This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (123) from $5.39 & FREE Shipping

Follow the author

Philip Evans

+ Follow

More books from this author

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy Hardcover – September 19, 1999

by Philip Evans (Author), Thomas S. Wurster (Author)

3.8 56 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$5.39","priceAmount":5.39,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"5","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"39","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"eFFs1lvmY6850SQ85ap00vSPbO1PfUq9jHQVFXyKk7UEZJGZrpnkrlZe6GDyzRHuBGACZ2glfB5FHi5SeMKDn0sIwdvedp5qf5TMcb9EPHY%2BTAV7EPyGsBr7fQZVGmr%2FPG1Pawv8mXE3E2PmI6%2FjiN4TZ%2FfMQuz9MioMkgQO23pjFZgGcICBynW2ps%2B8kYeR","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The new economics of information is blowing apart the foundations of traditional business strategy. According to Blown to Bits, your business definition, industry definition, and competitive advantage are simultaneously up for grabs. Evans and Wurster argue that with the spread of connectivity and common standards, your customers will increasingly have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers, and focused competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain. With an uncompromising clarity and vivid examples, Blown to Bits is targeted squarely at today's practicing business and corporate leaders. This groundbreaking book shows how to build new strategies that reflect the new economics of information, and explains how to take advantage of the forces shaping today's competitive advantage.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster think that the Internet can blow away practically any business, and in Blown to Bits, they examine how the new economy is "deconstructing" industries such as newspapers, auto retailing, and banking while creating new opportunities for others. They write that the "glue that holds today's value chains and supply chains together" is melting, and that even "the most stable of industries, the most focused of business models and the strongest of brands can be blown to bits by new information technology."

Evans and Wurster, both executives of the Boston Consulting Group, argue that the Internet demands new business strategies because it provides companies tremendous "reach" for customers without sacrificing "richness," or the quality of the information about products and services. The book shows how some businesses--Microsoft and Intuit in personal finance, Dell Computer in retailing, and the Automotive Network Exchange in manufacturing supply--are thriving amid a rapid expansion of connectivity and the widespread acceptance of new technical standards on the World Wide Web. Clearly written and tough-minded, Blown to Bits is required reading for business leaders, entrepreneurs, strategists, and others concerned about the new economics of the information age. --Dan Ring

From Booklist

Boston Consulting Group veeps Evans and Wurster won a 1997 McKinsey Award for an article they wrote for the Harvard Business Review that became the basis of this book. Starting with a detailed account of the "near-demise" of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as an example, Evans and Wurster show how "the new economics of information will precipitate changes in the structure of entire industries and in the way companies compete." They emphasize the role information plays in every business, and they demonstrate that companies will no longer be forced to choose between "richness" (the quality of information) and "reach" (the number of people who share that information) in their marketing mix. Trade-offs between those two factors are no longer necessary because of increasing connectivity and growing standardization. As a result, organizational supply chains and value chains (the increments by which value is added to products and services) are being "blown to bits" and reconstituted into separate and new businesses. Among the examples the authors use to demonstrate their proposition are automobile dealerships, brokerage companies, and banks. David Rouse

Review

"Blown to Bits commands attention." -- Financial Times, October 18, 1999

"Blown to Bits lets you look at your industry through a whole new lens.... If there is an information strategy opening in your industry, someone is going to fill it. Blown to Bits can give you the tools to make sure it's you." -- Atlanta Business Chronicle, October 29, 1999

"As an analysis of the impact of the communications revolution on the corporate world, this book is hard to better." -- The Economist, January 8, 2000

"The most thought-provoking analysis I have seen on phase two of the development of e-commerce comes from two Boston Consulting people, Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster. They say success in e-commerce will be determined by three factors: reach, richness and affiliation." -- Hamish McRae, The Independent, November 17, 1999

"There are a number of books today offering to explain the new economics of information, but most are replicative and similar in perspective. Evans and Wurster, from the Boston Consulting Group, provide a different perspective bordering on a seminal interpretation...This is groundbreaking stuff that will be prized by many of today's and most of tomorrow's business leaders." -- National Productivity Review, Winter 1999

From the Publisher

"Management gurus tend to spice up their conversations and writings with silly new words and phrases, destroying perfectly good anecdotes with convoluted explanations. The Blown to Bits duo avoid these pitfalls, cleverly explaining how the Internet and other technological innovations are changing the basic structures of most industries and simply destroying the remainder."

