Book Description
If you're like most people, you bet your career and company on innovation--because you must. Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation offers you a new way to think about and manage innovation that will dramatically improve the odds of success.
Authors James Andrew and Harold Sirkin, senior partners in The Boston Consulting Group, describe an approach to managing innovation based on the concept of a cash curve--which tracks investment against time. They ask the questions you need to ask: How much should you invest in a new product or service? How fast should you push it to market? How quickly can you get to optimal value? How much additional investment should you pour into sustaining and building the product or service?
Payback offers you practical and economically sound advice on when to pursue cash flow indirectly by first pursuing other benefits, such as brand and knowledge. It also shows you how to reshape the cash curve by using different business models--integrator, orchestrator, and licenser--each of which balances risk and reward differently.
The authors then present a short list of decisions and activities that you must make--not delegate--to achieve a high return on innovation. You won't find facile answers in Payback--but you will find valuable insights and practical guidance for mastering one of the most challenging and critical business activities: innovation.
Customer Reviews:
Solid idea; very weak exposition.......2007-05-24
This book bears all the weaknesses one expects from management consultants. It has a solid core concept, the cash curve, and a very simple graph to go with it. Virtually everything worth knowing gets said in the first 50 pages of the book.
What follows is a logical, step by step exposition of each point in more detail using selected examples from the authors' consulting experience. Sadly, no single customer example is longer than four pages, and details are sparsely strewn. It is especially noteworthy that they graphic of the key concept, the cash curve, is wholly absent from the second (much longer) half of the book.
One also gets the feeling that if the authors had had different customer engagements, they would have come to different conclusions. For instance, they discuss how Intel practices the integration business model in their chip business. However, virtually every other semiconductor company of any note on the planet is using outside factories (fabs in semiconductor parlance). Many, such as Qualcomm and Broadcom just to pick two examples have built market capitalizations in the tens of billions of dollars practicing the orchestration business model. It would have been very instructive to compare and contrast how two different models in essentially the same business can both lead to outstanding results for investors. Sadly, that discussion is wholly absent.
In summary, the core principal of the book is a very important one. I cannot think of a single business that could become a big success not understanding it. However, the lack of details in the customer examples keeps this book from realizing anywhere close to its real potential.
Freshman overview.......2007-05-14
Don't expect any insight into the process of innovation. Payback provides a freshman-level overview of innovation taking place in various companies, but is not a source of insight into the process. Years after the results of internal policies of many companies have become apparent to the business World, the author merely points to seeming successes and says "Do That", and to the failures "Don't Do That".
There is a decent comparison of the Integrator, Orchestrator, and Licensor models and some of the issues facing decision makers. Look for this around the middle of the book.
For a far more profound study that is immediately useful there is probably nothing better than Christensen's Innovator's Solution - cover-to-cover. Payback lacks any reference at all to many of the biggest challenges to implementing policies and deriving return in the market place, from innovation. Beginning with Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma, learn first of all why established companies get stuck in a rut of satisfying the demands of existing customers and simply cannot produce new products and services that really will produce big paybacks. Learn also the big difference between sustaining innovations and disruptive innovations. Discussing payback without this understanding is like studying Rocks without studying Geology.
I must have read a different book.......2007-04-09
Based on the other reviews I must have read a different book. But seriously Payback bills itself on the ideas behind creating practical and actionable innovation, how else could you meet the promise of 'reaping the rewards of innovation.'
Unfortunately the rewards they are talking about are all in terms of cash and profits making this book a 101 finance book built around the authors notion of the Cash Curve with the following basic tenants:
- don't spend to much to create an idea because that consumes upfront cash
- don't take too long to commercialize and bring the idea to market
- get your idea into volume production as soon as possible
- support the idea with a measured post launch investment.
Sorry but that's it. The book is heavy on the finance 101 side and extremely light on the idea of practices and ideas. Sure they say that you can play different role: innovation integrator, orchestrator, or liscensor but you pretty much know what the authors are going to say just by the role names.
The book does have an number of case studies, many that are available in the public domain, however these cases are more narrative telling you what happened without being analytical and telling you why the did this or that and the result it took.
Overall this book is very light on the ideas and actions required to deliver the rewards of innovation because it treats innovation as a financing event that is intended to generate cash. While that view is true, there is allot of insight, actions and practices that must happen before we can start thinking about how to get cash out of an innovation. I only hoped that the authors had taken the time to tell us that.
