PRUEBAS

toward sustaining innovations and away from disruptive ones. This pattern of resource allocationaccounts for established firms’ consistent leadership in the former and their dismal performance in thelatter.Value Networks Mirror Product ArchitectureCompanies are embedded in value networks because their products generally are embedded, or nestedhierarchically, as components within other products and eventually within end systems of use. 8Consider a 1980s-vintage management information system (MIS) for a large organization, as illustratedin Figure 2.1. The architecture of the MIS ties together various components—a mainframe computer;peripherals such as line printers and tape and disk drives; software; a large, air-conditioned room withcables running under a raised floor; and so on. At the next level, the mainframe computer is itself anarchitected system, comprising such components as a central processing unit, multi-chip packages andcircuit boards, RAM circuits, terminals, controllers, and disk drives. Telescoping down still further, thedisk drive is a system whose components include a motor, actuator, spindle, disks, heads, andcontroller. In turn, the disk itself can be analyzed as a system composed of an aluminum platter,magnetic material, adhesives, abrasives, lubricants, and coatings.Although the goods and services constituting such a system of use may all be produced within a single,extensively integrated corporation such as AT&T or IBM, most are tradable, especially in more maturemarkets. This means that, while Figure 2.1 is drawn to describe the nested physical architecture of aproduct system, it also implies the existence of a nested network of producers and markets throughwhich the components at each level are made and sold to integrators at the next higher level in thesystem. Firms that design and assemble disk drives, for example, such as Quantum and Maxtor,procure read-write heads from firms specializing in the manufacture of those heads, and they buy disksfrom other firms and spin motors, actuator motors, and integrated circuitry from still others. At the nexthigher level, firms that design and assemble computers may buy their integrated circuits, terminals,disk drives, IC packaging, and power supplies from various firms that manufacture those particularproducts. This nested commercial system is a value network.Figure 2.1 A Nested, or Telescoping, System of Product Architecture40