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The Risk-Driven Business Model: Four Questions That Will Define Your Company

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How to outsmart risk

Risk has been defined as the potential for losing something of value. In business, that value could be your original investment or your expected future returns.

The Risk-Driven Business Model will help you manage risk better by showing how the key choices you make in designing your business models either increase or reduce two characteristic types of risk—information risk, when you make decisions without enough information, and incentive-alignment risk, when decision makers’ incentives are at odds with the broader goals of the company. Leaders who understand how the structure of their business model affects risk have the power to create wealth, revolutionize industries, and shape a better world.

INSEAD’s Karan Girotra and Serguei Netessine, noted operations and innovation professors who have consulted with dozens of companies, walk you through a business model audit to determine what key decisions get made in a business, when they get made, who makes them, and why we make the decisions we do.

By changing your company’s key decisions within this framework, you can fundamentally alter the risks that will impact your business.

This book is for entrepreneurs and executives in companies involved in dynamic industries where the locus of risk is shifting, and includes lessons from Zipcar, Blockbuster, Apple, Benetton, Kickstarter, Walmart, and dozens of other global companies.

The Risk-Driven Business Model demystifies business model risk, with clear directives aimed at improving decision making and driving your business forward.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2014

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221 people want to read

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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Tim.
537 reviews
December 4, 2014
Not sure that I really learned anything from this book that I didn't already know. More distressing is that early on there are references to good and bad company directions that are presented more for example than reality - the iTunes reference in particular. When early on in a text I see someone quote common folklore over historical accuracy I then question everything after that. Either the 'research' is sloppy or someone is trying to sell me something they can't be honest with. In defense of the author, it is a common problem to retroactively apply a desired mindset to past happenings, but if we are going to be intellectually honest this needs to be recognized and not ignored. Cherry picking and massaging events to support a direction in thought is rarely a good idea and it feels like this happens throughout the book. I wouldn't tell anyone not to read this, but I wouldn't recommend it either.
Profile Image for Dmitry.
1,237 reviews97 followers
March 15, 2022
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

Книга очень слабая. Авторы, конечно, попытались предложить новый взгляд на формирование стратегии, предложив свои 4W, но с моей точки зрения, у них это вышло очень неудачно. И единственная польза от этой книги, это примеры которые авторы предлагают в свое книге.

Сама идея 4W мне кажется нереализуемой. Не в том смысле, что предложенные идеи невозможно реализовать в принципе, а в том, что тут нет никакой методики. Всё что пишут авторы и что они предлагают под видом стратегии 4W, это обыкновенные стратегии видения бизнеса которые могут использоваться в любом бизнесе. Ну, это как если бы электронную торговлю (торговля книгами по Интернету или аренда автомобилей, к примеру), обозначили какой-нибудь фразой или словом и представили бы это как свою собственную стратегию, которая возникла в голове автора. Нонсенс, не правда ли? Ведь это лишь способ, который собственник или управленец выбирает с целью получения конкурентного преимущества. Если тот же Майкл Портер предложив свою знаменитую теорию 5 конкурентных сил, был пионером в стратегическом менеджменте, ибо предложил строго выстроенную теорию, которую можно использовать не только на практике, но которая не является переименованием чего-то, что существовало до Майкла Портера. То вот в этой книге авторы именно что переименовывают то, что существовало до написания ими этой книги. Повторюсь, авторы всего лишь перечисляют несколько стратегий ведения конкретного бизнеса, а не предлагают собственно созданную теорию. Взять хотя бы ту же историю с компанией Zara. Думаю, всем известна стратегия, которой пользуется компания. Так вот, авторы взяли метод ведения бизнеса, которым пользуется Zara, и просто подставили её под свою так называемую теорию 4W (who/what/where/why). Но не стоит забывать, что эти методы, которые использует Zara, были доведены до совершенства и плюс они доказали свою успешность лишь через определённое количество лет. Другими словами, теперь, когда стратегия показала свою успешность, легко писать, что стратегия Zara успешна потому, что был выбран правильный способ ведения бизнеса. Но вот когда эту стратегию только начинала применять компания Zara, не было никакой гарантии что она станет успешной. В ретроспективе всегда легко делать выводы. Что авторы и сделали, просто подставив доказавшую свою эффективность бизнес-модель под свою теорию. Настоящая ценность теории, это когда она повышает шансы на успех в будущем, когда ещё всё неопределенно, когда нет никаких гарантий на успех выбранного ведения бизнеса.

Так что единственный плюс этой книги, это те истории компаний, их бизнес-модели которые они использовали и которые, на момент написания книги, доказали свою эффективность. Некоторые способы предоставления услуг действительно интересные. Даже описание бизнес-модели Zara довольно интересно. Особо я бы отметил историю компании, которая продавала системы орошения в такие страны как Афганистан. Там действительно используется интересная бизнес-модель, о которой я никогда не слышал.

