Seizing the White Space

What I appreciate most about Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal is its clarity. Mark Johnson's book is an unpretentious and straightforward reader on the crucial components of business model innovation and should be read by anyone concerned with corporate strategy.

The "white space" to which Johnson refers is "the range of potential activities not defined or addressed by [a] company's business model, that is, the opportunities outside its core and beyond its adjacencies that require a different business model to exploit." Thus, beginning with a simple framework of business models -- namely, that they comprise a customer value proposition, key processes, key resources and a profit formula -- Seizing the White Space offers a concise blueprint of how business model innovation enables companies to take advantage of opportunities whether from underserved customers in their core businesses ("the white space within"), from new markets ("the white space beyond"), or in the face of industry discontinuities arising from regulatory or environmental factors ("the white space between").

There's simply an element of polish inescapable in Johnson's ideas. It begins with the book's business model framework, carries on to the various concise case studies offered to make the book's key points more concrete, and ultimately comes together in a final chapter that amusingly (and compellingly) describes why new business ideas have a tendency not to thrive within a tried and tested business model. Overall, I'd say Seizing the White Space is an important book with as much to offer the seasoned MBA graduate as those without any formal business education. And it helps that it's enjoyable reading, too.