The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends On Productive Friction And Dynamic Specialization

Offshoring and outsourcing have generated substantial savings and often controversial news coverage for many companies. But these technologies aren’t even close to being the real story. Two of business’ leading strategy thinkers argue that the only sustainable advantage will come not from using technology to cut costs—but to get better faster than rivals. The authors identity two key forces—dynamic specialisation and productive friction that will dramatically reshape the competitive landscape and show what firms must do to understand, build and exploit these forces before their competitors do.

John Hagel has served as a business strategist for 25 years and was with McKinsey for 16 years. Jon Seely Brown is the former Chief Scientist at Xerox Corp. and served as Director of Xerox PARC for 12 years.