This book is more about business philosophy than about strategy. The basic concept is simple: Instead of focusing on the technological, operational aspects of the business, or even the final products, rather focus on what type of service you’ll be providing, how does it meet the customers’ needs, and wants and how can you streamline your business to provide more value to the customers (in terms of functions delivered and […]
Read moreCategory: Economics
“The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson
Book Summary With the advent of the Internet and new technologies, the means of manufacturing and distributing consumer products (notably music, videos and books) have become so inexpensive and commonly accessible that they are decentralized and diversified to a great extent. Traditional manufactures built around old business models (newspapers, publishers, and music labels) are facing severe competitions from electronic commerce. Consumers, now presented with unlimited choices, no longer gravitate towards […]
Read more“Purple Cow” by Seth Godin
What I’ve Learned 1. Invest in developing remarkable products, not in mass advertising, as the potential customers are either too busy or too saturated to pay attention. 2. Target people with discriminating taste and enthusiasm to seek out and spread unique, extraordinary products. They are called “otaku” in Japanese. Not all customers are equal in this case. Otaku are the best, because they not only buy the product but also […]
Read more“Creating a World Without Poverty” by Muhammad Yunus
Because poverty denies people any semblance of control over their destiny, it is the ultimate denial of human rights. Forty-two People, Twenty-Seven Dollars Muhammad Yunus was not a banker, but an economics professor, who felt the emptiness of the economics theories and “wanted to do something immediate to help” the poor. He talked to many poor people and found out, to his shocking surprise, that they needed just a little […]
Read more“Cradle to Cradle” by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Eco-Efficiency vs. Eco-Effectiveness The authors pointed out the ineffectiveness of the “eco-efficiency” movement, as characterized by the Four R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Regulate). Eco-efficiency does not halt depletion and destruction, it simply slows them down. They propose a new system in which designs are modeled on nature, specifically, the cycles of materials in nature and services provided by the self-sustaining, self-generating ecosystems. “Imagine a building like a tree, a […]
Read more“Small is Beautiful” by E. F. Schumacher
The Problem of Production “The modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which it has been erected”, the irreplaceable capital which it treats as unlimited income, i.e., natural capital (capital provided by nature, not by man, e.g., fossil fuels) and human substance. “We need methods and equipment which are cheap enough so that they are accessible to everyone, suitable for small-scale application and compatible […]
Read more“Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawken
One of those rare books that leave you wanting to know more and take action. “Natural capital refers to the natural resources and ecosystem services that make possible all economic activity, indeed all life. …Yet current business practices typically fail to take into account the value of these assets. As a result, natural capital is being degraded and liquidated by the wasteful use of such resources as energy, materials, water, […]
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