Underneath the ever-roiling surface of public markets, information technology continues to remake the economy. Fifty years after the first commercial computer was sold, we stand on the brink of introducing intelligence into over a trillion items in commerce at a price too small to calculate. The age of disposable computing will transform every industry. Are you ready? In The Strategy Machine, Larry Downes, the bestsellingcoauthor of Unleashing the Killer App, charts a proven course through the uncertain future of business. With both winning and losing case studies, The Strategy Machine shows how to develop and nurture a "strategy portfolio" that can withstand the pressure of potent internal and external obstacles. Much like your personal financial portfolio, a strategy machine hedges your bets across a wide range of dramatically different challenges your business will face. Downes's approach generates new profits from new information products and services, regardless of the industry or the size of your company. In the book, Downes introduces important new tools every manager can use, including: The Information Supply Chain -- An emerging, parallel supply chain of data that describes transactions in the physical world, with independent value in the form of new products and services. Invisible Capital -- Information assets, like brand, expertise, and customer and supplier relationships, lost in today's balance sheet, whose true value is understood by only a few companies. The Strategy Machine -- A perpetual motion machine for strategy, fused with business operations, the heart of which is an invisible capital engine that uses data as both input and output. Nothing short of revolutionary, The Strategy Machine shows managers how to reinvent business and integrate new technology for a revolution in progress. Regardless of the kind of business or the size of your company, whether you work in operations, sales, or finance, or whether you are the CEO or a manager in training, the tools in this book will teach you how to innovate on a daily basis and how to profit from the transformation going on right now in your industry. This is an essential guidebook for the information revolution -- one that will help companies succeed in the long run, with a winning portfolio, in today's economy. Read Less