Business Concept
Deconstruction

Mass access to the Internet initiated an information revolution in the 1990s. A new economics of information is redefining the channels that link businesses with their customers, suppliers and employees. One prominent feature of this Internet revolution is the deconstruction of the vertically integrated value chain that defined industry structure for much of the twentieth century. The term "deconstruction" has its roots in literary criticism in the writings of the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida. In its original usage, it refers to a method of reading texts that undermines structuralist assumptions about language. At a broader level, deconstruction can be interpreted as a strategy for subverting traditional structures - for unbundling and regrouping – that knocks down ingrained assumptions and unlocks insight.

Some observers have argued that the Internet economy spells the demise of strategy. Nothing could be further from the truth. In an era when competitive advantage is up for grabs, strategy based on an analytical understanding of underlying business dynamics is more important than ever.

Strategy and the New Economics of Information describes how technological revolution has enabled the deconstruction of traditional value chains. The old trade-off between the diffusion of information and the richness of its content is effectively being eliminated by the new media.

The Internet might be new, the process of radical renewal is not. Read Creative Destruction and the thesis of Peter Schumpeter that creative destruction is "the essential fact about capitalism."

Strategy and the Sublime links eighteenth-century aesthetics with the challenges of business strategy in the age of deconstruction. In spite of our attempts to apprehend and describe the concept of deconstruction, it continues to escape our grasp: Established value chains are disintegrating, individual companies and entire industries crumbling, ultimately to regroup along new steps in the value chain.