Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era

Author - Robert L. McDowell ... [Goo?] [Posters]
Author - William L. Simon ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from HarperBusiness was reviewed on 16-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0066620929 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era Reference Book. Classifications : General E-commerce Industries & Professions Business & Investing Subjects Books Management Management & Leadership Business & Investing Subjects Books Strategy & Competition Management & Leadership Bu . Click the following link to view the cover of Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era.

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1) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness. From the eyes/connections of a senior veteran Microsoftie you can learn for yourself how business is done and has been changed by technology. A great communicator, Mr. McDowell clears the eyes of the foggy headed, old thinking business manager to the wonders and money savings of tech. A must read for any modernizing or future thinking executive looking for success. This is one of those books that are a cheap investment in the future profitability of your company. Your employees should read it too!¤

2) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness. Excellent book for those in industry, as well as anyone who wants to better understand how profoundly technology can impact business success.¤

3) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness. I have a clear understanding in my mind of all the things my company can do to help businesses evolve strategy with our IT products and why that is important, but I have had what I believe to be a somewhat difficult time articulating the "whys and wherefores." This book provides lucid, clearly compelling explanations and examples that crystallize the message of the power of information technolgy.

McDowell and Simon make strong cases for how information technology should not be used simply to do things better than you have done them before, but instead to use it to do things you have never been able to do before. If you don´t fully understand technology and want some non-technical explanations of why you should be using it, this book was written for you.¤

4) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness. I didn´t expect to like this book. Having worked for a number of the companies highlighted in the Federal Government suit against Microsoft, I thought it might be more rhetoric from Redmond.

However, it´s not just Microsoft´s views because the "speakers" in the book are real customers; giant companies like Texaco, as you would expect, but also small companies (including one VERY small -- a one-person firm) and even a city mayor and a state governor.

This is a practical guide about using technology to stay competitive, whether your business is large or small. Look for yourself.¤

5) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness. After starting out by saying that the products every business makes will be obsolete in three years because Bill Gates says his will be, the book continues as such a large Microsoft PR release that one wonders if its publisher has become a vanity press. Written on company time, with each word approved by the Flacks of Redmond, it offer little insight. And when the book flap boasts the author speaks with "candor of a Microsoft VP" one can bet he didn´t testify at the antitrust trial -- or maybe he did. Buy PRIDE BEFORE THE FALL or WORLD WAR 3.0 if you want to find out how Microsoft does business, not this waste of felled trees.¤

6) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness.

As a manager in any organization, of any industry anywhere, you´ve known for a while that your company´s strategy and vision had better include technology. If it doesn´t, your enterprise will wind up as roadkill on the information superhighway.

Now here´s a book to help you fully understand how leading organizations are shaping strategy, "driving digital" throughout the enterprise, and selling this new way of thinking to executives and managers who just don´t get it.

Robert McDowell´s Driving Digital combines the experience and candor of a Microsoft Corporation vice president to show why technology is no longer just a tool. He shows how it can become a driving force in today´s workplace -- an essential core of any business plan -- and shares the secrets of how to make it happen in your company.

In his ten years at Microsoft, McDowell has seen successful companies combine business strategy with technology. In Driving Digital, he offers an insider view of the pitfalls and payoffs of the IT revolution in the workplace. You´ll learn from stories shared by McDowell and other leaders across the spectrum of business and around the world. For example:

President Miguel Angel Rodriguez Echeverria of Costa Rica, who learned to use e-mail on live, national television to lead his country into the electronic age by example

David Jones, group chief information officer at Scottish Power, who brought this 24,000-employee, £6.5 billion company together on one information highway

Jim Hebe, the CEO of Freightliner Trucks, who used technology to drive his business further, faster, and better than the competition

Ed McDonald, who as chief of technology at Texaco whittled the company´s 13 different e-mail systems down to one, giving every employee access to everyone else.

McDowell also takes you behind the scenes at Microsoft, sharing what he has learned from Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer about using technology to think strategically.

Driving Digital speaks frankly and clearly about how managers and leaders need to get wired -- and why you should be doing that riqht now. Sure, it can be daunting, McDowell admits, to rethink an entire operations system, communications devices, and even business goals. But, he warns, this is where business is going, and the success of any company depends on its ability to plug into the information age.

For managers and leaders, Driving Digital is a fast ride toward a successful destination.¤

7) Hardcover Book Driving Digital: Microsoft and Its Customers Speak About Thriving in the E-Business Era by HarperBusiness. Driving Digital is loaded with both inspiration and pragmatic advice for anyone who recognizes that extraordinary gains are already being made by fully integrating technology into the workplace, but who still lacks the know-how--and perhaps the motivation--to get it accomplished. Robert McDowell, a vice president at Microsoft, uses best practices from wired operations like Marriott International, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and his own employer to flesh out its theme: using technology as a strategic weapon.

McDowell´s underlying message is that company leaders must truly be computer literate in order to drive their cultures in that direction and realize the benefits. He explains ways this is happening today, emphasizing that the most effective programs are implemented by business staffers, rather than IT, because they make related decisions and are ultimately accountable for them. He describes specific improvements, such as reducing red tape (for example, by transferring common forms to user-friendly electronic versions available through a company intranet) and upgrading vendor relations (by literally bringing them on board through alliances and strategic partnerships).

Recommended for business leaders who know what they must do, technologically, but who still need a swift kick in the right direction to get it done. --Howard Rothman¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 13-Nov-2008, 00666209299780066620923, 290-8

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