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Epilogue to von Simson book on strategy puts the spotlight on innovation |
April 29, 2013
After Ernest von Simson's book, "The Limits of Strategy: Lessons in Leadership from the Computer Industry," was published three years ago, he watched major shifts occur at the IT companies he had focused on, notably the slide of Hewlett-Packard at the same time that stalwart IBM maintained its industry standing.The juxtaposition of the two companies got him thinking again about innovation and led him to write an epilogue for a new edition of the book. "What makes for that [innovation] in a large and relatively traditional enterprise? Why is one innovative and why is the other one not?" von Simson said in a recent interview. "That was my initial thinking. I was also interested in filling out what happened with the 'Star Walkers,'" he added, referring to Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, who are central to the book's narrative."Once again, we focus our queries on the factors that advance or retard a firm's ability to change with the technology and ahead of the marketplace," he wrote in the epilogue. "Those factors are a combination of leadership, business model, R&D, and mergers and acquisitions."Von Simson's career path has given him an insider look at the IT industry as a co-founder in 1970 of The Research Board, along with Naomi Seligman, his wife. The exclusive, IT-focused think tank gave them the opportunity to watch corporate leaders steer their companies through enormous change over nearly 30 years. They sold the company to Gartner in 1999 and went on to found Ostriker von Simson, a consultancy that works with large global enterprises to advise them on choosing and deploying technologies and software. Von Simson, Seligman and Abigail Kramer also are directors of the CIO Strategy Exchange, a joint venture with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, that offers a forum for emerging startups, enterprise IT heavyweights such as IBM, Oracle, Dell and HP, venture capitalists and CIOs from a range of multinational companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2036714/epilogue-to-von-simson-book-on-strategy-puts-the-spotlight-on-innovation.html#tk.rss_all
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