There’s a slightly pessimistic quote attributed to John Lennon that goes – "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.". Be that as it may, as we can always endeavor to be more mindful and present in the moment, but why would this be relevant in a business context?
In the preceding
post on attitude towards change, the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling
water was mentioned. “Why doesn’t it just jump out of the water?” is the
inherent question – with the analogy of “Why don’t businesses just adapt to
changing Customer
requirements, the competition, and technology
trends?”
Well, “easier said than done” sums it up pretty well I’d
say. The frog doesn’t notice the temperature change until it is too late,
and we’re too busy making other plans whilst the premise on which our business
model is based on is derailed. Kept busy, running as fast as possible –
but perhaps not in the right direction. For those familiar with Stephen
Covey, the following parable is surely familiar –
Envision a group of producers
cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. They’re the
producers, the problem solvers. They’re cutting through the undergrowth,
clearing it out.
The managers are behind them,
sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle
development programs, bringing in improved technologies and setting up working
schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders.
The leader is the one who climbs
the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, “Wrong jungle!”
The list of paraded examples of companies with disrupting
business models (Uber, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Netflix, Spotify ..), obsolete
business models (stockbrokers, encyclopedias, phone directory listing
catalogues ..), and companies who tried but failed to weather the storm of
change (Eastman-Kodak, Xerox, Nokia ..) is growing every month it seems.
But looking at what others have done or didn’t do, isn’t always helpful
in your own business and context – you have to start with finding out what the
facts and dependencies are at hand to initiate the process of finding out which
direction to move in.
Digitalization is one of the key trends and buzzwords “out
there” at the moment. But isn’t this just something which has been going
on since the 60’s when the first ATM’s started to appear – or something which
of course is important, but still 5-10 years yet to mature and become a
necessary competitive edge? My colleague Henrik Grannas (@Hefsolutions), VP
and Head of Sales at Enfo, pointed out
in a blog
post that 51% of corporate executives in Finland believe that
digitalization will only affect their businesses in a minor way, according to a
recent report by Gartner. I’m sure percentages may vary with geography,
but the general impression is probably similar regardless.
At Enfo, we believe that the combination of digital
technologies and tools, creating a complete business solution, has a potential
which is bigger and better than the sum of its parts.
·
Business in new ways
·
Increased customer experience
·
Blurring the distinction between the physical
and the virtual
The Devils Advocate would of course interject that it’s all slanted and pitched to drive business – but let’s look at some examples from the real world, today, which I’m sure you can relate to –
Strong AI, machine learning, autonomous decision making systems
– yes, there isn’t a Terminator Skynet out there yet, luckily, but if you
honestly think back just a few short years, did you have the vision, foresight
and prediction that we would see machines routinely defeating human players at
chess (in the distant past, at this point), defeating human players in the
complex intuitive game
of Go, winning Jeopardy,
autonomously learning how to play
computer games, recognizing dynamic
internet content, combining multiple information sources with predictive
analytics to act as personal
assistants like Siri, Alexa or Cortana, assisting in medical analysis .. the list of
science-fiction or “magic-like”
application of technology is growing. Commodity technologies like
business intelligence and process automation are starting to become recognized
as a necessary competitive factor – but there’s a huge potential in
interconnecting these “islands of initiative” in most organizations, as they
are precursors and prerequisites to reaching higher up on the technology
capability ladder. You can’t configure a learning platform to follow a decision
tree which doesn’t exist, based on a partially identified process, using input
metrics that aren’t measured, based on data which isn’t captured .. The famous
quote "you can't manage what you can't measure" carries significant
weight and relevance.
The digital dimension, a blurring between the physical world
and properties which are purely digital, perhaps even augmented reality –
surely that’s an exaggeration and way off? I’d rather say it’s a matter
of perspective .. an expectation of a corresponding digital component
(support, manual, online registration, purchase history, suitable accessories,
delivery tracking, usage logging, app enabling features ..) – these “hidden
services” are practically mainstream today, and an effective barrier of entry
to businesses who want to reach a consumer market without these “features”
enabled for their product or service. Google glass may need a couple of
iterations to reappear as an everyday tool, but the previously futuristic
notion of Virtual Reality (Oculus
Rift, Samsung
Gear, Playstation)
and augmented reality (combination of visualized digital content relating to
the context) is becoming mainstream. This is another brilliant example
from the World Economic Forum whitepaper
on Digital Transformation of Industries –
Case study: Airbus equipping
employees with smart glasses
Airbus has simplified and speeded
up the assembly of cabin seats by equipping its employees with Vuzix M100 smart glasses. Instructions for assembling seats are relayed in
real time, allowing people who are not skilled in seat assembly to learn on the job
without reading a training manual. Accenture is looking to build on this proof
of concept with Airbus and broaden its use in commercial aerospace
and defense manufacturing.
Just imagine how a service technician would benefit from
having instant in-vision guidance by the blueprint details of the part or
machine being serviced in the field, the sales-rep seeing the purchase and
support history of the client on the shop floor, a care-giver seeing the
medication list and activity log of a patient .. all in real-time.
Too far-fetched perhaps, or maybe a little too
counter-intuitive to really become mainstream and grasped by larger groups
outside of specialized professions and early-adopters, technologists.
Maybe, it lies in the eye of the beholder – but before you decide, have you (or
any of the kids in your vicinity) seen one of these lately?
What would it mean for your business if you could harness
and apply the capabilities of one of these tools – or perhaps combine two of
them together? What would it mean for your competitors? What would
it mean for your Customers? What would it be worth?
How do you position yourself and your business to enable
such tooling, improvements, organizational change and leverage the benefit?
Wouldn’t it be great if someone said “I’ve got a quick and
easy answer and solution to all of those questions”? – Perhaps a little too
good to be really true, as it’s a collaborative incremental process for
everyone who intend to be part of the future industry landscape to explore, build
and forge those solutions together, whilst those who stand on the sidelines run
the risk of ending up the way of the frog. However, what we can do is to
take a few steps forward together on that path to what lies beyond – and leave
our competition to simmer a while longer in the pot!
Links referred to in this post -
http://www.travaglia.se/2015/10/who-is-your-customer.html
http://www.travaglia.se/2015/11/let-trend-be-your-friend_24.html
http://www.travaglia.se/2015/11/its-kind-of-magic.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0684858398/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0684858398&linkCode=as2&tag=thepromantoo-21
http://www.enfogroup.com/
http://www.enfogroup.com/Articles/Blog-Posts/English/Companies-that-are-incapable-of-change-will-become-extinct
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go/
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ibm-watson-the-inside-story-of-how-the-jeopardy-winning-supercomputer-was-born-and-what-it-wants-to-do-next/
http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/25/8108399/google-ai-deepmind-video-games
http://www.livescience.com/50985-computers-deep-learning.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2015/07/06/siri-cortana-google-now-are-the-future-of-mobile/#156b4ea0142f
http://www.ibm.com/watson/health/
https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/rift/
http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/wearables/gear-vr/
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/playstation-vr-1235379/review
http://reports.weforum.org/digital-transformation-of-industries/wp-content/blogs.dir/94/mp/files/pages/files/wef-dti-societal-implications-narrative-final-january-2016-c.pdf
http://www.enfogroup.com/Competence-Areas/Process-Innovation
