Vivek Sood's Blog, page 60

Confronting business world change: How to adapt your business network properly

Business networks have changed through the ages and they have become greater and greater, reaching a worldwide scale. Nowadays, companies have to learn how to manage the business networks’ changes and its expansion over the world. However, somehow, our current business networks are not new at all and have already existed in the past.

How to define a business network? It is what creates the most important value for companies as well as for the society in general. How were ancient business networks?  They had the same features! So what we need to learn today is not how to build a different business network, but it is rather a matter of management.

Indeed, business networks were already existing during the Middle Ages and after. Besides, history is our best teacher and that is the reason why today’s company must learn from Ancient business networks. They can teach us more than we think.

Nowadays, business networks are bigger than they used to be in the Middle Ages, and that is the reason CEOs, and all C-levels people have to learn how to manage them in today’s business world.

The first thing that needs to be taken into account today is the global dimension of our business networks. Indeed, this can be the first issue companies have to deal with. A global business network does not require the same management as ancient business networks.

Besides, the hardest thing to manage is the information. Actually, it can be easier than we think, but again, it is a matter of management and adaptation.

Information can be our best tool to manage global business networks, we just need to learn how to collect and use the information properly. That is the reason why new Information Technology systems keep being developed and implemented.

 Leaders in today’s business world are those who understood that information was important and have to be managed very carefully. Data collection can be a tough task and it can take time, but it is essential to be efficient, and even more effective in value creation. The more data you collect, the more value created. Information will help you make a deeper analysis of your external environment, as well as your internal environment. In effect, the more you know about yourself and about your competitors, the more improvement you can achieve. That is the reason why information is a key factor in business network evolution.

 Therefore, your company needs a very good IT system beforehand. Not only a very good one, it also has to be adapted to your business requirements. Not all companies can use the same systems; they have to fit your own requirements. When it comes to IT systems, preparation is crucial because it will enable to avoid huge mistakes by choosing a random system that seems to work for others. For example, a system that is very efficient for a textile industry may not work for transportation companies. That is the reason why IT systems implementation has to be very well prepared, and carefully tested in your industry before you rush into big changes. If you want to learn more before starting your project, I suggest you read The 5-STAR Business Network (http://bit.ly/5-STARBN), a book for CEOs by Vivek  Sood.

 To conclude, though business networks have always existed, but their management has to evolve consequently. Bigger networks imply more information, and the access to information can make your business very powerful  on the market. However, it is not that easy to manage information and that is the reason why new IT systems have been developed. The story of the evolution of business networks is mostly about expansion and expansion always involves complexity. Thus, every CEO must keep in mind that business networks have to be adapted to the changes involved by complexity. Besides, complexity will keep increasing as business networks are expanding.

by Anais Lelong

How Business Networks can help rescue companies by Anais Lelong

Global Business Networks are essential in nowadays’ business world, we have no choice but to accept this fact. In effect, no business can survive now without building a proper business network beforehand. This is the first reality anyone has to understand before starting his business. This is the root of all the worse problems your company could encounter. This is the key to avoid many problems, but this is also the solution for many problems that may happen anyway. Business Networks can make the difference between success and failure.

 First of all, your business network will provide you many opportunities of creating value through collaborative relationships with your partners all over the world. In fact, collaborative relationships are very crucial for business networks to be efficient, as mentioned in Vivek Sood’s book, The 5-STAR Business Network (http://bit.ly/5-STARBN).

If you have built a great business network, you can decide to outsource and implement a process very quickly and safely. Indeed, once you already have a network, everything becomes much easier and faster. Any time you make a decision, you can choose among your partners and the results will appear very soon.

 If you decide to use outsourcing to achieve better results through costs savings and new value creation, your business network will be very helpful in this situation. Let us say you have a global business network, with partners all over the world, and you want to outsource a specific task in the production process. Once you made that decision, you can have a look among your partners and see what they can offer. If one supplier’s proposition does not suit your project, you just have to look at other proposals from other suppliers. Having many partners all over the world will provide you different solutions, which can be applied to different problem and solve them very quickly.

