It's not all about unicorns and rainbows... but they are vital to your success

A fairly simple concept occurred to me the other day, really the result of a number of conversations that all went along similar lines - why is my [ role | organization | department | service | pitch ] (delete as applicable) not valued?


What it boils down to is this - whatever it is you deliver, you need balanced delivery.  You need things that are happening now.  You need stuff that promises a bright future.  You need value that covers the basics.  And you also need to deliver beyond the basics.


When you throw all that into a quadrant (like I love to do with pretty much every idea I ever had), and give those things labels, this is what you get;

To be perceived as delivering value sustainably, my thinking is that you need to deliver stuff that fits into every quadrant.  You need Pebbles that quickly establish that everything is under control.  Rocks that make it clear you can be left to get on with it and things won't fall over.  Unicorns that demonstrate a capability to do more than the just the basics.  Rainbows that keep people excited for the long term.


This isn't just for your customers either.  Getting the balance right is highly motivating for everyone involved.

What the hell is e-content anyway?

Why getting e-content right is vital to your business survival.

As mentioned in the previous article, the value chain of the future will be very different to what we know today.

In this connected value chain, a direct interface is enabled between all contributors and the consumer.  This means that not only can the connector ensure that the consumer is connected to the most appropriate contributors, but also that the contributors can specifically address the desires of that consumer.

As a result waste is reduced significantly.  Much more so than could be achieved with a traditional value chain.  Contributors are able adapt their offerings to perfectly match each consumer. 



The connected value chain

 

For established businesses, particularly those that rely heavily on branded offerings, this presents a very significant threat.  It’s also an opportunity, but I am calling it out as a threat because the barriers of survival are going to be greater than the barriers of entry.  This will level the playing field, as almost overnight large branded businesses lose a large portion of their competitive advantage.  These incumbents will need to reformat their business to operate in a very different environment.  The trouble is that all those parts of the business that previously were required to define how to connect with their partners will no longer be required.  Unfortunately they will most likely be tightly embedded across their entire organization, due to the relentless pursuit of efficiency.

That brings us to e-content and the role it plays in the connected value chain.  If you think of the connector business as the road network, the e-content is the map that enables consumers to find their way.

Therefore, connectors will use e-content together with the connected value chain to determine the perfect product for the consumer.  It is imperative for any contributor that their e-content represents their products affinity to their consumers’ desires.  It needs to accurately and consistently provide all the relevant cues that enable the connector to offer appropriate options, and for the consumer to make the right selection.

So far it all doesn’t seem that big a deal, right?  Sure, big business needs to restructure.  Big brands need to re-think how to represent in a connected world.  None of that is new, so what’s the problem?

The issue is trust – more specifically, the method of generating trust.  Trust is like oxygen to a brand, without trust a brand will quickly fail.

Let’s take a look at trust for moment – it is acknowledged to be built through the equation of credibility + reliability + intimacy, tempered by self-orientation (as defined by David Maister).  In a traditional value chain, it cumulates through scale.  The prevalence of a brand reinforces the trust through social evaluation, which creates an exponential impact.  The whole logic of ‘lots of people buy into the brand, so it must be good’.  Effectively the greater prevalence of a brand, the more inherent trust is generated. 

This situation has always made it harder for new businesses to enter a market, as it takes time to build a brand to scale.  It’s hard work, and takes considerable investment and time.  In a traditional value chain, launching a brand is like trying to turn the tide.

The ttrust equation (David Maister)

 

With the connected value chain, the equation is the same, but is no longer cumulative.  This means that new entrants to a market can generate trust almost instantly.  The connectors simply connect prior with potential consumers.  This means the social evaluation is no longer based on quantity of experience, but quality.  In this new connected world, the individual can have more influence than the masses.  The logic switches to ‘The prior consumers who are just like me rated this product well, so it must be good’.  It’s still necessary to generate a wave, but once you have done that you can ride it indefinitely.

So does this mean the end of brands?  Most assuredly not.  Remember that brands are not about logos and fancy fonts, but about building affinity between product and consumer.  As mentioned, e-content is like the map that enables the consumer to find their way.  Branding is doing that in such a way that ensures the consumer stays engaged for the journey.  It provides the building blocks needed to generate affinity in a connected world.  It represents the branding of the future.

Sure, right now e-content is pretty one-dimensional, but that is changing fast.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s just a re-invention of the master data we use to connect one contributor to another.  Connecting businesses will develop algorithms to use this data in ways we can’t even imagine yet.  As a result, it will learn.  It will predict.  Above all, it will enable. 

If you don’t believe me, check out Alexa and think through the implications when your consumers are conveying their desires through speech.  What will they say?  And how will you build your e-content to ensure that Amazon selects your product over the competition?


Welcome to a world driven by e-content, where it's easier for a new player to compete than an established one.  Welcome to the connected value chain. 

 

Why is my business not innovative?

Back to innovation for this article – and I’ll do at least one more follow up in the next week or so.

I wanted to explore why large businesses don’t seem to be able to successfully innovate.  As with anything, there are plenty of well-reported exceptions, but considering the level of investment in innovation those businesses make, I think my generalization is justified.

I have a theory around what a business needs to be able to innovate – there are three key elements; a credible challenge, means to deploy and conviction to deliver. 

Credible challenge is a threat or opportunity that the business associates feel direct ownership for.  The challenge needs to be self-evident, and the associates need to not only be affected by the challenge, but also have the ability to influence the outcome.  They have to be direct stakeholders.

Means to deploy are suitable and accessible resources that can be used to address the credible challenge. 

Conviction to deliver is the ability to define the credible challenge, effectively manage the means to deploy and stay the course in light of inevitable failures (and hopefully some successes too).  A pretty good definition of leadership even if I do say so myself J.

So just add those elements and you should be delivering world-class innovation in no time, right?  Probably not.  What makes this difficult is that the larger the business, the harder it is to define a credible challenge.  Conversely, the smaller the business, the more limited the means to deploy. 

The tension between 'credible challenge' and 'means to deploy' with respect to business size

Logically therefore, a ‘sweet spot’ exists – a size where a business can find optimal balance between the two.  I suspect that this ideal size is not fixed, but is actually a function of the organization and culture in place.  In fact, the optimal balance could even be different depending on the defined challenge.  Probably some other things I haven't thought of, too.

One of the well-documented exceptions I mentioned earlier, W.L. Gore and Associates, is renowned for both innovative success and revolutionary culture, and it’s pretty obvious that the second enables the first.  However, I think a key component of this is that Gore’s culture and organisation actually enables the concept of credible challenge to exist amongst a larger group size, which therefore supports a greater means to deploy than would typically be expected with such a large group.  Even so, Gore actively prevents a business unit from growing beyond a couple of hundred associates.

OK, so we’ve covered off the three elements we need to put in place, and why that’s not as easy it sounds – but how do we diagnose what is missing and adjust accordingly?  Don’t forget that this is not a case of implementing a list of stuff, but instead an attempt to deliver a best compromise across competing elements.  So being able to identify the status and adjust the balance is critical.

The effect of missing elements with the pursuit of innovation 

 

If your business can’t seem to pursue an objective long enough to deliver a result, then you’re probably directionless and need to focus on your conviction to deliver.

Continuously executing every idea you have, until you run out of resource?  A clear need to define a credible challenge and avoid being clueless.

If the problem is associates being frustrated by a lack of resources needed to make things happen, the means to deploy needs to be adjusted so that your associates don’t feel so powerless.

Of course, it’s possible to have two or even all three of these issues, but by far the most difficult to address is the credible challenge.  So in the next article we’ll discuss some thoughts around how to narrow the field at least a little.