Recommended Literature

Recommended Literature

By Peter Keen / Mark P. McDonald

Published by McGraw-Hill, Published June 2000, 304 Pages.
A new thought leadership / eCommerce book sponsored by the firm's Process Competency identifies the approaches and steps necessary to create wealth through raising efficiency and combating commoditization found on the Web.
The eProcess Edge was written by Mark P. McDonald, an Accenture associate partner, and Peter Keen, a noted business author of works in the area of business and process design. The book is a practical roadmap that shows managers and decision-makers exactly how to improve their processes and capabilities, gain the competitive advantage through relationships, and help their companies attain wealth. The authors show how to combine new technology with innovative business processes to generate faster revenue growth and greater profits through relationships and repeat business.
Achieving Supply Chain Excellence through Technology

"Achieving Supply Chain Excellence through Technology" is the latest tool to leverage with clients contemplating supply chain projects. This recently published book includes forty white papers and sixty vendor profiles drawn from a range of leading supply chain industry practitioners, technology providers, academics and Accenture partners. Content focuses on the impact of technology innovations that are driving and enabling new supply chain strategies. As the sponsor of the project, Accenture has premier positioning as well as authorship of eight white papers.

Access the content online at www.ascet.com
Kick-Starter.com -The Definitive European Internet Startup Guide (8/00)

By: Stephen Harpin

Macmillan Press Ltd, ISBN0333945824, Paperback - 400

Created by Accenture and other leading internet experts, "Kick-Starter.com - The Definitive European Internet Startup Guide" includes advice on finding unique business concepts as well as business plan, marketing, technical, financial and legal aspects. This guide is a must read for an in-depth understanding of addressing the challenges of starting and managing rapid growth high risk Internet ventures.

An intriguing new book from the Peter F. Drucker Foundation, Leading Beyond the Walls, features thought leadership from three Accenture partners: Charles Roussel, "Decision Making Beyond the Boundaries;" Iain Somerville (with D. Quinn Mills), "Leading in a Leaderless World;" and Cathy Walt, Ph.D. (with Marshall Goldsmith), "New Competencies for Tomorrow's Global Leader." It marks the first time that one organization, other than Harvard University, has contributed three chapters to a single Drucker Foundation publication. Leading Beyond the Walls is a compilation of essays from 29 thought leaders that offers thought provoking insights and real-world applications from organizations such as AT&T, Disney, Kaiser Permanente, General Electric, Lucent Technologies, the International Monetary Fund, NASA, Nike, and the Taco Bell Foundation.

Auerbach Publications, ISBN: 0-8493-9967-X

A new book, written by many of the firm's technology leaders, offers a comprehensive and practical guide to netcentric and client / server computing. The book combines and updates two previous Accenture publications -- Client / Server Computing: A Practical Guide and Netcentric Computing: Computing, Communications and Knowledge.
Web Security & Commerce (Nutshell Handbook) (6/97)

By: Simson Garfinkel and Gene Spafford

O'Reilly & Associates, ISBN: 1565922697, Paperback - 500 pages

"Good all around overview. And if you were sleeping well at night, this should correct the problem."

By: David Brin

Perseus Press, ISBN: 020132802X, Hardcover - 272 pages.

"Kind of takes the holy light off privacy and offers some alternatives to the assumption that we need to encrypt everything and keep secrets from everyone. Gets kind of repetitive and preachy, but great examples and an interesting central theme, "Let's watch the watchers."

By: David A. Kaplan

William Morrow & Company; ISBN: 0688161480;352 pages

Says Amazon.com, "Kaplan's book is a history of the Valley, from the time when Stanford professor Frederick Terman encouraged David Packard and Bill Hewlett to establish their own company to when Sequoia Capital invested $1 million in a startup founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. In between are the many Valley legends, including Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Kleiner Perkins, Apple, Oracle, and Netscape--as well as some of its most notable failures and tragedies, such as William Shockley and Gary Kildall. While the book begins with the opulence of Woodside, California, it ends surprisingly enough in Portland, Maine, with Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, who fled the Valley for something 'fresher' and 'more alive'. "

By: Po Bronson

Random House; ISBN: 0375502777, Hardcover - 248 pages

Says Amazon.com, "In The Nudist on the Late Shift, Po Bronson intends to capture the spirit of the Valley, leading us through a series of vignettes that takes us from a "near brush with sudden wealth" to a $400 million buyout; from life on the edge with a group of Java programmers to the plight of a futurist writer with the looming deadline for a 9,000-word article."

by Evan I. Schwartz

Broadway Books; ISBN: 076790333, Hardcover - 256 pages

Says Amazon.com, "In Digital Darwinism, Schwartz identifies seven strategies that will separate the winners from the losers. These include building a brand that stands for solving something, elastic pricing, affiliate partnerships, and integrating digital commerce with every aspect of business. Schwartz buttresses his arguments with analysis of dozens of companies already competing on the Internet, including Yahoo!, Peapod, Priceline, E*Trade, Dell Computer, and Recreational Equipment, Inc. Schwartz views these early years of the Web as largely "irrational," but anticipates a general rationalization."

by Peter S. Cohan

Jossey-Bass Publishers; ISBN: 0787944769, Hardcover - 224 pages

Says Amazon.com, "Shows investors how to navigate the sometimes deceptive market of publicly traded Internet companies. Net Profit breaks down the complexity of the Internet market by answering two basic questions: Who makes money on Internet-related businesses, and how do they do it? By contrasting leading companies with those who have done poorly and analyzing different industry segments for size, growth rate, profitability, and profit drivers. Net Profit shows which industry segments are likely to profit, which won't, and why."

