Digital Disciplines

Immense wealth has been created by companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Netflix, by leveraging the power of information technology. However, it isn't just today's web icons, but companies such as BMW, General Electric, Nike, and UPS that are reinventing themselves by harnessing today's IT--big data, cloud computing, mobility, social media and the Internet of Things--to create strategic competitive advantage. Four Digital Disciplines provide the foundation to create unparalleled customer value: Information Excellence - optimizing processes ranging from manufacturing and supply chain to marketing and customer support by exploiting real-time information, the way UPS optimizes truck loading and routing to minimize operating expenses and enhance environmental impactSolution Leadership - creating meaningful solutions that network differentiated, digital products with back-end, cloud-based services including social media and a partner ecosystem, the way Nike FuelBand enables biohacking by tracking personal exercise and tying it to friends, and GE digitally connects jet engines to back-end fuel management servicesCollective Intimacy - engaging deeply and authentically with customers by harnessing the capabilities of social media and digitally-mediated relationships, as Amazon.com does through recommendations, reviews, and cross-sellingAccelerated Innovation - competing more effectively in today's turbulent, flat world, by increasing the cost-effectiveness and speed of open innovation and enlisting "ad hoc" global partners through open collaboration, idea markets, and contests, as Linux and Wikipedia have shown and Netflix demonstrated with the Netflix PrizeThis richly storied book provides strategic frameworks, empirical data, case studies, and pragmatic steps for any enterprise--large or small, global or local, new or established--to follow to attain market leadership in today's digital era.