There be gold in them hills!

A new gold mine has been established, okay not a traditional one, but it is yellow at least! “Pokemon Go” has started a global craze similar to what we saw with games like “Angry Birds” and “Candy Crush”. It’s not uncommon to see people randomly walking around the streets or parks with their phones held up looking for monsters! So where is the gold in that you ask? Well how about the 200 million USD of Net Income that Nintendo saw from the game in just the month of July and this was even before the game opened up into some of the biggest gaming markets like China and Korea!

But this blog is not about Nintendo’s success – that is pretty evident. What I am more interested in is the amazing appearance of the ecosystem around “Pokemon Go”, which is very similar to the pop- up towns that appeared at a new gold rush location. The game itself has been running for roughly three months and, in that time, we now have dating applications so as you can hunt monsters with that someone special (seriously!), or get access to maps showing key locations where monsters hang out and even go to online stores where you can buy Pokemon clothing so you stand out when hunting for monsters. I didn’t realise until my kids were running around an airport that apparently Pokemon monsters are trying to now even board planes! 

We have truly moved into a digital era, one where entrepreneurial individuals are ready to respond to the latest craze and set up their own version of a bar, tailor, supply store or even more mature entertainment. Our world has clearly shifted from the physical to the virtual and these pop up ecosystems are testament to that. What is interesting though is that unlike the gold mining towns of old, these digital pop-up ecosystems will disappear faster and leave almost no evidence that they even existed. This is because the technology of our era has caught up with our childlike behaviour when it comes to our digital lives.

I think Bill Connolly said it best with “I want it now, I want it yesterday and stay awake because I will change what I want tomorrow!” We have always wanted immediacy and, as adults, we grow to accept and understand we can’t always have what we want. However, the digital world changed that with information, collaboration, games and shopping. Hence businesses have always been keen on capturing this market, but much like a child, our interests tend to be brief before we will move on with something else (don’t believe me? Well did you know the average use of an application you download is only 4-5 days? – brief indeed).

For businesses to be able to leverage this opportunity they need infrastructure to be available to spin up and spin down. They also need access to high speed connectivity to ensure their temporary services are always accessible and lastly they need to access both of these elements all over the world in order to ensure they benefit from the breadth of interest these opportunities bring albeit briefly.

Fortunately, our word has never been more connected and as such these pop up businesses can thrive profitably for short periods of time and then quickly pull back on the throttle when interest starts to wane. Of course there is no guarantee of success with these pop up businesses, but because of the elastic availability and pay-as-you-use commercial engagements, they can afford to fail and that confidence can help to increase a willingness to experiment with different types of services. Imagine if you tried to do that in a gold rush town – how many unused buildings or wasted supplies thrown out the back of the building as they tried to forget what hadn’t worked!

In today’s day and age it is all about the here and the now, and I believe it will become increasingly common to see businesses where there purpose is to build capability akin to running a short term project. Their success will also be determined by how long they can ride the coat tails of disruptive market developments by being agile and relevant and equally how many of these initiatives they can run in parallel before scale becomes a burden to their agility. The digital boom town has arrived and I am sure it won’t be long before we start seeing a map of the digital gold mines that exist in our newly created digital world to provide budding entrepreneurs with directions on how to find the nearest pop up town and set up their own shop. Ultimately, where there is gold, there is business to be done – albeit in the virtual hills!

Fail fast or suffer slow

Telstra recently released its Connecting Countries thought leadership report, which was based on a survey of some 4,100 executives across Asia capturing their views on best practices, challenges and overall business performance in the region. It was exciting to read that there were a number of management lessons that businesses can take with them as they seek to invest into Asia as well as an insight into the profile of an Asia Business Champion – one who doesn't only recognize best practices but also lives and breathes them.  While there were a number of takeaways from the report,  there was one which jumps out at me particularly as it relates to driving success in an Asia market place. One of the key management lessons for success in Asia was looking at the need to move forward with multiple growth strategies concurrently.

Now I have always believed that a person cannot multi-task (despite my numerous attempts to try!) hence this strategy could only ever exist for a large size business and not an individual or SMB. But the need to look at multiple strategies is important for international businesses to consider in order to balance the potential risk of one failing due to internal or market challenges. I must make clear though there are limits to running multiple strategies. A couple of years ago for example, one vendor shared with me their plans to run 25 new initiatives in parallel. Now I don’t care how big you think you are or how mature your strategy execution process is, but when you talk about multiple strategies to this degree it is simply a death warrant for the strategy itself and puts the business at risk of losing its way. I am glad to see that San Francisco based vendor has since realized this and re-evaluated how many initiatives it takes on at the one time.

