Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control In The Age Of Temporary Advantage

by Charles H. Fine

In business today, all advantage is temporary. In order to survive-let alone thrive-companies must be able to anticipate and adapt to change, or face rapid, brutal extinction. In Clockspeed , Charles Fine draws on a decade's worth of research at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management to introduce a new vocabulary for understanding the forces of competition and making strategic decisions that will determine the destiny of your company, as well as your industry. Taking inspiration from the world of biology, Fine argues that each industry has its own evolutionary life cycle (or "clockspeed"), measured by the rate at which it introduces new products, processes, and organizational structures. Just as geneticists study the fruit fly to gain insight into the evolutionary paths of all animals, managers in any industry can learn from the industrial fruit flies-such as Internet services, personal computers, and multimedia entertainment-which evolve through new generations at breakneck speed. Applying the lessons of the fruit flies to industries as diverse as bicycles, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors, Fine illustrates how competitive advantage is lost or gained by how well a company manages dynamic web of relationships that run throughout its chain of suppliers, distributors, and alliance partners. Packed with revolutionary concepts and tools to help managers make key strategic decisions that affect current and future performance, Clockspeed shows, as no other book before it, how the ultimate core competency is mastering the art of supply chain design, carefully choosing which components and capabilities to keep in-house and which to purchase from outside. The consequences of faulty of visionary decisions can be enormous and dramatic. Witness the case of IBM in the early 1980s, when it outsourced key PC components to Microsoft and Intel, unleashing the "Intel Inside" phenomenon and a complete restructuring of the computer industry. Going further, Fine sees the personal computer as merely a component in the vast information-entertainment industry, which evolves at speeds unimagined a few years ago. He uses this "fruit fly" as well to peer into the future of industrial evolution and find practical advice for players in all industries, from automobiles to health care information systems. Clockspeed not only serves up some new "laws" of value chain dynamics, but it also offers recommendations for achieving industry leadership through simultaneous product, process, and supply chain design. In challenging managers to think like corporate geneticists Clockspeed contributes the next creative leap in business strategy.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Reference, Leadership

291 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 1998

Reviews

[Saravana Sastha Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had been long pending in to-read list. The author makes a convincing argument on the parallels of evolution to the fast-paced progress in product technology, process technology and organisation purpose. While the examples are from the turn of the millennium and has no anticipation of the tectonic shift digital era can bring to organisations, it is still a fantastic read particularly the double-helix concept and the classification of organisation based on clockspeed. Would be interesting to see if the author comes with another edition taking into account the evolutionary leap the world has seen in the last decade.

[Spence Byer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed the first third of this book about competitive dynamics and life cycles within products and industry. The last 2/3 is a highly in depth supply chain analysis, much of which seemed highly repetitive. The last chapter and epilogue were solid.

[Michael Boerman]

nice

[Izzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read this for class. Definitely outdated examples, however the overall ideas make sense for Supply Chain tactics.

[Cristobal Soto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bien ingenieril, buenos casos de los 80 90s, esta interesante, aplicable, vigente en gran medida.

[Adam Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative. The first half read very conceptual and I enjoyed that a lot. However, the second half (as could be expected) became much more applied theory and it just didn't interest me. If I happened to be a CEO or some other high end decision maker in my company, I may have felt differently. But as the case is, it just didn't have a lot in it that I cared about. Overall, it was still good.

[Kacey]

really interesting, easy read on business dynamics and interdependencies that can be translated between industries

[Jose Espín · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive analysis of how an integral strategy for product, process and supply chain concurrent design can set a Company in the right course for value creación.

[Matt Mayevsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very inspirational book about competition based on supply chains. Worth reading.

[Michael Ingram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read on supply chains and changes in the markets.