Inventing Business Models that Deliver Value and Profit
July 31, 2000
Early on in their timely book about ways to structure e-businesses, the authors succinctly present their argument: ".com is about being open for business on the Web. Profit is about making money as a business on the Web. And they are not the same thing." While thousands of struggling Internet startups are learning this lesson the hard way, Earle and Keen (president of Hewlett-Packard's E-Services.solutions and a technology consultant and coauthor of The E-Process Edge, respectively) are in a good position to help entrepreneurs fuse the two concepts. Being on the Web, they argue, is no longer an objective; it is the requirement for business. The real goal today is to create a business model that makes sense. To do that, the authors have identified six "value drivers," factors that create and sustain a relationship with the customer. The secret is to pick the ones that make sense for you, then implement them. To their credit, the authors devote the second half of their book to showing how the drivers work in practice, although their attempt to cover six discrete areas doesn't allow them to go into much depth about strategies that have worked for other firms. Still, with just about every Internet business battling to become profitable, this book should find an attentive audience.