Можно ли применить на практике всё, что написано в этой книге? Конечно, можно! Ибо, как я сказал, авторы дают описание нескольких бизнес-моделей, способов ведения бизнеса и его конкурентного преимущества которое принесло владельцам бизнеса успех. Поможет ли имплементация этих методов в ваш бизнес? Ну, а поможет ли копирование бизнес-модели компании Amazon, Walmart, McDonald's, Microsoft? Дав ответ на этот вопрос, вы сразу поймёте, стоит ли читать эту книгу или нет. Для меня эта книга не принесла никакой пользы.

The book is very weak. The authors, of course, have tried to offer a new perspective on strategy formation by offering their 4Ws, but from my point of view, they have failed miserably. The only benefit of this book is the examples that the authors offer in their book.

The idea of 4W itself seems unrealizable to me. I mean not in the sense that the proposed ideas are impossible to implement in general, but in the sense that there is no methodology here. All that the authors write and what they offer under the guise of a 4W strategy are just plain business vision strategies that can be used in any business. Well, it's like if you label e-commerce with some phrase or word and present it as your own strategy. Nonsense, isn't it? After all, it is only a way that the owner or manager chooses to gain a competitive advantage. If Michael Porter, who offered his famous theory of 5 competitive forces, was a pioneer in strategic management because he proposed a clearly structured theory, which can be used not only in practice but which is not a renaming of something that existed before Michael Porter. In this book, then, the authors are exactly renaming something that existed before they wrote this book. Again, the authors are merely listing a few strategies for running a particular business, rather than offering a theory that they have created. Take, for example, the story of Zara. I think everyone knows the strategy used by the company. So, the authors took the method of doing business used by Zara and simply framed it under their so-called 4W theory (who/what/where/why). But let's not forget that these methods that Zara uses have been perfected, plus they have proven to be successful only after a certain number of years. In other words, now that the strategy has shown success, it is easy to write that Zara's strategy is successful because the right way of doing business was chosen. But when Zara was just launching this strategy, there was no guarantee that it would be successful. In retrospect, it is always easy to draw conclusions. This is what the authors did, simply substituting a proven business model for their theory. The real value of a theory is when it increases the chances of success in the future when everything is still uncertain when there are no guarantees for the success of the chosen business activity.

So the only good thing about this book is the stories of the companies, the business models that they have used, and that, at the time of writing, have proven to be effective. Some of the ways in which they provide services are interesting. Even the description of Zara's business model is quite interesting. I would especially note the story of the company that sold irrigation systems to countries like Afghanistan. It uses an interesting business model there that I had never heard of.

Is it possible to put everything in this book into practice? Of course, you can! Because, as I said, the authors describe several business models, ways of doing business, and their competitive advantage that has brought business owners success. Will implementing these methods in your business help? Well, would copying the business model of Amazon, Walmart, McDonald's, Microsoft help you? By answering this question, you will immediately know if this book is worth reading or not. For me, this book was of no use because business success is ensured by creating a new business model, i.e., a model for a specific market and a specific situation.
Profile Image for Kevin McDonagh.
270 reviews63 followers
June 26, 2020
A jumble sale of case studies lacking a coherent narrative. I can appreciate the logic in criticising the who/what/why/where/when of any delivery model, but I don't feel this book equipped me with any of the tools to do that more effectively. Even figuring out the who/what/where/why aspect was only apparent due to the headings and the table supplied in the seconds to final chapter.
Profile Image for Joel.
83 reviews12 followers
December 8, 2018
The main theme here was how you can often disrupt an existing business by questioning the "who what when why" of existing business models. It was a decent strategy and they provide a pretty good framework to help you reevaluate things that are often taken for granted or Market that you don't think are ripe for disruption. Overall, this was a good read because it introduced me into a way of thinking about business strategy in a different light.
Profile Image for Anna Senina.
46 reviews1 follower
August 12, 2017
Книга о бизнес моделях.
Для меня она прежде всего оказалась интересна тем, что позволяет посмотреть на инновацию не только, как на творческий процесс инноваторов от природы, а дает аналитический подход к инновациям, возможности снижения и переаспределения риска за счет изменений в процессах.
Стоит перечитывать.
Profile Image for Carter.
597 reviews
May 8, 2022
One of several books I have read recently; I still do not understand business, as well as an MBA, or a experienced person in the field- I, however, have been reading a lot of these, including business case studies, to get some sense of the discipline, and where the field is going. Enlightening!
55 reviews1 follower
November 27, 2023
A very good management book to read for Business Model Innovation and taking your business organisation to the next level.
Read it slow read it twice and immediately start reviewing your organisation with the concepts in this book to make the reading worth it.
Profile Image for Jose Papo.
260 reviews154 followers
July 13, 2014
If you want to learn about business models and how they can innovate a business then read this book. The author shows how the four questions ( What, When, Who, Why) drive possible choices and possibilities in business model innovation. Examples include Zipcar, Blockbuster, Apple, Benetton, Kickstarter, Walmart, and many other global companies.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews

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