digital strategy innovation summit, london, oct 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Behave like an Upstart, not a Startup. MARK WILSON, FOUNDER PARTNER _________
Digital strategy innovation summit 22nd October 2015
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Let me introduce myself - I run a digital service design company, and I’ve been creating digital products and services for more than 25 years. Much of my work is focused on service strategy - helping (usually established) organisations innovate and compete in the digital age.
I’ve been privileged enough to work with organisations all over the world, and I thought today I’d share some of the insights on – and dispel a bunch of myths around – innovation that I’ve learned in this time.
Image: Athos de la Fère
PART ONE
It’s a tricky thing, innovation.
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The best metaphor I can think of for how innovation has been approached by established organisations in recent years is the Hokey Cokey (Pokey if you’re from the USA) - a dance usually conducted drunk at weddings. It involves putting various parts of yourself in, then out, then shaking them all about – before turning around and doing it all again…
‘‘ Innovation remains a frustrating pursuit. Failure rates are high and even successful companies can’t sustain their performance. The root cause is that companies fall into the trap of adopting whatever best practices are in vogue or aping the exemplar innovation of the moment.
Gary P Pisano, Harvard Business Review, June 2015
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Unlocking the formula for sustainable innovation is the defining challenge of our age.
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But wait, startups already have the answer, right?
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$1BN
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$19BN
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$120M$30M
(before they even launched)
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As a short interlude, I was lucky enough to see Jake Whiteside at the WIRED 2015 conference last week and I suspect that his live Periscope stream may have been very much like the demo that the Periscope team gave to Twitter originally. The pace of the stream, and its global reach, was extraordinary.
Startups must be the model for successful innovation, right?
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Wrong.
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ESTABLISHED ORG’S
High
High
High
High
Low
High
High
High
High
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ORGANISATIONAL TRAITS
Volume of products
Scale
Reputation
Heritage/legacy
Digital leadership skills
MARKET CONTEXT
Disruptive threats
Commercial risk
Customer expectations
Trend fragility
ESTABLISHED ORG’S
High
High
High
High
Low
High
High
High
High
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ORGANISATIONAL TRAITS
Volume of products
Scale
Reputation
Heritage/legacy
Digital leadership skills
MARKET CONTEXT
Disruptive threats
Commercial risk
Customer expectations
Trend fragility
STARTUPS
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
Low
Low
Low
Low
Startups and established organisations are biologically incompatible.
16image: www.depping-foto.de
Startups are always a product of innovation, not its engine.
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Startups are, in fact, terrible […] [insert: innovators/businesses/role-models/lovers].
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10x - 100x19
But wait! There are exceptions…
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… and they start behaving a lot like established organisations.
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I mean, Facebook is advertising!To tell us what friends are!
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Alike, but not the same.
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We call them Upstarts, and they’re the real role model for success in the digital age.
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PART TWO
The nature of the Upstart.
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To be a successful business in the digital age, you need to behave like an Upstart.
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Upstarts are the Millennials of the corporate world.
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They are organisations borne of the network.
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Digitally-centred thinking isat the core of their mindset.
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They constantly leverage what they stand for to maximise their advantage.
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They constantly leveragehow they behave to maximise their advantage.
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They constantly leveragewhat they learn to maximise their advantage.
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PART THREE
10 key lessons from Upstarts
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1. Imagine yourself as a platform. Facebook. Amazon. Apple. Google. Uber… All platform companies.
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2. Stimulate license, not methods. Facebook. Google. Evernote. Dropbox.Ideas can come from anywhere, and do.
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3. Think about what you have in abundance and build with it. Think of your legacy as a massive asset, not a constraint.
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4. Think of your customers as your Board, not your Board as your customers. Make customers your first approval gate, not yourselves.
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5. Engineer your organisation to support your services. Services are your interface to customers. Focus on them, and adapt the organisation to suit.
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A few don’ts.
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6. Never set disruption as an objective. Disruption is a consequence of innovation. Great ideas, well executed should be the focus.
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7. Never think about using technology as a differentiator. Facebook. Twitter. Uber. WhatsApp. Vine. Periscope. Simple technologies, used intelligently.
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8. Never assume you can get it right alone. Broad, multi-disciplinary thinking will lead to the majority of the future’s biggest innovations.
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9. Never confuse strategy and vision. Strategy is a bridge between vision and execution. No vision, no direction. No direction, no future.
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10. Never try to innovate by being someone else. Apple is Apple. Get over it.
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PART THREE
A final word or two on strategic innovation…
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It’s about discovering what’s obviously Lego… but has never been seen before.
Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego CEO.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/praiter_yed/6372205169/