Imagine a supplier that does not provide as good results as before, you can find another one, maybe right next-door! This is the beauty of business networks today. Partners are many and can be replaced any time, according to what your business needs. If a supplier does not match the requirements and goals anymore, your business network will offer you other solutions to solve the problem.

 If you look at outsourcing stories, you will rapidly realize that this is true and that business networks are very crucial to your business survival. Let us look at the Red Bull example. The success story of Red Bull is mostly due to its business network. In effect, Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull is someone who perfectly understood that and used his business network to lead the company to the success. Red Bull is a company that outsources almost everything and this has been possible because of a great business network. He once said, “I support the concept of free competition”. Obviously, he is in favor of global business competition because he knows perfectly how to deal with it and how to benefit from it! Business network is the key, and that is what he understood faster than his competitors. He was able to use the global business network to achieve great results for Red Bull.

 Many cases of failure are due to improper business network management or simply undeveloped business network. Old companies that used to achieve good results often happen to sit back and stay on their achievements, but this will lead them to bankruptcy. Companies have to follow the wave and become more and more global, expanding their network, if they want to survive against world competition.

Business 911: Five tips for better results by anais lelong

Although you keep looking for better ideas and new processes, your business keeps struggling to achieve the expected results?

 Here is some advice you could readily use when you need new ideas to improve your business. In this article, we will try to give you some guidance to help you with business issues from the book The 5-STAR Business Network (http://bit.ly/5-STARBN).

 First of all, think about your business network. This is the most useful tool that you can use in almost any situation, for any kind of problem. Your business network is your master-key. Usually this is not the first thing people think about when talking about business issues, but they must pay attention to it, and try to develop their business network the more they can in order to be able to use it in many troubled situations.

The second tip you could use for your business is preparation based on forward thinking. Indeed, in any process, preparation is crucial. This is the lack of preparation that is often responsible for failures. For example, many outsourcing projects keep failing because there is too much precipitation and data collection is not depth enough. The lack of preparation involves a lack of visualization of the future changes and this is what makes projects fail. In effect, companies often rush into big outsourcing projects without thinking about all the changes that it will involve. For this reason, they cannot anticipate the consequences on their business and become unable to achieve the expected results.

 Besides, the partner selection is also very important. In effect, it can take time to analyze all the data collected about the different suppliers available. However, it is necessary to do it well in order not to choose a bad supplier who will not match your requirements. Everything is linked and this is the reason it is important not to neglect these details. Your business network is the key, but preparation is essential for any project and the choice of your partners also needs preparation and it aims at building your business network. Therefore, it can be uneasy to think about all these things at the same time while planning a project, but this is essential.

 The next tip would be about the relationship itself. Although suppliers are numerous, this does not mean your relationship with them can be neglected. In effect, the secret of a successful relationship is collaboration. Long-term relationships are the basis of an efficient global business network. Many projects fail because of companies choosing random partners and they do not often give the expected results. Thus, it is important to build long-term relationship so you can be sure about the quality of the services your partners will provide you. Besides, collaborative relationships enable your business to rely on these suppliers. You can easily benefit from this safe situation.

 Finally, you must be aware of your competitors, as well as their strategies. This is about competition, but especially about what you can learn from them and their mistakes or good decision, to get better than they are. This necessitates a great data collection pre-work. It is not easy to learn about competitors and it takes time, but it can be very useful to know the more you can about them, in order not to be left behind. Competition is a threat, which needs to be monitored.

