Advantage: A Roadmap for Entrepreneurs and Leaders in the Digital Age

An idea is not an invention, invention is not innovation, innovation does not mean a successful enterprise. This book is about creating successful enterprise from an initial idea.

Advantage is what creates value for you, your customers and your organisation. Focusing on advantage and sources of advantage through the life cycle of a business, whether it be commercial or not for profit, ensures entrepreneurs and leaders minimise risk and maximise value. This book presents a framework called “The Business Advantage Model (BAM™)” that supports leaders in the identification, creation, proving, securing, leveraging and changing of advantage. It is about doing the right things the right way at the right time across every aspect of starting, scaling and readjusting a business. Its goal is to help create more high performance organisations.

The book and model presented consider the key stages in the business life cycle.

1. Potential Advantage - Opportunity Validation
2. Creating Advantage - Opportunity Verification
3. Proving Advantage - Business Confirmation
4. Protecting Advantage - Securing Business
5. Leveraging Advantage - Scaling Business
6. Changing Advantage - Innovation Business

Advantage enables value and differentiation

The book combines formal management theory, with practical examples and experience. It covers every aspect and function needed to create and scale an organisation by managing sources of advantage and advantage itself. It is less about a linear process focused on a business plan and more iterative adopting some of the experimental innovation and experimental entrepreneurship techniques while placing the business plan in the position where it is a living and useful document for stakeholders.

The model and book considers every function in the business and guides the reader as regards what are the important things to focus on at each stage of maturity and business development. Sales, Marketing, Production, Operations, Finance, etc., Below are just a selection of topics covered.

Business Models
Value Propositions
Funding a start up
Performance Management
Life-cycle Management
Collaboration
The Business Plan
Templates
Porters Models in use
and many more,

Here is what some expert reviewers said:

Professor Piero Formica

“The model presented in the book is a step forward vis-à-vis the old fashioned model of the business plan, which is static and deterministic. I see in the BAM™ approach an organic, non-linear component which is in line with The international Acedemy for Entrepreneurship experimental methodology. Therefore, most sincere compliments.” -- Professor Piero Formica is Founder of the International Entrepreneurship Academy, Senior Research Fellow, National University of Ireland and Intel Innovation Value Institute, Dublin Professor of the Chair of Human Resources Development and Entrepreneurship Research, King Saud University, Riyadh, and Professor of Knowledge Economics and Entrepreneurship at the Master in Technology and Entrepreneurship, University of Tartu, Estonia.

Noel Crawford (IBM)
"Declan Kavanagh, author of this well thought out approach to entrepreneurship has been a solid supporter of the concept of IBM SmartCamps since its initial inception. As a successful entrepreneur and investor, Declan has always seen the need to ‘give back’ and to help other start-ups achieve the success he has himself enjoyed over the years." Noel leads the IBM Innovation Centre in Dublin .

Vaus Aslaun (Silicon Valley Entrepreneur)

As an entrepreneur, I found “Advantage” easy to read and covering all the key areas on setting up and scaling a new business, This is a crucial and useful model/book that addresses the feasibility of a new or existing product/services to validate the concept and bring to reality, if I had this book, I would have saved time and energy searching each of them independently to know which areas to focus on in the ventures I have been involved with.