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Book Review: A. Campbell, M. Gutierrez and M. Lancelott, Operating Model

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Article  in  Vision-The Journal of Business Perspective · March 2018

DOI: 10.1177/0972262918754445

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Book Reviews
Bharat Wakhlu and Savita Bhan Wakhlu, Navigating the
Maze: Simple, Smarter Strategies to Fast-track Success, SAGE
Publications, 2017, 188 pp, `599. ISBN 978-93-860-4237-8
Navigating the Maze: Simple, Smarter Strategies to Fast-
track Success by Bharat Wakhlu and Savita Bhan Wakhlu
is an interesting read.
It consists of two parts, namely, the essential overview and
additional guidance questions. Part one covers three broad
areas, namely, self-mastery, interactional excellence and
the world of work. Self-mastery covers five areas, namely,
thinking, feeling and behaving; self-esteem and self-worth;
being present and mindful; choice and accountability; and
health and well-being. Interactional excellence covers four
areas, namely, communication and building relationships,
emotional intelligence, active listening and empathy, and
communicating assertively. The world of work covers serv-
ing, managing and leading. All three broad areas conclude
with queries and response for that area. Part two contains
queries and responses on three areas, namely, making
impactful presentations, social and business etiquette, and
cross-cultural effectiveness.
There is lot of books on self-help-related issues cover-
ing various perspectives. This book is more from a practi-
tioner’s perspective as the authors have a long inning in the
business world.
As a strategy professor, I was excited to see the book
title and I was expecting some more discussion on strategy
part in the personal game plan for navigating the maze.
Also it would have been a bit helpful if all the dots given in
the book were shown connecting with each other and
overall as well somewhere in the end of the book.
My favourite strategy article is ‘Theory of Business’ by
Peter Drucker which puts a lot of emphasis on assumptions
and need for keep validating the assumptions on regular
intervals. As the subtitle include the word strategies, great
to see a self-help book covering this topic!
The book covers a large number of topics and has
number of salient features such as inclusion of questions
and answers sections; and checklist and it should be a ready
reference for the target audience of young people.
Rajesh K. Pillania
Professor of Strategy, MDI
Sukhrali, Gurgaon 122007
Email: rajeshpillania@mdi.ac.in
Vision
22(1) 116–119
© 2018 MDI
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0972262918754446
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/vis
A. Campbell, M. Gutierrez and M. Lancelott, Operating
Model Canvas, 2017, Zaltbommel, Netherlands: Van Haren
Publishing, 224 pp., $41.00. ISBN: 078-0401800716.
DOI: 10.1177/0972262918754445
Understanding the importance of business models is funda-
mental for every entrepreneur. In a world where the speed
of change is increasingly accelerating, in which we do not
control the external aspects that affect our company (e.g.,
macro-economy, competitors, market changes, customer
demands, etc.), it becomes imperative to have the ability
to understand, adapt and innovate in the business model to
survive and grow. This difficult task becomes more effort-
less and manageable if we use a visual tool that facilitates
this process of conception, mapping and reinventing the
model. Since 2010, with the launch of the Business Model
Canvas that is presented in the book Business Model
Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur,
the canvas model has become one of the most adopted
tools to design a business model.
The Business Model Canvas is composed of nine
blocks: (a) value propositions; (b) key activities; (c) key
resources; (d) key partners; (e) customer relationships;
(f) channels; (g) customer segments; (h) cost structure; and
(i) revenue streams. The integrated vision of the key areas
of the company is a fundamental differential factor pre-
sented by the Business Model Canvas. In just one sheet, it
is possible to understand our business model and visualize
the relation and influence between several areas.
However, the original version of Business Model
Canvas offers a too focused perspective on the IT compo-
nent of an organization and presents some limitations in
the concretization of the operating process of a business
model. On the contrary, the book proposed by Andrew
Campbell and his co-authors extend the original version
of Business Model Canvas by aggregating in a single
block the three components related to the operation of a
business. Therefore, a new block called ‘Operating Model
Canvas’ is introduced and the three old blocks ‘Key
Partners’, ‘Key Resources’ and ‘Key Activities’ are elimi-
nated. The Operating Model Canvas is a framework that
describes the main elements of the operations of an organi-
zation, which can be used to easily understand the opera-
tion of a whole business, even where the business has
multiple product lines and multiple geographies. The
model presented by the authors in the book is called by
them as the ‘Enhanced Business Model Canvas’, which is
composed of five blocks: (a) operating model; (b) strategy
 Book Reviews 117
model; (c) customer growth model; (d) revenue model; and
(e) cost model.
Altogether there are six chapters that cover the main
areas of business models conception and modelling. All
chapters introduce the reader to the topic to be covered,
which helps the reader through the contents. The book
adopts a simple but well-polished language and offers an