 Obviously these tips are only the first hints to show you the right track and we could write many pages about them and we could also add many other tips, but this article aims at giving you some guidance and some directions to look at when encountering business process issues. Once again it shows the importance of the business network. In his book The 5-STAR Business Network (http://bit.ly/5-STARBN), Vivek Sood explains the very essence and advantages of this amazing concept. It is the most important thing any CEO must think about all the time, this is a master-key, and everything is related to your global business network.

 by Anais Lelong

The Age of Global Business Networks by Anais Lelong

Obviously, business networks have tremendously changed through the ages. The world has become global and business networks have kept expanding over the years and centuries. In fact, business networks used to be very small, even non-existent a few centuries ago. In former societies, businesses were not as developed as they are nowadays and we can say the same for the networks. When talking about “business” started to become relevant in organizations, it was still on the premises step and “network” was still an anachronism. Enterprises and businesses were first limited to a few numbers of transactions and very few interactions. At that time, interactions only linked two people or not much more. Over the centuries, businesses started to expand and transactions were more and more numerous. Besides, more transactions involve more interactions between businesses and the people who are part of it. This is how business network appeared.

What is a business network then?          

Relationships are built between companies. They can share resources, knowledge or even other relationships. Companies have to build a cooperative network in order to face competition, and not to be left behind on their market. In fact, business network is the first key step, which can help your business achieve good results and success. No business can be successful without an efficient and well-managed business network. Entrepreneurs used not to think (and some still don’t) about their network. When implementing a business, people focus on what they will sell, for what price, etc. However, the first thing they should think about is their network, especially in today’s society. In effect, business networks have become crucial for companies. Moreover, that is not all; we are now living in a global business world, and companies must think consequently. Nowadays, companies interact all over the world and that is the reason why business networks become global. In fact, they have to become global. Considering globalization, it is impossible for a company to success in a global market, without building global relationships. Competitors would be so far before you that it would not be possible ever to catch up. This global business world pushes managers and directors to think quickly and make decisions faster than they used to.

Why does it have to be global?

In today’s globalized world, companies have to deal with global issues, global customers, and global suppliers. Thus, a global business network is essential but it is even unwitting. Companies can also not be realizing their network is becoming global. However, if their network does not become global, they will certainly realize it, so fast will be their failure. Therefore, global markets involve global business networks that will provide your business partners all over the world and numerous opportunities for improvement and success. Group actions often provide better results than one actor alone. Consequently, global business networks will provide your company with more resources and more know-how to lead your business to success. Through a global business network, your company will benefit from “multi-system” interests that will help create more value than one company alone.

To conclude, your global business network is the key to many issues you could encounter and you must do whatever it takes to expand it the more you can. The most important and effective your global network, the more successful your business. We have entered into the era of Global Business Networks. Nowadays, this is the most important thing you should think about for your business. It is more important than you business infrastructure that is rigid and fixed. Your business network, on the other hand, is evolutionary, flexible and revenue accruing, and more than that if it is a global one. You can learn more about the importance of Global Business Networks today by reading Vivek Sood’s book, The 5-STAR Business Network (http://bit.ly/5-STARBN), which will give you an amazing overview of the insights of his work.

The Age of Global Business Networks

The Age of Global Business Networks

Obviously, business networks have tremendously changed through the ages. The world has become global and business network have kept expanding over years and centuries. In fact, business networks used to be very small, even non-existent a few centuries ago. In former societies, businesses were not as developed as they are nowadays and we can say the same for the networks. When talking about “business” started to become relevant in organisations, it was still at the premises step and “network” was still an anachronism. Enterprises and businesses were first limited to a few numbers of transactions and very few interactions. At that time, interactions only linked two people or not much more. Over the centuries, businesses started to expand and transactions were more and more numerous. Besides, more transactions involve more interactions between businesses and the people who are part of it. This is how business network appeared.

What is a business network then?

Relationships are built between companies. They can share resources, knowledge or even other relationships. Companies have to build a cooperative network in order to face competition, and not to be left behind on their market. In fact, business network is the first key step, which can help you business achieve good results and success. No business can be successful without an efficient and well-managed business network. Entrepreneurs used not to think (and some still don’t) about their network. When implementing a business, people focus on what they will sell, for what price, etc. However, the first thing they should think about is their network, especially in today’s society. In effect, business networks have become crucial for companies. Moreover, that is not all; we are now living in a global business world, and companies must think consequently. Nowadays, companies interact all over the world and that is the reason why business networks become global. In fact, they have to become global. Considering globalisation, it is impossible for a company to success in a global market, without building global relationships. Competitors would be so far before you that it would not be possible ever to catch up. This global business world pushes managers and directors to think quickly and make decision faster than they used to.

