Thanks to my friends at Innosight, especially Renee Hopkins, I received a review copy of Mark Johnson's "Seizing The White Space - Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal."  For those of you unfamiliar with Mark, he is the Co-Founder and Chairman at Innosight. 

If you read the seminal work on breakthrough innovation, "The Innovator's Solution" from Innosight's other Co-Founder, Clayton Christensen, you will very much wish to add this new book to your library.  "Seizing the White Space" is the playbook for taking the concepts from "The Innovator's Solution" and combining them with new, innovative business models that move your organization from its current crowded playing field into the "White Space." 

What's the "White Space?"  It is the uncharted territory well beyond a company's core business.  Its the place where your current business model isn't going to work.  Its the place where your organization re-discovers itself.  Its the place where you combine your current customers with customers you haven't even met yet.  Sound scary?  Okay...its not for the faint of heart, but it is the evolution of business today if you expect to still exist in the not-to-distant future.

In the book, Mark Johnson uses four key components to build a practical framework approach for business model innovation:

• A compelling Customer Value Proposition
• A winning profit formula
• Key resources
• Processes

In using the above-referenced core components, Mark takes you into a few key "white space" areas where you will see the greatest impact:

• Transforming the existing market
• Creating new markets
• Confronting and building for market upheavals

In each key "white space," Mark uses a rock-solid and repeatable process for positioning your organization:

1. Identify an important, unmet job a real customer needs to get done (sound familiar...'Innovator's Solution' fans?)
2. Brainstorm financial scenarios to devise a new profit formula
3. Identify and creatively integrate critical resources and processes to create competitive advantage
4. Use controlled experimentation to test and refine your new model
5. Navigate managerial challenges as you scale the new business

Leveraging his years of consultation experience, Mark uses real-world examples and case studies from some of the biggest players in the business world to showcase how simple all of this really can be with a little extra attention and courage.  While the framework and processes are easy to grasp, the book is written using the language of senior leaders and innovation practitioners.  This might make it a bit academic and at times a little technical, but the book still flows nicely and gives the reader specific action items to try out. 

You can get a copy of "Seizing The White Space" from the Think For A Change Innovation Library or wherever business books are sold!