Business libraries and business managers will find it inspirational........2007-03-12
Written by professional consultants James P. Andrew and Harold L. Sirkin, Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation is a solid guide to the difference between having a good idea and turning that idea into financial reward. Payback puts forth the argument that the biggest challenge facing most companies today is their need to increase returns from their innovation spending. Introducing a concept called the "cash curve", Payback explores the fundamental factors that affect how much financial return will be netted. From how and when it can be profitable to apply innovation to noncash goals (such as the acquisition of new knowledge or enhancement of the company's brand), to models that accurately assess financial, technical and market risks to the relative advantages and disadvantages of the integration, orchestration, and licensing models and when to employ each, Payback is a reservoir of solid, high-stakes insight into skilled decision making. As valuable for innovative small business owners as for managers of grand enterprises.
Leading Beyone Where The Numbers Can Tell You.......2007-02-18
Innovation is one of the biggest problems facing companies today. This book does an excellent job of analyzing innovation into various types of companies and showing several examples of successful and unsuccessful companies.
The authors break innovation approaches within companies into three broad categories:
1. The Integrator - Here is where a company has a core competence and they hold the developement very close to their chest. The example they use is BMW who has a core technology in engines that they protect as much as they possibly can. Afer discussing a couple of other successes they then discuss Polaroid who attempted to move from film to digital cameras but failed.
2. The Orchestrator - where a company has the broad general idea and the ability to take a product to market but doesn't have the time, expertise, or desire to do this particular design/manufacturing job.
3. The Licensor - Some companies develop technologies that they are not going to take to market themselves. Dolby is the example they use, with technology licensed to various manufacturers. They have become the standard for audio professionals.
These decisions cannot be made by accountants, they take a leader. Someone has to see the potential beyone what the sheer numbers are showing.
Book Description
Inside markets, innovation, and risk
Why do markets keep crashing and why are financial crises greater than ever before? As the risk manager to some of the leading firms on Wall Street–from Morgan Stanley to Salomon and Citigroup–and a member of some of the world’s largest hedge funds, from Moore Capital to Ziff Brothers and FrontPoint Partners, Rick Bookstaber has seen the ghost inside the machine and vividly shows us a world that is even riskier than we think. The very things done to make markets safer, have, in fact, created a world that is far more dangerous. From the 1987 crash to Citigroup closing the Salomon Arb unit, from staggering losses at UBS to the demise of Long-Term Capital Management, Bookstaber gives readers a front row seat to the management decisions made by some of the most powerful financial figures in the world that led to catastrophe, and describes the impact of his own activities on markets and market crashes. Much of the innovation of the last 30 years has wreaked havoc on the markets and cost trillions of dollars. A Demon of Our Own Design tells the story of man’s attempt to manage market risk and what it has wrought. In the process of showing what we have done, Bookstaber shines a light on what the future holds for a world where capital and power have moved from Wall Street institutions to elite and highly leveraged hedge funds.
Customer Reviews:
Spectacular info... but ah what to do, what to do.......2007-09-22
This book is very well layed out and is an excellent primer on what is going on behind the scenes in the financial markets.
The end is a bit disappointing in that the issues are clearly explicated but the solution seems a bit murky and maybe impossible. The author does acknowledge the difficulty of implementing a truly workable solution.
Great risk insights, and lots of useful reminders on liquidity mechanics .......2007-09-21
A finance-related book like this one is always something I open with a fear of "deja vu". To Bookstaber's credit, his numerous insights quickly got me over this. It is a constant reminder to risk practitioners and traders that liquidity supply is a serious matter. It does indeed move mountains. For new comers into risk management and trading, it explains the sources of the LTCM debacle, and its learnings. By all standards, I recommend this book to any finance graduate, experienced trader, or risk manager. A very useful read.
The Wisdom of the Cockroach.......2007-09-14
In recounting his time as risk manager at a number of prominent houses (Morgan Stanley, Salomon Brothers, Citigroup etc.), Bookstaber completes the i-banking trifecta. First there was the Michael Lewis classic, Liar's Poker, detailing the juvenile bravado and macho antics of the trading floor. Then Jonathan Knee gave an intimate portrait of the i-banker deal making culture with The Accidental Investment Banker.
And now, in A Demon of Our Own Design, we get a glimpse at the risk management side of things... a sort of master plumber's walking tour through the bowels of the system, with technical descriptions of exactly what happens when pipes burst and boilers explode. (Some will find Bookstabers' level of detail intolerably dull; others will find it quite fascinating. I was in the fascinated camp.)
