Catalyst Code: The Strategies Behind the World's Most Dynamic Companies - Hardcover

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In an economy where markets, consumers, and technology are ever-changing and increasingly interdependent, economic catalysts – businesses that bring together a number of groups who need each other and make it easy for them to work together – are essential. Think of the credit card industry. This trillion dollar industry brings merchants and consumers together. Google creates value for its customers, and makes billions for itself, by bringing searchers and advertisers together.

Companies that do this right – and transform their pricing practices, incentive plans, and organizational structures – are today's power brokers. Of course, catalysts have been around as long as marketplaces. But now, more than ever, they drive the economy. Doing business in this world isn’t for the faint of heart – but Catalyst Code maps it out, showing where the opportunities – and pitfalls – lie.

Contraportada

What do Google, DoCoMo, Sotheby's, and MySpace have in common?

Google has done it with search-based advertising, and Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo did it with iMode. Sotheby's did it more than two centuries ago. MySpace is doing it with GenY.

They all cracked the catalyst code-and they couldn't have done it using traditional business strategies and tactics.

These two-sided businesses generate value by creating simultaneous and mutually beneficial relationships among the different groups of customers they serve. Google brings together advertisers and eyeballs through its search platform. Simon Properties provides a place for retailers and shoppers to transact. So does eBay-but on the Web.

In a book that challenges conventional wisdom about pricing, product design, organization, and incentives, David Evans and Richard Schmalensee provide the first step-by-step framework for launching and sustaining these dynamic businesses. They examine the most successful catalysts or all time, as well as many that tried and failed, and provide original insights into the secrets from early history, modern-day business, and the author's groundbreaking research into what really makes these companies tick.

Rapid advances in communication technologies are making it easier than ever to link diverse groups into catalyst communities around the world. Evans and Schmalensee say that is why two-sided businesses, or catalysts, are today's power brokers-and they are quickly disrupting existing industry ecosystems and gaining unprecedented prominence in the economy.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, executive, or investor, Catalyst Code provides a complete guide to understanding the special dynamics and unique problems that catalysts face-where the pitfalls are, and, most important, how to make the most of the astounding opportunities.