Summary: Momentum

Review and Analysis of Ricci and Volkmann's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Verlag: Must Read Summaries
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9782511021200
• Thema: Business
• Thema: IT Industry

The must-read summary of Ron Ricci and John Volkmann's book: `Momentum: How Companies Become Unstoppable Market Forces`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Ron Ricci and John Volkmann's book `Momentum` shows that, in the marketplace of digital products, consumers make buying decisions based on the viability of the company offering the products or services. They don’t want to buy products that cannot be upgraded in the future, or services that won’t be able to be extended as new technologies become available. In their book, the authors explain that the central challenge for businesses today is to build and sustain momentum. This summary demonstrates the six key forces that you can implement in order to generate momentum in your company.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
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• Expand your business knowledge

To learn more, read `Momentum` and discover the key to becoming the top consumer choice in today's digital product marketplace.

Summary of Momentum (Ron Ricci and John Volkmann)

Analysis: The Emergence of Momentum as a Key Business Driver

Momentum has only become an important business issue since the late 1990s when digital products and services have begun to be offered in greater numbers. Prior to that time, products were differentiated by what they did. Since then, however, digital products and services are differentiated by what people do with them. That fact, combined with the unique characteristics of digital product offerings, has increased the importance of momentum for businesses.

The digital mind-set in which customers have become more sophisticated in their buying behavior is the result of a three-stage evolutionary process which has taken place in the broader economy. Three distinct marketplaces have emerged:

The Marketplace of Image

1960s - 1970s

In this era, brand image was all-pervasive. Companies marketed their products by emphasizing the positive experiences of the past as a reason to buy more in the future. Product brands became very important because consumers were buying into the image created by those brands. Market value for many companies was derived mainly from the value of their brands.

The Marketplace of Products

1980s - 1990s

In this second era, digital products and services started reaching the mass market. People chose products strictly on their features. Companies marketed the present to consumers. Advertising the new and improved features of products became the key commercial activity of this era, with market valuations being driven by the depth of marketing expertise available.

The Marketplace of Ideas

1999 onwards

In this latest era, people have started choosing products on the basis of what they will do in the future more than what they do at present. Today’s marketing mainly focuses on how digital products and services are transforming business processes and being incorporated into consumer lifestyles. The arrival of the ideas marketplace has effectively turned every consumer into a technology decision maker. The availability of the Internet and other communication products and services has enhanced this transition still further, since it has now become possible for everyday people to spread their ideas and preferences. There is also an expectation that many more things will be feasible in the future as more and more technology becomes available.

Much of this evolutionary process from one marketplace to the next has been driven by the emergence of digital products and services which have two intrinsic qualities which distinguish them from all previous analog products and services:

1. Digital products are never finished.
   When a consumer buys a car, he or she does so in the expectation of using it for a number of years and then replacing it. By contrast, when people buy a digital product, they do so in anticipation of being able to upgrade it in the future with the next generation of the same product. Plus, they expect backwards compatibility – so the data they collect and store with their present product will be able to be transferred to the next generation product and still used.
2. Digital products never work alone.
   When someone buys a razor blade, they can be confident it will work on all beards and with any type of shaving cream available. By contrast, whenever someone considers buying a digital product or service, they have to evaluate whether the new product will interface successfully with all their existing digital equipment. Unless a digital product has a high degree of compatibility with other elements of the consumer’s existing set-up, the new product will add no value. And ordinary consumers have become quite sophisticated in their understanding of how technologies can work together.

Taking into account these two qualities of digital products and services, momentum has now become the key organizing principle in the Marketplace of Ideas. Companies which have momentum excel, even as their industries move through a succession of value points. There is a direct correlation between how much momentum a company has and...