Nature of the beast
In describing the finer points of risk arbitrage, Bookstaber explains why it's normal -- expected even -- for trading desks to take a good whack every so often. The nature of the beast is to make relatively steady profits, month in and month out, and then give back a chunk of those profits when something goes haywire. (That's how you move huge sums on an arb desk; grind out small bets that are almost guaranteed to work, juice up the returns with leverage, and try not to be in the vicinity when the rare position goes kablooey.)
In light of this general modus operandi, perhaps it isn't surprising that the "quant" funds recently took a major hit (as of September 2007). They had been minting money for an extraordinarily long period, had the leverage to show for it, and now, after the recent "oops," seem to be generally back in business.
In fact it appears natural for much of Wall Street to work in this "make a little, lose a lot" fashion... the key idea being that all the little updrafts make up for the once-in-a-blue-moon downdrafts. (Such calculus works better for the fee collectors than the fee payers, but that's a different kettle of fish.)
Bookstaber's detail-rich description of the various trades that investment houses put on, many of them lasting years, is also enlightening. The details seem to confirm that, by and large, Wall Street is a gigantic, slow moving, conventional-returns type machine. (And what else could it be, really, with such an ocean of capital to allocate and so many jobs to fill? There is only so much creativity and contrarianism to go round.)
A dangerous combination
Risk manager war stories aside, Bookstaber's goal is to hammer home a key philosophical point regarding risk. He wants readers to understand that financial markets are inherently unstable, and this reality places limits on how far we (or anyone) should go in pursuit of outsized returns.
To make his point, Bookstaber uses various analogies to describe how the market is a highly complex, tightly coupled system... and to explain why the combination of high complexity and tight coupling is particularly dangerous.
The counterexample Bookstaber gives of a highly complex, loosely coupled system is the US Postal Service. The USPS has countless potential points of failure and myriad moving parts, but there are no catastrophic linkages involved. A lost package does not set off a disastrous daisy chain of events in which millions of packages are lost.
In contrast, the classic example of a highly complex, tightly coupled system is a nuclear reactor. The reactor is tightly coupled because any point of failure can lead to a knock-on chain reaction; one small thing going wrong can set the entire mechanism on a path to disaster. Being a highly complex, tightly coupled system, the market is less like the postal service and more like the nuclear reactor, in that the combination of aggressive leverage, complex methodologies and heavily interlocking parts leads to significant potential for catastrophe.
Exquisitely adapted
Another serious problem is Wall Street's deeply ingrained tendency to push the envelope. (Richard Lowenstein put it exceptionally well in his book Origins of the Crash: "Finance has its own Peter Principle, by which a successful model will be adapted to progressively riskier causes until it fails.")
In this habit of fighting for every inch of profit, Wall Street is like a self-evolving animal overquick to embrace the particulars of its immediate environment. The more precisely an animal is attuned to a particular "fitness landscape," the better that animal can thrive... in the short term at least, as long as everything stays just so. To be exquisitely adapted (as opposed to robustly adapted) is to be vulnerable to the slightest change.
Thus when the fitness landscape DOES change -- as it inevitably will -- the heavily specialized competitors tend to get crushed (if not go extinct). If a strategy-gone-sour broadsides a large enough group of market participants, the entire financial ecosystem can be thrown into turmoil. When the turmoil from this upheaval spills into the broader economy, wreaking havoc in its wake, the "demon" spoken of in the book's title is unleashed. (As this reviewer interprets it anyway.)
Wisdom of the cockroach
So the problem, in sum, is Wall Street's tendency to `overadapt' to every appealing landscape it encounters, building up complexity and leverage to dangerous levels in doing so.
Bookstaber's suggestion is to heed the wisdom of the cockroach.
The cockroach has survived a longer time span, and a wider variety of harsh environments, than humans could ever match. It is one of the creatures man cannot wipe out no matter how hard he tries. And yet, the cockroach's key risk management strategy is embarrassingly simple... simpler, even, than putting in a stop loss. The deeper point is that simple equals robust; by refusing to get fancy, and sticking with the tried-and-true, the cockroach ensures its reign as champion survivor.