From the Inside Flap

Richness or reach? The trade-off used to be simple but absolute: Your business strategy either could focus on "rich" information--customized products and services tailored to a niche audience--or could reach out to a larger market, but with watered-down information that sacrificed richness in favor of a broad, general appeal. Much of business strategy as we know it today rests on this fundamental dilemma.

Now, say Evans and Wurster, the new economics of information is eliminating the trade-off between richness and reach, blowing apart the foundations of traditional business strategy. Blown to Bits reveals how the spread of connectivity and common standards is redefining the information channels that link businesses with their customers, suppliers, and employees. Increasingly, your customers will have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers, and your competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain. Your competitive advantage is up for grabs. To prepare corporate executives and entrepreneurs alike for a fundamental change in business competition, Evans and Wurster expand and illuminate groundbreaking concepts first explored in the award-winning Harvard Business Review article "Strategy and the New Economics of Information," and present a practical guide for applying them.

Examples span the spectrum of industries--from financial services to health care, from consumer to industrial goods, and from media to retailing. Blown to Bits shows how to build new strategies that reflect a world in which richness and reach go hand in hand and how to make the most of the new forces shaping competitive advantage.

From the Back Cover

"A variety of technologies-particularly those associated with the Internet-will disrupt many of today's companies and create opportunities for tomorrow's great companies to emerge. Blown to Bits, which frames how these technologies can break the historical trade-offs between richness and reach, provides an important strategic guide to any manager affected by disruptive technologies. I recommend it highly."
-Clayton Christensen, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and Author of The Innovator's Dilemma

"In the new economics of information, industries will be deconstructed, but not destroyed; corporations will not become obsolete, but their present business definitions will. Blown to Bits is useful reading for those who want to understand and apply the new sources of competitive advantage."
-Jacques Nasser, President, Ford Motor Company

"Evans and Wurster show how information is the 'glue' that holds industries together and how the introduction of new navigators will melt this glue. Blown to Bits lays out the road map for newcomers such as eToys to compete. I recommend it to anyone aspiring to be a new navigator."
-Toby Lenk, President and CEO, eToys

"Blown to Bits is a manifesto for the reconstruction of business strategy in response to the deconstruction of information channels. Drawing examples from a wide variety of industries, the authors redefine the essence of business strategy for the Internet Age."
-Jean-Marie Messier, Chairman and CEO, Vivendi

"The brilliance of Blown to Bits lies in the authors' ability to take changes that are profound and complex and strip them down to their bare essence. Evans and Wurster empower readers to move from learning how the Internet is reshaping the business landscape to establishing their own competitive advantage."
-Shikhar Ghosh, Chairman and Cofounder, Open Market, Inc., and CEO, iBelong Networks

About the Author

Philip Evans is a Senior Vice President of the Boston Consulting Group in Boston.

Thomas S. Wurster is a Vice President of The Boston Consulting Group in Los Angeles. The authors are coleaders of The Boston Consulting Group's Media and Convergence Practice.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard Business Review Press; 1st edition (September 19, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 087584877X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0875848778
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.36 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.47 x 1.12 x 9.52 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,020,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,145 in Information Management (Books)
- #3,129 in Theory of Economics
- #5,151 in Strategic Business Planning

Customer Reviews:
3.8 56 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Philip Evans

