reach the end of the book -which I assure you it will be very very swift (I finished it in only three sittings)- you feel relieved because you feel like you finally have a workable model in your hands which you can start toying with tomorrow morning.

This is a very very good book on strategy. There may be other good business model books around as one reviewer suggested. But this book should certainly be included in that list of excellent books on business model generation and implementation. I personally thank the author for giving me such a great pleasure in reading this wonderful work.

The author is co-founder with Clay Christensen of Innosight. This book is distilled from many years of applying The Innovators Dilemma. For that alone it is an important book. However the author has stepped even further down the path of applicability by forcing you the reader to consider your business as solving the question, " what job does the customer want done?" From there one can see applying the ideas of Blue Ocean Strategy (Johnson alls it "white space" . But the growth in your learning continues as you realize just how powerful these ideas are for reinventing your company business model. The author could have stopped then and it would have been a fine book. But he is thorough and so he proceeds to show you all the things that interfere with new business model innovation, how many different approaches worked (or failed) for different companies and the structural thinking behind it. This is not a huge book , nor a heavy read . It is theory into practice with a heavy emphasis on practical. This is a must read, must own book if you are or aspire to be a business leader.