Bookstaber uses the cockroach (and other examples from nature) to argue that we, too, should consider cutting back on our excessively specialized ways. The cost of a rough-edged strategy is forgoing excess profits in accomodative environments... but the benefit is increased likelihood of survival in a much wider range of environments, including the truly harsh ones. (As Jim Grant likes to joke, if so many of these credit-driven vehicles can barely handle prosperity, how are they supposed to fare when adversity hits?)
Harrumphs all round
Bookstaber's finger-wagging solution (be less fancy; take less risk) has the ring of common sense to it, especially in the way it frustrates all those market participants determined to have their cake and eat it too.
For those who seek to wring every last nickel out of the market (as LTCM used to brag of doing), Bookstaber argues persuasively that flying too close to the sun will always be perilous. The commitment to leveraging every edge on a broad scale inevitably leads to disaster-prone configurations, no matter how smart the players.
For those who think the answer is greater regulation of markets, i.e. more rules, Bookstaber shows how extra layers of bureaucracy can actually bring about the exact opposite of the intended affect. Perversely, layers of red tape can (and often do) make a situation more risky, by increasing confusion and complacency simultaneously.
Nor is greater information disclosure the answer. If the market's traditional liquidity providers (traders, market makers, speculators etc.) are forced to disclose their positions to the world in real time, they will react in the manner of poker players forced to play their hands face-up. To the extent that disclosure resolves uncertainty, it also drives market participants from the game. And because "liquidity is a coward" as the old saying goes, always running away when you need it most, strict disclosure rules would likely make bad market conditions worse at the least opportune times.
Some left smiling
Two groups in particular may be left smiling at the end of this book -- value investors and trend followers. In both the theory and practice of their normal operations, value investors and trend followers intuitively embraced Bookstaber's message a long long time ago, favoring longevity and robusticity over the temptations of adjusting to the moment.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that value investors and trend followers are arguably the most profitable market participants by far on an absolute-dollar basis, hauling in hundreds of billions in profit over the course of many decades. They are champion survivors too... with a touch more class than the cockroach.
A MUST READ for all financial markets professionals.......2007-09-13
This is an excellent book. I cannot say enough good things about it. Unquestionably one of the best books on financial markets of the hundreds that I have read. This book provides a ringside view of how the major banks and hedge funds work and why financial risks have become more magnified than before.
Derivatives, trading and hedge funds are here to stay. They perform a valuable service to the financial markets, though Warren Buffet will disagree with me. Nevertheless, it is the mis-use of derivatives and the excessive use of leverage that leads to financial disasters. This book provides an excellent insight into why we witness financial turmoil in some of the most liquid markets.
I strongly recommend it to all MBA finance students as well as to financial markets professionals at hedge funds, prop trading desks, risk managers, quants, bankers, pension fund managers.
Demon.......2007-09-12
I found this book very interesting and full of information I haven't seen elsewhere. A Wall Street "quant" insider's perspective, focused on what can and does go wrong. The author also ties his analysis of famous Wall Street tailspins to other notable failures, including Chernobyl and the Challenger, and finds common themes.
Book Description
This book is comprised of 45 articles written by top researchers and theorists in finance. The text is meant to bridge the gap between financial theory and practice. It gives instructors a way to introduce students to academic articles edited to eliminate the methodological content. The articles were originally edited for practitioners, so they are perfect for the MBA student. This reader is the perfect packaging option for any of our Corporate Finance texts.
Customer Reviews:
Review from MBA / GE student.......2005-07-22
This book is excellent reading. Foremost, it discusses clearly all of the major issues today in corporate finance - capital structure, "what investors want", incentives and performance measurement via Accounting versus Economic Value Added models, corporate architecture, etc. The author is extremely engaging, and I must admit, this is the first "text book" I've had that I wanted to keep reading. The author is sarcastic, opinionated, but objective all in one. An excellent purchase for a course or just if you're interested in understanding the way markets and corporate finance truly function.
A good book of ARTICLES but too academic........2004-04-27
Chew's New Corporate Finance is a quite decent book on journal articles on finance issues from a corporate standpoint. Other than your professor's own choice of favourite articles, Chew's may be the next best thing you can get. I won't give it a higher rating (4 or 5 star) because it lacks ground-breaking yet still easy-to-read articles from the less technical journals like Harvard Business Review, etc.
Most of the articles are too academic coming from more or less the same journals. Moreover, the more technical ones have difficult formulas and number-crunching statistics which are more appropriate for MBA and MSc in Finance students, or those in researchers in "high-level derivative work".
