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Living on the Fault Line, Revised Edition: Managing for Shareholder Value in Any Economy
The fault line -- that dangerous, unstable seam in the economy where powerful innovations and savage competition meet and create market-shattering tremors. Every company lives on it; no manager can control it. In the original edition of Living on the Fault Line, Geoffrey Moore presented a compelling argument for using shareholder value (or share price) as the key driver in management decisions. Moore now revisits his argument in the post-Internet bubble world, proving that the methods he espouses are more germane than ever and showing companies how to use them to survive and thrive in today's demanding economy. Extending the themes of Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, his first two books on the dynamics of the high-tech markets, Moore shows why sensitivity to stock price is the single most important lever for managing in the future, both as a leading indicator of shifts in competitive advantage and as an employee motivator for making necessary changes in organizations heretofore impervious to change. This revised and updated edition As disruptive forces continue to buffet the marketplace and rattle the staid practices of the past, Moore offers a brilliant set of navigational tools to help meet today's most compelling management challenges.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 30, 2000
12 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey A. Moore
36 books404 followersGeoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Mohr Davidow portfolio and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Intel, Box, Aruba, Cognizant, and Rackspace.
Moore’s life’s work has focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations. His first book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses on the challenges start-up companies face transitioning from early adopting to mainstream customers. It has sold more than a million copies, and its third edition has been revised such that the majority of its examples and case studies reference companies come to prominence from the past decade. Moore’s most recent work, Escape Velocity, addresses the challenge large enterprises face when they seek to add a new line of business to their established portfolio. It has been the basis of much of his recent consulting.
Irish by heritage, Moore has yet to meet a microphone he didn’t like and gives between 50 and 80 speeches a year. One theme that has received a lot of attention recently is the transition in enterprise IT investment focus from Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement. This is driving the deployment of a new cloud infrastructure to complement the legacy client-server stack, creating massive markets for a next generation of tech industry leaders.
Moore has a bachelors in American literature from Stanford University and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington. After teaching English for four years at Olivet College, he came back to the Bay Area with his wife and family and began a career in high tech as a training specialist. Over time he transitioned first into sales and then into marketing, finally finding his niche in marketing consulting, working first at Regis McKenna Inc, then with the three firms he helped found: The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute, and TCG Advisors. Today he is chairman emeritus of all three.
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Moore’s life’s work has focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations. His first book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses on the challenges start-up companies face transitioning from early adopting to mainstream customers. It has sold more than a million copies, and its third edition has been revised such that the majority of its examples and case studies reference companies come to prominence from the past decade. Moore’s most recent work, Escape Velocity, addresses the challenge large enterprises face when they seek to add a new line of business to their established portfolio. It has been the basis of much of his recent consulting.
Irish by heritage, Moore has yet to meet a microphone he didn’t like and gives between 50 and 80 speeches a year. One theme that has received a lot of attention recently is the transition in enterprise IT investment focus from Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement. This is driving the deployment of a new cloud infrastructure to complement the legacy client-server stack, creating massive markets for a next generation of tech industry leaders.
Moore has a bachelors in American literature from Stanford University and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington. After teaching English for four years at Olivet College, he came back to the Bay Area with his wife and family and began a career in high tech as a training specialist. Over time he transitioned first into sales and then into marketing, finally finding his niche in marketing consulting, working first at Regis McKenna Inc, then with the three firms he helped found: The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute, and TCG Advisors. Today he is chairman emeritus of all three.
Visit The Infinite Staircase Website
Twitter Account for The Infinite Staircase Website
Facebook Account for Geoffrey Moore
Geoffrey Moore Main Site
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 23, 2014
The strongest chapters are 4-6. Chapter 4 introduces the idea of various stages of a business, and what capabilities excelling at each requires. The high-level insight is that going through these phases requires emphasizing certain skill -- eg cost control and operational excellence, vs customer intimacy to customize the product.
The book provides an additional level of detail over Innovator's Dilemma, looking at an organization from the inside -- through incentives of the various functions, such as sales, finance, and engineering (the focus is on tech companies).
Chapter 6 overlays the idea of company's overall culture and subcultures of various departments -- specifically, do they focus on objective vs subjective metrics, and on teams vs individuals. It almost feels like an additional book, and it's an extremely useful framework, helping to explain fit between culture and the kinds of challenges a company excels at and struggles. For instance, it helped me figure out how Apple excels by mostly focusing on the idea and tornado phases, with its mix of subjective-individual and control cultures.
Intel, by contrast, operates in a business that is a good fit to its control culture -- its mass produced products call for less customer intimacy.
The book was authored around 2000, so it suffers from the "Internet era radically changes everything, forever" and "time, not costs matter as being first to a market will permanently secure large future profits -- history shows that being dominant in a space and being first at any cost are far from being the same.
Overall, I have found the book's models and observations about internal dynamics of companies and how they make tasks such as crossing the chasm and countering Innovator's Dilemma very illuminating -- and hopefully beneficial for my future investment analysis.