Why does it have to be global?

In today’s globalised world, companies have to deal with global issues, global customers, and global suppliers. Thus, a global business network is essential but it is even unwitting. Companies can also not be realising their network is becoming global. However, if their network does not become global, they will certainly realise it, so fast will be their failure. Therefore, global markets involve global business networks that will provide you business partners all over the world and numerous opportunities of improvement and success. Group actions often provide better results than one actor alone. Consequently, global business networks will provide your company more resources and more know-how to lead your business to success. Through a global business network, your company will benefit from “multi-system” interests that will help create more value than one company alone.

To conclude, your global business network is the key to many issues you could encounter and you must do whatever it takes to expand it the more you can. The more important and effective your global network, the more successful you business. We have entered in the era of Global Business Networks. Nowadays, this is the most important thing you should think about for your business. It is more important than you business infrastructure that is rigid and fixed. Your business network, on the other hand, is evolutionary, flexible and revenue accruing, and more than that if it is a global one.

New Business Models for the New World

I write my blog mostly because I enjoy writing on the topics I cover. But I have noticed an interesting side-effect which is starting to bring home to me the power of electronic media and blogs. I never thought that the effect will be so direct, immediate and measurable, but I notice it every time! Whenever I write a new blog and share it with my audience, I notice a significant spike in the sale of my recent book The 5-STAR Business Network. 

Not being a marketing or sales professional, till now I was only aware of the link between the positive online word-of-mouth and online sales of products. For the first time in my life, I can actually see this link visibly and tangibly demonstrated in practice. Many of you who are more familiar with online sales and marketing, social media and such channels will regard my amazement with a touch of ‘of course we know it’. 

In my book The 5-STAR Business Network I talk about how the old business models have changed due to globalization of supply chains, morphing of business entities into interlinked business networks that act in cohorts, and application of newer technologies such as internet, nano-tech, and others to old business models. Most companies that are thriving today, and others that are building a platform for thriving into the next few decades are all making use of this major upheaval in business models to create transformative changes in their industries, and sometimes into adjoining industries. For example, see how Amazon is gradually re-inventing a new publishing industry. 

Not content with merely selling books published by the established publishing houses, Amazon is foraying far wider and deeper into the publishing world by reaching out to the content creators and facilitating their efforts in a systematic manner. This not only allows Amazon to harness the creative potential of those who have a meaningful message to convey, but also, it allows Amazon to sit right in the middle of the new industrial revolution – one of business networks. 

So, instead of investing thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars in publishing, printing and promoting the books, now it is possible to create meaningful conversations from your living room, when it is convenient to you (e.g. on a rainy weekend – as it is for me today). And instead of book signings and tours, it is possible to use blogs, articles and forums.

Traditional publishing industry will of course continue to resist these changes – just as the candle makers union continued to resist electricity. Eventually, though, most candle makers will switch trades and learn electricians’ trade because that is where the future lies. 

If you want to read more about the newer business models and how they are being created in the modern commercial world see The 5-STAR Business Models here. 

 

Amazon’s Waterloo

Sooner or later every empire builder starts a campaign which is too ambitious, too audacious and too resource sapping. That is the first thought which came to my mind as I read in this morning’s paper that Amazon was making two moves – one into Grocery Shopping, and other into the Indian Online retail market. For very different reasons, either – or both – of these could easily prove to be Amazon’s Waterloo. 

Let me explain:

When I wrote my recently released book, The 5-STAR Business Network, I was highly impressed with Amazon’s ability to use its supply chain expertise to create, sustain and harness a business network of related parties – suppliers, market-place participants, outsourced service providers, customers and developers. Amazon does this in a highly systematic manner to innovate, milk the cash cycle, optimize profitability of each transaction, develop a pipeline of new ideas, and leverage service providers. 