I have the second edition (1999) of this book and used it sparingly for my MBA in Finance. And I've browsed through this new edition - what I found was there were not many changes made, only a few new articles have been added. Perhaps inclusion of some non-American articles would do justice to this book. Chew still keeps the classic ones though, which are always relevant. The roundtable discussion on EVA is interesting but Chew does not include criticisms on EVA shortfalls or problems.
On the whole, this text should be a reasonable introduction to high-level Finance and also a good supplementary reading for those doing MBA in Finance. But the editor's selection between technical and easy-to-read-but-important articles still leaves much to be desired.....
practical as well as academic.......2000-05-31
This book challenges you about what you really understand on finance. Before I read this I didn't like finance at all because it seemed too simplified. This book shows how the real world and people think. Especially, its chapter on risk is of a great help. Now I'm interested in some fields of finance such as internal corporate governance, real option, more refined and practical concepts than EVA, etc.
A good reference for motivated MBAs and practitioners.......2000-05-15
As the title of the book clearly indicates, the text advances corporate finance beyond the theory presented in texts like Brealy and Myers. Thus, the text is geared towards a more sophisticated reading audience. In a collection of articles, academics and finance practitioners discuss the real world impact of capital budgeting, dividend/share repurchase policy, financial innovations (e.g. convertibles, commodity-linked bonds, derivatives, etc.), and bankruptcy on firms. Do not be scared off by the "academic" nature of this text. Unlike academic journals, the long-winded discussions on hypothesis testing and experimentation are abandoned (along with the high-level mathematics). The articles are very readable and any empirical evidence is presented in relatively friendly charts and graphs, which do a great job at providing the proper intuition. More importantly, the authors usually include real world anecdotal evidence to support the conclusions, as well.
Excellent summary of various aspects of corporate finance.......1999-09-30
An excellent compilation of articles by top academicians in the field of corporate finance. The articles are ideal for a person who wants to get a good grasp of any area of Corporate Finance. Warning: This is definitely not for the beginners. It is ideal for practitioners who are interested in learning more.
Book Description
From the invention of interest in Mesopotamia and the origin of paper money in China, to the creation of mutual funds, inflation-indexed bonds, and global financial securities, here is a sweeping survey of financial innovations that have changed the world. Written by a distinguished group of experts--including Robert Shiller, Niall Ferguson, Valerie Hansen, and many others--and wonderfully illustrated with over one hundred color photographs of landmark financial documents (including the first paper money), The Origins of Value traces the evolution of finance through 4,000 years of history. Readers see how and why many of our most important financial tools and institutions--loans, interest rates, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, the corporation, and the New York Stock Exchange, to name a few--came into being. We see, for instance, how ancient Rome developed an early form of equity finance that resembles the modern corporation and read about the first modern corporation--the Dutch East India Company--and its innovative means of financing the exploration and expansion of European business ventures around the globe. We also meet remarkable financial innovators, such as the 13th century Italian Fibonacci of Pisa, whose mathematics of money became the foundation for later developments in the technology of Western European finance (and may explain why the West surpassed the East in financial sophistication). And we even discover a still-surviving "perpetuity" dating from the Dutch Age of Reason--an instrument that has been paying interest since the mid-17th century. Placing our current age of financial revolution in fascinating historical perspective, The Origins of Value tells a remarkable story of invention, illuminating many key episodes in the course of financial history.
Customer Reviews:
History of Money.......2006-10-13
This book is a kind of compilation of 20 chapters written by a number of different writers with each one being an expert in the time frame which they covered. The book was very informative about when and where in the world people started using money and financing to transact business. Starting in Mesopotamia with the first known transaction with interest around 1820BC. Then moving on through the Roman Empire and the first annuities to the first use of paper currency by the Chinese around 960AD. The origins of stocks and bonds are also covered along with many interesting facts about the fiancing that took place during the Revolutionary War. There is about 4,000 years of economic history represented in this book which a person interested in economics and history will find an interesting read.
A Real Treasure.......2006-02-23
William Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhort have provide readers with a most wonderful work. Though clearly a wonderful coffee table book, I had to remove it from there due to IT becoming the center of attention in the room. The content is completely well done with beautiful photos and flowing prose. For those interested in gaining a keener understanding of how value developed as the economic force we all contend with today, take a look at this great work! Very well done indeed!