The book provides an additional level of detail over Innovator's Dilemma, looking at an organization from the inside -- through incentives of the various functions, such as sales, finance, and engineering (the focus is on tech companies).
Chapter 6 overlays the idea of company's overall culture and subcultures of various departments -- specifically, do they focus on objective vs subjective metrics, and on teams vs individuals. It almost feels like an additional book, and it's an extremely useful framework, helping to explain fit between culture and the kinds of challenges a company excels at and struggles. For instance, it helped me figure out how Apple excels by mostly focusing on the idea and tornado phases, with its mix of subjective-individual and control cultures.
Intel, by contrast, operates in a business that is a good fit to its control culture -- its mass produced products call for less customer intimacy.
The book was authored around 2000, so it suffers from the "Internet era radically changes everything, forever" and "time, not costs matter as being first to a market will permanently secure large future profits -- history shows that being dominant in a space and being first at any cost are far from being the same.
Overall, I have found the book's models and observations about internal dynamics of companies and how they make tasks such as crossing the chasm and countering Innovator's Dilemma very illuminating -- and hopefully beneficial for my future investment analysis.
July 1, 2021
Remains a Classic with Solid Foundations for Clarifying Business Strategy - Moore's treatment of the technology adoption lifecycle is fundamental in providing a context for clarifying business strategy. His "competitive advantage grid" provides a ready way to describe current state and future options. He extends the earlier work of by Treacy and Wiersema on value disciplines and takes the description of related organizational characteristics to another level with his discussion and charts on "modeling business cultures."
While many of these items are similar to the earlier edition, this revised edition goes beyond the internet bubble to address the concerns in any tough economy where the investor perspective becomes increasingly demanding and dominant.
Moore explains that the business in the 21st century is changing requiring investment to incorporate the enabling technology that is becoming increasingly widespread and significant as well as the specialization of work that is becoming necessary to succeed. He also addresses the need for companies to focus on their "core" business functions and take care of the context in other ways, e.g. use of services, outsourcing, and so on.
While Moore has primarily concerned himself with the technology sector, his insights in this book have relevance for all sectors and it remains a classic for helping clarify business strategy and direction.
While many of these items are similar to the earlier edition, this revised edition goes beyond the internet bubble to address the concerns in any tough economy where the investor perspective becomes increasingly demanding and dominant.
Moore explains that the business in the 21st century is changing requiring investment to incorporate the enabling technology that is becoming increasingly widespread and significant as well as the specialization of work that is becoming necessary to succeed. He also addresses the need for companies to focus on their "core" business functions and take care of the context in other ways, e.g. use of services, outsourcing, and so on.
While Moore has primarily concerned himself with the technology sector, his insights in this book have relevance for all sectors and it remains a classic for helping clarify business strategy and direction.
March 24, 2022
This book is just ok. In Living On The Fault Line, by Geoffrey A. Moore, author of the highly successful
books Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, continues his exploration of what it will take for companies to survive in the Internet Age. Specifically, he asks and answers two fundamental questions:
• How does a company gain a competitive advantage today?
• How do you measure competitive advantage?
Moore argues that competitive advantage consists of two dimensions: the competitive-advantage gap (he uses the acronym GAP for this dimension), which refers to the (metaphorical) distance between your products and those of your competitors; and the competitive-advantage period, or CAP, which refers to the length of time that you can sustain that advantage over competitors. The higher the GAP or the longer the CAP, writes Moore, the greater your shareholder value.
books Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, continues his exploration of what it will take for companies to survive in the Internet Age. Specifically, he asks and answers two fundamental questions:
• How does a company gain a competitive advantage today?
• How do you measure competitive advantage?
Moore argues that competitive advantage consists of two dimensions: the competitive-advantage gap (he uses the acronym GAP for this dimension), which refers to the (metaphorical) distance between your products and those of your competitors; and the competitive-advantage period, or CAP, which refers to the length of time that you can sustain that advantage over competitors. The higher the GAP or the longer the CAP, writes Moore, the greater your shareholder value.
March 25, 2021
Crossing the Chasm 1991
Inside the Tornado 1995
The Gorilla Game 1998
The Innovator's Dilemma 1997
واقعا کلی زحمت کشیدم تا به این کتاب رسیدم. هر چهار کتاب بالا رو خوندم تا یکم دیدم نسبت به کسب و کار و فرایندش در سال جهش تولید بیشتر بشه
Inside the Tornado 1995
The Gorilla Game 1998
The Innovator's Dilemma 1997
واقعا کلی زحمت کشیدم تا به این کتاب رسیدم. هر چهار کتاب بالا رو خوندم تا یکم دیدم نسبت به کسب و کار و فرایندش در سال جهش تولید بیشتر بشه
October 29, 2017
A fascinating read
March 30, 2013
A should-read book by Geoffrey Moore on marketing for the knowledge worker, manager, executive, or entrepreneur.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews