cover image Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs

Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs

Don Tapscott. Harvard Business School Press, $27.5 (272pp) ISBN 978-1-57851-193-8

Building on concepts that have been around for more than a decade, the authors argue convincingly that the age of the trillion-dollar enterprise, where two or more companies come together to complete one project, and then go their separate ways, competing against one another for the next, may finally be at hand. Managers who are grappling with ways to expand rapidly with limited resources--a description that fits just about every manager--are bound to be intrigued by the argument that Tapscott (The Digital Economy), Ticoll and Lowy--partners at the Alliance for Converging Technologies consulting firm--put forth. As they see it, the Internet eliminates almost all of the transaction problems that have plagued alliances up until now. Alliance partners no longer have to be in the same location, since the Web makes communication instantaneous, which in turn makes managing enterprises easier. Continuous market feedback is possible, since customers can be plugged into the network, along with suppliers and subcontractors. That's intriguing enough, but the authors go further and outline how five possible types of alliances, or ""business webs,"" can be tailored to suit virtually any company. While the authors give relatively short shrift to the ""how to"" component of constructing these webs and they don't spend as much time as they might on exactly where employees fit into them, those shortcomings don't distract too much from their otherwise trenchant and absorbing presentation. While the future may evolve differently than the authors envision it, they have provided a workable interim blueprint for getting from here to there. (July)