Book Description
Information is power-and in financial markets that power has long belonged to intermediaries responsible for managing the exchange of information among clients. But now, technology has made information simultaneously and easily accessible to all through a simple Internet connection. Moreover, technology has codified many practices that once relied solely on human relationships and judgment, transforming the control of industry know-how and intellectual property, the structure of the financial markets, and ultimately, the makeup of the entire marketplace for information.
In the midst of the so-called new economy, the evolution of financial markets provides a time-tested guide to how and why intermediaries and the information they work with are evolving along with technology. It also convincingly proves that these information intermediaries-or infomediaries,-will not soon be replaced. In Information Markets, finance industry experts William J. Wilhelm Jr. and Joseph D. Downing systematically explore the interplay between human capital and information technology in financial markets, and distill critical lessons for strategists in other information-rich businesses, including health care, law, entertainment, and publishing.
The authors explain that technological advances have upset the delicate balance between an innovator's incentives for discovery (profiting from ideas) and the interests of society at large (information "wants to be free"). They provide a durable framework for understanding the tensions that arise in information-intensive markets, and how organizations adapt to these tensions in the face of continuous technological change.
The authors also describe how intermediaries resolve coordination problems according to long-established economic rules and experience, explain how the evolution of the intermediary function will affect the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and identify new opportunities organizations can exploit to create value and fuel innovation.
For any business dependent on information exchange, this timely book explains the vital role of the intermediary in today's global marketplace.
Customer Reviews:
Great insight into human capital and knowledge management.......2002-05-19
As co-founder of Human Capital Technology Inc. and active in the area of Knowledge Management, this book provides an essential history of information and knowledge management. By providing an historical perspective, the book clearly and simply explains the relationships between those who have information and those who want information and how that relationship has and continues change.
While the authors use the Investment Banking industry to make their point, the information is applicable to all areas of business. A must read for those who are concerned with the acquisition of information and the management of corporate knowledge.
Insightful, provocative view of the securities industry.......2002-03-24
Excellent book that describes the fundamental structure of the securities industry then overlays practical (and readily observable) elements of intellectual property/capital. One of the few intellectual capital books I have ever read that includes detailed analysis on J.P. Morgan, one of the all-time titans of capital.
Do not be turned off by the greek (mathematical) equations in the chapter about IPO allocations.
The authors have a very strong framework that holds up well in the real world, even in the post internet bubble world.
I especially enjoyed the chapter about the Goldman Sachs IPO and ECNs.
Average customer rating:
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Asia's Debt Capital Markets: Prospects and Strategies for Development (The Milken Institute Series on Financial Innovation and Economic Growth)
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Book Description
This volume comprises studies by leading research scholars in the United States and Asia on Asia’s debt capital markets. They assess the risks and opportunities, and strategies for developing these markets. The authors adopt a multidisciplinary approach, encompassing economics, finance and law, in the context of market practices for promoting well-functioning securities markets.
The motivation for the articles is the fact that eight years of post-crisis discussion has not yet resulted in sufficient actions to broaden and deepen debt capital markets. Yet the role and value of such markets for economic growth and development is undisputed. The articles in this book make an important contribution in identifying obstacles to reform as well as in proposing ways to develop debt capital markets.
Book Description
The Digital Hand, Volume 2, is a historical survey of how computers and telecommunications have been deployed in over a dozen industries in the financial, telecommunications, media and entertainment sectors over the past half century. It is past of a sweeping three-volume description of how management in some forty industries embraced the computer and changed the American economy. Computers have fundamentally changed the nature of work in America. However it is difficult to grasp the full extent of these changes and their implications for the future of business. To begin the long process of understanding the effects of computing in American business, we need to know the history of how computers were first used, by whom and why. In this, the second volume of The Digital Hand, James W. Cortada combines detailed analysis with narrative history to provide a broad overview of computing's and telecomunications' role in over a dozen industries, ranging from Old Economy sectors like finance and publishing to New Economy sectors like digital photography and video games. He also devotes considerable attention to the rapidly changing media and entertainment industries which are now some of the most technologically advanced in the American economy. Beginning in 1950, when commercial applications of digital technology began to appear, Cortada examines the ways different industries adopted new technologies, as well as the ways their innovative applications influenced other industries and the US economy as a whole. He builds on the surveys presented in the first volume of the series, which examined sixteen manufacturing, process, transportation, wholesale and retail industries. In addition to this account, of computers' impact on industries, Cortada also demonstrates how industries themselves influenced the nature of digital technology. Managers, historians and others interested in the history of modern business will appreciate this historical analysis of digital technology's many roles and future possibilities in an wide array of industries. The Digital Hand provides a detailed picture of what the infrastructure of the Information Age really looks like and how we got there.
