What's Your Digital Business Model? - by Peter Weill & Stephanie Woerner (Hardcover)

About the Book

While many leaders of companies recognize the threat from digital--and the potential opportunity--they lack a common language or a compelling framework to help them assess it and, more importantly, to direct them. They don't know how to think about their digital business model. In this book, Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner provide tools, self-assessments, motivating examples, and financial analyses of where profits may be made.

Book Synopsis

Digital transformation is not about technology--it's about change.

In the rapidly changing digital economy, you can't succeed by merely tweaking management practices that led to past success. And yet, while many leaders and managers recognize the threat from digital--and the potential opportunity--they lack a common language and compelling framework to help them assess it and guide them in responding. They don't know how to think about their digital business model.

In this concise, practical book, MIT digital research leaders Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner provide a powerful yet straightforward framework that has been field-tested globally with dozens of senior management teams. Based on years of study at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), the authors find that digitization is moving companies' business models on two dimensions: from value chains to digital ecosystems, and from a fuzzy understanding of the needs of end customers to a sharper one. Looking at these dimensions in combination results in four distinct business models, each with different capabilities. The book then sets out six driving questions, in separate chapters, that help managers and executives clarify where they are currently in an increasingly digital business landscape and highlight what's needed to move toward a higher-value digital business model.

Filled with straightforward self-assessments, motivating examples, and sharp financial analyses of where profits are made, this smart book will help you tackle the threats, leverage the opportunities, and create winning digital strategies.

Review Quotes

Named one of the Top Ten Technology Books of 2018 by Peter High, Forbes.com

Advance Praise for What's Your Digital Business Model?:

James I. Cash Jr., Lead Independent Director, Walmart--
Weill and Woerner's book provides a very useful framework for analyzing the best business model option and developing a transformation strategy in response to the digital revolution every company is going through.

Francisco Gonzalez, Group Executive Chairman, BBVA--
This book will help companies to take a hard look at their digital transformation strategies and show them how to win in the fourth industrial revolution.

Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and CEO, Schneider Electric--
An essential decision guide to navigate digitization, ask the right questions, and make the right choices. Based on a wealth of data points and real-life examples, this book offers practical, step-by-step tips to define and execute a winning digital transformation.

Fernando A. Gonzalez, CEO, CEMEX--
Weill and Woerner's book is a must-read primer for CEOs wondering why they need to digitally transform their companies and how to succeed in the endeavor.

Jennifer S. Banner, CEO, Schaad Companies; Lead Director, BB&T--
Weill and Woerner bring laser focus to the pressing need for enterprises to digitize their business models. This book is a practical, hopeful guide for executives and boards alike, providing a call to action and a framework for execution that blends cutting-edge research with real-world examples.

Sammy Lee, Chairman and Chief Invisible Officer, LKK Health Products Group--
The authors provide a simple but powerful framework for enterprises to reinvent their business models for the digital age. Their probing questions, self-assessments, and real-life examples make this book a must-read for everyone who wants to make their digital transformation a success.

About the Author

Peter Weill is a Senior Research Scientist and Chair of the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His writing and research have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and the Wall Street Journal. His books include IT Savvy, Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, and IT Governance, all published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Stephanie Woerner is a Research Scientist at MIT's CISR. Her research centers on how companies manage organizational change caused by the digitization of the economy. In 2016 she was a subject matter expert on enterprise digitization for the Wall Street Journal CEO Council.

Author social media/website info:
Weill: mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-directory/detail/?id=41108
Woerner: mitsloan.mit.edu/about-mit-sloan/directory/staff-directory/detail/?id=41270