By: B. Joseph Pine, James H. Gilmore, B. Joseph Pine II

Harvard Business School Pr; ISBN: 0875848192; 254 pages

"This book very clearly explains what "value Intentions" struggles to."

By: Rolf Jensen

McGraw-Hill; ISBN: 0070329672, 242 pages

From the back jacket cover, "Businesses need to imagine their futures the way good novelists imagine their stories.' -Rolf Jensen, Director, The Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. What's the future of business after the Information Age? It won't be the latest technology or newest product, but the story behind the product that will provide the competitive edge."

By: Geoffrey A. Moore

Harperbusiness, ISBN: 0887307655, Hardcover - 244 pages.
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Your High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (10/95) (Rev. edition 8/99)

By: Geoffrey A. Moore

Harperbusiness, ISBN: 0887307175, Paperback - 240 pages, Reprint edition

"Either or both of Moore's books present a very useful framework to help understand how different types view the takeup of new technology."

By: Larry Downes, Larry Chunka Mui and Nicholas Negroponte

Harvard Business School Press, ISBN: 087584801X, Hardcover - 224 pages
e-Business: Roadmap for Success (6/99)

By: Ravi Kalakota, Marcia Robinson and Don Tapscott

Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., ISBN: 0201604809, Paperback - 378 pages

"I have started to read "e-Business: Roadmap for Success" by Dr. Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson. Not a quick read, this is more like a textbook. The goal of this book is guide managers from eCommerce to e-Business. It's focus is on defining a e-Commerce strategy and converting the strategy into a e-Business. Separate chapters cover implementing business architecture within the CRM, ERP, supply chain and procurement processes."

By: Merilee Ford (Editor), H. Kim Lew, Steve Spainier, Tim Stevenson

Cisco Press, ISBN: 1562056034, Paperback - 717 pages

This comprehensive guide details available internetworking alternatives. It provides the reader with the most current technologies for WANS and teaches how to effectively implement these technologies on a network. Covers SONNET, ATM, IP, Frame Relay technologies and more.

By: Richard E. Smith

Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., ISBN: 0201924803, Paperback - 356 pages

"This book describes how many Internet security protocols work. Most importantly, it describes how systems that are designed well nonetheless end up with flaws through careless operation. This book is light on math, and heavy on practical information."

By: Warwick Ford, Michael S. Baum (Contributor)

Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0134763424, Paperback - 420 pages

"An electronic information specialist teams up with an electronic commerce legal specialist to offer a guide to both aspects for business, legal, and technical readers. Examines such topics as key management systems, authentication techniques, payment protocols, public-key certificates, business models, sample agreement clauses, and establishing technical and management controls for transactions in cyberspace."

By: Bill Gates

Warner Books. ISBN: 0446675962, Paperback - 496 pages
Customer centricity and business velocity change the very nature of business in the eC digital economy. "A manufacturer or retailer that responds to changes in sales in hours instead of weeks is no longer, at heart, a product company, but a service company that has a product offering."
"The most important 'speed' issue is often not technical but cultural. It's convincing everyone (workforce, alliances, and partners) that the company's survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible." Ownership of the customer experience is a shared event with partners who in turn add value. Evolving business relationships and new markets will give rise to new business models. Driving in the right eCulture is key.
"Business is going to change more in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty." Competitive advantage will go to those organizations that are best able to gather, manage, and use digital information for maximum and constant learning. The solution, according to Gates, create a "digital nervous system" for managing and sorting through the mass of digital information.

Beep! Beep!: Competing in the Age of the Roadrunner (2/00)

By: Chip R. Bell, Oren Harari

Warner Books, ISBN: 0446523534, Hardcover - 244 pages
All organizations are becoming virtual. Today's businesses are either Wile E. Coyote (Acme Products) or a sleek, ephemeral Road Runner types. "Asset-less" Roadrunner organizations got their start in 1996 with the " TV infomercials for "As Seen On TV" products (e.g. the Abs Toner). Once sales got traction, these asset-less As Seen on TV product companies outsourced almost all functions (manufacturing, administration, distribution) except celebrity marketing.
Market realities quickly appear and disappear, so do good strategies. Nothing is fixed or stable anymore, even pricing. In cyberspace, there are metabrowsers (bots) and software robots (Junglee, Agentsoft) that find the product or service you seek with the terms and conditions (price) you want. We are moving toward an efficient market for human capital via the internet. The eBay web site recently had a team of 16 roadrunner ISP employees auction themselves for $3.14 million.
The value of virtual companies flows from knowledge (human capital), alliances, and the capacity to transform know-how to results. It does not flow from its products or services. Roadrunner companies have the ability to form and uniform as customer preferences and the marketplace changes. Levi Strauss can create custom fit, made-to-order ladies jeans from the digitized data sent to its manufacturing facility from a prototype jean tried on by the in-store customer.
Winning virtual companies do not stand still on specific product offerings but provide continuing solutions. A new Disney product pops into the marketplace every five minutes.
Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transfors Strategy (11/99)

