Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption

by Thales S Teixeira, Greg Piechota

Based on eight years of research visiting dozens of startups, tech companies and incumbents, Harvard Business School professor Thales Teixeira shows how and why consumer industries are disrupted, and what established companies can do about it—while highlighting the specific strategies potential startups use to gain a competitive edge.
 
There is a pattern to digital disruption in an industry, whether the disruptor is Uber, Airbnb, Dollar Shave Club, Pillpack or one of countless other startups that have stolen large portions of market share from industry leaders, often in a matter of a few years.

As Teixeira makes clear, the nature of competition has fundamentally changed. Using innovative new business models, startups are stealing customers by breaking the links in how consumers discover, buy and use products and services. By decoupling the customer value chain, these startups, instead of taking on the Unilevers and Nikes, BMW’s and Sephoras of the world head on, peel away a piece of the consumer purchasing process. Birchbox offered women a new way to sample beauty products from a variety of companies from the convenience of their homes, without having to visit a store. Turo doesn't compete with GM. Instead, it offers people the benefit of driving without having to own a car themselves.

Illustrated with vivid, indepth and exclusive accounts of both startups, and reigning incumbents like Best Buy and Comcast, as they struggle to respond, Unlocking the Customer Value Chain is an essential guide to demystifying how digital disruption takes place – and what companies can do to defend themselves.

Genres: Business

352 pages, Hardcover

Published February 19, 2019

Reviews

[Rafael Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buen libro para entender que la transformación digital, aunque basada en la tecnología, es fundamentalmente una transformación en el modelo de negocio, gracias a la aplicación de la tecnología. Como buen profesor de marketing, el autor nos recuerda que esta transformación, para ser exitosa, debe tener en el centro al cliente y a su percepción del valor que recibe de nuestro producto o servicio.

Es interesante el modo como se conceptualiza esta percepción, a través de la identificación de distintas etapas en lo que llama la "cadena de valor del cliente", desde que el cliente incluye a nuestro producto dentro de su set de posibles opciones para satisfacer una necesidad, hasta la compra y uso de lo que ha adquirido. A lo largo del libro se describen varios ejemplos interesantes de compañías, nuevas y establecidas, que han logrado tener éxito en el mercado, enfocándose en alguna de las etapas de esta cadena de valor y de la eventual reorganización de esta cadena, a través del desengarce (de-coupling) y re-engarce (re-coupling) de actividades valiosas para el cliente.

El ejemplo más significativo de este proceso fue cómo Best Buy enfrentó exitosamente el problema del "show-rooming", cuando los clientes sólo iban a Best Buy a ver los productos y los acababan comprando en Amazon. Probablemente la lección más importante del libro es que una empresa que encuentra difícil mantenerse vigente no sufre disrupción por la tecnología sino por sus clientes.

[Tulga G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book delivered a great insight into acquiring customers and understanding the changing behaviors of customers in modern world. A value chain of customers must be considered thoroughly and businesses should redesign its approaches to create values. For me, many critical points that I couldn't see in the past, were explained here.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chock full of highly useful insights and examples which helped me in my own business. I would recommend this book as the best business book of 2019 so far.