Summary: Doing Both E-Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Herausgeber: Business Book Summaries
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 34

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The must-read summary of Inder Sidhu's book: "Doing Both: Capturing Today's Profit and Driving Tomorrow's Growth".

This complete summary of the ideas from Inder Sidhu's book "Doing Both" answers one of the biggest questions in business: should we focus on the present or the future? In his book, the author explains how many companies struggle to find a balance between this optimise vs. innovate debate. Drawing from his own experience at world-class company Cisco, Inder Sidhu shares the practices that allow the company to do both, which you can learn and adapt for your own business.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand key concepts
• Expand your business knowledge

To learn more, read "Doing Both: Capturing Today's Profits and Driving Tomorrow's Growth" and find out how you tackle optimisation and innovation at the same time to make your company prosper.

Leseprobe

Book Presentation: Doing Both by Inder Sidhu

Summary of Doing Both (Inder Sidhu)

Book Presentation: Doing Both by Inder Sidhu

Book Abstract

MAIN IDEA

One of the central challenges of business is often concisely summed up in a single question: “Should we be focusing on developing the innovations and business models which will drive our future profits or should we instead be concentrating on optimizing the profitability of our current operations?”

Many companies struggle to hit the right balance in this Optimize vs. Innovate internal debate but this isn’t even an issue at Cisco, the $40 billion company which produces much of the networking equipment which underpins the Internet. Instead, Cisco does both simultaneously. And even more impressively, Cisco has found all kinds of advantages can be derived from approaching every decision as an opportunity to seize rather than a sacrifice to be made. The key is to find ways to make one option benefit and mutually reinforce the other.

“A successful business prioritizes growth and profitability. Innovation and operational excellence. Doing both works in business. If you are in the healthcare industry, you can improve patient care and reduce costs. If you’re in manufacturing, you can increase productivity and lower greenhouse emissions. And if you’re in the public sector, you can expand access to information and protect the privacy of your constituents. In almost every scenario, Cisco believes the best approach is to do both – and not just in product development, but in employee relations, customer service, partner management, and more.”

– Inder Sidhu

About the Author

INDER SIDHU is senior vice president of strategy and planning for worldwide operations at Cisco. He is also a member of Cisco’s Operating Council and Cisco’s Emerging Countries Council and a past co-leader of Cisco’s Enterprise Business Council. Mr. Sidhu joined Cisco in 1995 after working previously with McKinsey& Company, Intel and Novell. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Massachusetts and the Indian Institute of Technology.

The Web site for this book is at www.DoingBoth.com.

Important Note About This Ebook

This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book. This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, viewpoints and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.

Summary of Doing Both (Inder Sidhu)

Innovation

Sustaining

In fiscal 2008, Cisco invested $5.2 billion or 13.2 percent of its revenues in research and development so the company is very active in making ongoing improvements to its products – as it needs to be to stay at the cutting edge of new technology. The main internal vehicle for much of this expenditure is the Cisco Development Organization. As of 2010, Cisco is actively investing in internal projects in the fields of core networking products, video products, virtualization software and collaboration.

Much of this internal investment is focused on enhancing existing products but Cisco also does something else which is quite noteworthy. Cisco has created an Emerging Technologies Group which has the mission of pursuing new and disruptive ideas which have the potential to grow into $1 billion market opportunities within five- to seven-years. This group is an internal idea incubator which creates startup environments within Cisco itself. Free thinkers who are interested in pursuing emerging market opportunities adjacent to existing markets or in completely fresh markets are able to apply to the Emerging Technologies Group for start-up funding.

“We do not ask customers what they want. That too often leads to incremental improvements over what they have experienced. Instead we focus on the customer’s role and what they seek to accomplish. We also meet with non-customers – that is, organizations that are not currently buyers of products and services in the category we are targeting. This helps us produce truly disruptive innovations.”

– Marthin de Beer, leader, Emerging Technologies Group