Tag Archives: Strategic management

August 11, 2016 · 10:37 am

Transforming To The Digital Future

One of the questions clients ask is how they prepare for the digital transformation of their business. In some cases, the businesses are completely digital and the answers are much easier. For legacy businesses, however, the changes are often slow and painful, if they happen at all.

The folks at the MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte Digital released the fifth annual Digital Business Study. Called“Aligning the Organization for Its Digital Future, it presents an increasingly wide gap between the companies that have transitioned successfully to the digital world and those who are struggling to do so.

The report found that digitally maturing companies have organizational cultures that share common features, including an expanded appetite for risk, rapid experimentation, heavy investment in talent and recruiting, and the development of leaders who excel at soft skills. It also examined the different types of companies with respect to their digital transformation:

Additional analysis of this year’s study found three distinct cultural mindsets that relate closely to corporate stages of digital maturity. Some characteristics include:

  • Low appetite for risk– This mindset is common among early stage digital organizations. In addition to being risk adverse, early stage companies tend to have a hierarchical leadership structure, conduct work in silos, and make decisions based more on instinct rather than hard data.
  • Experimentation and speed– Conversely, digitally maturing companies value experimentation and speed, embrace risk, and create distributed leadership structures.
  • Collaboration– Digitally maturing companies also foster collaboration and are more likely to use data in decision making.

Nearly 80 percent of respondents surveyed from digitally maturing entities indicate their companies are actively engaged in initiatives that bolster risk taking, agility and collaboration. For early stage companies, the number falls to 23 percent.

Finally, they found that nearly 90 percent of digitally maturing organizations are integrating their digital strategies with their companies’ overall strategies. In other words, digital is not something that’s “tacked on” or just another channel.

Where do you fit in the spectrum? Do you have the skills – having a transformative vision, being a forward thinker, having a change-oriented mindset – the study found are critical for a successful transformation? How are you putting them to work?

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August 9, 2016 · 11:48 am

Is Knowledge Power?

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that “knowledge is power.” A version of that saying has been around for a long time, so much so that a version is found in the Bible. This is what Wikipedia says it means:

Though its meaning varies from author to author, the phrase often implies that with knowledge or education, one’s potential or abilities in life will certainly increase. Having and sharing knowledge is widely recognized as the basis for improving one’s reputation and influence, thus power. This phrase may also be used as a justification for a reluctance to share information when a person believes that withholding knowledge can deliver to that person some form of advantage. Another interpretation is that the only true power is knowledge, as everything (including any achievement) is derived from it.

We hear about “confidential information” all the time in business. The state version of that is “Top Secret.” Yet does such information exist? We humans have done a wonderful job of putting nearly all the world’s information into the hands of anyone who seeks it. We can ask our mobile devices just about any question and gain knowledge. Every confidentiality agreement I’ve ever signed always exempts information one can find “publicly available” or obtained from other sources. Those are increasingly easy to find and readily available.

Brands used to know more about their products than did consumers – how well it performed, how well priced it was for that performance versus the competition. That information was hard to obtain and so the brands had the power as they dispensed only the knowledge that wanted consumers to have. Local retailers and services used to be able to keep mediocrity a local secret. Have you tried a new restaurant win the last few years without checking out the online reviews?

Knowledge IS power, but the power had shifted to the masses. Advertising, which is how brands used to impart the knowledge they wanted consumers to have, is increasingly ignored. Consumers are educating themselves. I think brands and businesses that behave as if they know more than their customers or partners are going to lose. Do you?

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August 5, 2016 · 10:45 am

The Problem With Talking Eggs

So guess what else falls on this Foodie Friday? My birthday! Naturally, wanting to be prepared for the inevitable rush by friends and family to buy me gifts, I was rummaging around the web for more useless gadgets I could add to my kitchen. I might have found just about the most useless one of all and oddly enough, a business lesson as well.

I think you’ve probably heard of the Internet Of Things. It seems as if almost everything – your fridge, your thermostat, your dishwasher – connects to the Internet. Maybe, however, this thing (thank you, Business Insider) carries it a bit too far:

The Quirky Egg Minder solves a question as old as time itself: “Why can’t I connect my egg tray to the internet?” Made in partnership with GE, this thing syncs with your smartphone and sends you push notifications when you’re on the verge of being eggless. LED lights on the tray itself tell you which of its 14 eggs nearing their expiration date.

I don’t know about you but generally, I don’t need an app to tell me when the egg tray is almost empty. My eyes aren’t quite that bad and I can still see when there are more openings than eggs. In my mind, this is the classic solution in search of a problem. While you know I’m all for solving customers’ problems (that’s the basis for any great product, after all), we can’t create problems to match our solution. It’s actually more rampant than you might think – witness the plethora of new drugs that fix issues we didn’t know we had (and probably don’t!).

I suppose there are some folks who would buy this just to be able to show their friends that their egg supply is sound. I’m not sure that will get you on the subway or a mortgage. I’m also willing to bet that any product that creates a problem in order to solve it is walking on egg shells.

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