While, Amazon was not the top ranking company in our 5-year study of more than 1000 companies (it ranked a tied 63, and the top honour belonged to a little known firm from Denmark called Novo Nordisk), I used Amazon case study extensively in my book because it was a shining beacon of good corporate decision making among mediocrity.

This is what I wrote about Amazon:

Overall, the business philosophy is rather simple – make online shopping simple and suitable so that the customer won’t think twice about buying now with one click (Anders, George. “Jeff Bezos’s Top 10 Leadership Lessons.” Forbes. 4 Apr. 2012) [2]. The complexity lies in how this simple business philosophy is translated into consistent action, resulting in nearly a billion customer visits a year. There is nothing simple in the complex execution of this simple business philosophy.
 
Therein lies the dilemma of the modern business world – the quest for simplicity at the highest level, underpinned by the highest level of sophistication reminiscent of nanotechnology under the hood. Almost all successful businesses do this dance of 5-STAR business network well – but Amazon does it exceptionally well on almost all 5 fronts. There are many other businesses – some even well-known ones – who could be a poster child for the emerging trend of global Business Networks we show case in this book. However, no one is more successful, more visible, has higher potential and is more assured of its role in this revolution. That is why- Amazon.com is a prime example of the 5 STAR Business Networks, which showcase Fire-Ready-Aim Innovation, Seed-to-Store Ef�iciency, Transaction Prof�itability Optimization, Advanced Product Phasing, and lastly, Results-focused Modular Outsourcing.

To temper my optimism about Amazon’s role as the poster child of 21st century commerce using 5-STAR Business Networks, I also wrote elsewhere in the book:

The f�irst business book I read was “In Search of Excellence” by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. It was a gushing account by two ex-McKinsey consultants truly in search of excellence among American businesses, and contained a plethora of advice that to my then untrained mind (after all, I was then just an untutored merchant navy off�icer) appeared rather obvious – for example, walk around your operations to see what is going on. What struck me most about the book was that in the intervening 13 years or so between the time the book was written and the time I read it, most of the companies singled out as excellent by the authors were already in trouble. That impression – that companies once lauded as excellent can quite rapidly lose that mantle – has never left my mind as I have read more than 5000 business books, countless book summaries, business commentaries and news reports. Invariably, each of these tries to generalize the key determinants of success from examples of certain companies. In more cases than not, those companies singled out as models of success falter in a few years time, sometimes victims of changing circumstances and other times victims of their own success.

 
This morning, on reading about Amazon’s move into the Grocery trade, I have a vague feeling – is Amazon turning into a victim of its own success? Grocery business is notoriously low margin trade, with very high logistics costs, high level of perishability, and different customer buying behaviour than anything else that Amazon sells. 
 
Amazon’s reasons for this move are being documented well enough by the mainstream press. For example see this article in the Wall Street Journal. Here is a quote from the article:

The service harkens back to a time when Americans found fresh milk, bread and eggs delivered each morning to their doorsteps.

Indeed, in Seattle, where the service has expanded over time to more suburbs, Amazon customers can combine their apple and butter orders with 100,000 disparate Amazon items including videogames, toilet paper and motor oil.

“Amazon really could use this as a means to drive sales of general merchandise, which may have better margins than groceries,” said Matt Nemer, a Wells FargoWFC -1.53% analyst. “That’s what could really set them apart from the pure grocery delivery guys—they might not need to make a lot of money on the groceries themselves.”

It will be interesting to watch what happens.

 

Your Business Network is your Business’ Net Worth

Business is the engine of the society and it will need newer models of commerce to fast track the recovery. Hollowing out of skills out of entire societies without replacing them with another set of useful skills, very high level of youth unemployment (frequently disguised by serious looking play on iPads and tablets), growing economic imbalances risking implosions of unrest, civil commotion or even a great war have all combined to create a very alarming set of circumstances. Whatever transpires in the short term, eventually the business people will have to lead the way to recovery around the world. It is evident that I am passionate about newer models that work better.