Now when a business is looking at multiple strategies it needs to understand the levers it can use, for example how quickly a strategy decision can be moved into action and equally, how quickly it can be shut down. These days it is increasingly common place that a strategy is dependent on people, systems and communication. Now, we know we have the ability to redeploy people to other projects and – as hard as it can be at times – sometimes people choose or must move on , however for Systems and communication platforms we often have to make investments that tend to have a pay back only after 3-5 years,. This can cause a challenge as businesses then need to assess how they can mitigate risks to drive a strategy to a positive outcome. For this reason it is important for businesses to adopt what is increasingly being known as a “Fail Fast” principle. The Fail Fast principle looks at prioritizing initiatives that need an investment based on requiring limited capex and leveraging platforms that can be turned up quickly and equally turned off with very little delay post a decision, if it is not working.

Take for example the idea of replicating a solution into a new vertical, which  might require assigning people temporarily, adding  system capacity for marketing campaigns, tracking opportunities and managing customer deployed solutions. But what if all of this could be set up within weeks and taken down even quicker? Would that make you rethink your prioritization of business strategies and equally consider additional initiatives, knowing your investment risk is significantly reduced and not committing the business to years of investment? Well hopefully the answers to both are yes, if not then perhaps a multi path strategy is not for you (either that or you have money and resource to burn).

Historically this would have been a challenge; however the virtualization of IT and communications means that businesses are now more empowered than ever to introduce the Fail Fast principle into their strategy decisions. Now considering the feedback from the Connected Countries survey that businesses need to consider multiple strategies in order to achieve success – at the beginning of this article it would be perfectly normal to think this is only achievable by either very large businesses or for those who have learned through expensive or painful experiences of what strategies work and equally which don’t. However hopefully now you are thinking about how your business could introduce a multiple path strategy by leveraging the advancements of technology that exist today, combined with the key principle in defining which strategies to go after based on their ability to align to a fail fast approach.

We are not talking about transformation or changing the way your business operates. This is very much about understanding how a business can be successful in a market like Asia where the only constant is change. But there are clearly multiple market opportunities and with the right approach –  as demonstrated by the Asia Business Champions – combined with the right principles, businesses can create the environment needed to succeed by failing fast, which ultimately has to be a better approach than suffering slow and not reaping the rewards of a multi path strategy.

You can find the Connected Countries report at the attached link - http://www.telstraglobal.com/connectingcountries/?concountries=tgbanner

Leopards need to change their spots too

We associate Leopards with being fast, agile, and adaptive – something many businesses would love to aspire to or believe they have already achieved. However, think about that Leopard for a moment lacking the ability to maintain a sustainable pace, using up all of its energy in a very short period of time and spending a lot of its time resting to conserve energy.  Now doesn’t that sound more like many organisations you know of, expending large amounts of energy but finding that sustainable pace in a market of change?

In our work environment we increasingly find organisations that need to adapt to the changing market around them. But, I would propose that it is the constant adaption, customisation and “tinkering” of applications and systems that really restrict a business’s ability to do just that.

Consider for a moment how many changes you requested from your supplier to ensure your application or system would operate effectively based on your current ways of working. And now consider how frustrated you were at the supplier’s lack of understanding of your business needs. 

Next, consider what your company did when looking to adapt to market changes or a shift in strategy.  I am guessing – as tends to be the case – you invited in your suppliers and told them there would be a number of change requests required as updates to your applications and systems were needed to ensure they evolved with the needs of your business. What happens next is the response you receive from your suppliers is an extensive program of system changes, which are significantly more expensive than what you had expected. At this point the inevitable happens and we introduce that word that every strategy leader hates … compromise. You are then entering a phase of your business change where you need to balance the necessity of change with the market need to change against the cost. The end result is that the costs continue to increase, you don’t receive the changes you were hoping for and you ultimately end up setting up the business to fail, not fast mind you, just a slow and painful death.

I share this with you because, given the world we live and work in, there is a need for a fresh approach to business.  An approach which actually requires an organisation to change, a change in the way it works and not necessarily by overhauling existing systems and tools. As strange as it may sound it is increasingly crucial for businesses to avoid customisation as much as possible so they can adapt to the market quickly and avoid expensive system overhauls. Of course people will say “well hang on Nathan we need to customise those systems if the market is changing.” Well, I would challenge that there are two approaches businesses need to be taking to ensure sustainable growth in today’s market.

The first is by moving to standard components and interfaces.  With this, you are then able to consider vendor replacements. By forcing the use of API’s, or application interfaces, you can replace components much more easily without the need of a potential full rip and replace of all systems supporting a process.  This equally ensures your business can regularly validate the latest capability from CRM systems to Billing systems and even, dare I say, communication systems. How often have you found yourself frustrated just after launching a new platform, application or system that a capability had just been added that would have benefited your organisation?  Need I say more?

