Dealing With Darwin....

I must confess that besides coming back for the first time in 25 years at 4 am after a reasonably great karaoke session at country heights damansara with Che Ngah and his datuk frens (hehe), I did nothing else, except sleep the whole weekend. Well. mostly hehe. Picking up this book above that I bought at kunikiniya KLCC which I had been meaning to read (well, browse would be much more accurate description...hehe) was about the only one single significant thing I did over the weekend. Ya ya we are all preparing for a rather bleak 2009 (thanks to The Edge week of nov 24-30 issue). We have been reading nothing else but of the global financial meltdown. Even scarrier is the announcements of global job cuts and layoffs that ensues. You have also, I am sure, read the headlines: industry after industry battered by globalization, deregulation and commoditization. The Darwinian struggle of business keeps getting more brutal as competitive advantage gaps get narrower. Anything you invent today will soon be copied by someone else - probably better or cheaper, says Geoffrey A. More. Dealing with Darwin is a guide to leading your company's evolution and creating competitive advantage in an increasingly tough climate. Drawing on hundreds of examples, including extensive Cisco case study, Geoffrey Moore illuminates how established companies can prevent their own extinction - not by throwing resources wildly at every potential innovation, but by moving forward with precision, courage and smart timing.

The old notion that innovation=invention=R&D investment has simply proven false. The idea that we just need to act more innovatively - beanbag chairs and brightly colored open meeting rooms - has not added a dime to shareholder value (which reminds me of Unilever's new malaysian office and the design of accenture's also malaysian office..hehe). In short, Geoffrey says that all the traditional nostrums plus all the New Age whoop-de-do has not been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Moore's key message is: in order to achieve competive advantage in a commoditizing market one must innovate so dramatically as to create definitive separation between your offers and those of the low-cost commoditizers. That means selecting a vector of innovation that can set you apart and investing intensely along that vector; to a level that competitors simply cannot or will not match. That in turn means economizing and optimizing everywhere else. The formula we come back again and again is Extract resources from context to fund core. Go pick that book and read it yourself! hahaha...you seriously did not think that I was going to tell you everything about the book, did you? hahaha...