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business webs may compete with one another for market share
within an industry. In mature business webs, each business
focuses on a limited set of core competencies, the things that it
does best.
9.3.1 Key design dimensions
Tapscott gives a number of key design dimensions for effective
and competitive business webs. Among the characteristics are
the following:
� multi-enterprise capability machine
� coopetition
� customer-centricity
� bathed in knowledge
� value proposition innovation
� Internet infrastructure
By referring to business webs as ‘multi-enterprise capability
machines’ Tapscott emphasizes that the business webs rely on a
market model of partnering and alliances rather than the
‘internal monopoly’ of a build-or-acquire model. Thus the
traditional corporation defines its capabilities as its employees
and the assets it owns, whereas the business web marshals the
contributions of many participating enterprises. The advantages
of this mode of organization – cost, speed, innovation, quality
and selection – typically outweigh the risks of partner
opportunism.
9.3.2 Coopetition
Coopetition (introduced and discussed in Chapter 4) refers to
the fact that business web participants simultaneously cooperate
and compete with each other. Collaborative advantage is mixed
with pure competitive advantage, and cooperative strategy
becomes a focus alongside purely competitive strategy.
Tapscott, like others, argues that effective business webs
function as highly responsive customer fulfilment networks.
Members of traditional supply chains, such as the automobile
industry, tend to focus only on the next link to which they ship
their products. As competition moves from competition
between firms to competition between supply chains, effective
business webs encourage all participants to focus on the end
customer.