By: Philip Evans, Thomas S. Wurster

Harvard Business School Press, ISBN: 087584877X, Hardcover - 288 pages
The coming of age of the internet has brought about new rules of engagement for today's organizations. The authors explain the meteoric rise of eCommerce in dimensional terms - the economics of "things/information", and "richness/reach".
As an example, shelf space in a grocery store serves two functions simultaneously - a billboard (information) and inventory (a thing). Retailers must compromise between economics of information (more shelf-space) and the economics of things (cost of inventory). Separating information and things via the web creates tremendous economic value. The incremental cost of information is "zero".
Richness refers to the two-way flow/volume, interactivity, and degree of information customization. Reach is the number of people exchanging information. In our grocery example above, consumer reach is limited to store walk-ins, and product information richness has limited interactivity (reading the label for answers as to content) and there is no flow or customization. Today, every business is an information business.
Information is the glue that holds value chains, supply chains, consumer franchises and organizations together. Information (knowledge capital) accounts for the preponderance of competitive advantage and profits. The vulnerability of traditional businesses is proportional to the extent of its embedded compromises between activities tied together by information flows, and between its economics of information and its economics of things. Web connectivity allows the information value chain to separate from the physical chain.
The authors overlay these dimensions and their implications on traditional business models in the products and financial services sectors, thus exposing threats and opportunities.
New Rules for the New Economy (11/98)

By: Kevin Kelly

Viking Press, ISBN: 0670881112, Hardcover - 144 pages

"The book explains why a deep understanding of the power of networks and connectivity is essential to business success. In 10 separate chapters, Kelly outlines a key principle for living in the networked world. He combines economics, technology, and practical examples to enlighten the reader, and closes each chapter with strategic insights. It also delves into the popular notion of new economicswith their basis in increasing returns. The book may help AC professionals think more creatively in their approaches to client issues and opportunities because some of the principles are counter-intuitive. Only 160 pages, but in the

By: Mary Modahl

Harperbusiness; ISBN: 0066620120, Hardcover - 237 pages

"Premise is that the next 5 years will be decisive in the battle between brick and mortar companies and dot.com companies. It describes new business models on the web. The book also promotes Forrester's Technographics research as a model of consumer behavior that is helpful in identifying how different population segments will use e-commerce."

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Harvard Business School Pr; ISBN: 08758458511997, Hardcover - 256 pages

Web Commerce : Building a Digital Business (Wiley/Upside Series) (9/98)

By: Kate Maddox, Dana Blankenhorn

John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471292826, Hardcover - 304 pages

"The second chapter provides an excellent description of Cisco and their Internet success. Cisco (versus Dell) is a more relevant example to share with our clients because of one important fact: Cisco generated roughly 70 percent of their revenue through resellers prior to going electronic. Dell… always had a direct model and never had to deal with supply chain issues. Web Commerce outlines the cost of developing and maintaining a successful eCommerce strategy, the necessary resources, relevant job changes within the organization, reasons for going electronic, benefits (expected and unexpected) received, etc.)"

By Stanley M. Davis & Christopher Meyer

Little Brown & Company, ISBN: 0446675334 , Paperback - 265 pages

"A great read with the following premise: Speed x Connectivity x Intangibles - BLUR. The book is broken down into three sections. Blur & Desire, looking at the demand side of the economy, Blur of Fulfillment, reviewing strategy & organization's "economic webs" and Blur of Resources, traditional framework of human resource and capital are being changed more each day. Great use of industrial examples to show how the market and economy is changing around us."

By Thomas M. Siebel and Pat House

Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-49412-2, 291 pages

"Excellent read on the evolving E-Business and digital economy. Thomas Siebel (Founder and CEO of Siebel Systems) and Pat House (EVP and co-founder of Siebel) do a great job of taking some complex E-Business issues and boiling them down in to understandable and applicable descriptions through the use of real live case examples. Cyber Rules is more of a “practical guide” than a technical book on E-Business. All levels of E-Business experienced folks can benefit from this book. The first three chapters (Part I) will be remedial for those more seasoned web veterans. Chapters 4 – 9 focus on issues such as enterprise capabilities, on-line to off-line channel relationships, “markets of one” and CRM to name a few. Chapters 10 & 11 focus on large and small organization's use of E-Business respectively. A great read and a must have for any E-Business library.

By Evan I. Schwartz