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5

56 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Mike Jones

Blown to Bits

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2003

BLOWN TO BITS
How the new Economics of Information transforms Strategy
Authored by Philip Evans & Thomas S. Wurster
By Mike Jones
Management Information Systems
05/27/03
This book is about how the new age of technology dealing with the way information has changed the business environment forever. It starts out with the example of Encyclopedia Britanica and how they were leaders in their field in the late eighties and early nineties. Though they were very pricey the sales force targeted families with young children and the parents had to have this source of valuable information for their children. Sales were very high and there was no competition for the Encyclopedia icon. Everything was great until the computer age took hold and all of a sudden you could get that same information on a little round disk known as a CD-ROM for a fraction of the cost. That disk was even being given away with the purchase of a microcomputer that people could use for other things as well. This goes to show us that even the strongest business can be blind sided when they least expect it. Moral to be learned here is that "even the most venerable can be the most vulnerable".
All businesses are information businesses and the information is the main glue that holds any business together. The business of information is different than the business of things. When something is sold, the seller no longer owns it but when a piece of information is sold, the seller still has access to that information and can sell it again. Although the two are different they are still very much linked together as all things consist of some kind of information.
One of the most fundamental issues of the information business in the beginning was the dilemma of Richness and Reach. It was nearly impossible to have both Richness and Reach in information but the rise of the computer industry and the Internet has changed that forever. There are six aspects that come into play when talking about Richness of information and they are Bandwidth, interactivity, reliability, security, currency and the degree to which the information can be customized. This has all changed with the computer. This change is melting the informational glue, as we know it. It "deconstructs" value chains, supply chains, franchises and organizations. The definition of deconstruction is the reformulation of traditional business structures. The newspaper industry and retail banking is just a couple of businesses that have been deconstructed. You used to have to go to the bank to do your banking and newspapers were either delivered or you had to go get them. Now both can be done via the personal computer at nearly no cost and in a fraction of the time. Deconstruction does a lot of damage at first and hits where a company can least afford it and if a company is willing to accept the change it can make it through tough times.
Intermediaries exist because of the trade off between richness and reach. The deconstruction of the old intermediaries is known as disinter mediation and the creation of the new intermediaries is known as navigation. Disinter mediation used to be about substituting reach for richness but now it is about transforming them both. This will happen where a company can least afford it. The new navigators compete against each other on richness, reach and affiliation. The key is reach but reach is clutter without navigation. We need navigation to find what we want. Navigators are not consumer oriented even though consumers use them. They are supplier oriented because the supplier needs to get their product to the consumer. Reach has developed faster than navigation but we are slowly catching up.
Navigators affiliate mostly with suppliers but are starting to lean toward affiliating themselves with the consumer. This is surprising that this is only happening now and hasn't happened in the past. Navigation is worth more than the supplier business due to the need for navigation because without navigation the products and services would not get to the consumer.
Adding richness is the most powerful way to put off deconstruction due to the fact that if your giving people what they want you will stay in business. You need to be giving them something they don't already have which makes the consumer your biggest competitor. Richness goes up as reach increases. As richness and reach escalate so does the competitive advantage and intensity at all levels of the supply chain.
In closing I would like to say one thing and that is business has changed forever with the desktop workstations and microcomputers and the Internet. People are touching out to one another unlike they have ever done before. Networks are connected to networks all over the world. A message can get across the globe with the touch of a keyboard. Business is ever changing and will continue to change for a long time to come. We will either keep up and make the changes necessary or we will be left behind and fail. As it said in the book "The winner is not the player who understands the endgame. There is no endgame. The winner is the player who sees just one or two moves further ahead than the competitors".

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

How information economy is going to blow your business?

