Reinvent Your Business Model: How to Seize the White Space for Transformative Growth

253 Pages·2018·6.84 MB·English

by  Mark W. Johnson

Reinvent
Your Business
Model
How to Seize the White Space for
Transformative Growth
Mark W. Johnson
Harvard Business Review Press
Boston, Massachusetts
Copyright
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Copyright 2018 Mark W. Johnson All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise),
without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to
[email protected], or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard
Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.
First eBook Edition: July 2018
ISBN 978-1-6336-9646-4
eISBN 978-1-6336-9647-1
For my mother, Adriana, who taught me
by example all the important things.
And for my beloved wife, Jane, and my children,
Kristina, Mark, Kathryn, Ella, and William.
They remind me every day what matters most.
The shift from oral to written speech is essentially a shift from sound to
visual space … Because print controlled not only what words were put
down to form a text but also the exact situation of the words on the page
and their spatial relationship to one another, the space itself on a printed
sheet—“white space” as it is called—took on high significance that leads
directly into the modern and post-modern world.
—Walter Ong
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword to the New Edition by Clayton M. Christensen
Introduction
Part One
A New Model for Growth and Renewal
1 The White Space and Business Model Innovation
2 The Four-Box Business Model Framework
Part Two
When New Business Models Are Needed
3 The White Space Within
Transforming Existing Markets
4 The White Space Beyond
Creating New Markets
5 The White Space Between
Dealing with Industry Discontinuity
6 Digital Transformation
Part Three
Business Model Innovation as a Repeatable Process
7 Designing a New Business Model
8 Implementing the Model
9 Overcoming Incumbent Challenges
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author

FOREWORD

Business Models and Innovation
More than a decade ago, Mark Johnson, SAP’s Henning Kagermann, and I
hashed out the principles of business model reinvention in the pages of the
Harvard Business Review. A few years after that, Mark refined, clarified, and
vastly expanded on our work in Seizing the White Space, a book that has proven
itself to be even more relevant today, as new technologies continue to upend the
marketplace. One of the most important and least understood insights that you’ll
derive from this book is that a new technology alone is not enough to propel a
business into transformational growth. The business model that goes with it is
absolutely key to its success or failure. I am delighted that the Harvard Business
Review Press is reissuing it in this newly revised and updated edition, and proud
to be able to introduce it. Mark was my student at Harvard Business School, and
we went on to cofound the consultancy Innosight together. In the years since, he
has become my teacher as well as my partner, which is about the most gratifying
thing that any professor can say of a former student.
If our work on business model innovation has more than held up over the
years, the term itself has become something of an empty cliché or buzz phrase,
so much so that I have been tempted at times to retire it. That’s a shame, because
a deep understanding of the underlying principles of business models is an
incredibly powerful tool, not just for management theorists but practitioners.
Knowing how to build (or rebuild) a seamless business model is what allows the