EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD – SURVIVING AND THRIVING IN A WORLD OF DIGITAL GIANTS - A Book Review

When well-known author of a widely read book, ‘Disrupting Digital Business’, Ray R Wang, the Founder & Principal Analyst of Constellation Research Inc., a sought after research & advisory firm based in Silicon Valley California began writing his second book, his thoughts must have been on the 1985 top of the chart song, “everybody wants to rule the world” by the band, ‘Tears for Fears’! The song depicted people’s desire for control and power. Of course, much of Ray’s new book published by Harper Collins, ‘Everybody wants to rule the world – surviving and thriving in a world of digital giants”,  is about controlling the trillion dollar market out there, by constructing it through the means of data driven digital networks (DDDN).

The book tells the reader the power of DDDNs to drive the most successful companies of our times. The book cites the trends in business where big time consolidation is changing the global landscape and shows what this means for businesses of all types and sizes to fit into the value chain. It offers insights about the actions taken by innovative companies to position themselves in the new dynamic market place and it advises businesses to move from status-quo to market leadership.

This exceptional new guide shows you the ways to adapt your business to thrive among digital giants like Google, Facebook, Apple & Amazon. Drawing on sizeable original analysis and case-studies from his own research firm, the author directs you on the way to bridge business leadership & technology adoption, to create a future-proof company of your own. 

Everybody wants to rule the world’ is published very recently (July 2021) and therefore is cites even the latest developments & trends.  For e.g., Ray Wang says in the book, “It’s true that between March 2020 and August 2020, what would have taken five years to accelerate to digital, happened in 5 months of COVID”

The book reiterates that data is the foundation and uppermost priority of each Digital Network that wishes to grow. Therefore, it is necessary to know how the data is shared, monetized, and controlled. So, it is important to identify quality data from the huge cesspool of data available and to understand how it is consumed by the user. Data supremacy is not about having huge quantity of data but having well-curated, high context data. If you can find out how the data interacts with each other and develop the patterns, you are certain to succeed in business, using the same. Winning DDDNs are those that identify the patterns that emerge from the interactions. These patterns result in ‘precision decisions’, like how to price a product and what product / service should be suggested to which customer groups.

Digital giants like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google & Microsoft have shown the ability in dominating markets and moving on the far side of digital transformation. Upcoming digital giants, the types of AirBnB, Disney, Grubhub, Lyft, Spotify, Uber & Walmart have shown significant growth in the post-pandemic markets. Some of the Indian successful examples are Byjus, Zomato, Ola, Paytm etc. All these giants have applied digital business models, engineered distinctive digital monetization models, and improved their business channels.  The rising digital giants mirror the characteristics mentioned below for creating protracted and sustainable data driven digital network (DDDN) platforms:

• Build-up the biggest business network of active member community, say, greater than 50 million registrations, in case you want to be a global player.
• Take ownership of the relationship with your customer by cutting the intermediaries and taking control of customer account, and by delivering the best customer experience directly through continuous engagement.
• Have data dominance by designing superior data driven digital networks to derive decision speed and to create competitive advantage.
• Deploy more than one digital monetization model, may be to have a multimode revenue channels like advt., search, goods, services, memberships, and subscriptions.
• Have a strategic growth mind-set by trading profits for market share growth and immediate gains for long term investments that allows you to dominate the value chain

Reading Ray Wang’s book took me to memory lane of reading a similarly titled book by Prof. Jagdish Sheth and Prof. Rajendra Sisodia, “The rule of three, surviving and thriving in competitive markets” published in 2002. Based on extensive research of the market forces, the authors argued that natural competitive forces shape the vast majority of companies under “the rule of three” where 3 strongest, most efficient companies control 70-80 percent of the market, be it globally, nationally or regionally. The book had cited many examples such as Nike, Adidas & Reebok; American, United & Delta Airlines; McDonald, Burger King & Wendy’s etc. On an Indian context, a good example is; Reliance Jio, Airtel & Vodafone-Idea triumvirate on the mobile telephony market.

Analogical to the findings on ‘The rule of three’, in this book, Ray Wang takes us to the new trend of ‘digital duopoly’. A duopoly is a form of oligopoly, where only two companies dominate the market. The companies in a duopoly tend to compete each other, reducing the chance of monopolistic market power, only to the extent possible. Visa and Master card are examples of a duopoly that dominates the payment industry. Digital duopoly is all about using DDDN, thus, gravitating to become part of a duopoly. Wang writes in the book, “Can I choose to quietly run my business in my small niche, without the backing of a DDDN and without provoking the giants? The answer is no. If you want to survive for another decade, there is no other choice. Like it or not, the options are to build your own duopoly or join a coalition that can hold its own against the dominant DDDNs in your market, or give up and wait for the grim reaper.” That is a terse advice, but coming from his experience, it is better that we lend our ears.

Paul Daugherty, Group Chief Executive - Technology & CTO of Accenture says about the book: “Everybody wants to rule the world’ provides essential insights on the post-digital world. All leaders will need to understand the role of data and new monetization models and why networked organizations will compete on decision velocity and signal intelligence. Ray shows us why digital transformation alone is not enough.”

In time to come, globally, maybe we could expect 100 players in 50 distinct DDDNs representing more than 70% of global GDP.  In India too, we are seeing it. In the recently concluded IPO of Zomato, we had seen the valuation of the company skyrocketing, not because of higher revenue or profitability that it has achieved (in fact, it had none) but only thanks to its DDDN effect. In the coming decades, we could see at least two prominent players in each market where the first proactive player benefiting from a first mover advantage by taking more than 50% of the market.  Thus, we await the times of digital duopolies to dominate the markets in future.