In my projects and work around the world, I have noticed that in almost all circumstances there is always some way to make things better. We only have to look around and see where the guidelines are, what the trends are and which models will suit the trends. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) famously said – Great minds discuss ideas, Average minds discuss events, Small minds discuss people. While it is very tempting to discuss just one of the three key ingredients of life – either ideas, or events or even people, I prefer to discuss all three because all three of these are inextricably linked. People make events and create ideas.

Ideas create events and help people become successful. And events shape people and give impetus to ideas. A book full of concepts and ideas but with no stories about people or events would be extremely boring and dry. On the other hand, a book with just chronicles of events or people would hardly be worth bothering to read unless its authors possessed immensely entertaining style of writing (which I do not) and even then would be of little practical value besides entertainment. I mostly use events and people to illustrate ideas and concepts to make them more tangible for the readers.

Primarily, then, this book is about ideas and concepts – yet you will see enough discussion about people and events to be able to use the concepts. Most of the people and events discussed are relatively well known so that background contextual information is already present in the readers’ domain and I do not have to supply it. Occasionally I had to use events from case studies based on our work – only because we could not find a well known event illustrating the concept. I do not make apologies for that or for disguising some data or names of the entities for obvious reasons of confidentiality. Every couple of decades powerful juxtaposition of the trends leads to unique and revolutionary way of commerce. Contrary to the portrayal by the gushing accounts and adulation of the commentators, most pioneers merely stumble on the these trends by a process of trial and error. Other companies, the more nimble and hungry ones, follow the pioneers closely and build strong businesses in their lead. More established companies then follow suit and try and recover lost ground using their financial muscle and market power sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing in this. Many other companies are so caught up in hubris of their past success or internal politics or some other such attention sapping device that they fail to move at all, or move too late, often with disastrous consequences. Chronicles of such disasters would perhaps be more instructive than the starry eyed accounts of success.

As Daniel Coyle points out in his book The Talent Code, the only way to succeed massively is by failing repeatedly at progressively more complex smaller tasks till you master them. However, most writers and authors persist with the formula that has succeeded since the first bard told stories of the victories in war, and I have no doubt that we will continue to see many starry-eyed accounts of success for centuries to come. It is difficult not to get caught up in the current of adulation that surrounds a particular company at a point in time. Any such apparent adulation in this book is despite my effort to be objective and cognizant of the cyclical nature of success. As defined earlier, the aim of this book is rather more solemn. It is to take a wide and deep perspective on business trends, define the useful trends as seen from user perspectives, and come up with useful information for the business executives and managers.

The biggest trend sweeping the world – business and non-business – today is networking. Just last week Facebook has announced its IPO filing, valuing the company at $100 Billion. Analysts, pundits and business school professors are still debating what entitles it to that kind of valuation when many others with similar business model – Orkut, MySpace and a plethora of wannabes – have failed to monetize the eyeballs to any great extent. It is not even validated how many of those numerous Facebook accounts are authentic.

— Excerpted from the introduction of THE 5-STAR BUSINESS NETWORK

To read a synopsis of the book, please click here 

To buy the book, please go here

Needed – Fresh Thinking for New Business Models

When General Motors filed for Chapter XI protection in 2008, it also marked the closing of a chapter in modern commerce. General Motors was seen as the paragon of modern American management theory as popularized by Peter Drucker in the middle of the twentieth century. It was at this venerable company that Peter Drucker formed his early thoughts about management as a profession, separation of the ownership from management of enterprise, the key functions of management, division of labour, theory of leadership of enterprise, indeed the very concept of the corporation. His writings were the need of the time, and were picked up by ivy league business schools and corporations alike and formed the basic foundation of management profession.

Indeed there was a time when General Motors and the US commerce were thought of as interchangeable entities with popular aphorism that “what is good for GM is good for America and vice versa.” Some people still think this is the case. They see the decline of General Motors as symptomatic of a wider malaise in the US economy. Others think that General Motors will rise like a phoenix again to become an industrial powerhouse.

While we do not know what will eventually happen to General Motors, we know that new models of commerce, new industries, new technologies and new ways of solving old problems will be required to build a stronger economy on a global level. All of these will not necessarily come out of one country, one continent or even one region.