The second key approach is to look in the mirror more often.  Instead of the levers you seek to adjust being limited to third party components, look into your business at the people, processes and ultimately ways of working that you have established and ask yourself, how often have these actually changed over the years?  I am not talking about rearranging the deck chairs, I am referring to real changes in ways of working to ensure 1. that a business can maximise the opportunities that change can bring; 2. to ensure that sustainable growth is understood as the journey.

The first approach is strengthened by the introduction of cloud based architectures, which means you can consume what you need, and equally adjust to new market developments quickly. I appreciate some elements are more difficult to change than others but, by starting with a view that everything can be changed, this will ultimately create the right environment for success. Cloud capabilities have created new avenues for businesses to feel more in control of the risks their business chooses to take and equally the opportunity to leverage the latest technology at each step of the way.

The second approach is a lot more difficult because no one likes change.  Change can cause a stall in business performance and ultimately comes with its own risks. However, people will accept and equally embrace change, as long as you can articulate the benefit to the business. Whatever those change may be, understanding the business need first is the most important element.

Speed and agility are crucial business elements, but without simplifying the tools and ensuring the business adapts to the market change, all that an organisation will achieve is declining profitability and increasingly demoralised employee engagement. I am always intrigued by business leaders who share how confident they are about their business, but it is those businesses who recognise that being as agile as a leopard is not enough. Sometimes you need to change yourself in order to succeed and the tools round you may enable part of that change, but unless you are willing to change your own spots you may find that the speed you have is only enough to spin your wheels  and not to deliver the continued momentum.

Different Path same Destination

Our world is changing dramatically, Stock Markets have become more like Roller coasters, many businesses are now satisfied with sustainable business models as opposed to rapid growth and many technology companies are suggesting that hardware and software sales could be in for a difficult time. The result of all of this? Zero to Low confidence within businesses on their journey of business evolution as they continue on their journey in the increasingly global and competitive landscape. At this point I can already hear a few people wondering how this has anything to do with the common topic of my blogs, the impact of technology on the world we live in? Well it does, so let me explain.

Today’s businesses and technology are intertwined to such a degree that you can’t look at one without understanding the implications, limitations or even changes required to the other. Many CXO’s that I speak to lately are concerned with the balancing act they are facing – how do they invest in technology to ensure they can support their business requirements but at the same time manage a tight rope balance of cost vs. business benefit without knowing what is happening in the next 3 months let alone 3 years!

Many businesses are offering increased flexibility in their products but they are equally concerned with their own business models and outlook resulting in their own business concerns. On that basis it is time to throw out the guide book and reconsider business models for a new era, a period of sustained unpredictability as a vehicle for change. I have said it before in one of my blogs, we as individuals and society drive technology, we should not accept that technology will limit our own choices or for that matter determine our own path to success. Consider for a moment what would happen if we knew our oil would run out (I know not a pleasant thought!), we would adapt and look at alternatives to ensure our needs were met ensuring we could continue with our journey as we already are starting to do so!

Each and every business has a vision or a goal they are seeking to achieve over a 3 to 5 year period, many are concerned that the current instability in the market is placing that goal at risk. What is required is for businesses to reassess the path they are taking to achieve their goal. It may take longer, it may require acceptance that they are evolving from a straight highway to a windy mountain path, which requires a more graduated approach to ensure the business does not slip backwards as it progresses towards its goal.

Once we have identified the new path to achieve our goal and/or vision businesses can then look to what role technology could and will play in supporting the journey along that path. This is a crucial pause point, looking to technology in the same way as we have done in the past will simply result in reliving “Groundhog Day” (for those of you who don't understand that analogy watch the movie!). We need to look at the principles of what technology can provide in its simplest form and redesign the manner in which that technology is both delivered/implemented and supported. What I mean is we need to look at how we reshape the use of technology, from its commercial, integration and utilization aspects. Business are looking for new ways of working as they seek to break the cycle of change they find themselves in today with various factors pulling their decision making in different directions.

Technology can support businesses in continuing their journey to their goal by ensuring that communication and IT developments are not static and that they can be moulded to the needs of the business. The end benefit of this approach is a return to three year planning, an increased confidence in formulating longer term decision making and commitments … Why? Simply because if you know that your business can access levers across your organization from commercial, technology, geography and people in order to adapt to your changing business environment then your business will equally grow in confidence and will increasingly develop an inherent ability to adapt and anticipate market change.

On that note I leave you with two final comments – Stay on your path, your vision is the key to the sustainability of your business and remind yourself that technology is only an enabler. Accept that the path to realizing your goal may change and that it is your adaptability as a business that will result in the greatest chance of achieving success!