Book Description
Many companies and executives talk about patents, but few can demonstrate significant returns from them. Who are the elite companies and managers that have created wealth and profit from IP rights, and how have they done it? What do they advise others do to achieve higher profit margins, better returns on costly R&D, and increased shareholder value? This reader-friendly book focuses on ten companies and managers/advisors who have successfully implemented wealth-generating patent programs--and shows you how you can do it too.
Customer Reviews:
THE FIRST 50 PAGES ARE WORTH THE COST OF A SEMINAR.......2006-11-11
The first 50 pages are worth the cost of a seminar
As a 37 year patent practitioner, I found the first 50 pages of this book to be an eye-opener. It not only is worth the cost of the book, but in my view is worth the entire cost of the seminar for which it was offered as a preliminary read.
Whether or not the figures are exacting, the dichotomy is striking between the potential value of an IP portfolio on the one hand and the proportionately smaller amount of C-level executive and Director time devoted to management of the asset. It is also worrisome for all those managers to whom management responsibility is entrusted.
For those stuck in the traditional notion of exclusion being the principle basis for valuation of an IP portfolio, the implications of ignoring other and more non-traditional forms of value, coupled with the possibility of being called to account for that non-imaginative and perhaps negligent approach, are too important to overlook. Failure to effectively manage an IP asset may generate potentially serious liability for responsible executives and directors.
A well-done call to possibility is never wasted. While not a "how to", this book delivers that wake up call concisely and effectively. It is a call to action for the assembly of financial, legal and strategic thinking and resources in the management of IP, to be particularly heeded by the caretakers and enhancers of value.
Some good contributors, but way overpriced.......2006-10-12
This volume is disappointingly lightweight. Notwithstanding the comment of another reviewer who allegedly spent several evenings reading it, one can easily read it in 2 hours or even much less. The pages have relatively few lines of text, and those lines are widely-spaced. Almost 30% of the book (55.5 pages out of 190, other than intro and index) is filler, comprising biographies repelete with photos of the chapter authors in their Formula 1 racecars, running in a triathlon, rubbing their dog's belly, etc., and lots of information about their hobbies, or else pages that are completely blank but for brief epigrams by the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and Herman Melville.
The substantive focus is almost exclusively on patents, with a dash of trade secrets thrown in. On the plus side, writers from IBM, HP and Intel have good stuff to say about licensing strategies. But the book doesn't say much about the strategic side of building a portfolio -- e.g., you won't find any mention of designing around, the doctrine of equivalents, walls, fences or flooding. Many of the articles exalt the delights of suing people. The authors voice opposing views about patent trolls, but the discussion is surprisingly black and white, with little nuance (e.g., no discussion about whether there should be different remedies for different sorts of patent owners).
A frequent refrain throughout the book is that up to 80% of many companies' value is in IP and intangible rights. But actually, good luck trying to get 80% of your market cap by selling off your IP portfolio. In the context of this book, the statistic is misleading in several respects. First, the percentage is based on the gap between the market capitalization of a company and the book value of its tangible assets. Much of the value in this gap is in goodwill and brand, i.e. trademarks and related rights, which aren't discussed in this book at all. Second, the debate over whether market cap accurately reflects fundamental value would fill many books the length of this one. Lastly, the valuation of patents is especially context-dependent. A patent's value can only be determined by licensing or selling it to someone else, or by using it in litigation. For most companies (trolls aside), only a small percentage of their patents will ever be litigated. It's hard to predict which ones those will be, and even harder to predict the financial outcome of the case. And the percentage that are licensed is usually well under a majority (and in many cases is zero). All these issues complicate the attribution of value to patents. But aside from some brief discussions of patent quality in one or two chapters, you won't find such issues grappled with in this book.
