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The Power of Now
Book

The Power of Now

How Winning Companies Sense & Respond To Change Using Real-Time Technology

Vivek Ranadive
McGraw-Hill, 1999

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Background

Recommendation

Vivek Ranadive’s book says technology has changed the way business is conducted. Having seemingly stated the obvious, though, he tells you what this means. This technology has spawned "the event-driven revolution," a transforming shift in how corporations act. The book begins with the early transformation of the financial services industry to an event-driven business. It goes on to discuss enterprise business applications, and then the Internet. Throughout, the author addresses the differences between contemporary and event-driven business models, with great emphasis on the event-driven model. This book is densely written, yet surprisingly easy to read. Ranadive provides a good background for students and Internet entrepreneurs (all those who think the event-driven business world started with Jim Clark and Netscape are in for a shock). getAbstract recommends this book to leaders thinking of shifting to an event-driven business mode. You’ll also like it if you want enough background to join the conversation about how event-driven organizations function.

Summary

The Event-Driven Company

An event-driven company runs its business with real-time, active information, which it also applies to its development of new products and services. Everything happens fast, and immediately. Such companies achieve a competitive advantage by creating virtual, integrated, real-time, supply networks for and with their customers. These firms use an information-technology-based infrastructure to share critical corporate information, endeavoring to turn their companies into organizations that think with "one brain," and fast.

Event-driven companies have several characteristics in common. They are customer-centric, create high customer value, and cater to Web-based customers. They keep their sales and marketing ahead of their competition, give employees the best information-management tools, and operate manufacturing and product development at optimal levels. They implement true knowledge-management programs to leverage their valuable intellectual capital wisely. These firms stay flexible to weather changing market conditions. They instantly update their workers, customers and partners. And, perhaps most critically, they know how to benefit from apparent...

About the Author

Vivek Ranadive  is a pioneer of real-time software technologies that were first used to digitize Wall Street in the early 1980s. He is the founder and CEO of TIBCO Software Inc. (Palo Alto, CA), whose real-time software is used by hundreds of leading companies, including Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs, NASDAQ, Philips and Yahoo!

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