Drucker foresaw some of these changes in his writings on the information age, post-capitalist society and post-industrial man. Prescient as he was, he did not yet fully see majority of the changes that have happened in the last 6 years since his death. The rise of China and India, the global financial crisis, the zombification of the western economies as a result on intense focus on the rapid gains from FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) industries, hollowing out of real capabilities are nowhere to be seen in his writings. However, this is not just true of Drucker, most of the management thinkers, writers, academics and authors can be painted with the same brush.

It is not a surprise that the established thinkers find it difficult to think outside the box. Since the times of Aristotle, Socrates and perhaps even before that (for the history of mankind maybe older than that), new thinking must come from new places – from outside the established order of thinking. No wonder then that the most innovative companies in the US still choose to locate on the west coast, many of the most successful corporations were formed by the college drop outs and the most successful business models do not even have a name yet.

Who is to blame for the PC sales debacle?

The results are in, and for PC sales they are neither good, nor bad – but ugly! The pundits are out to find a scapegoat – and the most convenient scapegoat at the moment is Microsoft. For example see this report in today’s Wall Street Journal – which hails Microsoft’s mea culpa.

There is no doubt Microsoft is partly to blame for the debacle. I am no fan of Microsoft’s ketchup strategy (constantly throwing money to catch-up with the successful rivals). On top of it the company itself admits that “The world is changing and changing fast, and frankly we also didn’t get everything we dreamed of done in the first release,” of Windows 8. The report quoted above goes on to say:

Windows 8, the operating software launched in October, was intended to catapult Microsoft and its allies into the market for new kinds of computing devices—including tablets—and help generally get consumers more interested in buying new personal computers. Six months after the operating software’s debut, it isn’t yet a hit by the accounts of some PC executives and research firms.

One market-research firm, IDC, went so far as to say that Windows 8 did more than fail to revive the PC market—it actually turned off users with changes to basic elements of the widely used operating system.

Ms. Reller disputed IDC’s contention, and said the company is seeing steady if not steep sales progress. She said Microsoft has sold 100 million copies of Windows 8 since October, up from 60 million in January.

However, let’s pause to think about it for one moment. What about the roles of hardware vendors – HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, Acer and others. What have they done to create products that consumers would like. Where is the innovation in the hardware arena that would appeal to the customers?

As I said in the comments to the above article:

I think it is wrong to blame just Microsoft or Windows 8 for this debacle in PC sales. As I discuss in my recent book The 5-STAR Business Network (http://www.amazon.com/The-5-STAR-Business-Network-Corporations/dp/061579419X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1367705465&sr=8-2&keywords=vivek+sood) it is always the business eco-system that is responsible for the success or failure of a concept. The entire Wintel business network has failed to innovate to improve the customer experience much beyond windows XP. I am still using the same laptops with same programs with marginal improvement in speed. Apple, on the other hand, and Google/Samsung in its footsteps has created entirely new categories of products, as well as, improved the customers’ usage experience much better. If you want to look at the success of a product or concept, look at the Business Network that works behind the scene to create the user experience – not at an individual company.

In a previous blog post I spoke about Intel’s role in this picture. Here is what I wrote at that time:

No doubt, the continued softening of the PC market is not only hurting HP and Dell, but also partly responsible for what is happening at Intel. The key question is that while Intel is extremely good at Advanced Product Phasing (APP), is it capable of proving itself adept at Fire-Aim-Ready (FAR) Innovation? Without innovation, and creation of new product for where the market is moving too – cloud based mobile gadgets, Intel is likely to continue to lose ground.

Troubles at HP continue to make headline news with regular periodicity. Dell is not immune to such news either. Lenovo is now thinking about selling its low end server business. The fact remain that the business model is changing again. Cloud is doing to Wintel, what Wintel did to AS400′s. The entire Business Network must move in line with this changing business model. Those companies who can configure a new 5-STAR Business Network that fits in with this new business model will prosper. The rest will continue to look for scapegoats.