The three or four best articles, such as the one by M. Phelps about IBM's licensing program, are way too short and general to give you much guidance on how to implement a strategy at your company. They're like tantalizing hors d'oeuvres -- whereas the book is priced like a full meal (or a very fancy entree, at least). As for the balance, there are plenty of websites and blogs where you can get articles of comparable depth and insight for free. So buy this book used, or read it in a store. A meatier book about patents generally, including portfolio strategy, is Knight's "Patent Strategy for Researchers and Research Managers"; and about licensing programs, a pretty good choice is Parr and Sullivan's "Technology Licensing: Corporate Strategies for Maximizing Value." You may spend more on those, but they're much better value for the price.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.......2006-07-26
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and found it extremely useful. It's an engaging compilation of 11 chapters written by 11 Intellectual Property experts, all of which are focused on how innovation brings shareholder value. By reading this book, a person is able to quickly understand the Intellectual Property playing field as it is today, and to identify many of the main actors and their differing viewpoints. Whether a person is an inventor, attorney, CFO or just interested in today's Intellectual Property environment, I think this book is a must-read. It is current, informative and well-written. Bruce Berman does an excellent job of giving the reader concise and valuable information.
Collection of Possibilities.......2006-07-12
Most of the business world focuses on the competition that occurs between products already on the market. A whole other world of competition takes place in the background involving intellectual property that a select few in business understand well. Bruce Berman has collected essays from an exemplary set of people who do understand intellectual property and have the track records to prove it. The book covers a lot of ground, which is the only issue this reader had with the material. Each of the individuals featured here could probably write his own book. The collection of possibilities to explore from an informed standpoint, however, is excellent; and in a field that is emerging from traditional ways of handling intellectual property, it pays to hear ideas from a number of voices.
Making Innovation Pay: People Who Make IP Into Shareholder Value.......2006-05-10
Management of patent portfolios is moving on to new innovative approaches and business models.Bruce Berman has assembled a group of people who are on the leading edge of developing and making use of these new approaches and models.This is an interesting read for business people and also for university people involved in technology transfer.It is well worth the few evenings it takes to read the book.
Average customer rating:
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Expertise and Innovation: Information Technology Strategies in the Financial Services Sector
Robin Fincham ,
James Fleck ,
Rob Proctor ,
Harry Scarbrough ,
Margaret Tierney , and
Robin Williams
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0198289049 |
Book Description
The nature of technical expertise has become increasingly important and problematic in the post-modern era, as structured hierarchies and production methods are revised. Financial services, one of our most important economic sectors, has also been confronting very high degrees of uncertainty that reflect great institutional and market changes. In this fluid and competitive environment technological change - in particular the widening scope of information technology (IT) - has become vitally important. This study is about the strategic uses of IT in retail financial services. It is based on the Scottish part of the industry, a highly cohesive sector in its own right, but one with universal linkages to UK and global finance. A set of seven case studies forms the empirical base, while the study also focuses on key strategic projects within these case companies. The purpose is to arrive at an understanding of how firms develop a strategic approach to IT. This hinges on the management of expertise - the ability to integrate detailed technological expertise with wider organizational and marketing goals. The study examines a number of themes around this key issue: the process of formation of IT strategy, sectorial influences on the implementation of computer-based systems, and the occupational and career factors that shape IT expertise.
Customer Reviews:
Creating tangible, effective solutions.......2003-03-08
Compiled and edited by Sam Daley-Harris (Founder and President of RESULTS Education Fund), Pathways Out Of Poverty: Innovations In Microfinance For The Poorest Families is an informed and informative study of how to best help the 1.2 billion people worldwide who subsist on less than $1 a day. Pathways Out Of Poverty is a detailed survey and analysis of microfinance as a means of loaning very small amounts of money to help families become self-sufficient, (if you give a man bread he eats for a day; if you loan him enough to buy a fishing pole then he can feed himself). Individual chapters cogently address the special concerns of HIV/AIDS prevention among the poorest fifth of the entrepreneurial world; how microfinance can empower women; how microfinance can improve reproductive health; and much, much more. Pathways Out Of Poverty is a very highly recommended reading for anyone concerned with creating tangible, effective solutions to the age-old problem of endemic poverty.
Books:
- Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation
- Prefab
- Principles of Financial Engineering (Academic Press Advanced Finance)
- Reading Financial Reports For Dummies
- Relationship Fundraising: A Donor Based Approach to the Business of Raising Money
- Rich Dad's Real Estate Advantages: Tax and Legal Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investors
- Strategic Logistics Management
- Structured Products Volume 1: Exotic Options; Interest Rates & Currency (The Swaps & Financial Derivatives Library) (Wiley Finance)
- The Art of Short Selling (A Marketplace Book)
- The Collaborative Leadership Fieldbook
Books Index
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