As recent events demonstrate, identifying and exploiting opportunities in today's economy demands focus, diligence, patience, and a keen ability to plot a smart course through uncertainty. This month, a range of new books offers much-needed perspective on navigating the choppy waters of modern-day business.
Joel Kurtzman and Glen Rifkin's Radical E explores the failed promises and untapped potential of e-commerce in the wake of the dotcom meltdown. The authors, both New York Times writers, open with the once-shocking premise that the real story of the Internet rests not with startups and stratospheric market valuations, but with so-called old-economy companies that "turned left when everyone around them was turning right," thus capitalizing on new technological possibilities and gaining competitive advantage. Kurtzman and Rifkin examine how such players such as Victoria's Secret and Southwest Airlines embraced the Internet through a combination of established business methods and innovative online offerings, presenting key strategic lessons for those operating across a range of industries. The bottom line: Success in Internet commerce will come more arduously than once imagined, but its fruits are real, bountiful, and worth the effort. (eCompany, June 2001)

"...offers an impressive selection of case studies..." (Information Age, September 2001)

"If you like to impress management and the consultants this might be the read you need..." (Freelance Informer, 5 October, 2001)