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2002

It is common sense to say that industrial age businesses will have to change to enter in the new Information economy, but the reasons to change are not often clearly explained. Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster are giving some sound answers in their book: "Blown to Bits".
In fact industrial age businesses are historically built on two compromises: Information bound with things and a trade-off between richness and reach. Information is embedded in things to reach through physical channels the final consumer, who have some difficulties to get complete unbiased information on things he buys. On the other hand, physical constraints and costs are creating a need to find balance between richness (depth and detail of information) and reach (access and connection). A salesman is able to bring richness to chosen customers when advertising is reaching more people with less richness in information. The management of Information non-transparency and asymmetry is often the base for a competitive advantage.
What is happening if Information can travel separately from things and if it is possible to offer richness and reach at a same time? In that case the industrial age compromises are blowing up and competitive advantages based on asymmetric Information are disappearing putting many businesses in danger. This is what is happening with the development of computers networks using common standards to communicate in the Internet world where geography and time constraints are disappearing. Information can be unbundled from things and richness, at zero marginal cost, can be supplied with extended reach. The competition battlefield is moving from profitable cross-linked activities constituting a typical industrial age organization to individual profitable activities: "blown to bits." To compete there is no need to attack on all fronts for destabilizing a traditional company. Just concentrate on the more profitable activities-classified ads for newspapers, best customers for banks-makes it possible to "deconstruct" a business. Offering richness and reach together-deeper information on a larger range of products than retailers-makes it is possible to "desintermediate".
It's real hard time for traditional organizations, which have no other alternative than to "deconstruct" and "desintermediate" themselves their own business, before somebody else is doing it. But this task is not easy against the "navigators" as Yahoo!, Intuit, but also Amazon. These one are helping consumers to find their way in the Internet marketspace. They supply reach, richness and create a link with consumers by affiliation. They concentrate more on consumers' needs than on suppliers' one and have the objective to gain a critical mass giving them an added value. Traditional companies, often too closed to their physical offer, have lower reach than "navigators" and have difficulties to gain affiliation from customers who are suspecting them to promote their own products before liberating an impartial Information. However, they can build on a slight advantage in product richness, when products are changing rapidly.
To really compete, traditional companies need to go out from their own boundaries, and collaborate with their suppliers, but also with their competitors when needed. Supply chains and organizations are "deconstructed" as value chains are. Hierarchically leadership becomes obsolete to give place to a new leadership creating a culture and shaping a strategy, which will be the "glue" for a new corporation, a purposeful community.
"Blown to Bits" gives many other keys as enhancing "brands as experience", creating "new intermediaries" towards a fascinating "New Economy" and I can only recommend to every executive to read this book to make sure to be aboard the train going to our common digital future.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

J. J. Kwashnak

Technology Changes the Landscape

Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2001

Verified Purchase

Many times we hear the axiom "Adapt or Die" thrown around in business books. But Evans and Wurster show that this has never been more true than now under the Internet Economy. Some of their observations are called into contemplation with the contration of the economy, but the heart is still applicable today. The authors show how the changes of the "new economy" affect all levels of the supply chain and the decisions that businesses must make to keep profitable. They give a graph and a concept to the tradeoff of reach vs richness that we may understand but not always see in our business.
A must read for anyone who is running a business today, and wants to expand or at least keep their profitablity.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Mark J. Welch

One of the best books on how dot-coms disrupt

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2014

This was one of the best books I've ever read about online business [when I first read it, more than a decade ago]. The key message: often new online businesses can powerfully disrupt existing industries -- often in ways that provide little or no benefit to the disruptor (though almost always in ways that benefit customers).

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2010

In my opinion, this is a fundamental book that explains the digital economy and its implications. I know that it was written in 1999 (11 years ago) but it is still relevant today. The authors bring judicious insight and many clever ideas. Contrary to many books that plainly state that "the digital economy is different", the authors have spent a lot of time trying to understand why and how it is changing and what you (supplier, retailer) can do about it. If you work in media, then this book is even more relevant to you. One warning - I found this book difficult to read partly because it is packed with information and concepts that are not trivial to understand. But what is the point of reading a trivial book?

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

P. Janeiro

Blown to nothing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2001

Verified Purchase

Clearly an over rated book. It might have been fascinating in 1999, but in August 2001 is a collection of old fashioned ideas (internet really changes fast...) from which we can still salvage 2 or 3 concepts.
It still makes a decent reading, if you have the time and money to spare, and if you keep in mind that this is not a recent book.

10 people found this helpful

See more reviews