Starting in 2011, I focused on the notion of a digital enterprise – a metaphor for the type of organization that is required to survive the massive paradigm shift that lies ahead. In 2013, the focus expanded to analyze disruptive scenarios and the emerging ecosystems and platforms that would give life to those scenarios. There remains a single constant through this work and the many leadership discussions that ensued: it will take a different type of organization – different than the ones most of us grew up with – to survive the shift. We as humans – and the organizations that we created – think and act linearly. The world and technology however is moving exponentially. How then do people and organizations move from linear thinking to exponential thinking? (more…)
Tag: Digital Enterprise
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The Flat Organization
As I described in my closer look at transformation, one of the key enablers of the future enterprise is Structural Change. This slide from a conference presentation I delivered this week speaks to some of the drivers of structural change. A key driver on this list is the ineffectiveness of command and control models in the future business environment.
As command and control slowly disappears, new models emerge and questions about effective ways to manage in flatter organizations arise. I recently fielded one such question during the above mentioned presentation on the future enterprise. The response focused on culture, the corporate value system, collaboration, communication, openness, transparency and trust. One great example of a flat company that exhibits many of these characteristics is not surprisingly an Internet company – Google. Google’s approach is outlined in a recent Article from the Harvard Business Review . Additional thoughts on moving towards an open and transparent culture can be found in this IBM CEO Study from 2012.
Examples of companies that are starting to create these new models are emerging – and I firmly believe that it’s only a matter of time before structures suited for the digital age take hold. There are still many skeptics out there – and no one has this all figured out. Leaders of the Industrial revolution era created the management structures that enabled business in that era. It’s time for leaders in this very different era to re-imagine these structures for the present day environment.
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A Closer Look at Transformation: Sense and Respond Systems
Next up in this transformations series is the sixth enabler: sense and respond systems. These systems are critical to the transformation agenda, as most of the disruptive technologies likely to impact the enterprise in the next decade have data at its core. The resulting data explosion promises to complicate information management for most companies. As the speed of business accelerates and the amount of data flowing through company ecosystems expands, the need to sense stimuli and enable a real time response intensifies. Fortunately, rapid advancements in the price and performance of technology make realizing this sense and respond paradigm achievable and economical for a wide range of use cases – but this is arguably one of the most difficult components of transformation road maps.
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A Closer Look at Transformation: Value Ecosystems
The next focus of this transformation series shifts to the emergence of value ecosystems and their role in driving the Enterprise of 2020. As we look at the Apple ecosystem and offerings like the connected car, mobile commerce, energy efficiency, electric cars, eHealthcare, and energy performance contracts, we can see the lines between industries blurring. Some even question the relevance of Industry constructs in the future. As this phenomenon accelerates, more and more companies must identify the relevant ecosystem(s) that enable their growth strategies. These value ecosystems are complex and relationship-oriented, representing future growth opportunities that are increasingly outside a company’s traditional business.
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A Closer Look at Transformation: Growth
2014 will see an acceleration and expansion of transformation programs. All the dynamics are in place to create a compelling reason for companies to transform. This 14 part series takes a closer look at transformation and the likely path it takes in the next decade. This is the first piece in the series. Links to the other parts of the series are included at the end of this post.
In my last Post , I focused on three recent thought leadership pieces:
- Middle class job Creation – Geoffrey Moore
- Disruptive Technologies – Mckinsey
- New Machine Age – Andrew McAfee
These pieces continue to describe the transformative period that lies ahead. As we look at this and other thought provoking pieces, our job as leaders is to assess the potential impact to our organizations. Readers of my Blog know that I have focused my own assessment on the enterprise of 2020, or what I have been calling the Digital Enterprise. So I have worked to develop a high level road map based on my own perspective and experiences, ongoing executive dialog, and key pieces of market thought leadership. I will use the next several Blog posts to summarize my thinking. The road map is focused in two key areas: The forcing functions that drive the need to transform and the enablers that require investment to get us there. Forcing functions are those things that force the enterprise to invest in a future state. The forcing functions and a vision to address them are critical, as far too many leaders continue to sit on the sidelines with no impetus to invest in this future enterprise.
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Geoffrey Moore: Middle Class Job Creation in the Digital Era
Geoffrey Moore recently authored a Report focusing on middle class job creation in the Digital Era. These same forces that Mr. Moore describes in the context of job creation are disrupting the very fabric of the traditional company. This is a fascinating look at the state of middle class jobs in developed countries. This diagram from the report effectively summarizes his views on the topic. The grid focuses on the nine basic areas of employment inside an enterprise, across a product and a service business model. The columns are further divided into complex (B2B) and volume (B2C) businesses.
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Digital Enterprise Characteristics
In the past two months, interest in the characteristics of a digital enterprise is accelerating. I believe increasingly, traditional companies understand that viability in the next decade drives the need to evolve. The list of characteristics has been refined through ongoing dialog and now looks like this:
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Digital Enterprise Road Map Series: Part 2 – Experience
In part one of this six part series; I focused on Holistic Strategy – the first step on the digital enterprise journey. In part two, the focus shifts to experience-based differentiation. With the rapid commoditization of products and services, the speed at which new market entrants emerge, and the rise of Consumerization, experience is the new battle ground. When I talk of experience, I mean stakeholder experience. Ultimately, it’s about creating differentiated customer experiences – but to get there, the experience we create for our employees and partners is critical to that end goal.
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The Digital Enterprise and New Ways of Thinking
This recent Article titled “Sayonara Sony” by Adam Hartung provides a great example of the dangers of not evolving as a business. I can’t help but think that this story will play out countless times over the next three to five years. In Sony’s case, it is a stubborn reliance on industrial age thinking that has driven their downward spiral. Those companies that won’t abandon their specific reliance on legacy practices will suffer the same fate. We’ve moved on from the industrial age. We are in the midst of an information age that requires completely new ways of thinking. Sustained innovation is the new mantra, and the emerging digital enterprise will not function on long standing management theory. Leaders need to realize this and adapt – or suffer the consequences. They need to embrace the characteristics of the new digital enterprise:
- Sustained innovation
- Engagement and insight-driven
- Mobile first
- Context-aware
- Business Technology NOT Information Technology
- Relationship-based
- Flexibility in operating & business models
- Experiential versus transactional
- Prescriptive
The best leaders can adapt – but we’ve never seen a time quite like this before. There is so much unchartered territory and things are changing very fast. Therefore, leaders need to be flexible, they need to be students of the disruptive forces that are driving change, and they need to be open to new ways of doing things. In short, they need to disrupt, before being disrupted. If not – it’s “Sayonara fill-in-the-blank”.
Inside the Next Transition 