Metacapitalism: The E Business Revolution and the Design of 21st Century Companies and Markets

Aimed at business leaders, `Meta-Capitalism' offers an attractively presented, concise but unrefenced/supported PwC view of e-business markets.Chapters span: B2B decapitalization revolution; Metcapitalism marketplace dynamics; B2B process models; Intelligent behavior of markets; B2B anecdotes; performance measures; and organizational transformation.Strengths include: positive tone and brevity of descriptions; very attractive diagrams & tables; and a useful timely synthesis of content. The core message is: branding ("anti- Cluetrain Manifesto"), value-adding communities ("pro-Cluetrain Manifesto"), standard interlinking systems (processes; backoffice; SCM; CRM etc..) between end-customer through value chains to tiers of suppliers (products & services), and some basic financial ratios/measures. The author's also offer the formula e(b)= M(C)*2, representing B2B model= management (change times courage), emphasizing the energy of the new metamarketplace.Weaknesses include: lack of referencing/ support for much public-domain anecdotes; superficiality of analyses & case studies; rather abstract theoretical discussions; numerous technical errors (some e.g.s include: description 90s manufacturing actually 80s; problems with granularity in figures including 2.14; JIT 80s not 90s; SCM superficiality (no emphasis forecasting problems, data accuracy, prioritization, APS, Kanban etc..(Prof Towill at U. Cardiff has much to say on this)); and CRM & intelligence confusion despite emphasis); numerous cliched "pop-culture" references (many movies covered) quickly dating content; summary & repetition from of author's other book (Wisdom of CEO); and an ultimate message seemingly a sales pitch for PwC consulting services (where those who succeed will have embraced ERP & CRM & business processes). Overall, `Meta-Capitalism' is a good book needing more science & rigor (and better grasp of technology & operations in e-marketplace context), and case studies/support to be amongst the best. Useful as a discussion starter, perhaps with Deise et al's PwC 'Executive Guide to E-Business' (ISBN 0471376396); and Tyndall et al's Ernst & Young 'Supercharging Supply Chains' (ISBN 0471254371); and any operations management text by Wild, Mullins, or Slack for operationalizing & analysing markets, operations, and strategy.

I've been working as a web designer/developer, and now Information Architect for the past few years. I've been keeping track of the latest trends in software, code, applications, etc. My research has mostly been about bleeding-edge technology. Now that my career MUST take into consideration the end-user (a trend that is confirmed throughout the book: customer focus), and how what is designed affects the end-user, my research focus has changed. Meta-Capitalism has steered me in a good direction and has clarified my responsibilities as well as for those who are transitioning their services to the Web.As I focus on the B2B2C world, Grady Means and David Schneider have outlined a paradigm with caveats that will help shape my perspective on the future. The authors also provide a decent reading list to follow-up on themes discussed in the book such as real options theory.This book also serves as a starting point for evaluating e-biz companies for investment opportunities. MetaCapitalism covers the fundamentals for the ensuing direction of e-business. A MUST read for those who intend to work in the Internet business beyond cashing in their stock options.

From the book's foreword comes the context for this book: "A fundamental transformation of the business model is under way, to which the central precept of Darwinism applies: Companies must either adapt or perish."This book's lessons are framed in terms of the large company of today that has historically used a traditional business model, such as an automobile company like GM or Ford. The book then shows what strategic models the company should migrate towards, and describes key aspects of that migration. This is expressed in terms of being effective in business-to-business electronic commerce, the fastest growing part of the Internet.The fundamental transition is from a company primarily managing physical and working capital, with a human resource focus on production, and sales-oriented branding to a brand-oriented company that focuses on customers to meet their needs and manages a system of relationships that produce the goods and services involved on an outsourced basis. The discussions are built at a level of abstraction one level above the normal strategy of a business model. For example, the book looks at the structure of delivering customer value and satisfaction, but says little about what the basis of that value and satisfactions should be other than more speed in developing new products and responding to customer desires and needs.These abstractions are made more concrete by comparing diagrams of old and new business models. Typically, the authors simplify these comparisons by inverting existing business model diagrams, and by creating linkages among various models.People who are very conceptually-oriented will like this book very much. People who like things simpler may find so much conceptualization too abstract. Companies with existing business-to-business strategies will find this book a useful way to test their thinking. For companies struggling to develop a strategy, this book can provide useful questions to start with. The authors make some very sweeping predictions: "The period from 2000 to 2002 will represent the greatest single change in worldwide economic and business conditions ever, and most of the impact will occur in the next 18 months." In the next 10 years, the authors also predict that the global market values for public companies will grow from 20 to 200 trillion dollars. Cisco is the basic model for much of this thinking, as it exists today. However, the book goes on to look at how companies are evolving in many different traditional industries. One of the things I liked about the book was that it also looked at the systems' transitions that will be required to participate in these outsourcing value-added communities and MetaMarkets.The book was also very good in providing the key underpinnings and assumptions for the insights. For example, the stock market increase is based on changes in business structure that will accelerate earnings growth while also providi