amazing variety of diagrams and schemas, which turns it
very easy to read. The book contains more than 20 exam-
ples ranging from large companies to government agencies
and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It also
presents more than 15 tools, including new tools such as
the value chain map, the organization model and the high-
level IT blueprint. Finally, the book offers two fully worked
examples showing how the tools can be used to develop a
new operating model.
Chapter I ‘Operation Model Canvas’ introduces the
reader to the concept of operating model canvas. An intro-
duction to operating models, business models and the
design process is provided. Then, Chapter II ‘Operating
Model Canvas—Examples’ provides a dozen of examples,
from Uber to Shell to Cardboard Citizens, how the operat-
ing model can be used in practice. Chapter III ‘Toolbox’
switches the focus on operation model canvas design to a
more hands-on approach, by looking for the tools that we
need to make operating model work. These tools are divided
between core tools and additional tools. Moving on to
Chapter IV ‘Creating a Target Operating Model for a
Business’, the book provides a fully worked example of a
high-level target operating model for EEI, a company in the
business of making equipment for the electricity industry.
Then, Chapter V ‘Creating an Operating Model for a
Function’ offers a similar approach to the previous chapter,
but this time presents a fully worked example of a high-
level operating model for the IT function of EEI. Finally,
Chapter VI ‘Examples of Operating Model Change’ offers
five examples of ‘as is’ and ‘to be’ operating model
canvases.
The book is a very useful guide that can be used in its
own right or in combination with the Business Model
Canvas. It is primarily addressed to the audience of entre-
preneurs in all fields of activity and in the context of BA
Business Studies, but it may also be used selectively for
specific postgraduate courses in the fields of engineering
and science that offer a curricular unit of Entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, it can be used by consultants, business
leaders, functional directors or lean experts that want to
help their organization be successful. In conclusion, the
book written by Andrew Campbell et al. (2017) provides a
very useful tool for the emergent exciting topic of creating,
rebuild and innovate business models for new or estab-
lished companies.
Fernando Almeida
Faculty of Engineering of Oporto University
INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal
E-mail: almd@fe.up.pt
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Samuel B. Griffith, The Art of War ~ Sun Tzu. London:
Duncan Baird Publishers. 2005, 272 pp. Price not men-
tioned. Hardcover ISBN 978-1-84483-179-1.
DOI: 10.1177/0972262918754444
The Art of War (TAW) is Griffith’s English translation of
Sun Hsing-yen and Wu Jen-chi’s Chinese edition of TAW
written during the Manchu period, along with his observa-
tions, interpretations and analysis of events leading to
the creation of TAW. It is a timeless treatise on warfare
(‘best short introduction to the study’) and treats war as the
‘ultimate instrument of statecraft’. It was first introduced
outside China by Fr. J.J. Amiot, a French missionary, in 1772
and later re-published in 1782 in an anthology (p. 11). Sun
Tzu’s views, through TAW, provided invaluable guidance to
military strategists and rulers like Napoleon and Mao Tse-
Tung. ‘The supreme art of war was to subdue the enemy
without fighting’ (Foreword, p. 8, B. H. Liddell Hart) is the
underlying theme for the book.
Reading the Introduction may be daunting because the
discussion is unstructured, especially in its subsections,
The Author and The Text. The Chinese names of people and
places challenge the casual reader. But Griffith’s research
is meticulous, and his narrative style is friendly. His array
of narratives, facts and references on almost every page
lend credibility to his analyses. Some quotations like
‘Weapons are ominous tools to be used only when there is
no alternative’ (p. 63) are always memorable. TAW is pep-
pered with references to combat, reconnaissance, flank
patrolling, invasion, spies, deception, training, punishment,
morale, weapons, control, suicides and assassinations in the
Introduction (pp. 16–89) that will entice you to rush to the
thirteen chapters (pp. 90–239).
TAW’s alleged author, Sun Tzu, appears to have been a
mythical person. In The Author, Griffith sifts through con-
siderable evidence about its origins to conclude that TAW
may have been written by ‘a singularly imaginative indi-
vidual who had considerable practical experience in war’,
and declaring the issue as ‘Author Unsettled’ (p. 30). In
The Text, he argues that TAW may have started with 82
chapters (p. 32) which were reduced to 13 chapters after
the elimination of repetitive content.
The first TAW was probably written after the third
century BC, with its contents built on the substantive expe-
rience of the many wars during 450 and 300 BC between at
least six Chinese states. ‘The Warring States’ describes the
War as a ‘fundamental occupation’ due to which countless
rulers, generals and generations lost their lives. During this
period, presented so well in ‘War in Sun Tzu’s Age’, new
weapons like the crossbow were designed. Conventions that
died included avoidance of battles during the cold winters,
hot summers and agricultural seasons, and norms for ethical
and righteous battles. Fighting and soldiers became profes-
sional, and brute fighting gave way to subtlety and planning.
‘Sun Tzu on War’ discusses the philosophy behind
TAW. War is costly and a matter of grave concern for any
nation even in those days. Therefore, it had to be avoided